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Ep 581: Meta Ads Aren’t About Targeting Anymore: How $5–50M Brands Win with Intent-Based Creative
00:29:34
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- [00:00]
A
The environment in which we're running our creative has changed so drastically, it still blows my mind how many people are kind of like still buying media like interest based media, like it's 2019, today's consumer. They're not necessarily looking to be persuaded. They're looking for a resolution. You don't need to change people's minds, but you need to answer the questions that they have in the moment. What's like really driving meta is idea variation my bigger bet? We're heading toward a world where paid social and paid search are really convergent, converging in this like single intent layer.
- [00:41]
B
This episode is brought to you by Contentful marketers. You know that feeling when your creative clicks, when that social post sends engagement through the roof, when your outside of the box campaign hits ROI positive, when a personalized homepage turns prospects into customers? It's utter marketing bliss. Contentful helps you create tailored omnichannel experiences without working overtime. No stress, no limits, only possibilities. Get the feels@contentful.com it's all killer, no Filler. I'm Eric and I am here with Pilothouse's VP of Brand and performance, Daniel Sandecki. Welcome to your first episode of the all killer, no filler D2C podcast, Eric.
- [01:23]
A
Thanks for having me. Super excited to be here. Let's get going.
- [01:26]
B
Let's grip it. Well. First of all, start by a little overview for my value and for the listeners of what? Because Pilot has just went through and, and sort of like added the VP layer in the company and added sort of has really been going through a bit of a transformation about how, how we're thinking about things high level strategically. So maybe tell us a bit about your role and what that indicates.
- [01:47]
A
Yeah, like stepping into the role here has like really been energizing because like, not only because of the role, but because like the entire creative discipline feels to me like it's in a little bit of a moment of recalibration both at Pilothouse and like for agencies that are kind of like paying attention. Right. So the thing that I'm like trying to build at Pilothouse is a system where like the creative is working at two levels simultaneously. Like one is like one of those things, like the traditional, like the things that we traditionally associate with like brand creative, like that kind of like emotional craft, the story, the texture, voice, feeling like I came up in the traditional agency world where that like mattered deeply as far as creative goes. And I still believe it does. But like on the second level and which is newer to me and to Us, I think. And honestly, a huge unlock is like grounding creative in what customers are like, genuinely care about. Like in the moment that they encounter a brand. Like, not in an abstract sense, but I mean like the literal things, the literal questions that are kind of like sitting in their head at the point of decision. And honestly, this matters now more than ever because like the environment in which we're running our creative has changed so drastically. It still blows my mind how many people are kind of out there still buying media, like interest based media. Like it's 2019 and platforms like Facebook haven't even updated their interest graph meaningfully in such a long time. Like you log into the Facebook app six years ago, liked a TV bar and quit drinking three years ago, you've got entire targeting categories full of people that these interests aren't relevant anymore. And like meta has been quietly deprecating all of those targeting options for a long time because they know they don't work. So like the real shift, like everyone is missing, I think, and I'm using Meta here as an example, is like they really went all in on AI. It's like, it's not about clever targeting anymore. It's like basically hands off, trust the pixel, give us the signal and we'll find you people. And like, that's the direction of creative these days. So honestly, that's a long way to say that's what has been on my mind as I've started the role here. How do we build creative that thrives in an environment that Meta is building? Creative that still has that branded emotional intelligence, but also really speaks clearly to the, to those intent questions that real people are asking. And I like, for me that's the frontier. I'm intentionally designing the role at Pilot House, around, around that.
- [04:30]
B
You said in your notes, I thought something was interesting. You said that creative isn't about persuasion anymore, it's more about resolution. Can you dive into what you mean by that a bit more?
- [04:39]
A
Yeah, like, I mean historically, I think creative, like Mad Men era, like creatives wrote it in persuasion, right? Interrupt. Very interruptive. Like, impress, convince. You made a big campaign, you spent the big bucks, you bought yourself some reach and like, you hoped that it would shift perception. But like today's consumer, like, they're not necessarily looking to be persuaded. They're looking for like a resolution. They're working against like actual friction points and like little anxieties they have like all day long. Like a, you know, will this product work for me? Like, is it truly worth that money? Like, is it going to solve this problem that I have. Like what if I choose the wrong product? You know, is, is this for me? Like those are like the key insights. Like, and, and so when you're starting to like target like doing that kind of like filtering creative, like it can't afford to be generic anymore. Like now that AI is doing a lot of the filtering, creative itself has to be very, very specific. Like it, it has to start doing the, the, the sorting. Like, and that's why like broad audience doesn't work with a, like, like a broad message ultimately. Right. It works beautifully though with a very specific message because that very specificity kind of gives the algorithm like a little bit of fingerprint. So this is like a shift from persuasion to answering questions that is recognizing that you don't need to change people's minds, but you need to answer the questions that they have in the moment. And that's where creative wins now. And I think that like that that's where creative fits.
