Stop with the Andromeda workarounds
🫠The fastest-growing accounts are changing economics not audiences, and more!
Hello! You've arrived at What Actually Works 🤓
We break down the real strategies, decisions, and plays that actually move the needle in your marketing, and here it for today.
Together with Insense
Meta Just Broke Your Look-Alike Ads. Here's the Fix.
Meta’s new Andromeda update is silently killing look-alike ads before they even enter the auction. If your creatives share too many visual cues, your ads collapse overnight.
With Insense, each collab gives you a full bank of raw footage you can mix, match, and turn into multiple scroll-stopping ads. One creator can fuel an entire round of testing without draining your team’s bandwidth.
- 20+ raw assets per creator you can spin into countless variations.
- Fast 14-day turnaround so you stay ahead
- Lifetime usage rights, so every winning asset keeps paying off.
Over 3500+ brands and agencies are already scaling 3× faster with 40% lower fatigue rates using Insense’s modular system.
Cost-effective UGC with lifetime usage rights? Yes please!!
Book your free strategy call and claim $200 toward your first creator collab!
🫠 Stop with the Andromeda workarounds
Every fix you've seen for Andromeda spending prospecting budget on existing customers adds structure the algorithm has to work around: exclusion lists, the Customer Lifecycle Strategy setting, separate retargeting campaigns.
Each one fragments the signal pool Andromeda needs to learn efficiently. The accounts recovering fastest in 2026 are not controlling who the algorithm reaches. They are controlling what they are willing to pay for each type of person it finds.
1. Run the Labeling Step That Unlocks the Feature
Value Rules for audiences have been live since April 2026 and sit unused in most accounts because the Engaged Audiences and Customers cohorts open grayed out by default. The unlock happens before you touch Ads Manager: go into Audience Settings, find the custom audiences you want to control, and apply Meta's predefined labels to each one.
Tag your existing customer CSV as "existing customers" and apply the same label to the matching pixel purchase event. Both then populate together under the Customers cohort in the Value Rules panel. Without this step, the feature does not function.
2. Set the Backstop Before Any Other Adjustment
With audiences labeled, the first move is the backstop: apply a minus-90% bid modifier to the existing customer cohort. Even with exclusions running, existing customers leak into prospecting delivery because Andromeda rebuilds its audience pool continuously.
The backstop does not just protect budget from leakage. It sends the algorithm a precise economic signal about the value hierarchy in your account. Configure it once, and it runs as permanent infrastructure.
3. Replace Exclusions With Full Cohort Pricing in One CBO
The advanced move removes exclusions entirely and replaces them with economics. Switch Customer Lifecycle Strategy to All Audiences and price each cohort through Value Rules: full bid for new customers, roughly 30% discount for engaged in-funnel audiences, the floor bid for existing customers, and a separate number for reactivation.
Pull current CPA and CPC by segment to set baselines, then adjust in 30 to 50% increments every three to seven days.
A single consolidated campaign leaves the signal pool intact. Andromeda gets the broad delivery it needs to learn, and you hold a pricing map over every type of customer it finds inside it.
🎄 Meta Says Christmas Success Starts Now
Meta and Reddit have released new research aimed at helping marketers prepare for the holiday season. The updates highlight how social platforms influence both shopping decisions and entertainment discovery.
The Breakdown:
Build Before Q4 - Meta says holiday success starts months before Christmas. Its roadmap recommends building creator partnerships in Q2, optimizing campaigns in Q3, and scaling proven strategies during Q4.
Reels Drive Discovery - Meta's playbook focuses on Reels, creators, and seamless shopping experiences. The company says 85% of holiday shoppers use its apps weekly, while 78% have purchased directly in-app.
Reddit Delivers Returns - A TransUnion study found Reddit campaigns generated an average $6.85 ROAS for entertainment advertisers. The platform also created a halo effect that boosted performance across other channels.
Trust Beats Algorithms - Reddit says 82% of users trust human recommendations over AI summaries when choosing content. Ads also drove an 18% tune-in lift and increased viewing time by 15%.
The strongest holiday campaigns are built before the holiday rush begins. Meta is pushing brands toward earlier planning, while Reddit's data shows authentic community conversations can influence decisions both on and off the platform.
Together with Alison
Your Ad Looks Ready, But Is It Actually Built to Win?
Attention and budget mean nothing if your creative is structurally broken before it ever launches, so why pay to test bad ads?
Alison.ai Preflight Plus runs an instant CreativeAI Audit, validating your video against Google's ABCD, Meta, TikTok, and LinkedIn frameworks, so you know if it's flight-ready before you spend a dollar.
Here's how it works:
✅ Upload your video creative
✅ Alison scores it against industry frameworks in 30 seconds
✅ Get an Adherence Score + specific AI fixes like "Enlarge logo" or "Speed up the hook"
The result? You kill weak assets early and spend media budget only on real contenders.
Brands using Alison are seeing results like +106% ThruPlays (Ferrara), +330% first-time purchases (Tango), and +101% ROI (Sciplay).
Want your next launch ready for take-off?
Run your free CreativeAI Audit now - no credit card.
🐥 Tweet Worth Saving
Thanks for being part of the WAW team 💃 We’d love to know if this was helpful so we can continue playing it smart with the right strategies.