If you’ve noticed your Facebook advertising targeting, reach and conversions drop off a cliff in recent months, you’re not alone. Businesses all over the globe are reeling from the recent privacy and tracking update from Apple, which is directly impacting the performance of ads across Meta’s suite of platforms.
The new Apple iOS policy increases privacy options for its users, allowing them to opt out of any in-app data collection in apps like Facebook and Instagram. In fact, statistics show that around 96% of people have opted out of data tracking. Gulp.
The Apple update has affected Facebook ads in the following key areas:
Retargeting:
It is no longer possible to retarget iOS14 users who have opted out of IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) and visited your site using their device. You can, however, still target them based on their email address or phone number if the user has shared them. Essentially, it’s tougher than ever to target user demographics, as well as user actions taken on websites.
Measurement & reporting:
Conversion data now no longer matches the leads you’re getting in reality, as the behaviour of an entire (potentially very large) segment of your audience is now untrackable. Facebook is also limited in its ability to deliver ads to your most ideal audiences. This is leading to inaccurate reporting.
What can we do to overcome it?
The good news is that all is not lost. Not only are there things we can do within Facebook to mitigate the challenges faced by the loss of tracking capability, there are other measures we can take to ensure you reach your target audience.
Meta Pixel & Conversions API
Now is not the time to sleep on Facebook’s Meta Pixel and Conversions API interaction. We can ensure you have both installed on your site and that the Events they’re firing are configured for iOS14. This two-fold approach to tracking covers both browser and server, so you can ensure you’re able to capture target user behaviour and reach them with your ads.
We are also focusing our efforts on best practice audience targeting and shifting budgets around on individual campaigns reactively to performance. Facebook’s retargeting and lookalike audiences are still effective when you have a wide audience base that uses different devices. We can even use your email subscriber lists to build audiences from people who are already engaged with your brand.
Lean on Google
While it’s true that Google is set to bring in limitations on cross-app tracking in 2024, the platform is still incredibly powerful in reaching your audience through targeting advertising. We have successfully shifted some of our client’s Facebook advertising spend to Google ads with impressive results.
Focus on organic channels
This is something you should be doing anyway — but putting more focus on organic channels when you’ve previously put your all into ads can increase your ranking and awareness without the spend. We’re building out comprehensive plans for email marketing, organic social media, search engine optimised web copy and content for our clients to overcome any drop in traffic driven by ads.
So it’s not all doom and gloom. In fact, we’ve still managed to beat our previous records of ticket and course sales via Facebook ads despite the challenge. What could we do for you? Get in touch with us at marketing@maya.agency to find out more.
