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For as long as I’ve been running Meta ads, the deal has been a single auction where the best ad and bid win.
This month, Meta made Ads Super Burst available to all advertisers, so a brand can now book 3 to 24 hours of guaranteed reach on Facebook and Instagram at a price agreed in advance.
You probably won’t book one.
But the brands that do are changing the auction you’re still bidding in, four weeks before your biggest days of the year.
What Meta Is Selling Now
Super Burst is live and rolling out in phases.
You pick one day and a window of 3 to 24 hours across Facebook and Instagram.
The price and the rough reach are agreed before the ads run, and Meta commits to landing within 5% of its reach forecast.
Each person in that window sees the ad once.
In the US, a brand can also reserve exclusivity in its category on select big dates.
Meta is testing two more things alongside it.
First Impression Ads, which takes the first ad slot when someone opens Facebook, is in a limited US test. Treat it as a test. A test this narrow won’t move your November, but it shows where Meta is taking the format.
Aggregated View Time is a new metric that totals how long people spend with a brand over a week. It shows you which number Meta wants reservation buyers judging success by.
Meta describes the reserved day as “a peak on top of an always-on campaign.”
Keep that line in mind, because the rest of this issue builds on it.
Meta hasn’t published pricing for any of this. Reserved inventory is premium by design, and that’s as far as I’ll go on cost.
Look at your category’s calendar this week and mark the dates a bigger competitor would most want to own.
What It Does To Your Auction
My working assumption: the impressions a reservation guarantees are impressions the auction doesn’t get to sell during those hours.
I can’t measure how big that effect is from outside Meta, and nobody else can yet either. I’d still build the November plan as if it’s real.
If I’m right, some of the best placements on Black Friday and Cyber Monday get sold before your campaign bids at all.
Fewer placements left for the same crowd of bidders means higher prices inside those windows.
It fits how Meta has moved all year. Big budgets get guaranteed results, and the brands still in the auction absorb the price swings.
Pull last year’s hourly CPMs for Black Friday and Cyber Monday from the time-of-day breakdown in Ads Manager, and mark the hours that ran hottest.
That’s your baseline for spotting whether reserved windows push this year’s prices higher.
Where You Still Win
If you’re a $1M to $100M brand that won’t buy a reservation, these are the moves I’d make.
1. Keep spending steady.
Why it works: Meta calls the reserved day “a peak on top of always-on.” Read that the other way: brands still bidding have their best shot on the days around those peaks.
Do this: Keep daily spend steady through November. A brand that goes quiet until Black Friday, then launches into the most expensive hours, starts cold on the days that cost the most.
2. Spend around the peaks.
Why it works: Your early access window, and the quieter hours just before and after a big moment, are where prices are more likely to stay reasonable.
Do this: Open early access to your list before Black Friday, so part of your sales land before the reserved windows start.
3. Lean on reach you already own.
Why it works: Your email list, your SMS list and the comments under your ads reach people without you winning an auction.
Do this: Time a send for the hours when reserved brands are most likely crowding the feed.
If Super Burst fits your budget, it’s worth testing. These moves are for the brands it doesn’t fit.
Write down which of the three your account is weakest on before November starts.
Plan November Around the Lane
1. Plan November hour by hour, and assume the biggest hours will cost the most and have the least inventory. Put your own sales moments next to them.
If you expect a bigger competitor in your category to book a window, pull back during it and spend harder right after.
2. Check that your always-on campaigns are actually running. If you paused them to save budget for Black Friday, a reserved window makes that gap more expensive.
While you’re there, make sure the creative going into November isn’t the same set you ran in September.
3. Write down who you’ll reach without paying for it if paid reach gets expensive during the busiest hours. For a lot of the accounts I manage, that answer is the email list.
Meta just sold the biggest advertisers a guaranteed spot on Black Friday. The rest of us still get to choose when we show up.
If you want a growth partner aligned with your real business goals, let’s chat.
I appreciate you reading and as always if there's anything I can do to help you in anyway just respond to this email. I personally respond to every email I get.
- Kody ✌️