- [06:13]
B
Super interesting. We've always talked about Google and the Google Ad suite as more or less like an intent capture platform where you, you already have this latent intent and you're just putting the search terms in front of the right people who already have these intents. Whereas meta is more of an intent generation engine where you're sort of like, it's funny, I find myself going on Facebook now just to like look at clothes. Like Facebook is kind of like my shopping experience now in some ways. Cause I, that's where I've bought. I clicked enough stuff there. Like I don't go to the brand's websites, I just go to Facebook because I know I'm going to see all those ads there. Talk to me about how meta, how intent plays into meta. Because we don't always think of it as an intent capture platform. We do think of it as a intent generation system.
- [06:56]
A
Yeah, you know what? So like, and to be fair, like the meta platform is changing like significantly, significantly quickly. And I've always kind of looked at Google before Meta, like in terms of like where customers are expressing kind of like their frustration or their desire. So like I'm reductive in this sense and that like I like to defer to search as like a proxy for what people are looking for intent wise on Meta. And I like Google especially because it is very private, zero social pressure. You're not kind of like performing for anyone. You don't have to posture. It's just you and the truth, like your search history is the one thing that you're gonna never share with anybody else.
- [07:41]
B
Right?
- [07:41]
A
You're gonna take it to your grave. It's like the largest, most honest consumer data set. So like, to that end, every single query is a question that someone cares about. So I like mining kind of like the Google side of the data in order to kind of inform the expression of intent on meta. And like, for me, the reason that this is becoming really important to creative strategy is meta's algorithm is now behaving more like search, right? Like it doesn't want Personas, it doesn't care about interests, right? What pages people liked in 2016, right. Like it wants intent. So when your creative starts to mirror the questions that people are actually asking, and we use Google as a proxy for that, sometimes meta as a platform can instantly identify who should see it. And then the ad itself becomes the targeting, right? Like the language behind the problem it's solving really becomes the audience signal.
- [08:40]
B
I think it's funny, we've been saying that, you know, creative is the new targeting for about four years, since iOS, whatever that was, iOS 14. But it's like we were saying it then, but it's like it's really become the reality now. It's on like an actual, with Andromeda, it's like an actual technical lever that that's the way you should thinking about it. Can you, can you give me an example? I love that idea that people walk around with these like private, private anxieties or these questions kind of on their mind. Can you give me an example of how creative could be, you know, looking at a friction to resolve.
- [09:15]
A
So yeah, like it's interesting that you kind of have grounded that into like something that we've been saying for years because like this approach to intent, you know, as has been kind of like on my mind in like, like over the past three or four years. But it used to be like a very manual process, right? So like we'd look at the creative problem, we'd look at social conversations or search intent, for example, and like we'd start to like tag them and like eventually kind of like build like a psychosocial profile of what searchers are asking for. But like, recently, what's got me really excited, the LLMs that we're working with right now are great at taking like thousands of these like unstructured queries, each slightly different, and rooting through them to reduce the signal to noise ratio. Now we can take this really entire messy, chaotic data set and feed it into ChatGPT or Gemini and ask it to review the questions people are asking not by keywords necessarily, but their psychological intent. We start to identify patterns. Whether people are trying to justify the value of something or they're fearful of making a wrong decision, or they're comparing brands or they're aspiring to a certain lifestyle, or they're, you know, signaling their identity or want to remove emotional friction. And we can group these, and once you see these patterns kind of like rise up, you can start mapping them directly to the funnel. Like, you know, that, that is, I think what is, is, is one of the most important levers that we can pull as, as, as far as creative. But Eric, I recognize that I probably deviated a lot from your original question there.
- [11:01]
B
I think I, I, I like to package multiple questions into one, so I think you answered half of it. Um, but I, I think what you're referring to now, or what you called in your write up here, psychological intent clusters, is that sort of what, the way we're thinking about things?
