Author: Tyler L. Sinclair

  • How the £2.99 Meta Subscription Actually Helps Campaign Performance

    What is the new £2.99 Meta Ad-free Subscription?

    This month, Meta released their new ad-free paid subscription for Facebook and Instagram. From just £2.99, you can doomscroll to your heart’s content without seeing a single advertisement. It’s not just a visual change either – Meta won’t even process your personal information for advertising purposes while the subscription is active. This echoes regulatory changes regarding ‘consent-by-use’ advertising, with the ICO now preferring companies to allow users to opt-out as part of a ‘consent or pay’ advertising model.

    Who is the new Meta Ad-free Subscription for?

    Realistically, it’s suited more for the privacy-aware, perhaps conspiratorial, individual. I’m sure you’ve accidentally opened a Sun article and noticed that you can either consent to cookies or pay for the privilege to not be bombarded with ads. I’m also quite sure you didn’t pay for that privilege. Most people don’t and never will. YouTube has offered this for a decade as of the 21st of October and only 1/16th of their userbase pay for YouTube Premium. No matter how annoying ads are, people that don’t pay for them probably never will.

    How does the new Meta Ad-free Subscription affect clients?

    I do not yet have data on this but here’s my educated guess: it won’t. Imagine in your head the type of person who will pay for the new Meta Ads subscription. Do you think they’re the type of person to dictate their purchasing decisions based on the ads they were shown while doomscrolling that day? Perhaps for businesses with longer sales cycles focusing on lead gen campaigns instead of conversion campaigns, there could be a small difference in the very short-term in the number of leads they get from a campaign due to the fact the audiences for those campaigns tend to have higher disposable income or may value their time more than the £2.99 it costs to get rid of the ads. However, the algorithm will adjust and will continue to serve ads to people who are likely to interact with the ad (which obviously excludes the people with this subscription since they won’t see the ad in the first place).

    How does the new Meta Ad-free Subscription affect agencies and in-house marketing teams?

    I can see CPM increasing purely because there’ll be a lower number of people that could potentially see your ad, increasing bid competition. Depending on the uptake of this subscription, that could mean a huge increase in CPM. That’s veryyy unrealistic. As said above, after 10 years only 6.25% of YouTube users have YouTube Premium and I’d argue that YouTube ads are far more interruptive than those on Facebook and Instagram. I’d be surprised to see CPMs increase noticeably at all, at least any more than they usually do over the lifetime of a campaign.

    How the new Meta Ad-free Subscription helps ad campaigns

    I mentioned in my recent article about the Andromeda update recently that, since August, performance metrics like ROAS have gotten worse for many advertisers on Meta Ads. And, sure, the algorithm tries to only show ads to people who are likely to fit the campaign goal – but it can never be perfect. With this new subscription, I’d love to see this start to reverse. Yes, bids will be more competitive and so CPM could increase. However, the people buying this subscription likely would never convert through an ad on Facebook and Instagram anyway. Conversion rate could go back up, ROAS could go up – it all depends on the uptake of this subscription and how its subscribers overlap with your audience.

    Key Takeaways

    • Uptake is likely to be low – it’s taken 10 years for YouTube Premium to have a 6% uptake. This Meta Ads subscription is a lot more affordable, but the ads are less intrusive;
    • CPM (cost per thousand views) could increase depending on the level of uptake;
    • CVR (conversion rate) could increase as the people who buy this subscription would likely not have purchased or interacted with your ad anyway;
    • ROAS will, most likely, stay the same or change very negligibly. Top of the funnel should improve since most people will this subscription would have ignored your ad completely.

    Will the new Meta Ads ad-free subscription save paid marketing? Ideally. I’d love it if everyone that wouldn’t buy from an ad on a Meta platform would pay for this subscription. It’s not like paid marketing actually needs saving, though. ROAS can still be great with the right strategy. That’s why keeping up to date with the latest changes in paid ads is insanely important.

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    Best,

    Tyler L. Sinclair

  • Meta’s Andromeda Update (November 2026)

    Meta’s Andromeda Update (November 2026)

    The Andromeda galaxy is 14,900,000,000,000,000,000 miles away from us and is heading towards our Milky Way galaxy at a rate of 246,000 miles per hour, or roughly the UK’s national speed limit on a motorway per hour, but per second. Personally, I think ‘Andromeda’ is a much cooler name than ‘Milky Way.’ but I am incredibly partial to Milky Way chocolate bars.

