- Facebook retargeting ads have taken a pretty big hit
since Apple released iOS 14.5
and the app tracking transparency framework
that came with it.
Mainly because the size of our retargeting audiences
has gone down.
And that's because as people are opting out of tracking,
then we can't add them to our custom audiences,
which means we can't retarget them with our Facebook ads.
But the good news is there are a few things
that you can do to adapt and to still effectively
leverage the power of retargeting with Facebook ads.
And that is exactly what we're going to talk about
in this video.
I'm going to walk you through
how to effectively use Facebook retargeting ads
in a post iOS 14.5 world.
Let's get into it.
But before we do, the only thing I ask
is if you enjoy this video, you tap that like button.
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Helps make sure more people see these videos.
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on Facebook advertising or digital marketing.
So the very first thing to do is set up
the Facebook conversions API.
Now, this is not a blanket fix
for the iOS 14.5 privacy changes.
It's not like it's a workaround to get data back
to Facebook, even if people have opted out,
that's certainly not the case.
But what it does do is it makes sure
that more of your conversion events get matched by Facebook.
Because the problem that we're facing
is that more and more browsers, Firefox in particular,
are blocking tracking and blocking cookies by default.
Meaning the Facebook pixel doesn't actually work
in those situations.
We know that later this year, Chrome is actually
going to start blocking third party cookies as well.
And in the future, it looks like the Facebook pixel
is going to be less and less effective.
Meaning, that's going to impact your custom audiences
even more, especially if you're creating custom
audiences based on conversion events, which a lot of us do.
We'll often use conversions like lead events,
add to cart, initiate checkout, or even purchase
to create custom audience to use
for Facebook ads retargeting.
Now that is going to be severely effected
as more and more browsers start blocking cookies
and blocking that Facebook pixel.
So by using the Facebook conversions API,
it means that right now you're actually going
to increase the match rate of your conversions.
Which means that those custom audiences
that you use for retargeting
that are based on conversion events
are going to be strengthened.
And it means that in the future,
it's going to put you in a better position as well
and keep those retargeting audiences healthy for longer.
The second thing that we're doing
with our retargeting ads is using longer time periods.
So that means that maybe if we were using a website visitor
retargeting audience, and we were targeting for 14 days,
maybe now we've upped that to 30 days.
We're just extending those time periods to make sure
that our audiences are large enough
for Facebook to be able to run ads to them, okay?
So by extending those time periods,
we get larger custom audiences.
Which means we don't get delivery problems,
which a lot of people are facing now.
Talking to lots of people whose retargeting ads
have either stopped running completely
or their costs have gone up,
meaning their return on ad spend
just isn't as good as it was.
So extending those time periods out is helpful.
Something we often do with our retargeting ads
especially right at the bottom of the funnel
is we will run really short time periods.
Let's say we've got a special offer
and the offer is expiring.
Well, often what we'll do is we'll have a custom audience
that only has a length or duration of three days.
So we might say in that three-day period,
"Hey, the offer's expiring soon.
Make sure you click here and take advantage of it."
Well, what we're doing in those cases,
we're actually expanding that out now to maybe five days
or even seven days, depending on the length of the offer.
So instead of that urgency being just for the final period,
we're lengthening that out.
The third thing you can do is combine your audiences
into fewer ad sets.
So something we often do,
is if we're running let's say a webinar,
we'll have different ads like open cart ads,
meaning we're telling people about the offer.
We'll have ads that are for FAQs
or Frequently Asked Questions
where we have ads that answer those questions.
We'll have ads with testimonials,
and maybe we'll have ads for closed cart
or the offer expiring.
Now, previously we would have put these
in different ad sets and timed them specifically.
So let's say in the first three days
of the cart opening or the offer opening,
we might've had an ad that ran to tell them all
about the offer.
And that was a three-day window.
Meaning a custom audience that lasted for three days.
Then we might've had some FAQ ads that ran for a few days.
Some testimonial ads that ran for one or two days
or maybe the whole five or six days.
And then those cart closed ads
like I mentioned in the previous example.
Now, however, what we're doing is we're broadening that.
And let's say the offer is available for seven days,
we might just have one ad set
with a seven day custom audience.
And we kind of run all of those ads at the same time.
Maybe not the cart closing ads,
we might eliminate them completely,
but we're combining ad sets
and making it a longer time window
for those custom audiences wherever we can.
And that seems to be really helping.
It's making our audiences larger as I said before,
meaning that we continue to run
those retargeting ads successfully.
Which is a nice little segway to leave me
into the next one, which is changing the objective.
So often with our retargeting ads at the bottom of funnel,
we'll run, let's say Conversion objective
and optimize for purchase.
Or we might even run a website click objective in some case.
But what happens as your website retargeting audiences
or your retargeting audiences in general, get smaller.
If you're using an objective like Conversions or Traffic,
then it will stop delivering much sooner
than other objectives.
So something that we've found,
if it's a very small retargeting audience,
changing to the Reach objective
and setting the frequency to one ad per person per day
or two ads per person per day,
depending on what you're running.