- [11:14]
A
Yeah, like, I, I mean it. Like, I'm, I've come from very much like a creative background. And like another way of framing them is like editorial pillars. It's, it's like what are the five or six areas where your customer has demonstrated that there's heat? Right. And if you are able to kind of like define those five or six content clusters, you can start to map those to the Personas that your strategists are bringing you. You can start to like, map those to different parts of the customer journey. And then when you're briefing in your creatives, you can actually brief them in with the questions or fears that people have. And the output of the creative is to pointedly address those. So we get into a situation where we know creative variation works really well. And in the past it might have been what drove efficiency on Meta was just literally button swaps and colors and hero images. But like, now for me, what's like really driving Meta is idea variation, right? So that like we, you know, like, meta starts to almost act like a, like a serp, more, more so than, than like as a platform. It starts to function as a serp. And then the creative that we're building is almost like a library of answers that meta then takes and like drops into your newsfeed because it's identified that you have like a specific pain point or a specific question. So like, yeah, a brand starts to build this library of creative that, that addresses people's pain points.
- [12:54]
B
How important is funnel congruency? Because this is something I remember, I remember when I was back in the day doing. I cut my teeth on AdWords and we would, you know, use dynamic keyword insertion on the landing page to make sure that the keyword they came from made sense. And funnel congruency was, was very important. And I, and I hear a lot about the post click environment at Pilot House right now. And, and, and I'm wondering like, how structured is funnel congruency? Like if you bring someone in from one of these psychological clusters, does the landing page refer to the same things? How important is funnel congruency in this new world?
- [13:27]
A
I think it matters less like, I think especially like, like, you know, since, since the advent of Andromeda, which is probably like the most significant shift in Meta's ecosystem, like I would say ever, right? They're a matching engine now. So like, and they match like the rather messy customer journey that we kind of all undertake. So like, I mean we love to look at a linear customer journey and some of the more daring agencies among us might like talk about like infinity loops and whatnot. But like at the end of the day Meta is going to like message match the right person in the right moment, right? And like that's just the, that's the future. It rewards specificity, it awards rewards kind of like actually answering the questions that are put out in front of you and then it rewards that intent alignment. So to answer your question, I think it matters less these days because the AI is helping us categorize and sort that than it did in the past. I think what matters now is like, and I mentioned this earlier, more of a focus on idea variation so that you like essentially start to build a library of creative that addresses different parts of the funnel, that addresses different pain points along those points in the funnel and that you build like this repository of creative that Meta can then drop in at the right moment so we can be a little less intentional about the creative. It doesn't necessarily disqualify or mean like post click matters tremendously from a conversion sense, but from a generating awareness and like building consideration. Meta does like a. And again, I'm focused on Meta here, but Meta does a really good job and presumably ChatGPT is going to do a very good job in the near future of that. And Google we know, has always done a great job.
- [15:20]
B
It, I like it. So yeah, if you're thinking about these, because I think if you were thinking about it in these sort of discrete angles or funnels before, you'd find that like 90% of them would never get used. Whereas now if you do it right, it Paints this cumulative picture in a way where creative it like accretes in a way to be like, oh, I didn't think of it from this angle. And it's a way to just kind of complete the picture of someone's intent through all these different pieces of creative that kind of tell different parts of the story. Whereas previously if something it wasn't as cumulative, it was like does this funnel get them to conversion? Yes or no. Whereas now it's sort of like this cumulative effort. Is that, does that feel accurate?
- [15:58]
A
I think that's accurate. Like you know, the, the, the simplest way that I've kind of expressed like the way that the creative economy works on platforms like Meta now and, and across LLMs is like intent comes in so you like search questions that people are asking, show us what people are, are, are, are looking for the answers they're looking for. Then we can take those insights and we can structure them like take these questions and build like psychological patterns out of them. And then our job as a create, as creatives is creative translations. Like turn those patterns into like those creative answers that are expressed through like that brand craft that are still, you know, that are still aligned with the brand. And now you can kind of then push it into the platform to be routed. And like the algorithms on these platforms are going to identify best who these answers belong to. And like that's the loop. Like it's clean, it's scalable, it compounds and it means that like creative is no longer like just an output, but it's like that kind of operating system that connects with like human intent.
- [17:01]
B
Can you tell me a little bit about how you coming onto the team has led to the sort of restructuring or thinking differently about how teams within Pilothouse kind of function? Because I just, I'm always trying to get as a arms, I'm arm's length from Pilot House. I'm always trying to understand how kind of works, how does your team work with the various, you know, the buying team for instance.
