Full transcript
0:00In this video, I've got some really big
0:01Facebook ads news for you. Meta's
0:04decided to take away a significant
0:06amount of control from us advertisers,
0:07and we need to talk about it. For those
0:09of you who don't know me, I've spent
0:10more than $300 million on Meta Ads over
0:12the past 13 years, generating more than
0:14$1.2 billion in revenue for my agency's
0:17clients. I'm also a Meta Megaphone
0:18partner because I have one of, if not
0:20the largest followings in the Meta ad
0:22space, which gives me special access and
0:24behind-the-scenes info. So, I'm well
0:25placed to talk about what's happening
0:27here, why Meta are doing this in the
0:28first place, and what it means for
0:30businesses like mine and yours that use
0:32Facebook and Instagram ads to get
0:33customers. So, what am I actually
0:35talking about here? Well, unfortunately,
0:37Meta has decided to take away the
0:38ability for us advertisers to choose
0:41which placements we advertise on. So,
0:44just a quick recap on placements, what
0:46they are, and what the latest is. So,
0:48I'm in an example meta ad account here.
0:50I've just created a quick example sales
0:51campaign, but this applies placements
0:53applies to other campaign types as well.
0:55And I jumped to the adset level and then
0:57scrolled all the way down to the bottom
0:58and we get to this placement section.
1:00Now, Meta was already making it quite
1:02difficult for us to actually be able to
1:04make adjustments here. By default, Meta
1:06would just decide where your ads are
1:08going to appear. What they say is trying
1:10to get you the best results possible,
1:12which I think there's definitely some
1:13truth to that, but also there's going to
1:14be just ad inventory criteria. Where do
1:17they have space to put ads? Right?
1:19that's also going to be an influencing
1:20factor in that. But what we have to do
1:21is come down to this placement section,
1:23then click on show more settings, and
1:24then we could click on placement
1:26controls. And in here, we could come in,
1:28and this is still the case as of right
1:30now in most ad accounts, but we know
1:31this is going to go away very soon. And
1:34we could say, yes, I'm happy to
1:36advertise in feeds, but not stories. Or
1:38actually, some stories I'm happy to
1:40advertise in, but for some reason, I
1:42don't want to advertise in Instagram
1:44reels or Facebook reels. Happy to
1:46advertise in stories, etc. And you can
1:47go through and you can customize. As you
1:48can say, I do want to advertise here or
1:50I don't want to advertise here according
1:51to what your business is looking to do.
1:53You could remove things like apps and
1:54sites, audience network, etc., etc. So,
1:56lots of control that we had about where
1:59our ads are shown. And that's really
2:00what placements are, right? It's do I
2:02want my ads to be shown in Instagram
2:04stories or in Facebook reels or on the
2:06feed in Facebook or in threads. 21
2:09different placement options. And
2:11depending on where your ads show up,
2:14that would have quite a big impact on
2:16the results that you generated. So, why
2:17is this important? Why do placements
2:19matter? It's important because not all
2:22placements are created equal. Some
2:24placements get you much better results
2:26than others. The audience network, for
2:28example, famously delivers poor results.
2:30If your ads are being shown on the
2:32audience network, so that's not actually
2:34within Facebook and Instagram itself.
2:36It's going to be other apps and sites
2:37linked through to where you've got meta
2:39ads. Then traffic quality from the
2:41audience network is very well known
2:43within the Facebook and Instagram
2:44advertising community to be
2:46significantly worse. People are less
2:47likely to convert. It's cheaper to
2:49advertise there, etc., etc. Like not
2:51often what you want as an advertiser.
2:53You don't want to spend money putting
2:55your ads in places where people aren't
2:57going to purchase, become a lead, or do
2:59whatever it is that you want to do. So
3:01advertisers would very often come in and
3:03they would turn off audience network.
