Category: Facebook

Making Sense of the Changes to Ads Performance Tracking and What it Means for Your Online Ads

What is the Facebook Conversion API?

Facebook’s Conversions API is a tool that allows advertisers to integrate campaign performance data with Facebook Ads campaigns. Conversions API uses a pixel-less tracking and attribution method to share web and offline events with the Facebook Ads account, which is then used to optimize campaign performance. It helps optimize campaigns without the use of cookies and aims to prepare advertisers for minimal impact when the web eventually shifts to additional privacy features like those included in the GDPR.

In the case of the Facebook offline conversions API (formerly the Server-Side API), it allows advertisers to send offline events from a separate server directly to Facebook and track users across multiple devices without having to rely on cookies or pixels.

That’s not to say that the Facebook Pixel will be completely phased out. According to Facebook, the Facebook Ads account is capable of integrating traditional performance tracking data from the Pixel with the Conversions API data. When used in conjunction, it improves the overall accuracy of information used in ads targeting, measurement and optimization.

What are third party cookies?

When a visitor interacts with a website, and it shares user data with other websites, that is using a third party cookie.

Changes in GDPR, Apple’s iOS privacy features, and other potential future updates to the Internet are trending away from using third-party cookies.

The Facebook Ads platform traditionally leveraged third party cookies to optimize its audience targeting features. Without the use of third-party cookies, the platform’s machine learning AI will not have access to the user data that it did in the past to help it optimize the advertising experience.

The Conversions API Solves for Cookie Depreciation

Old conversion tracking models for Facebook relied on Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers, also called the IDFA. IDFA is a random device identifier assigned by Apple to a user’s device. So advertisers were able to use IDFAs to track user behavior from the top to the bottom of the sales funnel. 

However, in a cookieless world, IDFAs are being phased out.

Without the ability to track users by device IDs, online advertisers will have to find alternatives to sales tracking and attribution.

In a way, Facebook’s Conversions API reverse engineers conversion tracking from the bottom to the top of the sales funnel. Once a user is on a site, certain behaviors can be tracked and attributed back to the original traffic source. For example, submitting a contact form, adding payment information on the checkout page, or even making a purchase provides the bottom-of-the-funnel event that can be shared with the Conversions API and provide more accurate attribution in the future.

Once the Conversions API is integrated, it’s an excellent workaround to the loss of third party cookie data.

Should I be worried?

Mildly! 

The recent changes to the Facebook ads platform will have the biggest impact on your Facebook Ads campaigns if they are using the same settings from 2020, audience targeting iOS devices, or relying solely on the Facebook Pixel for conversion attribution.

Assuming that you have taken steps to alleviate these issues, you’ll be nicely positioned to return to the old conversion rates that you may have once enjoyed.

Is there any upkeep required if Facebook changes the API?

Like all things in the online advertising world, some regular maintenance is to be expected. However, Facebook has been making moves to ease the transition as much as possible. 

The Conversions API auto-updates any remarketing and lookalike audiences that you may be using in the Facebook Ads platform. Conversion tracking data is more complete than using just the Facebook Pixel, as well.

Because of the current trend towards a cookieless future, Conversions API utilizes a more anonymized data stream, so it’s less likely to get shut down as the Internet enacts more privacy features for users.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our customer acquisition services at 565 Media? Have questions about Facebook Ads marketing or digital strategy in general? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

In June 2020, Apple unveiled a plan for its upcoming iOS 14 update that includes new privacy features that have online advertisers on edge. Soon, users will need to opt-in to allow apps to collect and share the data associated with that Apple device. While that may seem like a positive step towards privacy for users for a cookieless future, the tradeoff spells potential short-term difficulties for advertisers on the Facebook Ads platform.

Facebook responded with a series of full page newspaper ads attacking the new features, claiming that the new privacy policies would be “devastating to small businesses.” Apple hit back, accusing Facebook of a “disregard for user privacy.” The public spat between companies is likely to continue in the future. But what does this all mean for advertisers?

