Meta Andromeda 'Ice Cream Strategy' - Stop Killing Your Best Flavors!

Summary

---

Perpetual Traffic Podcast: Meta Andromeda "Ice Cream Strategy" – Stop Killing Your Best Flavors!

Hosts: Ralph Burns (Tier 11) & Lauren Petrullo (Mongoose Media)
Date: March 3, 2026
Episode Theme:
Revolutionizing your creative strategy for Meta ads with the “Ice Cream Strategy”—stop relying on bland, “vanilla” creatives and diversify to discover (and scale) your top-performing flavors.

---

Episode Overview

Ralph and Lauren use the metaphor of ice cream flavors to tackle the real challenge of creative diversification in Meta ads. They urge marketers to move away from “vanilla” (generic, safe, broad) ad creatives and embrace a portfolio of distinct, bold ad concepts (“flavors”). This episode dives into how Meta’s Andromeda system rewards creative variety, how incrementality and attribution are evolving, and the tactical rules you should follow to stop killing your best creative "flavors" before they scale.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why "Vanilla" Ads Don't Win (03:26 – 07:32)

• Lauren kicks off with a playful jab at vanilla ice cream lovers to illustrate the trap of bland, inoffensive ads that please nobody deeply:

  "Are all of your ads vanilla? …good enough for everyone, but no one's actually falling in love.” (08:22)

• Ralph confesses he only eats vanilla ice cream as an accessory—not a main event—mirroring how many marketers rely on plain, safe creatives that don't truly convert.

2. The “Ice Cream Strategy”: Treat Your Account Like Baskin Robbins (07:32 – 10:24)

• Creative Diversification is Non-Negotiable: Meta/Andromeda demands distinctiveness—your ads must be at least 25% different (per Meta guidelines) to register as true tests.
• Lauren: “If you're not treating your ad account like a Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors, you’re missing the point.” (09:40)

3. What Counts as "Different" Creatives? (14:27 – 17:40)

• More than Surface-Level Changes:
  • “Lauren with a pink shirt vs. Lauren with a blue shirt isn’t different enough. It has to be cuckoo crazy different.” (09:40)
  • Small changes (visuals, copy tweaks) only result in "French Vanilla vs. Vanilla Bean vs. Vanilla. To me, it’s all just vanilla." (15:22)
• Ralph: “We’re saying it’s got to be at least 70% different in a lot of cases.” (14:27)
• Meta’s Creative Diversification Playbook (linked in show notes):
  • Example breakdown: Three images all showing a moisturizer bottle are NOT enough variation anymore. Use different formats, people, angles, stories.

4. Contribution vs. Attribution in Ad Performance (18:18 – 24:51)

• Incrementality Is Key:
  • Impression-getting ads (even those that don’t seem to convert directly) are crucial “feeder” ads, priming audiences for your eventual winners.
  • Lauren: "…the ads that are getting impressions and hook rate… might not be the ones actually getting the conversion. They feed the other ads." (18:18)
• New Meta Reporting Features:
  • Emerging “Attribution” tab in Meta Ads Manager shows first conversion vs. all conversions—revealing which ads contribute to later results (19:27).
• Ralph: “This is contribution versus attribution… lots of flavors contribute to that final click.” (22:53)

Notable Quote

• “You want to create a brand on Meta now, and then you’re going to see that attribution for the sale oftentimes not happen when the contribution to the sale is the stuff that’s really doing the heavy lifting.” (24:51)

5. Don’t Kill Your Flavors Too Soon (24:51 – 26:18)

• Lauren’s Rule: Never turn off underperforming creative too early—Meta may choke impressions, but “you do not turn ads off… it’s like shutting down flavors.” (24:51)
• Six-Flavor Benchmark:
  • Start with at least six distinct creative directions per offer.
  • If six is too much, do two unique flavors (concepts) in three different formats (video, static, carousel).

6. Practical Creative Ideas & Testing Formats (26:40 – 28:01)

• Explore both broad format differences and deep content angles.
• Example:
  • One concept (Magic 8 ball analogy for bad decision-making) could be a video, static, or carousel—each a different “format flavor.”

7. Source of Truth & Data Limitations (28:01 – 28:55)

• Don’t rely solely on platform metrics—in-platform attribution often lags or obscures true results. Always measure against your own CRM or sales records.
• Ralph: “The video that is getting the most spend has absolutely zero purchases attributed to it.” (28:55) — highlighting the mysterious role of “feeder” ads.

