The news: Facebook and Instagram are among the top social apps used in the US, making them highly significant platforms for advertisers in terms of audience reach. More than half (53.5%) of the US population uses Facebook, while 45.7% use Instagram, per our forecasts.

Brands that treat creative for these platforms as a targeting lever consistently outperform those that don’t, per Stackmatix, which compiled winning ad examples on Meta’s social platforms.

Zooming in: Below are four strategies to help brands succeed on Meta's platforms, along with brands that have put them into practice.

1. Lead with a specific person, problem, or moment. 

• Brands report that creative styled like user-generated content (UGC) consistently outperforms studio-shot production where authenticity functions as the actual product claim.
• Skincare brand The Ordinary ran before-and-after ads featuring real customer skin transformations over 28 days of using its niacinamide serum—no filters and no retouching. The creative implied exactly who the ad was for, and Meta’s algorithm did the rest. 

2. Match ad formats to where the customer is in the buying process. 

• Cold audiences need a reason to stop scrolling. Warm audiences need a reason to finish what they started. 
• HubSpot applied similar logic to lead generation—Meta Instant Forms that pre-filled name and email information from a user’s profile and produced 2 to 3 times higher conversion rates compared with standard traffic campaigns.

3. Build video for silence, not sound. 

• Given that a significant number of consumers watch video with sound off, creating impactful visuals that get the message across without sound can grab consumers’ attention.
• Dyson's 15-second product demo used on-screen captions and close-up footage of vacuums picking up debris across various surfaces with no voiceover necessary. This approach worked without audio and engaged users quickly.

4. Use the 70/20/10 rule to scale what works.

• Invest 70% of your budget in proven creative, 20% in tested variations, and 10% in experimental formats. 
• Zara ran 10-second Reels ads showing five ways to style one blazer, cut to trending audio. The format is fast, repeatable, and easy to iterate—which matters because experiences that are refreshed often will outperform ads that continue to run until performance drops. 

Implications for brands: Meta’s dominant reach demands keen creative focus and reinvention around strategies that yield results.

Brands should treat authenticity as a targeting signal, build video for silence, static for conversions, and carousels for discovery. Refining these levers for specific audience segments and demographics and could help lock in more engagement and conversions.

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