3:05can be done through the apps and sites
3:06down the bottom here or you can actually
3:08go into the different platforms and you
3:10could say look I don't want to advertise
3:12um on the audience network and then
3:14audience network is obviously quite an
3:15extreme example but you might see that
3:17you don't get very good results from
3:19threads so you can go ahead and remove
3:20that or perhaps you get better results
3:22from Instagram reels than you do from
3:23Facebook reels and you want to to
3:25specify you can check this by the way if
3:27you haven't done so already let me
3:28quickly show you how to do that so you
3:30can do this at the campaign ad set or ad
3:32level and then what you want to do is
3:34just come in and select breakdown and
3:36then you can go ahead and select
3:37placement and you can also do it by
3:39platform. So you could see overall the
3:40difference between say Facebook,
3:42Instagram etc. And then we can see the
3:44results by placement. So you can see in
3:46this campaign here 57 purchases
3:49generated and we've got seven from uh
3:52Facebook reels and a rorowass that's way
3:55higher than the average of 6.58. We've
3:58got four from Facebook feed desktop,
4:00seven from Facebook feed in app. We can
4:03see we've got inream reels, a couple
4:05there. We've got a couple from Instagram
4:07feed desktop, Instagram feed in app, a
4:11bunch, 19, Instagram res 13, Instagram
4:14stories three, etc., etc., right? So, we
4:17can go through and not only see that
4:19there are lots of placement options
4:20where we aren't getting any purchase
4:21from in this campaign and there are
4:23certain placement options where our
4:25return on ad spend is significantly
4:28better. For example, Instagram stories.
4:31Three purchases there at a 0.91 extra
4:35turn on ad spend. You might look at this
4:36and go, I don't want to advertise in
4:38Instagram stories. I'm not even making
4:39any money there. But on other
4:41placements, Facebook real placements,
4:43that's doing incredibly well. So maybe
4:44you want to divert more of of the budget
4:46to that placement. You can go through
4:48and and make, you know, a bunch of
4:49adjustments. We've got a couple on
4:51Instagram feeds that are doing well and
4:53etc., etc., right? So you can come in
4:55and you can check this data for your
4:56campaign specifically because there are
4:58going to be businessto business
4:59differences. Some businesses like this
5:00campaign's not doing very well on
5:01stories. Some businesses will do really
5:03quite well on stories. This one clearly
5:05seems to be more of a reals campaign in
5:07terms of where we uh where we get our
5:09results. Right? So you can come in and
5:10you can check the data and see what's
5:12happening for you right now and has done
5:14in the past. Now I quickly mentioned
5:15platforms there and I should touch on
5:17that because that's also being affected
5:18by the placement option. We're not going
5:20to have the ability to choose which um
5:22placements we advertise on. The same is
5:24going to apply to platforms. So if I
5:25jump back in here right now, I can, for
5:27example, deselect the audience network
5:29or say, "No, I don't want my ads on
5:30thread." Or I know plenty of businesses
5:32that say, "I don't want to advertise on
5:33Facebook. I'm really building a brand on
5:35Instagram. I want to keep people there.
5:36I just want to advertise on Instagram."
5:38The ability to do this is also going
5:41away, as is, by the way, devices and
5:42operating system. So in that previous
5:44data, you saw that I had some differing
5:45results between desktop and mobile
5:47inapp. Well, that's going to change. I
5:49don't typically use it as much and
5:51recommend it, but previously we were
5:53able to say I only want to advertise on
5:54on these devices like mobile, desktop,
5:56etc. and go through, you know, all the
5:58different options, iOS, Android. The
6:00ability to do this is going away as part
6:02of this update. So, we're losing some
6:04significant control here. Okay, so this
6:05obviously isn't ideal, but should you be
6:07concerned? I think it really depends on
6:09the type of campaign that you're
6:11running. If you're running a sales
6:12campaign or a leads campaign and your
6:14performance goal is optimizing for as
6:17many purchase as possible or as much
6:18value from your purchase as possible,
6:20you're running a leads campaign directed
6:22to Instant Form or a landing page and
6:23you're optimizing for leads that are
6:25qualified. The much better way to do it,
6:27by the way, then I don't think this
6:29should have too much of a detrimental
6:31impact on your results. the ability to
6:33customize placements for those
6:34businesses I've been advising for a
6:35while to go with the default to go with
6:37all placements and let matter work it
6:39out because matter is only going to put
6:40your ads on placements most of the time,
6:43not always, most of the time where you
6:45are more likely to get those purchases,
6:47to get those leads, to get the outcome
6:49that you want. So manual intervention in
6:51those instances was only required from a
6:53placement standpoint was only required