8. The Future: Meta Attribution & Creative Optimization (30:18 – 31:29)

• Expect Meta to soon roll out incrementality/contribution tracking natively—similar to what Google already does.
• Black Friday and other major events will highlight the need for granular creative incrementality insights.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Lauren, on creative diversity:

  “Find the different angles… so you’re finding their specific flavor that they want to convert right away.” (13:54)

• Ralph, on new attribution thinking:

  “This is contribution versus attribution. Lots of flavors contribute to that final click.” (22:58)

• Lauren, on killing flavors:

  “You do not turn ads off. It’s like you don’t shut down flavors of ice cream.” (24:51)

• Ralph on source-of-truth:

  “You need some other source of truth that shows the data that’s actually being pulled from your actual sales, because Meta won’t show it to you.” (28:01)

• Lauren’s closing rally:

  “Don’t shut them off—your audience wants to see the different versions. Maybe you haven’t found their Tramontana yet, their one flavor that wins it.” (31:29)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:26 — “Vanilla” ads as a metaphor for bland creatives
• 07:32 — Ice cream as a creative strategy and diversification intro
• 09:40 — How Meta defines “different” creative
• 14:27 — What actually counts as “diversification” in Meta
• 18:18 — The power of “feeder” ads and incrementality
• 21:19 — Attribution tab & Lauren’s Meta prediction
• 22:53 — Defining “contribution versus attribution”
• 24:51 — Why you shouldn’t kill your creative “flavors” too soon
• 26:40 — How to organize creative variants practically
• 28:01 — Checking performance in your “source of truth”
• 30:18 — Future of Meta attribution/creative reporting
• 31:29 — Final rally to diversify and persist

---

Tone & Delivery

Conversational, irreverent, and actionable—a mix of real talk, friendly bickering, and deep tactical marketing know-how. The “ice cream” theme made technical ideas playful and memorable, while both hosts shared hands-on anecdotes and agency battle scars.

---

Actionable Takeaways

• Diversify your ad creatives intentionally—not just in color or format, but through fundamentally different angles and styles.
• Test multiple “flavors” for each offer; aim for six if possible.
• Don’t rush to turn off underperformers—they may be “feeder” ads driving incrementality.
• Measure holistically, not just in-platform. Always check conversions with your actual business data.
• Embrace contribution as well as attribution—final clicks rarely tell the whole story.
• Prepare for new Meta reporting tools that will reveal ad incrementality and contribution for smarter scaling.

---

For full resources mentioned, including the Meta Creative Diversification Playbook, visit perpetualtraffic.com.

Transcript

[Ralph Burns]

Hey, real quick, before we dive in, if you've got a brand or marketing tool that marketers need to know about, sponsor the show here at Perpetual Traffic. Perpetual Traffic puts you in front of thousands of seasoned marketers, CMOs, and agency owners. So head on over to perpetualtraffic.com to apply to be a sponsor of this show.

[Lauren Petrulo]

You want to stop relying on a Magic 8 ball for deciding your business. We always talk about how Andromeda and Meta demands diversification, and that can be really hard. And people are like, well, how many different versions? And it has to be at least percent. Those numbers come from Meta, not me. Otherwise it's just add blurriness. Everything looks like vanilla.

[Ralph Burns]

They just sold vanilla. How many customers do you think Patagonia Ice Creamery would have?

[Lauren Petrulo]

You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.

[Ralph Burns]

We all know this as marketers and business owners that growth is amazing. Until something breaks or some catastrophic events. Heaven forbid should ever happen to your business. And I don't mean just your ad campaigns going sideways. Maybe a client slips on a wet floor or a shipment suddenly goes missing, or a contractor gets hurt, or an employee gets hurt. Suddenly the thing you've been building can take a huge financial hit, maybe one that you worry might take down the company. And you should always be thinking about that as the business owner. Most people don't think about business insurance until after something goes wrong, when it's already too expensive or it's too late. That's why we're big fans of what Next insurance is doing Business Insurance is so important for any business, whether you're online or offline, and they've basically taken the pain out of business insurance. It's 100% online, ridiculously fast, and designed specifically for small businesses. You answer just a few questions and Next tells you exactly what coverage you need. No phone calls, no waiting, no holding the line for the next representative. Just fast, affordable production that actually has your back when things go sideways. Policies start for as little as $29 a month. Don't wait for a crisis to remind you you're not covered. Get protected in [e-mail] perpetual that's nextinsurance.com forward slash perpetual.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic. My name is not Ralph Burns, but I am your co host today, Lauren Eptrollo, founder of Mongoose Media, alongside the real ghost of the show, Ralph Burns

[Ralph Burns]

from Tier 11 CEO.

[Lauren Petrulo]

So glad you could join us. Thanks again on another great episode alongside my favorite honorary big brother where we will poke fun of each other, make embarrassing faces online and come unscripted with plans. I promise we do plans before, but sometimes it doesn't necessarily show up. But today we've got a really great episode for you that we're really excited to essentially convince you that vanilla ice cream is boring. Af. And if you like vanilla, either one, you're lying, or two, you're the rare exception of a human being. I'm specifically looking at you, Ralph, because you told me you like vanilla. And I'm like, I do like vanilla

[Ralph Burns]

ice cream, by the way. I was just, I was wiping a tear from my eye. How. How far you've come from just little Lauren Petrulo, guest on Perpetual Traffic. Now you're doing the introductions. Amazing. And I'm still trying to get you to do your first, like, solo episode. By the way. Hint hints, nudge, nudge.