This article will hopefully shed some light on the various changes coming to the Facebook Ads platform. Many features and settings are still subject to change, but we’ll make steps towards demystifying the new policies, what they mean, and what changes we recommend you make for your Facebook Ads campaigns in the future in order to mitigate the biggest issues and capitalize on new opportunities.

What privacy changes are included in iOS 14?

Apple’s Nutrition Labels

Back in December 2020, Apple debuted the privacy “nutrition label” for programs downloaded from the iOS App Store or Mac App Store. Similarly to the information listed on food and drink packaging, the nutrition label lists the types of information that the app collects, such as the user’s contact info, location, purchases, browsing history, and more. 

[Include a photo of a typical nutrition label] 

Apple’s ATT Prompt

As of 2021, apps on iOS 14 devices will be subject to the AppTrackingTransparency Framework (ATT). Users on these devices will see a new message, called the ATT Prompt, when they launch a new app, asking them if they would like to allow that app to use their personal data. Without accepting this opt-in, apps will be prohibited from certain data collection and sharing settings that were commonplace in years past. Similar to the GDPR requirements for websites that require users to accept cookies before they can be implemented, apps will soon need to do the same.

[Include a photo of a typical opt-in prompt] 

The Private Click Measurement Protocol

In response, Apple has announced plans to introduce a new protocol for web attribution and measurement called Private Click Measurement (PCM). This new protocol restricts the kinds of data that can be shared across platforms, which means that advertisers will have more difficulty tracking and targeting users across different domains or devices.

According to Statista.com, 79.9% of Facebook users only use the application on their mobile devices. It is assumed that most users, when given the choice, will not allow data tracking on their own devices. This means that a high percentage of Facebook users could soon potentially be removed from Facebook’s user data pool, which is incorporated into various advertising features on the Facebook Ads platform.

How do the iOS 14 privacy changes affect Facebook advertisers?

Lower Match Rates on Audience Network Targeting

The Facebook Audience Network, similar to the Google Display Network, is an option for advertisers to place their ads on third party apps and websites to target users who are not browsing Facebook or Instagram. Facebook released a statement saying, “We expect these changes will disproportionately affect Audience Network given its heavy dependence on app advertising.”

What this means for advertisers is that the user data that helps optimize the targeting for users on the Audience Network may soon be negatively affected and, with it, conversion rates of their marketing efforts.

It should be noted that the Facebook Audience Network only adds about 16% additional potential reach for advertisers. So if your campaigns are targeting other placements, this will have a minor impact, but should still be considered when creating new campaigns. In addition, Facebook announced on March 11, 2020 that its Audience Network will only be for in-app advertising, effectively limiting any potential waste for advertisers that are placing ads on Facebook or Instagram.

Changes to Audience Targeting

Without user data for iOS devices, the Facebook Ads platform will have a more difficult time identifying which users match its advanced targeting settings. According to Apple’s announcement, apps will be limited in their ability to collect the following types of user information:

• Device location
• Email lists from data brokers
• Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) for users across different devices
• Combined user data from third-party SDKs across different apps
• Other user data collected from third-party apps or websites.

These user data points are traditionally used to help identify users with the highest potential for conversions. Without these features, expect remarketing efforts especially to become less effective, and costs per conversion to rise over time.

Limits to Facebook Pixel

For advertisers that use the Facebook Pixel on their business’ website, the new privacy changes in iOS may cause issues that will impact measurement and tracking in the future. In response, Facebook is setting a maximum limit of 8 conversion events per domain. For larger businesses especially, this will require advertisers to triage their business goals to choose only the most important conversions. 

Limits to Ad Campaigns

In addition, Facebook Ads will limit new ads to set only one of those eight conversions as the designated goal for that ad. If advertisers were running ads in the past that targeted conversions that have been removed from the Facebook Pixel, those ad sets will be turned off. 

Campaigns that target iOS apps will only be allowed to use five campaigns, each with the same lead goal. Facebook plans on limiting advertisers in the number of campaigns that they can run in the future.

