It’s Time to Rethink Your Meta Ads Strategy

If you’re running Meta Ads, you are well aware of the problems currently facing advertisers. 

Let’s take a look at some headlines from the past two weeks, shall we?

Search Engine Land

Bloomberg

Digiday

The Motley Fool

You get the point. 

Things are not looking good and Meta doesn’t seem to have an answer for the people pouring their budgets into the platform. 

Now, I’ve been talking about the decline of Facebook for some time. 

Starting with the iOS14 update and continuing into this year with the deprecation of cookies, Meta targeting is nowhere close to what it used to be.

I’m sorry to say that without a strategy change on the part of advertisers, it isn’t going to get better anytime soon.

Meta is still figuring out how to deal with privacy issues while delivering great audience targeting at the same time. 

Unfortunately, they aren’t there yet and even though Advantage+ can improve with time, without the right data to train it (and without enough data to train it), it’s not good.  

So what should advertisers be thinking about?

I know the Motley Fool wants people to believe advertisers are revolting and Meta is doomed. That’s not exactly the case. 

We all know Meta can still deliver exceptional results at a lower cost than say Google or LinkedIn.

However, there does need to be a change in how advertisers feed Meta and how they target customers. 

1. Stop Relying on the Facebook Ad Pixel

I alluded to it earlier but we have to stop relying on third-party pixels. 

Without cookies and without click IDs, cross-channel tracking and attribution is crap. 

This especially goes for the Facebook pixel. 

Our Test: Facebook Pixel vs. X-Ray Pixel

A month or so ago we ran a small test. 

We tested the Facebook pixel audience against our X-Ray audience. 

Same ads, same budget. The only difference was the audience. 

Here’s what we saw:

With our first-party pixel audience, we were able to reach more of the people we wanted to and more of the people who were actually interested in our product. 

The result? More leads and a significantly better CPA.

Businesses have to stop relying on third-party pixels and instead start focusing on collecting first-party data.

2. Get Back to Retargeting

I still talk to plenty of advertisers and one thing I’ve consistently heard over the last few years is that budgets have shifted away from retargeting. 

I get it.

Audiences have shrunk to almost non-existent and it’s just not as effective as it once was.

BUT

That was before you had first-party data and tools like Restore to give Meta the data it needs!

With Customers.ai, you can 100x your retargeting audience. 

Or if you want to get really granular, you can build audience segments and send them directly to Facebook. 

The possibilities are endless but the gist is this – retargeting is back!

3. Train Your Advantage+ Audience

The thing with AI and machine learning is that they need data to learn.

Unfortunately, for advertisers with smaller budgets without a ton of conversion data, it might be forever before Advantage+ learns how to target for you. 

The key is to help it along and train it faster with your first-party data. 

Build a custom audience with first-party data and then add it as a suggestion. 

The goal is to make it smarter faster and in turn, get you results faster.

Meta Isn’t Dead

We know a few people are signing Meta’s death certificate but we are nowhere near that. 

In fact, as an official Meta partner, we think Meta is alive and well-ish. 

Meta is an unbelievably valuable ad platform and with first-party data, you can bring back the performance metrics you once saw.

The key here is agility. 

The platform isn’t working the way it has so you need to change your strategy and change it quickly.

Customers.ai and our first-party pixel along with Facebook-specific tools can help you do just that.

Reach out for a demo or sign up for our 7-day free trial and see what Customers.ai can do. 

Important Next Steps

• See what targeted outbound marketing is all about. Capture and engage your first 500 website visitor leads with Customers.ai X-Ray website visitor identification for free.
• Talk and learn about sales outreach automation with other growth enthusiasts. Join Customers.ai Island, our Facebook group of 40K marketers and entrepreneurs who are ready to support you.
• Advance your marketing performance with Sales Outreach School, a free tutorial and training area for sales pros and marketers.