This is very bottom of funnel, remember,
not just general website retargeting ads
for all of your website visitors or something.
This is for those specific cases like I mentioned before.
Let's say, it's people who've gone through a webinar
and the cart is closing,
and it's a very small specific audience,
changing to the Reach objective can really help,
especially if you're experiencing delivery problems
with your Facebook retargeting ads.
Try switching to an objective like Reach.
Setting that frequency to one per person per day
and see if that gets your ads running again.
Okay, so the next thing you can do
apart from tapping that like button
if you haven't done it already
is using a tool that syncs contacts
from your email service provider
over to your Facebook custom audiences.
So what these tools do is they will take people who go
into your email service provider
like ActiveCampaign, Infusionsoft, or whatever you're using.
And it can actually automatically sync them
across as a customer list custom audience into Facebook.
And obviously you can then use that custom audience
for retargeting.
So what I recommend doing
is if you're in a situation at the moment
where let's say you use a particular conversion event,
let's say the Lead event, to create website custom audiences
that you use for retargeting.
So somebody might for example, sign up for a webinar.
And when they hit that Thank you page,
you might create a website custom audience
on that Thank you page that says if anyone's signed up
for the webinar by hitting this Thank you page,
add them to our website custom audience,
and we can retarget them.
Well, what you can do then,
is also when that person signs up for the webinar,
they go into your email service provider.
From there, you can use a tool like LeadsBridge,
for example.
That's one that I like to use.
Link in the description to that.
That tool will then automatically take that email address
and name, and sync it over to a different custom audience,
a customer list, custom audience in Facebook.
Now again, if that person has opted out of tracking,
it is still not going to match that person.
But it is another way to again get a higher match rate
on your custom audiences for those situations
where the pixel is losing its efficacy.
And so what I would do in this situation
is I would then in my ad set
target both of those custom audiences.
I would target the website custom audience
that contains everybody that signed up for my webinar.
And I would also target the customer list custom audience
that's been synced across by LeadsBridge
or another similar tool as well.
And by targeting both of those in my ad set,
I'm going to get a higher match rate.
Which means more of the people that sign up
for my webinar will actually be in those custom audiences.
And therefore having those bigger audiences
mean that my Facebook retargeting ads
are likely to be more effective.
Okay, so next stop.
This is something that I think
is actually one of the bigger ones
and something that is going to get more
and more important over time.
And that is starting to create your retargeting
audiences based on platform actions.
Now, what does that mean?
Well, an on-platform action
is an action that is performed inside of the Facebook app,
or on the Facebook website, or inside the Instagram app,
or even on WhatsApp
versus actions that occur let's say on third-party websites,
meaning your own website or somebody else's,
or even email list.
So the goal is to start using more
of these on-platform retargeting audiences.
So that means things like video views,
and creating audiences, and retargeting
based on people who've watched particular videos
on your Facebook page.
It's also things like engaging with your Facebook page,
engaging with your Instagram account.
And then I think something that is really worth exploring
and something that I'm digging into are Instant Experiences.
So you can retarget based on interactions
that people have had with Instant Experience ads
on the platform.
And I think that is something that we really
need to start looking into,
but for now, if you're not using video view custom audiences
and if you're not starting to leverage that
and add it into your strategy,
then I highly recommend that you start thinking about it
for your Facebook retargeting ads.
Because one thing we know
is that Facebook can still track
all of the actions that a user performs
on their platforms.
Meaning on Facebook directly, on Instagram directly,
even if they've opted out of tracking on an iOS device.
And then finally this one isn't exactly Facebook only
retargeting, but it's still retargeting.
And it's something that we're doing
more and more of as a result of these changes.
And that is retargeting on other platforms.
so often what you will see and what people are doing
is they'll retarget with Facebook only.
They'll be running Facebook ads, top, middle,
and bottom of funnel.
But now those retargeting ads
towards the middle and bottom of the funnel
are taking a hit.
So what we're doing is we're actually starting to shift
some of that retargeting
that is no longer as effective on Facebook
over to other platforms.
Meaning Google, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, even TikTok.
You can retarget on all of these platforms.
And so just because you can't reach someone
via your retargeting ads on Facebook anymore,
doesn't mean you can't reach them on these other platforms.
Somebody may have opted out of Facebook on iOS,
but they may not have opted out of YouTube for example.
And so you can still reach them there.
And same with all those other platforms I just mentioned.
So think about how can you use retargeting
with things like Google display ads,
and all of those other ones I mentioned
instead of just relying on Facebook,
which may be getting more and more difficult now.
Okay, so that is something that I think
really important to leverage.
Works really, really well.
The return on ad spend that we see there is fantastic.
So if you haven't tried it already,
definitely give that a go as well.
All right, that is it for this video.
If you've enjoyed it, remember all I ask
is that you tap that like button.
It makes a massive difference to the channel
despite it only taking half a second for you to do.
And if you wanna hear more from me,
make sure you hit subscribe.
Hit that little bell
and you'll get notified
whenever I release a new video on Facebook advertising
or digital marketing.
As always, thanks for watching.
Hopefully, I'll see you soon.
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