- [17:23]
A
Here's an interesting one in terms of like the buying team like and I haven't explicitly discussed this with, with like our div heads and like at Meta and Google and stuff like that. But like my bigger bet like we've discussed is like that we're heading toward a world like where paid social and paid search for that example are really like converging in this like single intent layer. So like I think we move like from like a very channel specific outlook, that's where we were to bringing creative up a level and Informing across channels, like, so that like our creative, like we'll build creative libraries that can be deployed across channel quite easily. Like I had mentioned that act more like SERPs, multiple answers, competing for relevance. And like those platforms will infer the intent, not, not the target demos. And then creative teams, like the creative team itself will operate more like an insight engine than we have in the past, like, which has been more like just like asset factories. And like the brands that kind of like scale, they're not going to be the loudest but they're going to be the ones who like understand these like you know, deeper questions. So like if I were a brand and I was considering how to compete going forward, it would be like don't view your creative as like an output any longer. View it as like an integral part of like that closed loop system and not just like, not just, you know, look at the performance output of that and adjust accordingly. But think of it intentionally as part of like the overall brand strategy that you're building.
- [19:02]
B
How is brand strategy? You know, I think of I was a huge Mad Men fan and you come from maybe a bit more of that world. How does the way we're describing creative like a strategic maelstrom in a right way? In a way you've got all these different pieces that get hit on at different points. And I think back to like Don Draper in the, in the boardroom telling the story about the Kodak carousel, photo carousel and he tells this one through line brand story that becomes the monolithic sort of approach that they go to market with for, for this product. So maybe just compare like where, where are we at then with sort of this idea of classic brand storytelling in this, in this modern maelstrom world.
- [19:43]
A
Yeah, like, I mean I don't think you have to lose that because I think like that branded element, it kind of, it isn't exclusive. Right. Like it can be expressed kind of like at that, like I love that maelstrom that you referenced there. Like it can be expressed in the maelstrom and like, I guess one thing that we haven't really focused on in this conversation is like how important it is marrying up that human intent with that brand intent. And you don't have to sacrifice the expression of the brand by focusing really downstream at the human level intent questions. What you do is you can use those human level intent questions to really inform how meaningful that brand is to the end user. It's very much a two way street. The brand can learn from the way that its customers are talking about it. And reliability, relying on it. And that can really feed back into that like, kind of like emotional brand led creative. But again, at its very best, these function in lockstep with each other.
- [20:54]
B
I think if we now just dive a little deeper down into the actual creative itself. One of the points that you made in your write up here was the difference between like an interruptive hook and a recognition hook. Because we think a lot about Meta as being this interruptive platform. And I think you've already spoken to how you take that interruptive aspect and build it into more of a recognition hook. But what do you mean by that?
- [21:18]
A
Yeah, like, I mean, so for me it's less about the thumb stopper, which like, I love a good thumbstopper, but it's more like, it's more about recognition, not interruption. So like the best hook, when you come across it, it's like, oh, that's exactly what I was wondering. That kind of like search language can give you that, that, that verbatim and if you can pointedly address that question, like, that's the best type of hook. One that kind of like, wow, they're really, these guys kind of get me right and, and not, not surprising, but a recognition that, that you kind of like see yourself mirrored in that, in that, in that language.
- [21:53]
B
I was just talking about this with Jeff yesterday and I don't. This is maybe more on the buyer or traffic side, but we've, you know, in thinking about Metta as a intent capture platform, which is the way we have thought about it in kind of previous years, I was thinking about the kinds of targeting people do. And for the longest time we've done conversion focused ads. So ads based on people who are most likely to convert. But if you think about it, especially in this world, that is going to limit your funnel massively, potentially to people that. Because, because Meta now knows like through all these different cues like who's actually in market and that's probably a tiny fraction of the people that you could end up reaching. So I bet in a lot of cases you end up like super saturating that absolute bottom part of the funnel with all sorts of different brand messaging. But when it comes on the actual buying side, are we starting to open things up more to other kind of targeting and intent types rather than just conversion based? Are we talking about traffic campaigns or other things that are higher in the funnel?
- [22:50]
A
Yeah, like, I think like, you know, instead of saying like, who should we target? Like, Meta is kind of like now asking like, what, what is the right message that fits this person right now. So that when we're building kind of like this repository of, of creative, like, we're very intentional about strategically focusing on the parts of the funnel that matter to the brand out of the gate, but with a focus on kind of like building a very fulsome repository of creative that can be drawn on. So I think like, we have like, you know, it kind of like portends a future where we can be less intentional about like targeting specific parts of the funnel and really just like, really just focus on trusting that the pixel is going to and the algorithm is going to do that work for us. And that's why more than ever, that creative strategist layer, that media buyer layer, and the creative itself really start to converge. And my bet is we've been talking about is it really starts to converge from that intense aspect.
