Increasing gas prices, customers stocking up on fuel, a decreasing supply of lorry drivers and CO2 shortages. At the moment, there are so many external factors at play in the UK.
So as we move into the final quarter of the year, THE best thing we can do is plan, plan and then do some more planning. As Benjamin Franklin said “Failing to plan is planning to fail”
If you wondering how and what to prepare for the next two months, then do two things, first rewatch our webinar and secondly use our Q4 prep sheet.
Some customers have started pushing their Christmas ads last week, and have seen a huge uptake already – so THIS year with logistic challenges start earlier than ever. Seems that everyone is panic buying gifts already so why not sell more stock before Black Friday.
Over the last 2 months as a team we’ve worked on auditing ALL accounts across different verticals and industries – these were our main findings.
Since the Apple iOS privacy update, we’ve lost on average 40% visibility on conversion and revenue data. As we move into the most important growth quarter of the year, it is key that we do not just use Facebook as the only source of truth, but look into your actual revenue and use Google Analytics to estimate actual results. If we only depend on Facebook reporting and start restricting budgets then it will impact top-line growth.
In a recent conversation with Facebook, they mentioned that initially, each app would have been responsible for their own opt-in message, meaning they could give customers context for why they should opt-in to tracking (for example more relevant ads). However, Apple overturned this decision and prompted customers with one general message ‘Would you like to be tracked by this app’.
We can only guess that most people said no, so the initial estimate of the opt-out rate is about 80%. This is massive, and only the beginning of an advertising ecosystem where privacy will be prioritised.
We’ve been working on an estimate using operating system data in GA alongside Facebook reported data to readjust the conversion and revenue data. All account managers are in the process of presenting this back to customers.
Key takeaway – creativity and copies will be more important than ever. Refocus on running powerful marketing campaigns with strong angles. Evaluate campaigns using click data from Facebook and use Google Analytics to evaluate traffic and conversions value.
At the start of the year, we diversified the channel offering away from just Facebook and started introducing Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok and Twitter alongside existing channels.
For eCommerce customers, we’ve learned that both Pinterest and Snapchat can drive strong returns while TikTok should be used to grow the customer base via lead generation campaigns.
For lead generation clients, Twitter has returned half the lead cost of Facebook for some customers while LinkedIn is more expensive but works in returning higher quality leads in the long run.
What we learned from the Facebook Outage
The global Facebook outage on the 4th of October shows that channel diversification will be key as we move forward. Never be too reliant on one platform and keep your eggs spread across different baskets. One key thing we noticed after the outage was Facebook spending at an accelerated pace, mainly to recoup some of the lost spend. We’ve also noticed that some campaigns have re-entered the learning phase so be aware of fluctuating results in the coming week. As a team, we will work to relaunch impacted campaigns.
If you need any help or have any questions on the above then please feel free to get in touch.
