It’s a little late in the year for significant system shifts, but Meta has snuck in one more update ahead of the holiday break, with the announcement that it’s making some big changes to its ad objective listings in Ads Manager, in order to simplify and streamline the campaign set-up process by enhancing the focus on the most practically relevant options and tools.

The main difference, as you’ll note, is the reduction in objective options from 11 to 6, and a move away from the ‘Awareness’, ‘Consideration’ ‘Conversion’ banners, in order to make it clearer what each objective stream actually is, and how they can be used in your promotions.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, seven out of 10 marketers (70%) are now more likely to use creators in brand campaigns, while a similar figure (69%) agree that influencer marketing budgets represent a larger proportion of their overall marketing budget.

This is according to research from the global influencer marketing agency, TAKUMI. The firm recently published its annual industry trends analysis, ‘Influencer marketing in the pandemic era’, comparing the viewpoints of more than 3,000 brands, influencers, and consumers across the UK and US.

The research also revealed that influencer marketing is the only marketing channel to increase effectiveness since the start of the pandemic. Nearly half (46%) of consumers have been influenced to buy a product or service by a creator in the last 12-months – rising from 34% in 2019.