Advertising on Facebook has become one of the effective ways to grow your business. In this week’s PPCChat session, host Julie F Bacchini sought experts’ views on the performance of Facebook Ads lately, have they found anything new which is working for them, how are audience working for them, and more.
Q1: Are you currently managing any ad accounts on Facebook? If so, what industry(ies) are you advertising for?
Yes. Ecomm and higher ed. @robert_brady
Restaurant, Public Sector, Retail, Auto …if you read that right, there is NO ecom, and VERY few website conversions to measure. more on that soon. @JuliaVyse
Running campaigns for Ecommerce/FMCG for advertisers also active on Amazon. Also the occasional campaign for my wife’s café in Paris (mainly boosting). @soanders
I actually don’t have much happening on Facebook at the moment, oddly. I do find myself putting an asterisk in front of anything I say about advertising on FB now though…@NeptuneMoon
We are. The industries are a pretty wide range in lead generation and ecomm. @ameetkhabra
Yep, B2B in the healthcare industry. @beyondthepaid
Yep. Health, construction, home improvement, home decor. @ynotweb
Always running campaigns on FB/IG of varying sizes, from $1k to $10k per month to $50k+. Runs the gamut. @DigitalSamIAm
Many – retail, ecommerce, healthcare, SaaS, tourism, agriculture, B2B @scottclark
Yes – tech software, marketing agency, and a nonprofit @GreenRope
Healthcare / Insurance @Galliguez
Biotech @Reddy20449
Yes; Sourcing, recruiting, fintech, retail, D2C collector items, etc. @timmhalloran
Yes. Quite a bit. Online Edu, Eyewear, HVAC filters @360vardi
Q2: How has performance been lately?
We’re only running TOFU campaigns in FB, and they’re actually performing well on the KPIs (which are not conversion related) @beyondthepaid
It hasn’t been horrible but it also hasn’t been great. Some accounts have stayed fairly consistent and some have seen slight declines but nothing too massive. Attribution is our biggest issue right now. @ameetkhabra
Using lead gen forms, things are good. For reach/awareness, things are good. However, we don’t trust any conversion metrics in FB right now and therefore aren’t using automated bidding features. @robert_brady
Its…fine. it’s fine. reach campaigns. fine. awareness, sort of high freqs but fine. it’s fine. @JuliaVyse
Challenging. Thankfully heavy on brand awareness. Engagements/actions are often questionable, depending on client. @ynotweb
Performance on building audiences is great. Was that the question? Currently experiencing some challenges on conversion tracking, hmm! @soanders
We don’t retarget like some DTC campaigns… most things are targeted on FB proper as well. So we have not been hit nearly as bad as other type of campaigns @Galliguez
Like the Bunker Hills Wave Pool. Up and down and up and down. But the longer it’s gone on the more you can predict the “why” of things happening (not always tho) @timmhalloran
Q3: Are you having any issues with conversion tracking and/or attribution? If so, what are you seeing? And how long have you been experiencing issues or weirdness?
Conversion tracking/attribution is such a mess I don’t trust it at all right now. @robert_brady
Yes. FB is actually turning off ad sets based on whether domains are verified – even if there has never been a facebook website conversion used for the account. And audience sizes are all over the place.@JuliaVyse
The delayed attribution is incredibly frustrating at times, audience sizes are bonkers and we’ve needed significant time/resource investment in ensuring the pixel + 8 standard events are configured properly. @DigitalSamIAm
Conversion tracking is increasingly challenging. We didn’t run a lot of direct conversion oriented campaigning on FB in the first place, not a huge shock from it. We use Facebook to build audiences we can retarget to sales. Performance is so so @soanders
Yeeeep. Facebook is incorrectly reporting back conversions. Often the conversion number is higher in Google analytics than it is on Facebook. It’s been happening for the last several weeks. @ameetkhabra
We’ve seen a huge change in conversion metrics. It’s rather annoying… Also as a piggyback to A1: I’m in the travel industry. @dan_patterson
It’s not a big thing. More of a complaint. If the budget is managed at the ad set level I can’t see results at the campaign level. Just really annoys me you know? @jord_stark
Yes soooo many issues right now! 14.5 is wreaking havoc on FB tracking and attribution/did for two months – it seems to be stabilizing. @revaminkoff
Google trying to push people to data-driven attribution and then not being able to give them any idea of how that’s being determined is a mess for cross-channel attribution. @revaminkoff
Totally, yes. Since May 1st. GA is reporting MORE conversions than FB’s UI. First time I can remember having that problem. @timmhalloran
Q4: How are audiences working for you lately? What types are you targeting or using (interest, custom, retargeting, LAL) and have you seen performance changes?
LAL audiences have picked up steam, especially on Facebook, and are becoming much more crucial to performance. @revaminkoff
I still think in-market audiences might be one of @GoogleAds ‘ coolest features. @revaminkoff
They’re working fine, but there’s really no way to plan campaigns with audience sizes so skewed right now. est impr and est reach are basically a crap shoot, and adding/removing interests has way larger effects than they used to. @JuliaVyse
It’s been a mixed bag from client to client. For a few, top of funnel has been a nightmare that I want to wake up from. For some, LAL’s are starting to perform again Remarketing has also been really finicky. @ameetkhabra
Interests are doing much better lately for me. LLA stopped performing altogether for a little while but I’ve been re-uploading them and making them wider and that’s helped (6-10%). @timmhalloran
Facebook audiences. This is Facebooks superpower. We primarily target interests and demographics to mimic personas (when they exist). It helps us reach the right audiences and then retarget to sales in a stage two. Happy with a low ROAS as we are high funnel @soanders
Q5: Are there things that used to work fabulously in your accounts that seem to no longer work or don’t work as well? Does it vary by account and/or industry or any other factor?