Reporting Limitations

According to Facebook, Apple’s new privacy policies will limit businesses’ ability to track and measure their ads for iOS 14 users. Expect real-time reporting to be replaced with 3-day-delay reporting, especially for campaigns aimed at iOS 14 app install campaigns. 

Facebook is getting rid of the 28-day click window and going down to 7-day click window and 1-day view moving forward. At that point, Facebook announced that this attribution window in reporting will be deprecated, and any ad sets with this optimization window as well. 

In addition, Facebook will begin phasing out breakdown reporting. For both app and web conversions, different delivery breakdowns such as by age, gender, location, and placement will no longer be supported.

And finally, expect some changes to attribution reporting. Once the new iOS 14 privacy settings take place, attribution settings will need to be added at the ad set level, rather than at the account level. For any existing campaigns, you may already have seen the conversion reporting for campaigns at the account level disappear or display zero conversions. You’ll need to dive down to the ad set level to view the accurate conversion data from now on.

Recommendations for Facebook Ads

Change Your Attribution Modeling

The changes that Facebook Ads has made to the attribution models is likely to cause some issues with existing campaigns. We recommend advertisers relaunch all of their existing campaigns with a 7-day Click, 1-day View attribution window.

Lookalike Audiences

The new privacy settings will have an unknown impact on advanced audience targeted features, meaning that lookalikes will need to be re-benchmarked and assessed. The match rate for most lookalike audiences will likely be impacted on the iOS side. We recommend advertisers retest LALs, and test a wider range of audiences to redetermine controls. 

Exceptions for iOS Users

At the end of the day, the changes to the Facebook Ads platform is because of Apple’s iOS 14 privacy features. While Facebook and Apple continue their public spat, disrupter entrepreneurs, small business owners, and consumers are likely to be the ones to suffer. If you start to see any negative impacts on your costs per acquisition or return on ad spend, consider relaunching your campaigns with exclusions for Apple devices. 

Talk to the 565 Media Acquisition Team

With all of the changes coming to Apple devices and Facebook Ads, it can be a little daunting to know where to start. Luckily, where there are big changes there are also opportunities. Our expert team of PPC specialists at 565 Media are experienced, positioned and ready to guide our clients through the issues. 

If you are experiencing any impacts from the iOS privacy changes or Facebook Ads platform adjustments, we’re ready to help solve these challenges and scale up your advertising efforts. Feel free to contact us for a free consultation.

Additional Changes in the Future

The iOS privacy features are not the only things causing disruption in the Facebook Ads platform in 2021. With an eye on long term planning for a cookieless future, Facebook announced that they are planning on rolling out the Conversion API, a tool that aims to complement the Facebook Pixel for web in late 2021. This change should not be confused with the current changes due to the new iOS 14 privacy settings.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our Facebook ads services at 565 Media? Feel free to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.

Advertising on Facebook has the potential to finely target extremely profitable audience segments with messages specific to what stage of the sales funnel they are in. 

But once a campaign is set up and generates high conversion rates and return on ad spend (ROAS), it’s not a sure thing that those success rates will scale when you increase your budget. 

When it comes to scaling Facebook Ads campaigns, taking the next step requires advanced structuring, optimization, and targeting in order to take the next step.

This article will outline some of the most powerful strategies and tips for making sure that when you increase your spending, your conversion rates stay steady, and your campaigns successfully scale with it.

Strategy 1: Account Simplification

There’s an old adage that comes to mind. KISS: Keep it simple, stupid. The same concept goes for Facebook Ads campaigns. If you are running too many campaigns with multiple ad sets each, campaign management can snowball out of control when scaling it up.

When it comes to scaling your campaigns, the hardest work is done up front and involves making sure that your account is simplified and optimized before increasing your daily spending.

With the proper account structure, Facebook’s machine learning algorithm is capable of optimizing your campaigns for you. There’s no need to manually adjust your bidding or placements once the audience targeting and basic campaign settings are in place.

