This week, Facebook announced a series of enhancements aimed at assisting advertisers with performance and measurement.
“Ahead of the busy holiday shopping season and in the midst of all of the digital advertising industry changes, our top priority is helping you reach new and existing customers, drive your marketing objectives, and measure the performance of your campaigns,” Graham Mudd, Facebook’s VP of Product Marketing, said in a written statement.
So, what’s the latest?
API Gateway for Conversions
According to the announcement, this self-service configuration option in Events Manager “significantly reduces” the time required to set up the Conversions API. It enables advertisers to use the Conversions API without having to write code or hire a developer.
For advertisers who are: Facebook recommends its Conversions API Gateway.
- The Facebook pixel is already in use.
- The Conversions API is not yet being used to send web events.
- Working with a monthly budget of $2,000 USD set aside specifically for web event optimization.
We also mentioned:
“If you’re already working with an e-commerce partner to manage your Facebook pixel, it is recommended to leverage your existing partner if they support the Conversions API for the simplest integration option.”
To work through the implementation step by step, consult the Facebook Conversions API Setup Guide.
Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) for iOS14 Users: Updates
Facebook has been one of the most outspoken opponents of Apple’s decision to discontinue the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) with the iOS14 update.
Apple’s Search Ads revenue and market share have increased dramatically, while personalized advertising on other platforms – including Facebook – has been stymied.
Facebook has made the following changes to campaign reporting for iOS14 users:
- View-through attribution is now the default setting for newly created campaigns that use web events.
- In auto-redirect scenarios, AEM was extended to consider conversions from all advertiser-associated web pages.
- Advertiser-level reporting has been enabled for advertisers who do not own the domain to which their ads point (previously unavailable).
In addition, Facebook has begun to roll out Aggregated Event Measurement for App (App AEM), a new measurement reporting capability for re-engagement campaigns with in-app destinations for all iOS users (including iOS14.5+ users).
Advertisers running Catalog Sales app event campaigns will have access to this.
Advertisers interested in the aforementioned features should consult Facebook’s best practices guide on web event configuration for Aggregated Event Measurement.
Read How To Start Your Career in Social Media Marketing.
In addition, Facebook released an update to improve advertiser visibility into conversion paths for the iOS 14+ Mobile App. Installing campaigns that rely on data from Apple’s SKAdNetwork API can now use view-through conversion attribution.
Industry-wide Difficulties In Attribution And Measurement
Mike Rhodes, the founder of the AI-powered Apple Search Ads (ASA) bidding engine Smart Bidder, believes that advertisers’ attribution problems will persist.
“App transparency tracking will increasingly affect proper attribution of campaign results across ad channels on Apple devices, limiting accurate attribution for known ASA channels,” Rhodes predicted. “Advertisers who need to demonstrate ROI and support the expansion of their company’s sales objectives will increasingly find themselves at odds with this trend.”
The influx of marketing spend into ASA has made things more difficult for marketers because it is a high-touch channel that requires significant resources to manage, according to Rhodes of Search Engine Journal.
“When we consider a channel that requires always-on attention across multiple time zones, it’s easy to see how this is creating a resource challenge for many large businesses,” he continues.
In September, Facebook estimated that it was underreporting iOS web conversions by about 15% on average. It then promised to “accelerate our own investments” to close known reporting gaps before the 2021 holiday season.
These updates deliver on that promise, and we can expect more in the future as advertisers grapple with attribution and reporting issues as a result of the tracking prompt fallout.
Learn more about Facebook and the latest updates.
