GoKawiilThis story appears in the July 2026 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Do you run ads on Meta? Have the results been unpredictable lately? There’s a good reason for that.
Late last year, Meta added an update called Andromeda. It’s a major shift in how ads are delivered. In the past, Meta ads were all about targeting: You refined the audience you wanted to serve, and then hit them with ads. But in Meta’s new system, targeting is automated — and Meta is now watching closely for performance. If your ad doesn’t immediately resonate with people, it’ll get filtered out. As a result, brands need to produce a lot more creative. You’ll win by constantly testing new ideas and comparing them. And these ads must look and feel very different from each other — because if Meta thinks they’re too similar, it won’t test them individually.
What does that look like, and what can you learn from these tests? We put together this case study.
Nove8 makes consumer-facing apps, and relies heavily on digital advertising. “Ninety-five percent of our success is performance marketing,” says cofounder Natalia Shahmetova. It has helped grow the company to $35 million in annual revenue. “We’ve run thousands of tests with different creative, and thanks to Meta algorithms, we know whether the ad is good or not within the first hour of a campaign.”
Shahmetova shared with us the results of some of those tests from Nove8’s dog-training app Woofz and fashion app Stylio. Then we asked the performance marketing agency Pilothouse Digital (which was not involved in making the ads, and could look at them with fresh eyes) to weigh in on why the winners succeeded. By understanding what worked for Nove8, you can improve your ads too.
(click on images to enlarge)
The first ad shared potty training tips. The second ad spoke more personally to dog owners. “Instead of focusing on the pet’s behaviors with complex guides, we focused on the owner’s emotions, reassuring them that the tough moments are normal and easily overcome,” says Nove8.
The result: The second ad drove a 400% increase in click-through rate (CTR).
WHY IT WORKED: Pilothouse says: The weaker ad makes puppy ownership feel like a lot of work, with overwhelming details (take the puppy out every two to three hours, add a play session, etc.). The winning ad immediately reframes the chaos as containable: “Potty train in 3 days.”
... continue reading