    As our galaxies move closer together, that speed will increase by 4x because of gravity.

    And perhaps Meta named their latest update Andromeda because it signifies how rapidly the Paid Ads landscape is about to change.

    Let me explain.

    What is the Andromeda update?

    The Andromeda update was announced in April of this year and launched in July. To say it ‘launched’ in July is slightly incorrect though because Meta Ads updates aren’t static. Meta Ads and the algorithm behind it isn’t just updated every-so-often and then left alone, rather each update is dynamic and is constantly being updated. Even when there isn’t an announced change, the algorithm is constantly updated and changing both by itself and through human intervention. Big updates like Andromeda indicate a much larger-than-normal case of human intervention. Think of it this way: a plane can be 1 degree off course on a 1500 mile journey and end up 26 miles away. If you wanted to go to Heathrow, you’ll be in London City. The destination is still the same because, either way, you’ll end up in London. That’s how modern ad and search algorithms usually update. Small changes, constantly. Updates like Andromeda are like taking the plane 100 degrees off course and travelling 4x the distance – it’s an entirely new destination.

    What’s the destination?

    AI will own your campaigns.

    Andromeda is a huge step towards Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of ads being completely controlled by AI. He wants that to happen by 2026. See this article for more info on that: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/meta-aims-fully-automate-advertising-with-ai-by-2026-wsj-reports-2025-06-02/

    From the 16th of December, Meta AI chats will change ad delivery. Personally, I don’t know anyone who uses Meta AI. Meta says more than 1 billion people use it per month. How many of these are just people accidentally tapping the Meta AI buttons under Facebook posts? I don’t know. I’d guess… quite a few. If you use Meta AI, tell me. I want to know what the use-case is and why you’d ever use it over Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, or even Copilot.

    Andromeda is Meta telling us advertisers that we don’t run the campaign. The machine does. We just feed it creative. Really it’s been like this a for while – both Google Ads and Meta Ads will step outside of the campaign parameters you set if their machine deems it suitable.

    Narrow audience targeting? That’ll disappear. For years it’s been much more of a suggestion to the algorithm than a rule. Meta’s putting a lot of trust in their AI and machine learning if they think it can know your audience better than you can.

    For some people, that’s true. If you run an e-commerce store, I would completely trust that Meta knows everything about my target audience – their eating habits, their political views, even the time they spend on the toilet.

    For small niches? Uh oh.

    Server-side tracking through Conversions API

    You’ll probably want to invest in implementing CAPI so that Meta’s AI can understand the signals and events that lead to conversions.

    Without it? You’re leaving even more of your fate up to the dice rolls of predictive AI.

    The inevitable consequence of AI, machine learning, and LLMs

    Artificial general intelligence (AGI) isn’t real. It doesn’t exist. Every AI system we have is based on predictions and probability.

    In my day job, I promote a hybrid Level 2 qualification called Retrofit Skills to contractors and tradespeople. That’s a very specific audience and no AI seems to really understand the product or the people I’m promoting it to. Not only that, because it’s a unique product and niche audience, the AI exaggerates product qualities. It has to because it has very little data to go on.

    It’s authored by one of the authors of the PAS 2035 standard, which is a standard regulating building efficiency upgrades in homes. ChatGPT for example (Claude does this too) will take this and turn it into a headline like “Your Gateway to PAS 2035 Compliance.” Nothing in the landing page signifies this and it’s entirely wrong. Meta’s Advantage+ will try to create headline and primary text variations about how this will make you a Retrofit Coordinator, which is massively incorrect as that requires a Level 3 in a related subject as well as a Level 5 diploma. But because Retrofit Skills and Retrofit Coordinator share the word ‘Retrofit’ and because of how niche the product and audience are, it tries to come up with something.

    If I don’t narrow the audience parameters, chaos happens. And I’m willing to bet this happens for a lot of small niches. That’s not even the worse part…

    If AI will take control over audience targeting, CPMs go up. As they already have. When AI takes over creative, imagine how much higher CPMs and CPCs will go because Meta’s AI gets to dictate bidding competition and delivery?

    Hopefully, that isn’t anytime soon and perhaps government organisations will step in to regulate this. The UK’s CMA and the US’ DOJ and FTC have already stepped in before to make Google Ads advertising more transparent.