If you’re stuck and don’t know where to start, consider reducing your campaigns to the essentials based on sales funnel positioning:

• A top-level campaign for generating new leads and reaching users for the first time. This may include lookalike audiences and shared interests that are proven to convert in your high conversion campaigns.
• A mid-level campaign for reaching returning users. This typically includes broad remarketing audiences and directs users to entry-level conversion landing pages, like encouraging users to sign up for a newsletter or browse category pages for products.
• A bottom-level campaign for capturing lost conversions. This usually involves dynamically generated ads that remarket a specific product to a user that has abandoned their shopping cart, or promoting a special discount to help finalize a sale.

In addition, some ecommerce websites may opt for a fourth type of campaign to target users that have already converted. This is typically to help transition past customers into repeat customers (a hugely important transition), and could involve special offers or advanced notice of upcoming events.

Splitting your account into campaigns that target specific points in the sales funnel creates a larger sample size for Facebook’s optimization algorithms. And with a larger sample size of performance data, your campaigns will have an easier time maintaining their high conversion rates at a higher daily budget.

Voila! A simplified campaign helps convert more in the long run.

Strategy 2: Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO)

A common problem that we’ve seen in the past are Facebook Ads accounts that are set to a manual daily budget for each ad set within each campaign. 

Perhaps your current campaigns are set up with $50/day for remarketing audiences, $10/day for Lookalike Audience A, and $15/day for Lookalike Audience B. While this is useful for many small businesses that may be working on a limited budget, when it comes to larger campaigns, those settings do not scale in predictable ways.

Facebook now allows for Campaign Budget Optimization, or CBO budgeting, which dynamically adjusts the daily spending towards ad sets that tend to convert more. 

Now, you only need to set a single daily budget for the entire campaign, and Facebook’s machine learning algorithm will adjust the spending for each ad set to optimize for CPAs.

At the end of each month, you’ll not only be able to clearly see which ad sets outperformed the others, but you’ll have been running them optimized the whole time!

Strategy 3: Automatic Placements

One of the most common questions we get from businesses advertising on Facebook involves the option for manual or automatic placements. 

Manual placements allow advertisers to limit where their ads appear, and can be a particularly attractive choice for marketers that “know” that Facebook’s right-column ads or Instagram’s Stories don’t convert at the same rate as other placements. And to the untrained eye, automatic placements may seem like a big potential waste of money.

However, this is one situation where we’ll need to trust in Facebook’s learning algorithms.

The automatic placements setting allows advertisers to target audiences across multiple platforms and optimize conversion values depending on how the user interacts with the ad, not necessarily by which platform they are using.

It’s a good way to identify user activity that you may not have realized before. Maybe users tend to concentrate browsing on the Facebook Marketplace or Instagram Stories. Using automatic placements, you’ll be able to reach these users with your campaign, and then use the performance data that you collect to identify new opportunities for you campaigns in the future.

In addition, Facebook features an option called placement asset customization. This allows advertisers to customize how each ad looks visually in each type of placement. That way, if the image that your ad creative relies on doesn’t translate well on portrait or landscape views, you can manually crop it to appear differently in the Facebook Newsfeed, the right-hand column, Stories, etc.

Strategy 4: Auto Advanced Matching

For slightly Orwellian user behavior tracking, look no further than Facebook’s Automatic Advanced Matching technology.

Auto Advanced Matching uses the Facebook Pixel already installed on your website to detect cached customer data from certain text fields, such as names and email addresses, and automatically associates it with corresponding events such as registration form signups, whitepaper downloads, and more.

This allows advertisers to more accurately identify similar users, and helps the pixel learn exactly who and how people convert on your website.

What this means for your campaigns are two-fold:

1. Helps expand your audience list size

With more user data, your campaigns can better target a larger audience size, leading to more sales leads without a huge drop off in CPA.

2. Helps increase the number of attributed conversions from your campaign

For advertisers, there’s no better reason. Auto Advanced Matching allows you to better track conversions and attribute them back to specific paid campaigns.

