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Today, we released the first-ever, triple-layered feature designed to augment the media buying experience through automation: The Rules Engine.
This new feature creates automated rules and strategies to help our users save time, save money, and grow profitably. As a fully-integrated product in the tech stack, Triple Whale is uniquely capable of creating custom rules that pull from three (!) layers of data sources:
✅Triple Pixel first-party data ✅
🤝Blended data from your integrated data sources 🤝
📊Meta data straight from Facebook Ads 📊
This is big and new, but we spell it all out for you below. Hang in there.
At its core, Triple Whale exists to democratize access to advanced technologies. That started with the Pixel, which brought more accurate, actionable attribution data to ecommerce operators and marketers in the wake of iOS 14.5.
The Rules Engine allows our customers to use first-party data (aggregated by the Pixel), Meta data, and blended data to create rules that push changes to Facebook… without ever leaving Triple Whale. Whether they choose to leverage automated rules created by growth marketing experts or build their own, they’ll be able to manage and optimize Facebook Ads in their sleep.
The result? Less time spent pausing ads and tweaking budgets, which means more brain power for brand building.
Let’s dive in.
The rote aspects of campaign management take forever. This isn’t a secret.
Pausing and activating and increasing and decreasing. It’s boring (especially if you know exactly what you’re doing).
One of my favorite people at Triple Whale, Logan Brown, told me that when he worked as a media buyer (pre-🐳), he used to keep a notepad next to his computer. Every day, he’d run through a checklist of “rules'' that he’d designed, all aimed at hitting the ROAS targets established by his CEO. Getting in the weeds like that demands incredible attention to detail, but it also saps valuable hours from your workweek at the expense of higher-order (objectively more engaging) activities.
Through prebuilt strategies and custom rules, the Rules Engine gives you that time back every day.
If you’re a brand owner, that might mean, you know, more time spent actually running your business. If you’re a media buyer, you could turn those precious hours into more granular audiences or better optimized creatives.
The Triple Whale Rules Engine empowers you to use your first-party data aggregated through the Triple Pixel, Meta data from Facebook Ads, and blended data from your integrated data sources to build rules that:
… based on a configuration or conditions, values, and schedules of your choosing.
Not bad for our first foray into improving the media buying experience, eh?
But wait, it gets better.
While Facebook automated rules only let you build automation on absolute values, the Rules Engine allows you to leverage unique, dynamic values (calculated metrics) in addition to absolute values. For example, we let you build rules based on:
And more.
Revenue’s pretty cool. Profitability’s better.
When you’re limited to working hours, you’re constrained by a human’s ability to sit in a chair, eyes glued to a Macbook, and make changes. By the time you notice an ad is tanking, you’ve already lost money, because you’re stuck leaning on lagging indicators.
With customized scheduling (down to 15 minute increments), the Rules Engine lets you double down when things are good AND pull the e-brake when things go south, optimizing for increased ROAS (even when you’re catching 💤s).
Before you start using rules, it’d probably be helpful to understand what they are.
A rule is a set of conditions and facts that run on a defined schedule and trigger specific actions.
Confused? Let’s take a look at the pre-built templates available at launch
Every day at midnight, Triple Whale checks a campaign's performance over the last 72 hours, focusing on two key indicators:
If this campaign is dragging your average ROAS down, we’ll reduce the budget by 20% to SAVE YOU MONEY.
This is incredibly important if you set campaign-level budgets, since it will automatically reduce those budgets when a campaign underperforms. After the budget’s been reduced, you can drill down into the why and make changes without wasting additional capital.
Every day at midnight, Triple Whale checks a campaign's performance over the last 72 hours, focusing on two key indicators:
If this campaign is improving your average ROAS, we’ll increase the budget by 20%.
Why does this matter?
Because you have to press your advantages.
Investing in winners, especially at the campaign level, can have a huge impact on account efficiency. If a campaign is operating above your 7-day average ROAS, let’s invest more marketing dollars there in hopes of higher returns.
