– Facebook is unable to push external data into their platform for targeting purposes, except through retargeting segments.
– Smaller brands are experiencing difficulties with Facebook’s algorithm and attribution, especially after the implementation of iOS 14.
– Agencies and brands need to have a specific intent-driven data strategy in order to succeed in the changing marketing landscape.Implement an intent-based data strategy to drive growth and improve marketing effectiveness.”Your data is better than what we have.” – Facebook Ad Rep
I had a call the other day with a representative for one of the accounts we manage. I was interested in seeing how we could push some of our data back into Facebook so they could help us find more of it based on intent. The short answer is that there is no way other than through segments for retargeting.
We chatted about suggestions they were told to give accounts, and how we were seeing discrepancies between our intent-based data markers and some of Facebook’s algorithmic bits. I also heard how the majority of small accounts this representative had access to were experiencing a lot of pain. It’s rough, and not only from an attribution side of things. They are pushing all accounts to simplify, go broad, let their algorithm learn, but what he also said is that post iOS 14, most smaller brands can’t get out of learning anymore because of low budgets.
There are lots of recent posts of people “acknowledging the new normal.” This is what you say when all the things you suggested really aren’t panning out and all the approaches aren’t yielding results.
“Prices are only going to go up.” – Same Facebook Ad Rep
Agencies and brands with great product-market fit will always do well, but with things getting commoditized, this is changing rapidly.
The truth is, most suggestions agencies are providing are things that brands should already have been doing. All the testing in the world, all the emails and SMS, etc., don’t matter if you’re guessing. I know for a fact that there are way more brands that are guessing than those that have a specific intent-driven data play working for them.
I know because most of you reading that sentence have no idea what I’m talking about. You’re going to have to learn and learn quickly. If you’re guessing, you don’t have the data necessary to make up for the data that Facebook lost. Every touchpoint you make the conscious decision to guess, you’re losing ground and wasting money.
You see all these great stories of brands that started 4+ years ago. The climate is different; it’s a different world now. Formtoro’s goal is to reduce friction to collect clean data and enable smart marketers to build strategies and make decisions using that data.
The problem is that the majority of marketers aren’t smart. The industry leaders owe right time, right place to their success. Today, those same agencies can’t take a brand from $0 with a budget of less than $10k to a 7 figure brand profitably as a starting point. So if you’re a brand, just ask your agency or team one question: What’s your intent based data strategy to drive growth? If they don’t have an answer, it’s probably time to talk to a partner that can guide you into what happens when the “new normal” strategies turn out not to work so well.#marketing #data #ecommercehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/jivanco