    This could genuinely destroy paid advertising for small businesses with niche audiences. It also will probably greatly benefit e-commerce businesses with a high amount of repeat customers. I imagine that’s who Meta get most of their income from and it will benefit Meta hugely to have a great degree of control over their advertising.

    Key Takeaways

    • Andromeda places individual ad creative over ad set and campaign
    • Bigger emphasis on Reels
    • We’re moving towards Advantage+ being the default (and likely only) option
    • From the 16th of December, Meta Ads will rely on signals from Meta AI conversations to dictate ad delivery
    • Small businesses targeting niche audiences will likely be impacted very negatively by this
    • E-commerce stores with a good monthly spend will likely benefit from this, especially if they have a lot of repeat purchases

    Has Andromeda affected your advertising yet?

    Best,

    Tyler L. Sinclair

  • How (and why) To Add Google Tag Manager to Your Site

    How (and why) To Add Google Tag Manager to Your Site

    No matter what your marketing strategy is, GTM is always useful. Adding it to your site is the first step to a great marketing plan. Here’s how.

    What even is Google Tag Manager?

    Google Tag Manager is an analytics tool used by at least 49.1% of all websites as of the 2nd of August, 2024. There’s 200 million actively-updated websites out there, so that’s a very, very big number of sites using it. What benefit does it bring to these sites?

    Almost-unlimited user tracking that can feed directly into Google Analytics (GA4, previously known as Universal Analytics) and other analytics platforms, while having the ability to be completely cookieless. More tracking means sites can optimise better for their users, increasing conversions. The more data you have on your users, the more you know how they use your site, the more you can double-down and change elements of your site to turn more of your site visitors into consumers. With a free tool bringing this many benefits, it’s no wonder why nearly half of the internet installs Google Tag Manager to their site.

    The benefits of Google Tag Manager

    Like I’ve already said in the introduction, Google Tag Manager (also known as GTM) is an analytics tool. Well, really, it’s a data-gathering tool. The most common analytics tool used with GTM is Google Analytics, also known as GA4. However, you can use any analytics platform to conveniently display the data collected by Google Tag Manager. This includes CRMs like HubSpot and Salesforce, as well as practically any other analytics platform. It’s so widely used that for an analytics platform to survive in today’s world, it needs to have the ability to support GTM. That also shows just how important GTM is to businesses all over the world.

    Google Tag Manager is easy to add to your site and even easier to connect to Google Analytics. There’s a caveat to that which is becoming more important, which I’ll get onto later.

    What data can Google Tag Manager collect?

    It can track anything from how a site visitor scrolls on a page, link clicks, and it can even track when a site visitor hovers their cursor over an element of the page.

    Essentially, Google Tag Manager collects as much data from users of your website as you want. It’s extremely customisable in how you can apply it to your site, meaning it’s built to fit your use-case regardless of what it is. GTM does all of this whilst giving you the option to disable cookies, which is increasingly important in this privacy-focused world.

    Google itself actually contemplated going entirely cookieless with its browser Google Chrome as they know people are becoming more conscious about online tracking. What this means for your visitors is that all the information tracked by Google Tag Manager can be anonymised and totally unspecific to them. What it means for you is that it becomes much easier to remain GDPR and ICO compliant when the data you collect isn’t ‘personal.’

    Tracking your site visitors is incredibly valuable. It allows you to understand exactly what drives conversions and what doesn’t. This means that you can optimise your site and tailor it specifically towards your visitors, making it not only an easier experience for them to become a consumer but a much more effective way for you to get the most out of your website.

    The caveat: Google Tag Manager Server-side Implementation

    The best installation of Google Tag Manger is server-side implementation. It allows for data to never enter Google’s servers and for you to forego the dreaded cookie banner otherwise needed to track site visitors. It can prevent GDPR fines from the ICO and can even speed up your site compared to a normal installation of GTM, increasing SEO.

    Here’s the caveat.

    1. It can be expensive to set up if you’re getting an agency to do it completely for you, and many business owners and marketers find it too difficult to implement themselves (although the documentation for it should be easily enough to follow)..
    2. It will be an ongoing monthly cost with utterly no trackable ROI.

    That second point is where someone like me who has worked as an in-house marketer struggles, and where business owners might recoil in a combination of fear and disgust. A relatively high upfront cost for something that isn’t visible or tangible, and then a monthly spend on-top of that, all seemingly without increasing revenue?

    The fact is, successful companies pay for server-side GTM implementation because it works. It does increase revenue. It does make CRO easier and it does make ad conversion tracking more accurate.