6:54when we ran into an issue. We're like,
6:56why is Meta continuing to spend a bunch
6:58of money here when we're clearly not
6:59getting as good results? But if you're
7:02running a different campaign type
7:04because you have to something like
7:05traffic or engagement, let's say you're
7:07sending people to a place where you
7:08can't install the pixel, you can't track
7:11conversion events, which a lot of
7:13business fall into that category, then
7:15this is really not ideal at all. Meta
7:17will default in those instances to the
7:20cheapest inventory. So where can we get
7:23the cheapest clicks from? Where can we
7:24get the cheapest engagement from? Does
7:27that translate to the places where
7:28people are the highest quality
7:29placements where people are most likely
7:30to click through and convert? Probably
7:32not. So my recommendation if you had to
7:34run say a traffic campaign because
7:36you're sending people to Amazon and you
7:37can't track the purchases that take
7:38place there within your Meta ad account,
7:40then I would say yes, go with traffic,
7:42but absolutely make sure that you
7:44customize placements and only go with
7:46feeds, reels, and stories on Instagram
7:47and Facebook, the highest quality
7:48placement options typically. Well, not
7:51being able to do that for those
7:52businesses is not ideal. There are some
7:55things we can do once this change comes
7:57into effect and it's going to across the
7:59board in ad accounts very soon from from
8:01what I believe. It may have already
8:03happened in your ad account by the by
8:04the time you're watching this. There are
8:06some things you can do to combat this
8:08which is really important we go through
8:09that. I'll go through that in a second.
8:10But first I want to quickly let you know
8:12about my new school community called the
8:13Ben Heath Meta Ads Academy. Included
8:16we've got 110 plus exclusive video stuff
8:19that you won't find anywhere else
8:20including advanced techniques I don't
8:21talk about anywhere else. I answer every
8:24single question, community post.
8:27Community is really busy. So, if you
8:28ever thought, I'd really like it if Ben
8:30would let me know about this. I've got
8:31this question. I can't find an answer to
8:33it. Well, you can join and I'll give you
8:35an answer that's specific to your
8:37business. I do live Q&A calls every
8:39week. If that sounds interesting, there
8:41is a link in the video description.
8:42Hopefully, I'll see you on the inside
8:43very soon. So, what do you need to do
8:45about this change? Particularly if
8:47you're one of those businesses where
8:48this is going to affect you quite a lot.
8:50Firstly, if you running a traffic
8:52campaign, engagement campaign, an
8:54awareness campaign, and you can run a
8:56sales or leads campaign instead,
8:58absolutely do it. Probably should have
9:00done it anyway. After this change comes
9:02into effect and you cannot change
9:04placement options, then absolutely you
9:06need to go ahead and and and make that
9:08shift, right? Becomes even more
9:09important to do. So, the second thing
9:11you can do is that you can actually
9:12remove the ability for your ads to show
9:15on certain placements from the entire
9:17account. So, we're losing the ability to
9:18customize that ads set, which is really
9:20annoying, but you can still do so across
9:22the entire account. It is more limited,
9:24but let me show you how this works. So,
9:26back in our example ad account, you need
9:28to go into advertising settings and then
9:30I've actually got it up here in the
9:32shortcuts as placement controls, but you
9:33can go ahead and click on account
9:34controls if you don't see it there and
9:36then you can select placement controls
9:38and they say, look, my business can only
9:40advertise on specific placements and you
9:42can remove some stuff. So, we could
9:44remove some of the audience network
9:46stuff. you have to run traffic awareness
9:48engagement campaigns. You have to come
9:50in and do this. You may well decide you
9:52want to remove Facebook marketplace and
9:54write column less important but you have
9:56some ability there. So like this is not
9:58the full suite of options. This is much
9:59more limited than what we used to be
10:00able to do and we used to be able to
10:01customize it by specific ads set which
10:04was great but it's still much better to
10:06come in and do this. If you're worried
10:08about this change, go ahead and click
10:09that, click confirm, and that's going to
10:11help somewhat, particularly for those
10:13businesses who have to run traffic, who
10:14really want to get their ads off the uh
10:16off the audience network. I also
10:18wouldn't become too reliant on this
10:20because unfortunately, I think there's a
10:21decent chance that Meta takes away the
10:22ability for you to do this as well um in
10:25the near future. Hopefully not. We'll
10:27see. But anyway, there's a better way, a
10:29more sophisticated way that we can help
10:31combat this issue, and that's using
10:33something called value rules. So, if I
10:36go back into my example campaign and
10:38example ads set, if I click edit here.
