Chao 2023: Year in Review

The time is coming to send off 2023 and welcome the next year. Over the past 12 months, we've seen some interesting innovations in digital marketing, with artificial intelligence and automation playing an increasingly central role.

But relax, computers aren't going to destroy humanity just yet - we're seeing it in moves by companies like Meta, where content creators are taking an increasingly central place and gaining even more advantages to monetize their digital products.

As a parting shot, we decided to review the year to see what interesting things happened on the marketing horizon. And for dessert we'll tell you about the first months of our baby ADvantage.

News in 2023 in Meta

Paid subscription to opt out of ads

The most impressive of the year in the Zuckerberg camp was the announcement that Meta was introducing a paid subscription to use Facebook and Instagram for all users who don't want to see ads. News that definitely raised a ruckus.

Meta Creator Studio became part of Meta Business Suite

A move that aims to make working on professional pages easier by bringing together the tools you need to create and publish content and everything you need to administer your accounts.

Rise of AI

Artificial intelligence is making more inroads into Meta products with the latest innovations this year - AI stickers, AI image editing and Meta AI - a virtual assistant that can be spoken to like a real person.

And to make it even cooler, your virtual friend can take on different personas played by celebrities like Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg. Some of these innovations are only active for users in the US for now, but we believe it's only a matter of time before they reach our shores.

Meta Verified

This year, Meta is definitely putting the focus on its "creators" or people creating content with a few special innovations. Meta Verified is one of them - a subscription to verify your account.

The package includes account theft protection as well as access to increased search engine visibility and support.

Monetization of reels

Meta is also testing changes to reel monetization - content creators will be able to get paid based on audience engagement with their reels.

An update to the Leads collection ads

The forms your users have to fill in to get to the free content can now have conditional logic, i.e. the questions change according to the answer given in the previous question.

Tailored Ad Campaigns

These are campaigns with automatic settings, chosen specifically for your business needs by the Meta algorithm. For those cases where you don't have the time or knowledge for more.

However, in such circumstances we advise you to contact a digital agency. We are always here to guide you through the jungle of Meta ads.

Instagram launches text app Threads

Threads aims to be a major competitor to Twitter, oops, sorry, X. Unfortunately, it can't be used in the EU yet. We are waiting!

Instagram Broadcast Channels

The new public broadscast channels are a super way for content creators to engage their audience through text, video or photos.

Innovations from Google

Google Analytics 4 took the baton

On the 1st of July this year the eagerly awaited replacement of Universal Analytics with GA4 became a fact. Read here about the new features and changes that Google Analytics 4 brought.

Google Ads has removed most attribution models

Of the previous ones, only the last-click and data-driven model remain, which will be selected by default. It relies on machine learning and is unique to each business as it takes into account your account data to calculate the importance of each user interaction on the way to order completion.

New brand restrictions for Search and Performance Max campaigns

You can now extend the reach of your brand campaigns with the new brand restrictions. These allow you to filter out only relevant brand traffic for your Search campaigns when using broad match, or choose to have your ads not show on certain sites and apps under Performance Max.

Bid for new customers only

The new campaign-level goal allows advertisers to focus on acquiring new customers. In this case, smart bidding strategies are used as well as your existing customer data to find new users.

More exciting news from 2023

Twitter is now X. Strange or not, the new name is a fact, and the company's CEO Elon Musk has his own plans for its future.

Tik-Tok released text posts. Apparently text is the new black, since this happens to be the year Meta releases its text posting app.

GPT-4 is here. The future of artificial intelligence is getting more and more exciting. Or maybe we should say "the present"? It is capable of verbal reasoning, can simplify complex concepts, and explain why a joke is funny.

Could GPT-4 have written that text? Probably yes, but he wouldn't be able to tell you about...

2023th in ADvantage digital agency

Leaving aside the world of digital marketing, the last 12 months have actually been extremely exciting for us. In this period we launched the ADvantage project and it has grown before our eyes!

Since March, when we made the decision to create the agency, so much has happened that we have definitely forgotten the meaning of the word "boredom". That's what it's like when you really enjoy your work .

The wheel turned in May, when digital agency ADvantage officially became a fact - with its own website, a team of enthusiastic professionals and its first clients. We used the summer months to expand our creative team, refine our strategies, and take a bit of a break. After all, summer is also for that, especially when part of the team is from Plovdiv - the ailyak flows in our veins!

We devoted September to courses and trainings, and in October we visited ActionCoach in Varna, then attended Serpconf where we learned interesting things.

We finish the year with three new colleagues: a business development specialist, a project manager and a PPC.

We thank our customers for their trust. Also to our partners for their support and professionalism.

We only go onwards and upwards in 2024. 🥳 And if you'd like us to get your business moving in the right direction too, feel free to request a consultation.