I’ve more or less given up on TOF B2B behavior filters (job titles, industry, etc). Used to work for me but the data is weak now @timmhalloran
Can we all acknowledge the drop off in conversion tracking from FB when it switched to 14.5 because of the new cookie lengths? I don’t think performance ACTUALLY changed, but it “looks” like it did. @revaminkoff
Rip store visits. Reach and awareness still work, so that’s something. @JuliaVyse
Can I say the word? “Business manager” But did it ever work well? The time we spend on getting those right. Wow. @soanders
Is it to broad to say FB in general? @dan_patterson
Q6: Have you found anything new that seems to be working for you now? Does it vary by account and/or industry or any other factor?
Video is still going strong, can’t say new stuff is working well. @JuliaVyse
Using events to gauge optimization priorities in FB but besides that I’m using a custom attribution model (courtesy of @tannerriebel) in power bi for the majority of success signals these days. Gives me more predictability & consistency across accts. @timmhalloran
New on Facebook as in “not been there yet” For ecom clients, I want to build full funnel campaigns on Facebook and drive users to a Facebook shop. I want users to discover, engage, explore and purchase right there on Facebook. @soanders
We found that 1. reporting things not from FB (either GA or an attribituion platform) was working better to decide on budgets. 2. Lead ads campaigns worked way better than sending to site 3. video ads work really well (when they are good) 4. consolidated structure @360vardi
Q7: Are you thinking about and/or are clients asking about moving some or all of their ad budget away from Facebook to other platforms? If so, what platforms are you considering instead of Facebook?
We’ve seen clients pause FB because of all the tracking/attribution issues. Hopefully going back on as soon as they’re all sorted. @revaminkoff
I’m definitely thinking about it…@dan_patterson
Not pulling spend, but very much considering other options. TikTok has been fairly strong (talk about a rudimentary platform!) as has Snap, Pinterest. and of course, LinkedIn for B2B. @JuliaVyse
Not moving away per say, but testing new initiatives. Trying influencer campaigns on FB/IG and YT is one example where we have never done anything @360vardi
LinkedIn is getting a harder look from clients who previously thought it was “too expensive”. Some Twitter interest for B2B as well. I’d say this period feels like hedging – getting serious about trying out alternative platforms “just in case” @NeptuneMoon
Twitter for TOF underestimated. It won’t solve your last click ROAS woes but it will deliver awareness for a lot less than FB. TikTok surely is biggest ad budget threat to incumbents? @beyondcontent
Beyond Facebook “We wanna go on TikTok” @soanders
Yes, generally just to another channel that’s working for them. Usually Google. I’ve also spent much more time in Adelphic. Programmatic is where my head’s at these days. @timmhalloran
Have to expand beyond the walled gardens of Google / FB. Sure – entering other walled gardens in the process… but need to test and iterate. @Galliguez
Q8: If Facebook is listening, is there anything you’d like to say to them or request for their ads platform?
Please add better B2B targeting. Expand job titles. Add skills and seniority. Basically, copy LinkedIn haha. @beyondthepaid
Please fix the reporting. The lack of totals cross campaigns / ad sets /ads etc. can be very frustrating. @revaminkoff
Develop an offline editor tool. @robert_brady
I’ve got a couple ideas on how u can spend that extra $55B. *cracks knuckles* -Offline Editor -Increase # of support reps -Dedicated human support for disapprovals -Enhanced training for agency reps -Bring back DaaS integrations w/ Oracle & others to improve ad product #ppcchat twitter.com/MorningBrew/st… @timmhalloran
*cracks knuckles* -bring back store visits. I don’t know what the problem is here. -get an offline editor. This browser based platform is SO middle school it hurts. -use certification for approvals please. it will TEACH your algorithm! @JuliaVyse
OFFER REAL SUPPORT FOR ALL ADVERTISERS. Especially with the seemingly random disapprovals and disabling of ad accounts since March 2020. Offline editor. @NeptuneMoon
Dear Facebook, could you fix Business Manager? By “fix” I mean totally redo that from scratch and put some common sense into it and then have a UX designer work on it. @soanders
Completely redesign ad manager UX. Or kill it with fire. Either works. @beyondcontent
1. Gotta fix this crap with business manager and needing 50 permissions for things (verify domain, control AEM, audiences, page, blah blah). Just 1 permission to do it all. thx. 2. Uploading a BS where it doesn’t just screw everything up. @360vardi
More clarity and warning before disabling ad accounts. Not everyone is trying to reverse engineer your policies. We’re just trying to help clients rebuild their accounts. Don’t assume we’re looking for ways to break the rules. @scottclark
Your support is way broken. We need tiered support for expert advertisers who (for some reason) don’t yet deserve a dedicated rep. but still have 20+ accts and $Ms in spend. Many support chat reps couldn’t pass a 101 blueprint course. @scottclark
You lose so much CVR moving from FB to site, I think they will also benefit businesses could do like an Amazon store and shop/complete a transaction on their platforms. It sort of exists now, but not really @360vardi
PPCChat Participants
- Robert Brady @robert_brady
- Julia Vyse @JuliaVyse
- Anders Hjorth @soanders
- Julie F Bacchini @NeptuneMoon
- Ameet Khabra @ameetkhabra
- Melissa L Mackey @beyondthepaid
- Kammy Caruss @ynotweb
- Sam @DigitalSamIAm
- Scott Clark @scottclark
- Green Rope @GreenRope
- Dave Galliguez @Galliguez
- Konda Reddy Gowreddy @Reddy20449
- Tim Halloran @timmhalloran
- Daniel Vardi @360vardi
- Dan Patterson @dan_patterson
- Jordan Stark @jord_stark
- Reva Minkoff @revaminkoff
- Andrew McGarry @beyondcontent
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