- [23:55]
B
I think back to all the different I'll kill and no filler podcasts we did about brand versus performance. And it's probably. It's the silliest dichotomy in the business world maybe. How do you think about blending brand and performance?
- [24:08]
A
Yeah, like, that's like my favorite misconception. And I think like, you and I kind of get the sense you and I share the same take on this. But like intent, like, you know that doesn't kill brand, right? Like, intent strengthens that, that, that brand because like, ultimately it forces clarity. Right? So brand is really built through this kind of like repeated, consistent answers to meaningful questions. And like the brands we love, they're not random. Like, they solve the same emotional tension kind of like over and over for us. So like, it doesn't necessarily cheapen that creative. Like, it's not just performance creative, it like refines it. It's sharpening the brand story to kind of like align with those relationships, like real problems, those aspirations and those frictions that, that, that, that people experience. So for me, it's not an either or. It's like almost like creative that addresses intent is an expression of the brand.
- [25:03]
B
Itself has to be at this point. And I think that's where. Where good, you know, influencers and that layer of sort of like other voices echoing certain things and hooks with recognition hooks within your brand becomes so important as well that people see it from not just from you, but from other brands sort of people in their environment.
- [25:21]
A
Exactly. And I'm glad that you touched on, on that kind of like influence layer. And like influence for me has always been about like, that, the more authentic, genuine expression of intent because it's coming from a place that is outside of the person and, or outside of the customer and outside of the brand and a third party for sure.
- [25:42]
B
I'm just amazed when I go, when I'm on, on the Internet now and watching a video, the amount of people who you can just tell are a screen with an LLM output. And you know, it's not just this, but it's this. And, you know, and all of these, all of these LLMs output like the world's best, most manipulative, you know, the best copywriting text from all the best, you know, copywriters of all time. But it makes everything sound the same. And I just find like I'll be watching a video on some like, deep, esoteric thing or whatever, and I'm like, this chatgpt just wrote that for you. And you're. And it's probably like your thoughts are built in there, but you're saying it in such a way now that it's so like, is this when we talk about, you know, taking. Putting things into LLMs and getting outputs for creative, how, how concerned are we about saying things less elegantly so that we don't sound too much like LLMs?
- [26:37]
A
Yeah, you bring up a good point. I, for example, one of the greatest tells of, of most LLMs is the use of the EM dash, right? And I.
- [26:45]
B
Beautiful use of the EM dash, which I used for years before this. It's ruined it for me.
- [26:49]
A
Exactly. And it was like. And you know what? I could craft a beautiful email with like an EM dash as like part of like my go to punctuation. And it was a real, like, I felt kind of like a brand. Now it's been commoditized. In fact, it's like a tell. So like, I have to find myself like editing, editing backwards so I sound more authentic. Although, like my true authentic voice, you know, utilize an EM dash. And like, hey, LLMs are great at using transition words and stuff like that. And those are again, tells and some of the constructions that you had mentioned earlier. I think we do get to a point of diminishing returns and we become very sensitive to AI slop. And that's why I think at the end of the day, the human layer. And that's why I love creative in essence. And I feel like we're at a point where people are very concerned about creative being displaced. But that human layer that will, I think that human layer is a necessary layer that should always exist between the work that an LLM can do to help us really get to the creative problem and the output and as curators, as editors, as designers, that human layer, we have to be very intentional about it. And that's like, I think, how we solve that creative problem.
- [28:15]
B
Absolutely beautiful. Great first appearance on the DTC podcast. Totally painless, minimal edits. Daniel, I think you're going to be a regular fixture on this if you want to. If people want to reach out to you. I think that happens a lot with the podcast. They want to reach out to you. Talk Talk brand talk performance. Where do you recommend they do that?
- [28:32]
A
Yeah, you're welcome to reach out to me on LinkedIn. You're welcome to email me. It is simple. Danielilothouse. Co, I'm, as you would imagine, as a digital creative, I am perpetually online. So find me where chronically even. Yeah, chronically even. So, yeah, email LinkedIn are probably the two best bets.
- [28:54]
B
Nice. Well, we'll compare screen times after the call. Thanks for coming on today, Daniel. This was a lot of fun.
- [28:59]
A
Yeah, thanks, Eric. Really, really appreciate it. I would happily join you in the future whenever you ask.
- [29:09]
B
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you're not getting the DTC newsletter, you can subscribe for free at directtoconsumer.co. and if you want to learn more about Pilothouse's all killer no filler services, take off to Pilothouse Co. I'm Eric Dick and this has been the D2C podcast. We'll see you next time.