Similar to the Campaign Stop Loss rule, every day, Triple Whale will check the performance of a designated adset over the last 72 hours, focusing on the following:
If this adset is dragging down your average ROAS, we’ll reduce the budget by 20%, automatically saving you money that can be better spent elsewhere.
Every day, Triple Whale will check the performance of a designated adset over the last 72 hours, focusing on the following:
If the adset is improving your average ROAS, we’ll increase the budget by 20% to MAKE YOU MORE MONEY
Every day, Triple Whale will check your ad’s performance over the last 72 hours.
We check for two metrics specifically:
If the ad is dragging down your average ROAS, we’ll turn it off so that Facebook can reallocate your campaign or adset budget.
This is particularly important if you’re constantly testing new creatives. By setting a rule to automatically pause poor performers, you can eliminate countless wasted hours pouring over creative-level performance.
Last but not least, the “leaky bucket.”
Every day, Triple Whale will check your ad’s performance over the last 30 days.
We check for two metrics specifically:
Why?
We’re looking for ads that are slowly draining dollars from your marketing budget without delivering any returns. When we find ‘em, we pause ‘em.
This is particularly useful if you’re running 5+ ads per adset. While testing is great out of the gate, Facebook is more than willing to keep pushing dollars behind duds; don’t give them the satisfaction.
The Triple Whale Strategy is a subset of automated rules, designed by expert marketers to make it easy for our customers to start making money more efficiently in one click.
The strategy is a collection of the templates outlined above, working in harmony.
The campaign and adset stop loss and scaler templates balance one another; whenever a campaign or adset starts to perform above or below the baseline, the rule kicks in, automatically hedging or pressing your advantage.
At the ad level, the strategy exists to automatically eliminate poor performers.
The sinking ship rule cuts poor performers quickly, whereas the leaky bucket rule is like your own personal auditor, digging into the data to ensure specific ads aren’t draining your bank account.
Eventually, you’ll be able to build (and share) your own unique strategies; until then, take ours for a spin.
While the templates are pure, unadulterated heat, building your own rules allows you to optimize for success on your terms.
To create your own rules, simply head to the Pixel Ads page in your Triple Whale account and click the Rules Engine button (not on the ecommOS yet? Talk to one of my friends ☎️ to get access to the Rules Engine). This’ll open the rules menu:
Next, click “+Create new rule” (unless you’re duplicating an existing rule or template):
First, you’re going to want to name your rule (I’d recommend saving the description until you’re ready to hit save, that way you can capture the entire scope of your rule). You’re also going to assign a level (campaign, adset, or ad) and a schedule (every 15 minutes, every 30 minutes, every hour, every 12 hours, once per day).
Now we get to the fun part: Defining what your rule is going to do.
You can choose from more than a dozen metrics (sourced directly from Facebook or the Pixel) and dial them in as granular as “last 24 hours” or as broad as “last 90 days.”
You can also choose between absolute values or enable formula mode, which’ll let you leverage multipliers.
Finally, assign an action…
And you’re ready to push this thing live 🥂
Want to make sure your rules are firing? Just check your audit log.
Interested in learning more about building your own rules using the Rules Engine? Check out our Knowledge Base.
During our company all-hands this week, after the multiplying mosaic of muted Zoom thumbnails attempted to understand a waterfall chart (we have fun here), AJ talked about the difference between augmented intelligence and artificial intelligence.
Augmented intelligence is designed to enhance human intelligence. Rather than being programmed to perform specific tasks, augmented intelligence systems are designed to learn and adapt to new situations, and to work alongside human beings to help them make better decisions. Think the lane assist function in your car or Siri on your iPhone.
On the other hand, artificial intelligence is a much broader term that encompasses a wide range of technologies capable of performing tasks that require human-like intelligence. Like Tesla’s autopilot and full-self-driving (FSD) functionality. Or a Terminator. Thanks, chatGPT!
So, what?
Triple Whale just took the first step toward enhancing media buying through an augmented advertising solution 🥳
Over the next month, in addition to more updates to the Rules Engine, we’ll be launching a slew of solutions designed to further augment the media buying experience.
As you start testing templates and building rules of your own, remember three things:
Good luck 🤖
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