Update 2023 on Facebook Marketing: What’s Changing, What’s Not, and What to Do. This article was first published in 2018 as we prepared for the effects of Mark Zuckerberg’s senate testimony as well as what at the time seemed to be significant changes to Facebook targeting (remember when Partner Categories were shut down?) simpler eras.

In the current, social media marketers have grown accustomed to hearing these kinds of announcements. It’s realistic to assume that the industry as a whole will need to continue adapting to what feels like game-changing adjustments in the way Facebook marketing we run campaigns and analyze their performance because data privacy has moved to the forefront of many discussions about digital advertising.

Facebook Isn’t Facebook Anymore

Meta develops tools to facilitate connections, community discovery, and business expansion. When Facebook first came out in 2004, it revolutionized how people connect. Apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger gave billions of people more power worldwide. To contribute to the development of the upcoming social technologies, Meta is now moving beyond 2D screens and toward immersive experiences like augmented and virtual reality.

The reason why the business decided to plunge headfirst into the Metaverse has been the subject of much conjecture. One theory, however, is that ad revenue will fall. According to Meta, the most recent iOS14 update’s side effects will cost the industry $10 billion in revenue by 2022.

iOS 14 and the Introduction of the App Tracking Transparency Framework

This leads us to the release of Apple’s iOS 14 update, which went live in April 2021. It is perhaps the biggest update the platform has seen in recent years. It’s likely that you are already aware of the performance effects brought on by the implementation of the App Tracking Transparency framework if you have been running Facebook ad campaigns in the recent past.

For more information about how iOS 14 has changed Facebook advertising, review this blog article if you need a reminder.

European e Privacy Directive

This banner has been a staple when modifying an ad set that targets European users since July 2021.

Screenshot of a banner from Meta discussing the effects of the ePrivacy Directive on performance. European ePrivacy Directive Notification screenshot Facebook updated cookie content prompts across the region to include two controls that allow a user to opt-out of cookie tracking by Facebook and/or other companies when using a Facebook product in order to better comply with Europe’s e Privacy Directive, the most recent revision to international privacy regulations.

Advertisers did not need to take any action, according to Facebook, but starting on July 6, 2021, “campaigns targeting advertising to people in the European Region may begin to gradually see diminished performance.”

Server-Side Tagging in GTM for Conversions API

Facebook released official documentation for server-side tagging in Google Tag Manager last year, complete with the Conversions API tag template. This was big because this implementation meant that Facebook data could be sent server-to-server rather than through a web browser.

If you’re curious to learn more about the advantages of this set-up, Michael Wiegand, Portent’s Director of Analytics, wrote a bit about the benefits of embracing server-side tag management for the blog.

The Facebook CAPI integration specifically provides the following additional benefits:

It can help you track users who installed Ad Blocker or those using Safari (or any other browser with intelligent tracking prevention algorithms).
It can track events that happen not on the site, such as phone calls or offline sales.
It enables teams to utilize Conversion Lift Studies after October 2021.
We’ve found that the Conversions API integration has generally been an easy pitch to clients in a post-iOS 14 world, but the ability to implement via familiar tools like GTM has made the process even easier.

Loss of Detailed Targeting Options

In January 2022, Facebook announced that it would be removing thousands of detailed targeting options that could be perceived as “sensitive” — from health causes to social issues.

This is a direct response to some criticism Facebook has received over the years, including a lawsuit from The Department of Housing and Urban Development after allowing discriminatory targeting exclusions in housing ads.

So far, we’ve found the removal of these audiences to have virtually no impact on the campaigns we run for clients.

What We’ve Learned

The biggest takeaway from the changes we’ve seen in the last year? Expect the expected. We’ve been writing about the way public sentiment and legislation around data privacy has impacted (and will continue to impact) digital marketing since 2018 — from the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica debacle to GDPR to CCPA.

