Thread by @jspujji

Facebook advertising is undergoing the largest change in its history: iOS14.5+.

Adopted users are now 70% of its spend.

Everything. Is. Different.

Here are my 4 recommendations to keep winning in this new world:

(source @ampush’s 8 figs in MONTHLY $ with top DTC brands)

Recc #1 - Test consolidated account structures and narrowed targeting strategies RIGOROUSLY.

The change in privacy means less data for FB. So, 14+ years of an algorithm built on user data has to change and so does your strategy…

Let’s start with an example: before iOS14.5+, Facebook could track “Sara” from her clicks on an ad to her specific activity on a brand’s site, store this data and continue to collect, building up a database on Sara’s patterns.

Now what happens when Sara opts out of tracking?

FB is no longer allowed to directly follow Sara from clicking on an ad to making a purchase.

The data gets sent to Apple before FB even sees it, who then sends back very limited data to let FB know that someone made a purchase from an ad at 11am on June 5th.

So, FB is losing impt user data that makes their algo smart. Without knowing Sara’s patterns, they cant properly deliver her ads that she will engage with and convert on.

Advertisers saw this translate into a drop in conversion rate of >20%, mostly in broader audiences.

So, we began testing and found two things…

First, a consolidated account structure increases signal and therefore, efficiency. When you over-segment your campaigns, there is a higher chance that you compete with yourself and confuse the algo...

...When you consolidate, batching the data into one place, gives FB a better signal of what’s working and what’s not.

Second, narrowing targeting pushes the algo into a specific direction. Since the algo is losing data, narrowing your targeting gives FB a good starting point.

Partner anecdote: CR decreased 20%, so we cut our campaigns in half, even removing broad and narrowed our audiences. This improved efficiency by 20%.

Recc #2 - FB reporting is inaccurate and they are under-attributing conversions, so use another tracking source to improve your optimizations.

FB has been forced to predict your daily reporting instead of giving you actuals. Why?

Because now the data goes straight to Apple who only sends it back to FB after 3 days. So, FB tries to predict what’s gonna happen day-to-day.

The main problem with this setup is that even when Apple sends back the data, it is inaccurate.

This is proven by comparing to Google Analytics and finding they are capturing 35% more conversions than before the update. The implications to this are…

Daily optimizations are challenging bc the data is inaccurate and tracking such as Google Analytics do not give you the level of detail needed to properly optimize.

@ampush has our own pixel so we can track real-time data across campaigns ad sets and ads to optimize effectively.

So figure out a 3rd party pixel solution you can use to track and optimize daily.

Recc #3 - Data is limited not just for FB, but also for advertisers, so segment campaigns by demographics to keep deriving important insights that inform your business decisions.

Before iOS14.5, we could break down all data by demographics, like age, gender, region.

Now, that information is unavailable to us due to the tracking limitations. But, there is a workaround…

Segment your ad sets by the demo you are looking to solve for:

You cant see which age group is performing well on FB. @ampush develops tests where we deliver ads to each demo separately enabling us to see full funnel data for each and re-orient our creative and target mkt strat

You can also do this by device: for a partner at Ampush we excluded OS devices from their Brazil campaigns and drove a 40% higher conversion rate and 30% lower cost per acquisition.

They discovered that Android-only was able to hold scale in this country at higher efficiencies.

Recc #4 - platform bugs are increasing, so keep a close watch, communicate with your FB reps and take necessary action to mitigate performance issues.

Facebook is going through a learning curve as they juggle how to operate with limited data, so platform issues are more common.

The most recent bug was an unwarranted spike in delivery costs on June 11 & 12, where partners saw upwards of a +100% increase in CPM. In response, we

Communicated across partners to ensure this was an advertiser-wide issue, flagged to our FB reps, scaled back spend to mitigate loss and facilitated refunds from FB to the advertisers.

iOS14.5+ is top of mind for all advertisers, but it doesn’t have to be a scary topic, rather another problem to solve. And as #entrepreneurs, that's what we do best.

Follow @jspujji for more top of mind #growthmarketing, DTC, entrepreneurship and facebook.

TLDR
1. Consolidate and narrow targeting; test rigorously
2. Create your own attribution source
3. Segment demographics to uncover insights and improve performance
4. Track platform bugs closely & put a response plan in place
Follow @jspujji @ampush for more!