Have you heard the latest news in the digital marketing world?! Hate to break it to you, but Facebook Ads are in a bit of trouble...
As Apple announced their new Privacy Update to be rolled out with the iOS 14 software, online advertisers and small businesses all around the world have joined Mark Zuckerberg’s frantic and panicked state.
But what does this Privacy Update actually mean for advertisers? Let me break it down for you…
The biggest attribute to the success of my Facebook ads (and pretty much any other digital advertiser) is, lo and behold, the Facebook Pixel! This pixel is a snippet of code that advertisers can simply copy and paste into their website’s header, which would allow Facebook to track users who click on their ad, so they can better understand and analyze their target market’s behavior on their landing page, remarket to them, and eventually advertise to them more precisely in the future.
In fact, this piece of code basically feeds alllllllll of the data and insights that Facebook NEEDS to show your ads to the RIGHT person at the RIGHT time. It takes the guesswork out of finding the right audience.
With the new iOS14 Privacy Update, users will be prompted to either opt-in or opt-out of being tracked by a third-party cookie. And if you didn't already catch on to why this is an issue…. Well, the Facebook Pixel does exactly that; it tracks users! So with this update, users will have to opt-in to being tracked, while they used to be automatically opted-in and must manually opt-out.
With privacy concerns at an all-time high, it’s estimated that the loss of targeting and tracking precision could incur Facebook a 10% loss, which is about $8 billion in revenue over the next 12 months.
Sounds like doomsday is right around the corner for our small businesses, advertisers, and Facebook, huh?
Well, here’s the (sorta) bright side: in 2020, about 97.9 percent of Facebook's global revenue was generated from advertising, So we can confidently assume that Facebook WILL find a way to work around these new privacy updates coming ahead. They can't just accept defeat and declare bankruptcy, can they?!
Sooo…. What is Facebook doing about this?
Facebook has not only publicly criticized Apple's decision and threatened to sue them to try and save their main stream of income, but they also moved quickly to find a workaround to this iOS14 Privacy Update, so that the impact on advertising efforts would be kept at the minimum.
The first thing they are putting in place is an updated way to track users, called the Aggregated Event Measurement.
I know what you’re thinking… What the heck does this even mean?!
This new protocol allows advertisers to continue measuring the impact of their ads and the events they set up with their pixel, following Apple’s iOS14 Privacy Update.
However, there will be limitations. For starters, conversion events will be limited to 8 instead of the infinite amount we used to be able to set. Once you have set up these 8 events, only those with the highest priority for your business will be reported, if a user triggers multiple events in one visit.
While this new protocol is still new and not perfect, Facebook is promising that its protocol will constantly be updated to give advertisers the best and most bang for their buck that they can.
I won’t get into the technical side of what you can do today to prepare for this Privacy Update, but you can click here to find out what steps you need to take for the upcoming changes.
What can YOU do about this?
The first thing to do is to not stress! I absolutely understand how stressful this can be, especially if you are a small business owner who depends on Facebook Ads for acquiring clients and generating sales or leads. But you have to understand this: Facebook WILL find a way.
That being said, there are still some things you can do to help yourself out in the meantime. For starters, there has never been a more important time to BUILD YOUR EMAIL LIST! The beauty of this email list is that you own it!
If Facebook, LinkedIn, or YouTube were to disappear tomorrow, you would still have that list that is basically just warm leads (they already know you!). You can nurture these leads through a drip campaign, or you can simply upload this list to Facebook’s ad manager as a custom audience; they will be correctly targeted as long as they created their Facebook account with that same email.
Lastly, as targeting loses a bit of its effectiveness, having an EXTREMELY tight messaging that aligns with your target market’s values/needs and that pushes them to take action is more important than ever! This way, as your ads are put in front of people who may not be part of the audience you want to target (due to the pixel not being able to pick up information as accurately as it once did...), the ones who ARE part of your target market will act on it.
So there you have it! Did you find this blog helpful? Do you feel like you need help navigating the Facebook Ads world now, with the new updates? I can help! Don’t hesitate to get in touch with me.
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