Do you advertise on Facebook? If so, the following will be very important to you. Apple’s iOS 14 has had a major impact on all businesses advertising on Facebook.
In this article, you are going to learn about the changes as well as the best practices going forward after Apple announced the update so that you can profitably track, analyze and advertise your webinars on Facebook.
The iOS 14 & Facebook Advertising Connection
The Apple iOS 14 update gives the user the ability to control more of their data privacy. Apple has now included settings that allow an iOS 14 user the ability to turn off data tracking by app publishers.
What this means is that you as an advertiser may now find it more challenging to track your advertising returns as well as find suitable segments of prospects you would like to advertise with following the iOS 14 update. The reason being is that in the past, most of everything we did online was tracked. Since it was tracked, Facebook had an amazing number of data points about its users. Those data points are your likes, dislikes, interactions, friends, interests on the social media platform as well as you’re off Facebook activities including what you shop for, what you purchase, where you travel, what you search, and where you spend your time on the web.
It is said Facebook knows us better than we know ourselves.
The data that Facebook collects allows us as advertisers to tap into that and make decisions about where, to whom, and how often we can advertise. Obviously, the more accurate the data is within Facebook, the more likely we can be profitable.
This iOS 14 update gives the individual users the ability to impact more easily what data is being gathered about them. But for advertisers, user consent on data collection following this iOS 14 update poses a few unique challenges.
How to Successfully Track Your Facebook Advertising and Conversions on Your Live and Automated Webinars
1) Verify Your Webinar Domain within Facebook
If you are advertising on Facebook, you want to use your own domain for your webinars. We recommend Blue Host as a domain name and hosting organization.
In the past, this was not needed. But after the iOS 14 update, you must now verify the domain you are tracking so you cannot use a shared domain from a third party.
The best practice is to use a top-level domain (e.g.Google.com) instead of a subdomain (e.g. Translate.Google.com).
This means you may want to purchase a new domain and/ or hosting site to use for your webinars from Blue Host.
We at StealthSeminar have your back and have already set up functionality that allows you to add your new custom domain inside of StealthSeminar! After you add your Custom Domain inside of StealthSeminar, you will want to verify your domain.
We recommend Blue Host and have used an affiliate link in this article. StealthSeminar is happy to set up your integration with your hosting and/ or new domain name after you get it.
See the articles here to learn more about how to do this.
With these items done, you are now in a position to track your advertising for your live and evergreen webinars.
2) Review Your Conversion Events
A Facebook Conversion Event is an occurrence that happens during your client interactions. For example, you are advertising an automated webinar. Your Conversion Events may look like this:
1. Webinar Registration Page
2. Webinar Thank You for Registering Page
3. Webinar Event Page
4. Webinar Replay Page
5. Webinar Check Out Page (or Strategy Session Appointment Page)
6. Webinar Thank You for Purchasing (or Thank You for Setting Strategy Session)
Each of those six items would be considered “Conversion Events.” The Conversion Events allow us to tell Facebook we want to advertise to people at that specific point in our funnel.
So if someone visited our Webinar Registration Page but did not register, there is no reason to send them advertisements to try to get them to purchase a product that was promoted by the webinar. Conversion Events allow us to target our advertising so it is following up with our prospects in the most targeted manner.
Now that you understand Conversion Events, let’s talk about what has been updated. Facebook has set a maximum number of Conversion Events of eight, per domain. Review your current number and make adjustments if needed.
3) Understand the Updated Attribution Duration
In the past, Facebook would give you a duration of 28 days to see your Conversions. Now that is down to 7 days. That means you are going to see fewer conversions on your ads tracked.
Example: Previously, if someone came from your Facebook Ad and purchased on your webinar two weeks later, you would be able to attribute that conversion to Facebook, now you can’t. You can’t attribute anything after 7 days to your ads.
For cold traffic webinars, be sure you are using the Just in Time Schedule (another innovation that StealthSeminar created within the Webinar world that has become a best practice). By using the Just in Time schedule you will be getting attribution from those webinars and if running replays, tighten those up so that they don’t exceed the 7-day maximum, or at least if they do, you are aware that may be happening.
Going Beyond Facebook Tracking
If you wish to track outside of Facebook and overcome the challenges posed by iOS 14’s update on user consent, that is always an option. There are a number of software that allow you to track, measure, and analyze your traffic from Facebook without the limitations above. I recommend you check out Improvely.com, and if you are spending more than $10,000.00, a month check out Hyros.
Ready, Set, Go!
That is it. You are good to go. Take action on the above and track, measure, and succeed with your Facebook Advertising! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to support.
