Meta is helping brands reach more audiences across social media — and it’s all thanks to AI

• Businesses are tapping into Meta’s AI-driven tools to boost engagement, optimize ads, and save time.
• Over one million advertisers used Meta’s GenAI ad tools to create 15 million ads in October 2024.
• Generative AI helps brands build more engaging ads with creative variations. 

Businesses everywhere are constantly looking for better ways to reach their customers. And today more than ever, they’ll need to get creative. 

Few business owners know this better than Alfred Chehebar. As the founder and CEO of online retailer ObjectsHQ, he and his team provide designer-quality furniture curated from thousands of products and sold directly to the consumer. However, the pieces can be large or heavy, making it difficult to continually produce new content in different settings. 

Using Meta’s AI tools, ObjectsHQ simply loaded lifestyle photos of its best-performing products, along with a few captions. The result was a 60% increase in return on ad spend (ROAS), and features like Text Variation helped by suggesting more captions, allowing ObjectsHQ to scale its visual content and further boost reach. 

AI for advertising 

ObjectsHQ is just one of many brands harnessing the power of AI-powered ad tools. With a community of 3.2 billion people on Meta platforms, businesses are eager to find and engage with the audiences that matter most to them. For that reason, 10 million businesses regularly advertise with the company, and last month, over a million of them leveraged generative AI to create 15 million impactful ads. 

AI — particularly generative AI — gives businesses of all sizes the tools to connect with the right people and create diverse, engaging content. “Generative AI can help alleviate pressure, giving marketers more creative options and resources, and often in less time,” said Justin Osofsky, head of SMB Group and Global Partnerships at Meta.

ObjectsHQ has been running campaigns leveraging one of Meta’s AI-powered tools, Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns. The Advantage+ suite helps businesses reach key demographics with less setup time and greater efficiency. 

“Without AI enabled in your customer-acquisition strategy, you’re practically handing yourself over to your competitors,” Chehebar said. 

Meta has proven valuable to customers like Chehebar in part because of its ability to attract customers who may be interested in a product, but perhaps aren’t yet actively looking for it. That’s something that stood out to Chehebar, because it gives his brand an opportunity to reach new customers. 

Enhancing creativity 

Beyond audience targeting, businesses are also leaning into generative AI to help spark new, creative ideas for their marketing initiatives. And it’s being integrated directly into Meta’s Ads Manager so businesses can easily get started, even with existing campaigns. 

These tools are intended to help marketers harness the power of generative AI to create stunning content, which has emerged as a fundamental part of digital marketing, according to Osofsky.

“The key to success on our platform is no longer just about micro-segmentations and niche targeting,” he said. “Rather, as AI has improved, the true differentiator is in your creative, with AI and automation doing the work to find the customers most relevant to your business.” 

GenAI is also powering the next wave of video creative assets. For example, advertisers can now generate video creative for Reels from a single static image without any existing video assets.

Osofsky offers the example of a cafe looking to creatively promote a cup of coffee. 

“With tools like Image Animation, you can create a graphic that portrays steam rising out of the mug,” he explained. “Or if it’s an iced coffee, ice cubes swirling around in a cup.” Businesses can also use this tool to repurpose static images from previous campaigns, transforming them into dynamic graphics and extending the shelf-life of what they already have on hand.  

This kind of flexibility is paramount, especially as advertisers head toward a busy end to the year. With AI tools that save time and complement human creativity, marketers can create ad campaigns that reach audiences everywhere. 

Find out how Meta’s AI-powered tools can help you improve your small business’ ad strategy. 

This post was created by Insider Studios with Meta.