These actions are way better than link clicks... You may want to drive traffic to your website with ads, but your goal isn’t a sale or lead. The link click and landing page view aren’t good enough. This is one benefit of custom events with Google Tag Manager. One of…
Back in March, Meta rolled out Meta Verified for creators, which didn’t include businesses wanting verification. That’s changing now. Businesses can get verified on Facebook and Instagram to get access to the following benefits: • A verified badge • Impersonation protection • Account support • Improved discovery You’ll recall that…
Well, it depends... First, do they know what they’re talking about? In some cases, you will know more than your rep. You absolutely can get bad advice from them. Don’t waste your time with a clueless rep. Second, know that they have their own goals. They are essentially sales reps.…
This might be my favorite custom event. When someone plays an embedded YouTube video on my website, an event fires. That event captures: • URL it was on, • Title of the video, • Percentage of the video that was watched • Total time watched in seconds I add a…
What happened to Ads Manager Updates? One of the best ways to stay on top of Ads Manager changes is through the Ads Manager Updates sidebar. There’s one problem: IT'S GONE. In Ads Manager, click on the Help icon on the left. Normally, you would see an option for Ads…
Here’s how to structure a 1-minute video... I’ve figured out that about a minute is the perfect length of time for a short-form video. Especially when doing tutorials like I do, you need enough time to explain something. But you don’t want to go too deep, or people lose interest…
That doesn’t mean what you think it means! One of Meta’s most prominent metrics is Link Clicks, and most advertisers have no idea what it means. Link clicks include clicks, taps, or swipes on links to websites, app stores or app deep links, click-to-message CTAs, Shops, lead forms, Marketplace, playable…
Once you create a lookalike audience, Meta says it may take 6-24 hours for your Lookalike Audience to be created. Their documentation also says you don’t need to wait for that creation to complete, and that you can use it for targeting right away. Beyond that, a frequent question I…
Here’s how ads get credit for a conversion... By default, an ad gets credit if someone converts within 7 days of clicking your ad or 1 day of viewing your ad without clicking. This is a view-through conversion. You can change the attribution setting in your ad set. You have…
Should Meta offer a secondary performance goal? The biggest issue with ads optimization is that, unless you optimize for purchases, Meta doesn’t care about quality. Link clicks, landing page views, ThruPlay, even add-to-carts and initiate checkouts. Meta only cares about getting you as many of that thing as possible at…
Is this a bug? One strategy for leveraging high-performing ads is to publish them organically to your news feed. When they’re published, they’ll already have that social proof. But I’m noticing a problem... I created a link ad with a static image. When I went to Page Posts to publish…
Don’t optimize for clicks! A popular strategy is to run Traffic campaigns that optimize for link clicks or landing page views. In most cases, you’re throwing money away. The link click will be the algorithm’s entire focus. Meta is trying to get you the most link clicks at the lowest…
This is your regular reminder that recording these videos can be hard for me, too. You see the final, edited version. But there are often moments like this one when I just can't find a way to say the simplest words. Ignore the polish. We're all struggling. But we get…
When should you use Advantage+ Placements? Advertisers love to manually select placements instead of using Advantage+ Placements. If you’re optimizing for a conversion when you do this, you’re likely increasing your costs. Let me explain... You’ve chosen a conversion as your performance goal, so that’s Meta’s entire focus. Meta will…
Here’s a quick tip to improve video quality... You keep your phone in your pocket most of the day. For the rest of the day, it’s in your hand. That means your phone is dirty. Most importantly, your camera lens is covered in oils, grease, and who knows what else.…
Meta wants you to test catalog ads. When you create an ad using manual upload, you may see a prompt under the Call to Action: “A/B test catalog versus manual upload. Run a 4-day test with your existing budget to see how using your catalog can impact performance.” Check that…
You can schedule individual ads now. When creating an Advantage+ Shopping Campaign, you can choose to select a different schedule at the ad level. For the past several years, all schedules were created in the ad set. So now, you can set different start and end dates for each ad.…
How would this impact advertising? Meta is rumored to be considering an ad-free paid subscription option in the EU. Advertisers need to ask how this might impact them. First, imagine the paid ad-free option is successful in the EU. That could dramatically impact advertising in these countries. The people most…
What might this look like? The New York Times reported that Meta is considering an ad-free paid subscription option in the European Union. We have no details regarding how seriously this is being considered or even what a subscription might look like, but we can speculate. According to Meta’s 2Q…
I don’t have time! It’s the typical excuse for not publishing videos... Get outta here with that nonsense. I’ve published at least one video every day this year. Each video takes an hour, start to finish (scripting, recording, editing, scheduling, everything). I also write two blog posts every week. I…
Rapid fire of Meta ads tips LET’S GO! There is no guaranteed hack that will always work. Run from people who make those guarantees. When in doubt, keep it simple. Optimize for the action you want... most of the time. Be careful with top-of-the-funnel optimization. Meta doesn’t care about quality.…
An ad-free Facebook and Instagram? According to the New York Times, Meta is thinking about it. Meta is considering paid versions of Facebook and Instagram for users in the European Union that would be ad-free. Both apps would continue to offer free versions in those countries with ads. The European…
I can’t wait to test this... If you don’t provide targeting suggestions with Advantage+ Audience, your audience will be built using AI based on pixel activity, conversion history, and ad engagement. I want to split test two ad sets: 1. One that uses Advantage+ Audience without targeting suggestions 2. One…
How is this any different? Advantage+ Audience and the other audience expansion tools seem very similar. In each case, it seems to start with a prioritized audience and then go broader. How is Advantage+ Audience different or better? First, the roles of age and gender. When you use Advantage audience…