Nick Shackelford for Insense: a quick look at paid ads for Q4

What's cooking for paid ads as we head into the Q4 sales peak? 

Insense caught up with Nick to learn his insights for paid social in Q4. He talked with us about what you need to pay attention to and give some advice  in order to win this season.

1. Can you give an overview of the Q4 state for paid social?

"I believe this will be the hardest year of Q4 conversion / revenue generation in the 9 years I’ve been doing this. Between balancing rising ad costs, inflationary acceleration and macro economical fear in the US market the only saving grace we have is the fact that Americans LOVE buying things on credit and median credit scores are still intact despite savings account reduction acceleration as reported by BoA and Wells Fargo and other leading banks."

2. What’s up with TikTok + Facebook CPA’s in Q4?

"In October Facebook CPA's were 200-400% more expensive, platform on platform. Depending which analytics or attribution tool you are using. There is a subtle increase but there is still an increase overall of 100-200%. TikTok STILL is a terrible platform to drive conversion from at any significant spend. Maybe we just aren’t doing it right but there are few that I know who can achieve a scaleable CPA."

3. How will ios14 affect paid social for the rest of 2022?

"The same way it has impacted all of 2022. Untrustworthy data and elongated decision making clarity or reduced confidence in decision making forcing brands and agencies to rely heavily upon what the attribution tools show and overall marketing efficiency ratios."

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4. Have you noticed people using more static imagery in their ads vs video ads? If so, why do you think this is happening and do you think this is a trend?

"We haven’t seen a large shift outside a small bump in additional static images mainly due to showing offers or upcoming sales. Videos still dominate the feeds we run."

5. Organic vs paid this Q4. Where should marketers invest?

"Paid 300%. Costs are going to take more cash to reach similar size audiences unfortunately."

6. How influential is UGC for paid social at the moment? Do you think it’s more important on one platform vs another?

"UGC ads are incredibly important especially reaction and gift giving videos for the holiday."

"If you can communicate the excitement of the gift it is sort of like a “feel good” story that’s literally obtainable through the product being sold. Lean into showing the product in a natural gift giving perspective."

Nick Shackelford has proven to be a major player in the digital advertising industry, having been named as one of the world's leading eCommerce and Facebook marketers so if you've been considering, or are currently working on paid ads, this interview is something that can really help you as a marketer.

Want to know how Insense can help your next campaign? Through our creator marketplace, you can get a steady flow of authentic UGC starting at $50 per video, manage multiple collaborations at once, in one space - all easily managed by 1 marketer.

To close, we believe that the most important thing and something that you should not forget is to run consistent ad testing, optimize your campaign based on user generated content and of course, keep investing into Ads.