    The caveat to the caveat

    Sinclair Pioneers will work with you to set it up server-side if you have the monthly budget for the server costs, without charging a set-up fee. We want the success and results we create for you to be measured as accurately as possible, while making your ad-spend more efficient so it works harder for you. That way,we can work together for longer.

    Don’t have the budget for server-side? You’ll still benefit greatly from a free installation of Google Ads.

    Book a free consult and talk with me here

    See my previous article on why marketing doesn’t have to be manipulation here.

  • Marketing doesn’t have to be manipulation

    Marketing isn’t the art of how to manipulate your audience. It’s the art of understanding how to help your audience in the best way possible.

    People in an office gathering around a table, potentially discussing the topic of Marketing vs Manipulation

    Defining Marketing vs Manipulation

    To marketers and advertisers, the differences between marketing and manipulation are clear — one is good, and the other is bad. To our audiences, predatory marketing has made any attempt at marketing come across as manipulative or even ‘scammy.’ We’ve all seen ads recently that basically just lie just to increase conversions. So, to clear up the differences, here are their definitions:

    Marketing

    Marketing is the promotion of products or services.

    Manipulation

    Manipulation is the skilful and intentional use of tactics to influence someone’s decisions to further one’s interests.

    Okay. Sounds the same, right? After all, you have to influence and maybe even change people’s decisions to get them to buy products or services.

    That’s a conclusion that makes sense after reading those definitions. It’s also wrong. Let me explain. Let’s go back to basics.

    Promoting Products and Services

    You don’t need to influence anything at all for someone to buy products or services. It doesn’t matter where they are in the funnel, either.

    Ask yourself a question: why do products and services exist?

    Products and services exist to fulfil a need. They exist to help someone do something. Therefore, they have a target audience who has something they need help with.

    I could end this article here. Promoting products and services to an audience that would benefit from them clearly isn’t manipulation because you aren’t influencing anything, just informing them that 1) they have a problem and 2) you can help them with that problem. An optimistic person might even go so far as to say that ads are barely marketing at all and are actually just an extension of the product and/or service.

    There’s a clear choice that must be made there, though. If you have to inform your audience they have a problem, do you be 100% honest about it or do you exaggerate? Do they even actually have a problem if they have to be convinced of its existence?

    That’s where the lines between marketing and manipulation blur.

    Building Trust instead of Exploiting Fear

    To me, the difference between marketing and manipulation isn’t in their definitions. It’s in what their methods should consist of. Because, sure, you can definitely use manipulation in marketing. It’s effective and it works very well, at least in the short-term.

    Marketing and advertising should be all about building trust. Building trust is a lengthy process but one that yields compounding results. It’s what drives word-of-mouth referrals, good brand loyalty, and high LTVs.

    Compare that to manipulation. There are two ways to manipulate someone: exploit their fears or exploit their desires. There is no better way to manipulate someone than by exploiting their fear. The fear of the loss of something they have is much more tangible than the desire to obtain or attain something that they don’t have. That’s not always bad — from 2009 in the UK, manipulation was legally required to be used on cigarette packets to dissuade people from smoking. It worked. This form of print marketing resulted in younger generations largely avoiding cigarettes altogether. However, you are not a governmental body, and you’re probably marketing to get someone to buy a product or service, not stop something they’re already doing.

    Even then, if the government kept trying to exploit fear to dissuade people from continuing their habits, there’d be a massive loss in trust and believability and a growing amount of people would no longer care.

    By building trust by being honest and actively trying to help your target audience, you’ll develop a long-lasting relationship with your customers and clients that makes them want to buy from you again. Repeat purchases are always the cheapest sales with the highest ROI, and so optimising for anything else is usually terrible for business.

    To Summarise: Transparency is the Key to Honest Marketing

    Manipulation is distinct from marketing because it lacks honesty. It’s deceitful by nature.

    What does that mean for your business?

    Failure, to put it bluntly.

    So be honest. Be helpful. Be transparent.

    In today’s digital age where information — and therefore reviews — are easily found, trying to lie and act in bad faith doesn’t work. Aim to help people, be transparent when you make a mistake (which will just make you more relatable to your audience and make your brand seem more down-to-earth), and your results will compound.

    If you’d like to keep up to date with my articles have some more free marketing insights delivered straight to your inbox, sign up to my newsletter — it’ll only take a second:

    Tyler L. Sinclair