Today in Digital Marketing - Huge Changes Coming to Facebook Ads

Starting point is 00:00:00 Breakdowns. Gone. Attribution windows. Restricted. Real-time reporting. Deleted. These are just a few of the massive changes coming to the Facebook ad platform early next year, and you have Apple to blame for it. Today, we break down the details as digital marketers around the world struggle to make sense of what's to come. It's Wednesday, December 16th, 2020. Happy stupid toy day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Pretty soon, people who visit your brand's website from Apple devices like iPhones won't leave behind the same data footprint they do now. Tracking cookies, conversion events from your pixels, a lot of that

Starting point is 00:00:45 will disappear early in the new year as Apple introduces new privacy features in its operating systems. And Facebook, whose entire advertising ecosystem is built on top of their pixel, is pissed. This morning, they lashed out with a series of full-page newspaper ads saying Apple's move will be bad for small businesses, which, you know, it's a little rich coming from Facebook, the platform that will just turn off your ad account for no reason, no appeal, no human review, and doing that to lots of small businesses. But sure, Facebook, you're the good guys. To be clear, Apple isn't actually turning anything off,

Starting point is 00:01:23 but they will pop up a scary-looking dialogue box that will read, Facebook would like permission to track you across apps and websites owned by other companies. And then there'll be two buttons, allow tracking or ask app not to track. Which one do you think consumers will pick? So that's the news out there for the public. Now, how will this affect your work? Buckle up. Lots to unpack here.

Starting point is 00:01:46 First, Facebook says expect to see a significant decrease in the number of reported conversions, which makes sense if your buyers aren't firing the Pixel anymore. And it's possible that some of your ads may be paused or could stop delivering to certain devices. When all this kicks in, Facebook will limit some parts of its platform. For instance, and this is a big one, your pixel will only optimize for a maximum of eight conversion events for each domain, and it's going to be Facebook deciding

Starting point is 00:02:15 which events are most relevant to your business. All other events will be made inactive for campaign optimization and reporting. I'm gonna say that again. When you create your campaign, you'll only be able to choose one of the eight designated conversion events to optimize for. If you have a campaign with a custom conversion event as your objective, that campaign will be paused.

Starting point is 00:02:42 And it gets worse. Real-time reporting for iOS visitors will no longer be paused. And it gets worse. Real-time reporting for iOS visitors will no longer be supported. Their data could be delayed by up to three days. Oh, and worse, kiss your breakdowns goodbye. Yeah, for both app and web conversions, delivery and action breakdowns like age, gender, reachment, and placement

Starting point is 00:03:00 will not be supported. Facebook didn't specify this, but I assume they mean only for iOS users. Hopefully they're not pulling the whole breakdowns thing offline, but, you know, stranger things have happened. Facebook says they might also just straight up shut off the audience network, like the whole thing, since it's all about ads on third-party websites and apps. On to attribution windows.

Starting point is 00:03:21 When Apple's changes take effect, the attribution window for all new or active ad campaigns will be at the ad set level rather than at the account level. And the default for all new or active ad campaigns, other than iOS 14 app install campaigns, will be set at a seven-day click attribution window. Yes, that means some of the others will be gone. Specifically, 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through attribution windows will not be supported for active campaigns. And all your automated rules will change to a 7-day click attribution window, and that's all you'll get. All other attribution windows for automated rules will simply not be available. There are other things you'll likely see.

Starting point is 00:04:05 Website custom audiences and app activity custom audiences will probably decrease in size, of course, as more and more people opt out. There's a lot more in their help document, and you will find a link to it in the transcript of today's episode. For your convenience, right below that link is a link to a company that will deliver gin to your home. Speaking of Facebook, they found a new successful app to rip off. This time, Cameo. Cameo is an app where celebrities,

Starting point is 00:04:38 well, celebrities ranging from A-listers to D-listers really, will record a short little shout-out to your buddy or your kid or whatever. Prices on the platform range from $5 a video to $3,000 a video. Cameo takes 25%. And now Facebook wants a little piece of that action too. So they're working on something they call Super, which is basically the same as Cameo. Apparently it may contain the ability to host private live streams too, like mini concerts. Or according to someone familiar with the feature, you'll be able to pay to appear alongside one of these stars in Zoom. As of last June, Cameo was fulfilling 2,000 video requests every day on average.

Starting point is 00:05:13 The top earner for this year? This guy. In general, they do not give me much responsibility, but they do let me shred the company documents, and that is really all I need. That's Brian Baumgartner, but you may know him as Kevin from the U.S. version of The Office. He reportedly is on track to make more than a million dollars this year off of those little clips. Well, you heard it here first, and the reports were true.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Periscope, Twitter's live streaming platform, will be shut down by the company. It'll happen in March. We all know this is probably coming after someone found a hint of it in their app's code last week. It's not a huge deal, really. Twitter's been building its own live streaming tools directly into Twitter these days and probably working on that functionality in their Stories product called Fleets. Periscope, meanwhile, has been left to grow mold, or as Twitter calls it, an unsustainable maintenance mode state. Broadcasts that you may have done that were shared to Twitter will live on as replays, and everyone will be able to download an archive of their Periscope broadcasts

Starting point is 00:06:20 and data before the app is removed. Reddit continues to bulk up its ad platform to become more enticing to buyers like you and me. Today, they're announcing that they have cut a deal with Oracle to bring independent third-party verification of Reddit ad views. It says early numbers show that Reddit's in-feed ads outperform Oracle's benchmark for the same placement by up to 17%. That said, outperforming is not a metric. It wasn't exactly clear what was outperforming. Clicks? Reach? Conversions? Reddit's global head of marketing sciences, what a title, eh, said, third-party verification is an important part of campaign measurement, and we want to ensure our advertisers have the tools they need to feel confident and satisfied with their investment in Reddit, unquote.

Starting point is 00:07:11 If your brand already uses Oracle's Moat tool, you'll find your Reddit data on your Moat dashboard now. Those reports will make their way out to other advertisers shortly. In the coming months, they will also add verified reporting on video views. LinkedIn has added something that honestly I could have sworn was already there, but apparently not. And that's product pages on your company's profile. Maybe I was thinking of Facebook's product pages. Anyway, LinkedIn announced that they have added them too. They are, as you would expect, sub pages off your main company page and can showcase more detailed information about what you sell.

Starting point is 00:07:47 A few nice things that Facebook's product pages don't have, custom call-to-action buttons, including demo request forms or contact sales forms. We don't seem to have it on our agency's company page yet, so it is probably still rolling out. And finally, Google announced that the rollout of its big search engine algorithm update is now complete. These do take a couple of weeks to fully get into all the nooks and crannies of their system, so if you haven't done it yet, maybe now is a good time to check where your brand's website appears in the new algo. And also, call history data is in the Google My Business dashboard on desktop now.

Starting point is 00:08:32 So lung function test at the hospital went great. Apparently, I am close to but not technically at the diagnosis for asthma. I got sent home with one of those blood oxygen things that you attach to your finger and I had to sleep with it to collect with, you know, some bit of data about my levels during my sleep. That was pretty cool. Finally starting Assassin's Creed Valhalla. So far I'm pretty underwhelmed. Seems like a really empty world, but my wife, who's much further ahead on the game, says once I leave Norway or Finland or wherever the hell I am right now in 9th century Europe, that it really picks up, which I hope, because the last Assassin's Creed Odyssey was a true masterpiece. All right.

Starting point is 00:09:06 Talk to you tomorrow. From darkness into light Sometimes you gotta fight I only know this time It's not time to waste This road is dark and long

Today in Digital Marketing - Huge Changes Coming to Facebook Ads

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