[Lauren Petrulo]

I have a presentation. I recorded Riverside and save it because

[Ralph Burns]

we got a couple of reviews that said, you know, more Lauren. More Lauren, less John. No, I'm not saying that more Lauren, not necessarily less John, but we've had John on here a lot. And you are the co host of Perpetual Traffic, by the way. Just. I'm just reminding the viewer that in case they've gone out of the misapprehension just because we've had John on here. But John has had some pretty breakthrough stuff. But he also goes way in the weeds a lot of times.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Oh, my gosh. So in the weeds, Ralph, I listen to his episodes and I'm watching YouTube three times over and I'm like, what does he say? Tinfoil hat. Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

Yes. He's a little bit too much in the weeds. So anyway, so that was a great introduction, by the way. I wasn't quite prepared because we didn't rehearse that. What we did rehearse is the fact that, yes, I love vanilla ice cream. However, if I go get an ice cream, I never get like, you. You know how you go get ice cream, right? You go. You get like a cone.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Well, I'm not making it, so definitely going and getting it.

[Ralph Burns]

No, like, I never have ever gotten vanilla. However, when it comes to. Oh, like a warmed up chocolate chip cookie or apple piece.

[Lauren Petrulo]

So you're using vanilla ice cream as an accessory. Vanilla ice cream by itself is a garbage dessert.

[Ralph Burns]

No, I will still. If it's the only thing that's in the freezer, I will absolutely eat it. That's sort of dangerous.

[Lauren Petrulo]

But I do use it as an accessory in the freezer. Ralph, you are now admitting vanilla is the only thing you would choose electively to have. If it was the last thing in your freezer.

[Ralph Burns]

That is true. If there was like Rocky road or mocha chip or even like those are the only ones that we really get because we don't. We get like Ben and Jerry's all the time. We get Dolce de Lechi, which is like one of my favorites. Okay, yeah, now we're talking. That's.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Oh, now you're speaking my language. And there's a reason why we're talking about ice cream, guys. Because this is related to creative diversification.

[Ralph Burns]

See, this is what happens when Lauren gets to be the host of the show is that we immediately start talking about food and our food preferences, which is super important because I don't think we've ever talked about this sort of stuff before. But yet.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Love topic. I like, all I eat is like a five year old. I have like a diet of a five year old. I eat Mac and cheese, chocolate chips. Like I have chocolate every morning for breakfast. I have cookies two, three times a day. Like, I am so grateful for my genes because I would have been that thousand pound sister than another girl on that show because I like, I eat like a five year old.

[Ralph Burns]

That really. I didn't realize that like we flung out a lot. I don't think I've ever really seen you eat.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Oh, you haven't seen my Mary Poppin bag of snacks. Okay, well, you don't know.

[Ralph Burns]

I think you were a snacker. That. That's for damn sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've known that and we've been doing the show for a long time together.

[Lauren Petrulo]

But oh my gosh, there has to be clips of me just eating non stop during the show's free moments where I'm just like shoveling which of the cookies are for today. Like literally I have like ice cream right here. Like, okay.

[Ralph Burns]

And that's not vanilla ice cream. You're eating ice cream in the middle of the day and you're judging.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yeah, I don't understand. Let's continue.

[Ralph Burns]

If I did that, I would absolutely fall asleep. I'd be like done dead asleep like within a half hour because the sugar just does that to me. So I eat it at night, which is like the worst thing that you do, like right before you go to bed so it turns directly into fat. But I don't know, there's like some theories about that. I don't know if that's necessarily true. But anyway, if last thing for me is like, what we are. Well, it's February, so we have leftovers we have leftover vanilla ice cream from. I think it was Christmas, so too long.

[Lauren Petrulo]

If ice cream sits in your freezer for more than two weeks, it wasn't good.

[Ralph Burns]

Well, it's vanilla, so that tells you how much I like it. So I don't like it that much, but I do like it as accessory ice cream. So today's show, I'm gonna let you introduce the theme as to what this. Why this relates back to vanilla ice cream. Because this is your show, after all, because you're hosting it today. So now she's.

[Lauren Petrulo]

I am the microphone now.