10:41So, if I come into the adset level and I
10:43scroll down here, we've got this value
10:45rule section. This is an example ad
10:46account. So, if you see warnings like
10:47this pop up, don't worry about it. But
10:49this value rule section is very
10:50interesting for a number of reasons.
10:51I've got separate videos talking about
10:53value rules. The new way of targeting is
10:55which is what value rules really are.
10:57So, check that out. We'll include a a
10:59nod to it in this video. But, there are
11:02some very interesting stuff we can do
11:03specifically with placements. That could
11:05be a really good way to combat this
11:06change. So, if I go in here and I go
11:09ahead and select value rules, I can
11:11click into none. I've created some ones
11:12before because they're example
11:14valuables, but what you want to do is
11:15click in here and then click create a
11:17rule set. Then, what we can do here is
11:20we select criteria type. So, audience is
11:23what most people use when it comes to
11:24valuables and that's what I've talked
11:25about previously. But for this use case
11:27specifically, we want to go ahead and
11:29select placement. And then we can come
11:32in here and choose from the various
11:34placement options. Again, we've got
11:35categories here. It's not the full 21
11:37placement breakdown. We've got seven.
11:40Feed stories, reels, feed, stories,
11:41reels. Now, these are the ones that you,
11:43for the most part, want to be
11:45advertising on. Even if you're running
11:46traffic, engagement, awareness, where
11:48meta is not optimizing for exactly what
11:49you want, you still want to be
11:50advertising across those three. Most
11:52business are going to see the best
11:53results. But by the way, if you do go
11:54into that breakdown data that I showed
11:56you and you see that stories, for
11:57example, aren't performing very well,
11:59then you can use this technique to
12:02advertise less on stories. But the
12:04obvious one here is audience network.
12:06You're like, I really don't want my ads
12:07on the audience network. So, you come in
12:08here, you can select audience network
12:10placement, and instead of increase bid
12:12by, we can select decrease bid by. And
12:14then we can go ahead and put this in at
12:16like 90%. And if you decrease your bid
12:19by 90% on audience network, very very
12:22few of your ads are going to be shown on
12:25the audience network because you're
12:26basically undercutting your bid by so
12:29much that other advertisers are ads are
12:31going to going to show there instead,
12:32right? And then we just need to give
12:33this a name. So we can call this
12:35audience network
12:38minus 90% create. Now we've created this
12:42rule set and now we have got this
12:44applied to this adset. And you could go
12:46into your other adsets and apply. You
12:48would need to do this at the m ads set
12:49by ads set basis. This isn't like the
12:51previous one which is across the entire
12:52account. But that can do it. Like I
12:54said, you don't just have to do it with
12:55the audience network. You could do it
12:56with other placement options if you're
12:57seeing um issues there. But this this I
13:00really like because Meta is not going to
13:02get rid of this. They really like value
13:03rules and they're going to keep our
13:04ability to use this and you can do a lot
13:05of what you needed to do previously with
13:07this. You don't have the same
13:08customizable options like we couldn't
13:10get rid of threads. We can't get rid of
13:11messenger. It's not as good as a
13:13previous setup. But if audience network
13:15is one of the biggest culprits or even
13:17like you're seeing no I really want to
13:19advertise on Instagram more than
13:20Facebook, you can go in and do the same
13:22thing. Decrease the bid on the Facebook
13:24placements and then uh you are far less
13:26likely to have your ads served there and
13:28you're going to have them served where
13:30it is that you want them to be served.
13:31And you can go ahead and check your
13:32breakdown data like we did at the
13:34beginning to make sure that this is
13:35having the impact that you want it to
13:36and then potentially adjust accordingly.