In many ways, the iOS14 update, which has felt like the most catastrophic of them all, probably wasn’t that surprising at the end of the day. The writing on the wall has been there the whole time — what matters now, though, is that we honor these changes while continuing to drive results for our clients.

Now that we’re nearly a year into the rollout of Apple’s game-changing data use update, our team has seen a wide range of performance outcomes across our portfolio of eCommerce and B2B clients.

Positive Outcomes We’ve Seen In Our Client Work

One B2B tech client added Facebook back into its marketing mix after a several-month hiatus in May 2021, just a month after the formal rollout of the App Tracking Transparency framework. Since then, we’ve seen massive growth on the platform in spite of attribution challenges created by Apple’s update. Conversion volume has increased +1603% YoY, and we see significant improvements in efficiency when comparing current CPAs with historical data in the account.

For one eCommerce client who suspended all Facebook advertising beginning November 30, 2021, the decision to divest from the platform had a big impact on brand awareness and sales. According to Social Strategist Jessica Clark, “when the Facebook ads were off, interest in the brand] decreased over time by 64% according to Google Trend Overall users to the site also decreased by 28% and transactions decreased by 24% according to Google Analytics.” This decline in overall performance helped influence the decision to reactivate Facebook advertising in February 2022.

Not-So-Positive Outcomes We’ve Seen In Our Client Work

The trends haven’t all been positive, though. Clark also confirmed that one B2C client has seen CPA costs increase by 78% YoY among campaigns that utilize Lookalike audiences based on pixel data.

Similarly, for one B2B client, a reduction in custom audience sizes has been the primary culprit for a sharp decline in performance among remarketing campaigns since May of 2021. As a result, we’ve seen reach plummet and impression and click costs rise.

Although there has been some improvement in performance after adjusting our creative strategy, combining audiences, and making optimizations focused on improving liquidity, we’ve shifted focus on the platform away from demand generation and instead invested more heavily in LinkedIn to drive volume.

With that said, I don’t think this marks the end of Facebook advertising, nor do I think it’s wise for advertisers to abandon ship just yet. Although Google announced a stay of execution for third-party cookies, the day is still coming. Other massive changes to data use and tracking are imminent, and all advertisers, regardless of channel, will be impacted.

What To Do

The good news is that we have time to prepare! As we saw in some of the examples above, Facebook advertising is still a valuable marketing channel regardless of industry. While some businesses have continued to drive stellar performance with marginal impacts related to the iOS 14 update, the reality is that some impact on results is possible.

Use the Conversions API.

If you haven’t already, convince your clients to use the Conversions API. While this wouldn’t entirely close the measurement and attribution gaps introduced by the iOS 14 update, it could help make up for effects on the pixel’s signal strength brought on by the depreciation of third-party cookies. As a result, the information given for targeting, measuring, and optimizing would be more accurate.

Utilize Micro-Conversions

In order to construct a more precise picture of Facebook ad success, turn to micro-conversions. If you’re not familiar with this idea, read our Director of Analytics’ blog post to find out more about what constitutes a successful micro-conversion. Setting up a Custom Conversion in Events Manager is a fairly simple way to set up these kinds of conversions without having to write any code.

However, there is a significant caveat: the 8 events that can be defined and prioritized for Aggregated Event Measurement reporting include custom conversions. For better visibility outside of the platform, take into account creating Custom Events via GTM and related goals in Google Analytics, even though it requires a bit more work.

In order to construct a more precise picture of Facebook ad success, turn to micro-conversions. If you’re not familiar with this idea, read our Director of Analytics’ blog post to find out more about what constitutes a successful micro-conversion. Setting up a Custom Conversion in Events Manager is a fairly simple way to set up these kinds of conversions without having to write any code.

However, there is a significant caveat: the 8 events that can be defined and prioritized for Aggregated Event Measurement reporting include custom conversions. For better visibility outside of the platform, take into account creating Custom Events via GTM and related goals in Google Analytics, even though it requires a bit more work.