Strategy 5: Scaling with Dynamic Ads

One feature that Facebook Ads has included but is often overlooked is Dynamic Ads. This allows advertisers to include personalized information in the ad, test out multiple images and headline combinations at once, or promote specific products based on user behavior.

For ecommerce websites in particular, this is hugely important. If you’re running a successful remarketing campaign for specific products and your business adds 50 new products overnight, it can be a huge undertaking to create new individual ads for each one.

With Facebook’s Dynamic Ads feature, you’ll only need to set up once, and the campaign will scale up no matter how many products are added to your product line.

Businesses can also use these functions to promote similar or complementary products as a separate ad set or campaign. This is also called Dynamic Product Ad (DPA) retargeting.

Conclusion

So there you have it. With these advanced strategies, you too can scale conversions for your Facebook Ads campaigns. For more information, consult our blog. Or if you would like help on your own Facebook or Instagram campaigns, contact our social media advertising experts for a free consultation today.

When it comes to the holidays, it’s best to be prepared and start getting ready as early as possible. According to Facebook, 1 in 4 people surveyed in the U.S. start their holiday shopping sometime between the end of October and the beginning of December. 

That’s a huge opportunity to leave behind if you’re planning on a marketing blitz for the holiday season. Getting a jump start on your Christmas and Hanukkah advertising campaigns could be the difference between a boom or bust in your holiday profits.

With that in mind, here are a few strategies for focusing your Facebook Ads campaigns for the holiday season!

Save for your Q4 budget

It’s the end of the year. Q4 budgets are wrapping up. But you still have one big push for the holiday season. Make sure that you have saved up a good chunk of your annual marketing budget to cover the marketing blitz to come. Keep in mind that competitors and other marketers will likely be doing the same, so you Avg. CPC metrics may increase during peak season.

Shopping Ads for products that people may be searching for

For when user intent is clear, and you have an established amount of search traffic for your product or service, try Facebook Shopping Campaigns. Also known as Dynamic Product Ads, these ad types allow advertisers to remarket to users that previously viewed their website. Shopping Ads still use the dynamic product feed, which will display the individual product in the ad.

Newsfeed and Stories Ads for products that people may not know they want

For when your product would be a great stocking stuffer or gift idea, if only users knew about it, consider traditional social media ads. Placed in the newsfeeds or between stories clips, advertisers can give prospective customers a brief glimpse of a great gift idea. Video options tend to be especially effective for products that need a demonstration. So if you want to go this route, make sure that you have a killer video demo of your product in action ready to go.

Get testing periods completed before Black Friday

Advertisers have the option to utilize the Campaign Budget Optimization features in Facebook Ads. This allows Facebook’s machine learning algorithm to optimize your campaigns towards ads, ad copy and audiences that are most effective at driving profitable conversions for your account. The only issue is that the algorithms require some time to learn. 

With about a week, most campaigns should have generated enough conversions for the campaigns to understand what’s working and adjust the targeting and settings for optimization. But if you’re having trouble getting enough conversions to complete the learning process, consider adding conversions further up the sales funnel. For example, maybe your small business only completes transactions once a day. Try adding ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Visit Pricing Page’ as a conversion and see if that helps improve the learning process.

Aim for a broader audience

With your ad variations ready and your testing completed, make sure that your campaigns are shooting for a slightly broader audience. This is especially true for products and services that make good gift ideas, if only customers were exposed to them a little more.

This is the best time of year to test out lookalike audiences, audience expansions, and connections targeting. Although we recommend that you keep your new audience targeting separated into different campaign sets so that you can quickly pause or expand on them depending on their effectiveness.

Feeling Inspired?

Do you want to know more about our Facebook Ads services at 565 Media? Don’t hesitate to contact us or call (323) 902-7439. Our experts will come up with optimized ad campaigns tailored for your business. 

If you’re looking to effectively and efficiently boost ROI with your marketing budget, 565 Media is your top choice. Simply connect with our on-demand team of full stack developers and start with a list of what problems you need solved. Our team specializes in developing customized, scaled marketing campaigns geared towards generating profitable leads and growing your business.