June 01, 2023 - General Availability
Automated Snapchat assets, including campaigns, ad sets, and ads, now have a configurable publishing strategy. When automation is enabled, you can choose how to handle conflicts between the automation blueprint and the asset. You have the option to either keep or override values that were changed outside the feed.
In December 2022, we introduced Automated Ads (AA) for campaigns and ad sets, in addition to the existing ad-level automation. Our initial release strategy assumed that the blueprint and feed were always correct. If a conflict arose between the asset and the blueprint, automation would rectify the ad to align with the blueprint.
For example, if an ad blueprint had an active status, but the customer manually paused the ad in Snapchat Ads Manager, the automation would detect the discrepancy during feed processing and restore the ad to an active state.
However, we quickly learned that this approach was not optimal. Customers expressed a desire for more control to override the actions set up by automation. In addition to managing things from the ads manager, this also prevented status changes or bulk updates in reporting and the use of Predictive Budget Allocation (PBA) in automated ad sets.
Key benefits
With the new publishing strategy, "keep values changed outside of feed," you can now:
- Update assets in Snapchat Ads Manager.
- Change statuses in the reporting view.
- Perform bulk actions in reporting.
- Utilize Predictive Budget Allocation (PBA) for automated ad sets.
By manually updating a field in an asset, you can inform the automation not to modify that specific field in the asset going forward. Any changes you make to that field in the feed will no longer be reflected in the asset. Other fields will continue to be automated. By switching to the "override changes" strategy, automation will resume for overridden fields.
Since most expect the ability to override automation, we have decided to make "keep changes" the new default strategy for automation. We have also migrated all existing blueprints to use this strategy. If desired, you can edit the blueprints and switch back to the "override changes" strategy to revert to the previous behavior.
Changes in Smartly.io
In Snapchat campaigns, when you enable automation for the campaign, ad set or ad, the asset will have an extra card called "Advanced publishing rules". With it, you can select if the automation should keep or override changes outside of the feed and blueprint.
Limitations
Currently no known limitations.
Impact and actions needed
All existing automated assets have been migrated to the "keep changes" strategy. This is what most want. If you want this publishing strategy as well, then no actions are needed.
If you want to go back to the "override changes" strategy, then you can edit the blueprint, expand the "Advanced publishing rules" -card and select "Override values changed outside of feed." After publishing, the automation will revert all changes done to the assets outside of feed or automation.
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