The talk of the town right before Q4 2021 is how Apple’s iOS14 update has significantly impacted advertisers in Q2 and Q3. We asked our 19,000+ readers at Stacked Marketer to help us with a quick survey. After ~ 200 answers, this is what we found.
Budgets Didn’t Change Too Much For Individual Advertisers
Over half of the answers said budgets stayed within 25% range. There are some advertisers with bigger budget changes, but they are kind of equal between each other. Of course, we don’t know their starting point so the overall ad budget spent on Facebook could have gone down.
ROAS Has Definitely Gone Down!
Almost half have said ROAS declined between 25 to 50%, while *nobody* improved their ROAS by more than 50%. Just 5 answers improved their ROAS over 25% even.
All Hope Is Not Lost, Because Google Comes To The Rescue
Google Ads and YouTube were the most popular places where advertisers have seen promising results. With 52% choosing Google Ads and 24% choosing YouTube, they stand out against a close third place battle between TikTok and Pinterest with 15-16% each.
Insights From Various Comments
The data seems pretty clear that almost nobody is having a good time with Facebook Ads right now. So, if things aren’t too great, you are certainly not alone. If you are an agency running ads for other brands, this survey might help you explain it’s not you, it’s everyone.
And hey, if you haven’t done anything with Google’s ad offers, TikTok or Pinterest, might be time to test them out.
Now, we did leave the option for comments on this survey and we want to share some of the most insightful ones.
- Integrate CAPI. Aka, Conversion API is a must now and while it doesn’t “fix” everything, it does help.
- Lookalikes are struggling. Not shocking given the loss of data there but you (probably) can’t just rely on Lookalike Audiences only.
- Pay attention to your overall sales, not just Facebook-reported ROAS. It’s been mentioned a couple of times that while FB-reported ROAS has been down, the overall sales on the store have been good, so don’t cut budgets too early. UTM tracking can help here.
- Augmented Reality Ads are good? It’s only one answer that mentioned them, but hey, it’s something…
We wish we had some magical way to make things instantly better for all marketers but this is the best we could do for now. Know that it’s not just you, there are platforms that seem to do well, and you can be sure we’ll try our best to bring you the most helpful updates!