[Ralph Burns]

Mm.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Okay. I'm glad that we've settled that. Vanilla is garbage. Anyone that's listening that thinks otherwise, I think you're lying to yourself. But the reason why Diversify your haven't explored, you know, what you have yet to explore. Amazing flavors like rainbow sherbet and moose tracks and cookie dough and mint chocolate chip. I mean, I keep going, but the purpose of this is I had this

[Ralph Burns]

ice cream in New Zealand. I. In New Zealand two weeks ago. And she was like, do you want to sample it first? I'm like, no, it just looks so good. It was like. It was. It had vanilla as its base, but then it had caramel, and it also had, like, a creme brulee kind of thing with chocolate chips. And then there was a swirl of marshmallow. I'm like, I just know all of those together. Like, I don't need to take a sample. Just give me two scoops of that sucker.

[Lauren Petrulo]

So that was your home run ice cream. You did not have to hesitate. You didn't even need a sample. Okay, that's the perfect segue into this, because what I want everyone listening to take away from this is to question yourself. Are you selling vanilla ice cream? Are all of your ads vanilla? Are they ads that by themselves are gonna get someone like Ralph to order two scoops without even tasting? Or is it like, okay, like, people don't hate vanilla, but no one, like, really loves vanilla and chooses it. But most of the time when I'm looking at ad accounts or when we're looking at stuff, the ads themselves are vanilla. They are, like, good enough for everyone, but no one's actually falling in love. But the example that you just gave that New Zealand caramel, marshmallow and toffee or whatever the butter pecans kind of stuff was, that was so good, that resonated so well with you that you were able to convert immediately without having to do trial or having to go through all the additional marketing Steps.

[Ralph Burns]

Yep. It was Patagonia in Queenstown, New Zealand. I just looked it up. It was so good. Anyway, we're gonna leave links in the show notes. If you ever go to Queenstown, New Zeal, go to this place. It was the best ice cream I think I've ever had. Jen. I forget what Jen had, but Jen did not have vanilla. I know that for damn sure. Anyway, keep going. You're on a roll here.

[Lauren Petrulo]

So when you're looking at your ads and you're leveraging creative diversification, we always talk about how Andromeda and Meta demands diversification, and that can be really hard. And people are like, well, how many different versions? And we've talked exhaustively that it's not, you know, Lauren with a pink shirt, Lauren with a blue shirt, Lauren with a microphone, Lauren without a microphone. It has to be at least 25% different. Those come. Those numbers come from Meta, not me. And we say it's cuckoo crazy different. Otherwise it's just add blurriness. So everything looks like vanilla. You have vanilla bean, French vanilla. Vanilla. To me, it's just vanilla. There's not enough of a distinctness between the flavors of ice cream or the ads. If you're not treating your ad account like a Baskin Robbins, 31 flavors.

[Ralph Burns]

Mm. I'm even looking up. It was called Tramontana. It was committed with chocolate coated Hokey Pokey, which is a whole other. Hokey Pokey is a whole other thing. But the point is, is it wasn't vanilla.

[Lauren Petrulo]

So. Yes.

[Ralph Burns]

So think about the links that we're going to leave in the show notes here to Patagonia Ice Cream ring as a sampling of, like, how you should think about your ads right now. And it's absolutely that, because the more diverse that is, the more you're going to like. If they just sold vanilla, how many customers do you think Patagonia Ice Creamery would have? Not that many. Right. Because they're selling one thing. They're selling.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

But they're still selling ice cream. So they need, I think it's like 15 or 16 different flavors here. That actually works out quite well.

[Lauren Petrulo]

But then they have toppings, they have it in cones versus cups. Like they're catering to a large variety of people of how you want to consume this dessert. And even if you're like, I'm only selling vanilla ice cream, likely you're doing it in banana splits, you're doing it in brownie sundaes, you're doing it in cookie skillets, you're making a sandwich out of it. You're doing things that are. It's not solo ice cream by itself, which is a great accessory and is what people will add to apple pie. You said earlier that you'll have it also with a hot fudge sundae. A vanilla ad. A vanilla ice cream flavor ad is one that's like, speaking to everybody. Because, again, no one, like, really hates vanilla. But it's not going to give the same enthusiasm where Ralph is like, stop the floor. It's Patagonia. Look at this. I'm sure you're actually probably going through your photo library right now to find a photo of this magnificent ice cream.

[Ralph Burns]

I think I ate it so fast, I didn't even take a photo of it. Like, I sat on the beach. Jen's like, do you want to sit over here? I'm like, nope, I'm just going to sit on the beach and eat this thing. She's like, well, like, why don't you sit here? I'm like, no, no, no. I don't want to go, like, any further. Just going to eat it right now. It was so good.