13:38So in a second I want to quickly cover
13:40why Meta are doing this cuz I think
13:41that's important. But first, I want to
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13:50Bad data means not only bad ad
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13:54tracking is consistently off by 20 to
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13:58long-term sales. This leads to that bad
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14:58So, why are Meta doing this? Why is Meta
15:00decided advertisers, you no longer get
15:02to choose where your ads are shown
15:04across the Meta apps and then
15:06specifically the different placements
15:07within the various platforms? There's
15:09two reasons. The first is that Meta
15:11remove advertiser control when they feel
15:13that advertisers are making changes that
15:16are detrimental to their results.
15:19Meta wants to make as much money as
15:21possible and they know that to do that
15:23they need to help us advertisers get
15:25good results because we're only going to
15:27scale and spend more if we get good
15:28results. We're only going to keep
15:29advertising on the platform if we can
15:32actually generate customers, leads, etc.
15:34profitably. So if meta feels like
15:36advertisers are going in, they're
15:37customizing placements is hurting their
15:39results, they'll make a change like
15:40this. That's one reason for making a
15:42change like this. It's why a lot of
15:43targeting options became suggestions. So
15:45all detailed targeting options,
15:46interests, behaviors, things like that,
15:48if you add those to your campaign, those
15:50are suggestions. So Meta has the ability
15:52to follow them, but it also has the
15:54ability to choose to advertise to other
15:55people. For exactly the same reason,
15:56Meta was like, "All these advertisers
15:58are really being too restrictive and
16:00specific with their targeting. That's
16:02not good for their results. we're going
16:04to basically force them to broaden
16:06things out on on the targeting side of
16:08things. That is the generous explanation
16:10towards meta is why they're doing this.
16:12And I do think there's some truth to it.
16:13I've seen many campaigns where I'm
16:15looking at the results and they're
16:17running a sales campaign for example,
16:18optimizing for purchases and then
16:19they've got really restrictive placement
16:21options where they're only advertising
16:22on like Instagram reels and you're like,
16:23you're missing out on so many ad
16:25impressions elsewhere from really good
16:26prospects. Like you are hurting your
16:28performance. You should really uh go
16:30ahead and and open this up, right? The
16:32other explanation, I think there's truth
16:33to both of these, is that this allows
16:35Meta to make more money directly because
16:37Meta has all these locations where they
16:40can serve ads, many of which advertisers
16:42do not care for as much. Things like the
16:45audience network. So, by making a change
16:46like this, they can serve more ads to
16:48more people in more locations charges
16:50advertisers for it and that helps them
16:54make more money. The same was true with
16:55the targeting situation. Yes,
16:57advertisers were being overly
16:59restrictive and that was hurting the
17:00results. But also, if you advertising to
17:02everyone within an area instead of a
17:04specific group, Meta has the ability to
17:06serve more ads to more people. I think
17:08that whenever a platform is making
17:10changes and we can easily calculate that
17:13they're making more money from that
17:14change, we do have to be a little bit
17:16skeptical and think, are they doing that
17:17for my benefit? Are they doing that for
17:19their benefit? Most of the time, those
17:21two do align. Like I said, Meta makes
17:23more money if we get good results from
17:25our Facebook ads, not if we get bad
17:26results. Like, that's really important
17:28to understand as an advertiser, because
17:30that's the only way we're going to
17:31scale, only way we're going to keep
17:32advertising. But there might be some
17:33things they do that help the body of
17:36advertisers as a whole, but don't
17:38necessarily help us, particularly if
17:39we're a more sophisticated advertiser
17:41and we know what we're doing and we want
17:42more control over the specifics. It's
17:44like, yeah, you're going to stop some
17:46beginners from making silly mistakes by
17:48doing this, but you're also going to
17:49hurt my ability to customize something
17:51based on the analysis I've done over the
17:54data. Right? And this isn't the only
17:56instance where meta are doing this.
17:57We've seen some significant shifts
17:59recently in creative enhancements and
18:00what meta is doing to our ads. One of
18:03the situations where it might be overall
18:05beneficial for the total body of
18:07advertisers, but might hurt your
18:08campaigns. In fact, I'd recommend you
18:10check out this video cuz I run through
18:11the changes that we're seeing, how
18:13that's likely to impact your result,
18:15what you need to do about it in your ad
18:17account. Basically, what you need to
18:18turn off ASAP so doesn't hurt your brand
18:20and hurt your long-term prospects when
18:22it comes to met advertising. Go ahead
18:23and give this a watch and you'll see
18:24what I'm talking