Proxima’s Post

I’m stoked to announce our newest case study with C4 Energy ⚡️ Spending at scale on Meta, they needed solutions other than just iterative creative testing to keep rising acquisition costs at bay. So, they experimented with scaling through audiences. The results? → 20% reduction in CPA → 20% increase in ROAS → 50% increase in MoM ad spend These are impressive figures, but they’re not unfamiliar to the Proxima team. Will Rivas (Media Buyer at Nutrabolt—umbrella to C4) summed it up perfectly: "It's tempting to just go with ASC, throw in some creative iteration, and let it rip. But when you hit a certain spend level, you tap out some audiences pretty quickly… Audience targeting has become a lost art. Proxima reminded us just how powerful audiences can be.” So, how did we approach audience testing with Will? 1) We conducted a customer base analysis, uncovering the traits and purchase behaviors of C4’s highest-value customers. 2) We then tapped into our dataset of ~65M+ online shoppers and $17B+ in purchases — our algorithm identified similar customers and generated predictive audiences for C4 to target on Meta. 3) We seamlessly uploaded these audiences to C4’s Ads Manager via the Meta API (and the underlying customer data refreshes weekly). The results? A 20% improvement in CPA and ROAS, while scaling ad spend +50%. If you're spending at scale, there's almost certainly going to come a point where your ad efficiency will hit a glass ceiling. Especially if your strategy is rooted in "just going broad" and relying on creative to do your targeting. We're professional breakers of those ceilings. I’m not sharing these numbers in some snake oil effort to say we've unlocked some kind of silver bullet. That’s not what we’re saying. However, this data from C4 reinforces a notion I wholeheartedly believe in: Test audiences like you test creative. Experimenting with audience targeting enables you to scale BEYOND what Meta's broad algorithm can deliver and find higher-intent audience pools that drive revenue. Audience targeting presents a serious opportunity for virtually any brand. What we’re doing all day at Proxima is developing incredible tech to help marketers take back control of their targeting, opening up the door for more experiments that can help your brand get a much-needed edge. Running a DTC brand that's hitting an ad spend ceiling? Let's chat. We offer 30-day free trials. Read the full case study here: https://lnkd.in/eZRGjiMM

More brands should be testing audiences the same way they test creatives. Here's what I mean. After iOS 14, when audiences on Meta and other platforms became much less effective and going broad became best practice, the line of thinking became: "Creative is the new targeting." There's truth to this. Creative testing and shipping a ton of assets per month should be a priority for brands. But, I think we may have jumped the shark on this. Do you really trust Meta's algorithm to get your ads in front of all of the right people? Or are they just getting you results that are good enough to get you to stick around and keep testing? Their incentive is to get advertisers to spend more. On top of that, creative production is expensive. Whether you're going for high-production value or paying UGC creators to make assets for you, it's easy to run up a bill. If you're going to invest all that, you should give each asset the best chance possible to get in front of all relevant customers. Why should we be okay with burning through assets with a 1/10 hit rate? This is where audience testing comes into play. Sure, test broad campaigns. In many cases, they'll work well. But also test alongside interest stacks, lookalikes, and precision audiences enriched with aggregated first-party data (what we do at Proxima). This approach will get that same creative in front of as many of the right customers as possible, leaving no stone unturned. I want to make one thing clear. It's not audience testing OR creative testing. It's audience testing AND creative testing. The two should happen in tandem. Creative iteration is table stakes, and audience testing is about getting the most out of that creative and scaling more efficiently. What do you think of this take? Happy to answer any questions based on what we're seeing at Proxima.

This might be a hot take, but my position is that the obsession with mass creative testing in ecommerce is misguided. So you're telling me...we're supposed to just keep throwing asset after asset into an ad account and keep our fingers crossed, hoping for the best? Ad platforms like Meta or TikTok are a black box. Nailing 1 asset out of 10 tries is deemed a 'success.' And to me, running a creative strategy this way feels wasteful. More and more, marketers and creative strategists are being tasked with jumping on a creative treadmill and never coming off of it. I don't know. Maybe I'm off base here...but curious to hear what you think. What's your take on the state of creative testing for DTC brands? PS: I'll be sharing more of my thoughts on this, and how we think about scaling ad accounts at Proxima in future posts.