[Lauren Petrulo]

You're savoring it and you want people to think about your marketing and your products. That that's where some of these really good ads resonate with us. Like, we all remember. If you don't remember the Squatty potty with the unicorn pooping, a rainbow ice cream swirl, like, there's some even, like, a Goldilocks commercial with purple mattress where it was like, which one is just right in a playoff? The Princess and the Pea. Like, there's some ads that resonate. And while you don't have to hire, like, major production companies to do it, what you can do is find what are the Cherry Garcias, this Patagonia flavor ice cream that you were obsessed with on the beach? I personally like a chocolate with a hazelnut swirl and a creamy mango sorbet combination with gummy bears and chocolate raspberry sauce on top. Like, everyone has their own unique flavor of ice cream that they want. And you can have different angles and different features and benefits that you can talk about. So that when you're creating ads, I'm not saying make 31 different ones, like, Baskin Robbins level. Like, that's resource heavy. But when you're creating ads for your various products, I invite you. Like, we use six as our benchmark to create six different flavors of ice cream. Because if you're only going to make one plain vanilla.

[Ralph Burns]

Hey, real quick. If you're looking to get your brand in front of growth minded marketers, CMOs, directors of marketing and agency owners. We're opening up our sponsorship spots for Q1 and Q2 of next year. Get in front of a quarter of a million marketers every single month at Perpetual Traffic. All you have to do is head on over to perpetualtraffic.com for the details or check out the link in the show notes to apply.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Then you're gonna have one plane ad account versus finding the cherry Garcias, the rocky roads, the blue moons, the rainbow sherbets. Having those that so resonate well, you'll have someone like Ralph so quick to buy that they're like, oh my gosh, this speaks to me. So you have to find the different angles, adjust to be done. The hook or the ugc, whatever combination of the carousel, the video, the static, what is that resonating with that individual use? So you're finding their specific flavor that they want to convert right away. And that's why you want to have creative diversification.

[Ralph Burns]

Very true. I would actually submit that you're saying 25% different. We're saying it's got to be at least like 70% different in a lot of cases. As long as you are. So we'll leave a link in the show notes. This. The creative diversification playbook that Meta gave us a while back. We have been actually using this. We have used it as a download in the past, in previous episodes. Very long URL. But we'll. We'll leave it on the 211 site. So you can just download it, just grab it, use it, disseminate it to your team. But on the third or fourth page, it actually goes through. And I can actually show you this specifically on our screen. Share. Yeah. So you can see here. So this is inside this creative diversification playbook. Like, this came out over a year ago.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yeah.

[Ralph Burns]

And I. This is just sort of the base. But if you look at this, here are three ads. They're. They're different.

[Lauren Petrulo]

I mean, yeah, no, they're French vanilla versus Vanilla Bean versus Vanilla. Like the. The three are.

[Ralph Burns]

They would be considered different, like years ago. They're not considered different now. They're too similar. So even 25%. Like, look at the difference between these ads that are on the Right. And so if you're not. If you're not watching this over on a perpetual traffic YouTube channel, I highly encourage that you do that. Perpetual traffic.com forward/YouTube. We'll just explain it here. We basically have a face facial cream or a moisturizer, and there's three pictures of it on the left hand side

[Lauren Petrulo]

it's got the similar.

[Ralph Burns]

The bottle on the right hand like right aligned and a square image with some copy, very, very small copy by the way. And then there's maybe a little bit difference in coloration, pricing, maybe a percentage off or maybe a coupon code, something like that. But it's basically they're all three pictures of the individual moisturizer. You know, right aligned. On the right hand side you have that image but then you have a woman obviously face to camera, face to camera, nine by 16 or maybe. Well, this is one by one. But the point is, is very, very different than the first image. And then the third image is another image that is. Has very little sort of post production. But I wouldn't say it's a great at. But the point is, is like, it's

[Lauren Petrulo]

like a Canva template.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, they're all different. Everything on the left hand side is three different flavors of vanilla. Maybe speckled bean, maybe French vanilla, maybe pure vanilla or ice milk, whatever the hell that is. I don't even know what it is. Don't even touch it.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Dairy free vanilla. I don't know.

[Ralph Burns]

Dairy free vanilla, Lactose free vanilla. So you've got vanilla on the left hand side, but on the right you've got. Well, you've got my favorite Traventino. I believe it was Tremontana Traventino. I think that was like in between the mountains. Yeah, exactly. Travertine is like a stone. I believe we got a Jenna, a travertine travertine ring while we were there.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Stone cream is where he's trying to go.

[Ralph Burns]

Exactly. So we've got Tramontana, we've got Dolce to Lechi, we've got banana split, we've got hazelnut cremino. This is what we want here. And this is just a small sort of sample size of it. And like I said, we'll put this in.

[Lauren Petrulo]

It's showing. I mean granted this is showing a 7% lower CPA and a 7% higher purchases because the 25% again, I didn't come up with that. That's from Meta, where if it looks too similar, like I've seen examples where it's like a product shot and then there's text on it. Like it's the copy and the creative. It's not just the image that has to be different. You can't say like get for free tonight or free shipping available. It's not diverse enough. Like I'm really trying to hone in on the. Ask your friends, ask your colleagues. What is their favorite flavor of ice cream? And you'll see that everyone has their distinct unique flavor. And that's what we're looking at in your ads.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, and that's this whole printout here is all about all of this. Like, we don't really get it. But the bottom line is this is that that is the rule now. Like, there is no other way to do this but do it through creative diversification. And you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and you see sort of what sticks. Now what sticks is the key because what sticks is not necessarily today what it used to be a year or so ago or two years ago, or let alone five years ago. It's not solely determined by CPA and the way that when John and I did this episode and this is six months or so ago. And if you want to get to really in depth on this, we'll leave links in the show notes for that episode. But the key is this, is that the ads that are getting impressions and hook rate, hold rate, we talked about that in previous episode, getting impressions and getting spend might not be the ones that are actually getting the conversion. They are the ones that are almost feeding the other ads to sort of get the interest.

[Lauren Petrulo]

The Ricky Bobbies out there that are like, let me the feeder of Let me find you an audience. Let me see. Like, oh, they're ice cream fans. Okay. They're not a Cherry Garcia fan, but hey, okay, I now as they've liked ice cream, now maybe I'll present them Rocky Road. Maybe I'll present them Moose Tracks. Oh, they slam dunk on Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. It's curating the audience and it's this incrementality lift and I'm like, so Ralph, I'm really excited because okay, this is my little prediction piece in Meta right now depending on some of the ad accounts. So not even all ad accounts have this yet. You can go into the breakdown inside of Ads Manager, go into attribution. So again, not everyone has this but like you can see demographics. I use all the time for audience segments and all that stuff. But there's one now called attribution. And you can see inside of a sales campaign if the results you have are a first conversion or all conversions. So you're now starting to see if an ad leads to secondary conversions inside of your ad account, which is great if you're buying, if you're getting someone to repeat purchase or if you have leads and they're re signing up for additional lead magnets, you're getting more information about how many individual results you're getting from a user. I mean everything's of course like blended an estimate because that is never precise to the degree we wish it was. But they're showing now in some ad accounts, first conversion, all conversion. So that you can see like maybe a third or half or 10% of the people that bought, then buy something else in that same seven day attribution window, assuming that's what you said. And then further to that, where my crystal ball is with all this stuff. While you're using the additional ads, the different flavors of ice cream to let people, hey, we've got unique flavors of ice cream. Come on in. I believe in the next six months we're going to see incrementality in our dashboards where it's going to say this ad, this rocky road ad helped this rainbow sherbert ad get the result.

[Ralph Burns]

Hey, real quick, if you're looking to get your brand in front of growth minded marketers, CMOs, directors of marketing and agency owners, we're opening up our sponsorship spots for Q1 and Q2 of next year. Get in front of a quarter of a million marketers every single month at Perpetual Traffic. All you have to do is head on over to perpetualtraffic.com for the details or check out the link in the show notes to apply because the last

[Lauren Petrulo]

one they clicked on like some people will be a home run right away, which we was for everyone. But it might be their seventh ad. They've interacted with their fifth ad and on the fifth ad they decided, yes, I want to buy. I really believe in the next six months we're going to see incrementality, attribution or like a conversion lift from the other creative, which goes to the whole thing, Ralph, where I like screamed at the beginning of the episode where you know what we're not supposed to do with our ad creatives.

[Ralph Burns]

His beef vanilla. True. I would like to initiate a new way of thinking about this. And in your excellent ice cream example, by the way, which I love.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Thank you.

[Ralph Burns]

And this is all your idea. Like this show, like all about ice Cream. Wish I had brought some back. It never would have lasted. Anyway, the point is this, is that there's two different concepts here. And the rocky road in your example, okay, got the attention right. And then maybe there was other ice creams in there. Maybe there was one, maybe there was two, maybe there was seven, maybe there was 10. And then the orange sherbet, which I believe is the one that got the last Click got the attribution, the attribution for the sale. All the other ads that preceded that contributed.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yes.

[Ralph Burns]

So this is contribution versus attribution.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yes.

[Ralph Burns]

And that I think is a. The key concept for all of this and especially when it comes to ice cream, because you're going to have lots of different flavors that are contributing to that final click. We were just on a call with a client this past week that they've got such a novel product. And I got to say what it is, it's in the services industry. Nobody else has it. And they have a very distinct name. And we noticed when they, when we went into their Google Search console that search terms for their name went from about 800 up to about 1400, 1200 thereabouts, ever since they started working with us. And they've got very good SEO, they've got very good placement in the geographic markets that they serve, and a very distinct name. And when we looked in Google Console, all of that incrementality, all of that contribution to search terms that they're being searched for were all for their brand name. Where do you think that brand name recognition came from? It came from the rocky road, the pistachio walnut. It came from all of the different ads that we had done prior. I'm trying to think even more. Mascarpone with berries ads. Mascarpone con berries, mascarpone hazelnut cremino ads. That then the final ad was the orange sherbert or maybe the vanilla. And that's the one. Or maybe it was. Or maybe it was the Google search and the organic search and we're not running Google paid ads for them right now. So the point is this. You want to create a, you can create a brand on Meta now, and then you're going to see that attribution for the sale oftentimes not happen when the contribution to the sale is the stuff that's really doing the heavy lifting. And that comes from a diversified creative strategy.

[Lauren Petrulo]

And that's where like I will be very adamant, like, you do not turn ads off. It's like you don't shut down ad flavors like the flavors of ice cream. Now look, you can rotate like, don't get me wrong, like, Meta will turn them off. Meta will choke out the impressions for ones that they've deemed are not worthy. You don't turn it off because then it's like incrementality and the contributions versus the attribution. least I'm seeing that more and more and more supportive of stronger ad accounts. And you know, the rule of six was a number that Meta had promoted a lot. Like, don't have more than six ads in an ad set. I there, there's no number for just me. I start with Lauren Petrulo saying like, okay, let's have six ads per offering. Like literally, Ralph, we're doing a LinkedIn webinar where it's like, hey, how like LinkedIn helped drive hundreds of thousand dollars of new sales for amongst media from strangers. We're doing this. And the team was like, great, we've got a few ads. I was like, if it's not at least six different flavor ice cream ads, I don't want to run a campaign for it yet. So that's my number. Because it forces us to have different angles and it doesn't always have to be unique flavors where it's like you're talking about orange sherbet versus chocolate swirl versus chunky monkey versus dairy free, whatever. You can also still like, Meta allows you to take a flavor. And if we're like saying you said pistachio walnut, say you have pistachio walnut in a cone and pistachio walnut in a cup and pistachio walnut in a milkshake, you could do it in a static, in a video or a carousel.

[Ralph Burns]

Now you're going like way, way next level. So they did have like fold ins on this and they had like all these other sorts of the classic ice cream place. Like basically infinite variations that you can do for any ad and for any ice cream for that matter. The point is this, is that the more diverse you go, at least to start, start off with six. Six is good. Be happy with six.

[Lauren Petrulo]

I'll take three. If you can't do six, I understand it's a resource restraint. I like the two options of you can create six un flavors or you can create two unique flavors and then do three different ways that you can consume that flavor. Because the 25% rule comes from Meta and they say that the place, the format, the video versus the static versus the carousel, those match the 25% difference. You can take the seed nugget. So say like you're, hey, you want to stop relying on a Magic 8 ball for deciding your business, right? And the concept of that is a Magic 8 ball. Maybe you have a video of Ralph shaking a Magic 8 ball being like, will Google Ads work for my business? Shows the Magic 8 Ball and says, maybe try again later. So you have the video and be like throwing it away, letting it break, being like, we don't rely on 80s tactics and games. To figure out ways to scale in 2026 and beyond. So that could be a video describing it. You take that same eight ball and just have a static that shows call tier 11. Like what do I do when my ads aren't working? You can have it as a triangle inside, as a static and then the same as a carousel where you're telling a story which is like, games from the 80s are nostalgic, eclectic and things to remember. But if you want to be remembered as an agency or remembered as a service provider, it's time to get on 2026 trends.

[Ralph Burns]

I don't know. It's true. And when you go into your ad account, you can't rely on the in app metrics. This is a whole other show unto itself in a lot of ways. Because you have to look at your source of truth. Because inside Meta, it's still, I mean, as much as they've modeled the data and made it a heck of a lot easier and better, there is still a lot of data that's missing inside of Meta. So you always have to double check this against what's going on inside your source of truth, which is your CRM, wherever you collect the money. And then you have to look at that. Obviously we use the Tier 11 data suite, which we talked about here many, many times. The point is this. It's like you need some other source of truth that shows the data that's actually being pulled from your actual sales because Meta won't show it to you. I'm looking in that ad account right now that we talked to that client yesterday. The video that is getting the most spend has absolutely zero purchases attributed to it.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Okay, but it's still getting spend because Meta, even though they're not showing us the contribution, we know there's an incremental lift. And as you just show, like explained with where you're seeing the branding, you have to market your business in order to advertise your service or offering your marketing comes into it. And I think a lot of this when, when Meta brings in, which I think you're going to do in the next six months, because I think it was a huge lift before Black Friday and I know it's only February, but yeah, Black Friday is still a conversation that we need to be prepared for. Like, it just doesn't like put our head under sand like an ostrich, but we want to be like when they give us that information. For me, I think it's the end all be all. Like, we're using triple whale. We're Using Wiggly reports, we're using North Beam, we're using hi Rose. Like all these different tools are all trying to show us true attribution, but at the same time they're all telling us ish incremental attribution to the best way that they can. When Meta holds all the cards. Google knows all this information and Google gives it to you. You can see a percentage of a conversion. Like Google already has been doing this. So I think Meta is just going to be a bit more public with it. So in the like ice cream stuff, like create a lot of different flavors and when you create one that says Patagonia rich as Tramante, the one that Ralph is obsessed with and he's still, I mean look at his smile if you're not on YouTube, just to see his like boyish grin. Also like his fresh face because we

[Ralph Burns]

didn't hear talk about that.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yeah, like I like, who is this Ned? I didn't recognize him.

[Ralph Burns]

Recognize me. Like, who is that guy? It is the year of the fire horse today, by the way, as we're recording. Yeah.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Singing Kwai La or no for a happy new Year.

[Ralph Burns]

Happy New Year. Is that it?

[Lauren Petrulo]

Viet and Chinese.

[Ralph Burns]

That's awesome. Well, we're going to be getting together in a couple of weeks, so I feel like do a little like Chinese New Year celebration because we are shedding the year of the snake, by the way. Shedding bad habits. I did not shed my beard, so didn't even talk about that. And you're all in pink. Like pink, pink, pink. Like everything.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Everything's pink.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah. You're back in the home office. It's looking good. Back in the home office in the background. So anyway, so it is the year of the fire horse. New beginnings, new acquaintances, new relationships, new ways of doing things. And this, what we've talked about here for the last half hour is a new way of doing things, ladies and gentlemen. You've got to shed your old habits when it comes to Meta ads and even Google Ads to a lesser degree. But Meta is the thing that's powering all of this right now. And man, is it working if you do it right. You just have to be able to understand you need lots of varieties of ice cream.

[Lauren Petrulo]

You do. And don't shut them off because your audience wants to see the different versions because maybe you haven't found their comonte yet. Like they're one flavor that wins it, but you'll show them and introduce them to lavender ice cream and mint chip. And all the different ones are like you Know what? I am going to go to this ice cream place because I can always trust that they have good flavors.

[Ralph Burns]

That's it. Well, you started it. So now you want to end.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Oh, yeah. It's been a blast. Thanks for everyone for joining and listening to my rant on. If you do think that vanilla ice cream by itself is the best ice cream, I'm going to think you're just as funny as Kas Muslim. And we all know that he's not that funny.

[Ralph Burns]

He's not that funny. He's really not that funny. Yeah, you're way funnier.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Thanks. Well, you have to say that because I'm, like, going to be seeing you soon with my Mary Poppins snack bags and we're going to make an outing. I'm like, okay, are we going to go to Gatorland? Are we going to go to Devil's Den and go swimming in freezing cold water?

[Ralph Burns]

There's no, like, a banana boat thing we can do down there.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Like, oh, there's so many things that we can do.

[Ralph Burns]

So many things.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Discovery Cove. Yeah. So anyone that's in central Florida, we should do a. Oh, we should do a meetup. Anyone that's in central Florida, and we can do a live recording at, like, a fun.

[Ralph Burns]

We could. That would be fun.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Yes.

[Ralph Burns]

We'll have to figure that out.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Johnson, Florida. Oh, my God. Let's do a three. Oh, I know the exact activity. Oh, my gosh. There's a game place where we can all play competing, like a quiz show game against each other.

[Ralph Burns]

Really? He likes 10 people. Do we do that? Everyone has a gun in Florida, right?

[Lauren Petrulo]

Isn't that at least 50% of people have a gun on them?

[Ralph Burns]

Yes, because I know when you land in Texas, they hand a handgun to you. Like, welcome to Texas. Here's your Magnum.

[Lauren Petrulo]

I think in Florida, we give you the Bible.

[Ralph Burns]

Oh, that's true. Let's do it. Wouldn't that be funny if you actually did do that? Like, everybody landed in Boston, you had a lobster.

[Lauren Petrulo]

Oh, gosh. Can you imagine? Well, when you do cross the Florida state line, you get grapefruit juice or orange juice.

[Ralph Burns]

Oh, okay, right. I watch out for Florida, man. But that's a whole other episode unto itself. All right, so let's bring us home here because you've got another call, as do I.

[Lauren Petrulo]

It's been a great episode. I can't remember how we end, actually. Ralph. Oh, my gosh, why am I spacing out? Is it like, thanks for listening. I'm your host. If you, like, subscribe, hit all the DMs. I'm making this up right now. How do we end our episodes? I say ciao on behalf of my amazing co host.

[Ralph Burns]

Yeah, you can go that way. Or I could just say, you know, wherever you listen to podcasts, make sure you leave a rating and review.

[Lauren Petrulo]

There we go.

[Ralph Burns]

Allows us to get to a wider audience to teach people how to do this stuff the right way, using ice cream as our analogy with metrics that matter and growth at scales, which is sort of what we're all about here at Perpetual Traffic. So. And then you say, on behalf of

[Lauren Petrulo]

my amazingly fresh face, looking 10 years younger than ever, beautiful co host, Ralph H. Burns, ciao. You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.