In a recent update, Facebook acknowledged that this year’s changes to online advertising privacy policies (hello, iOS 14 updates) made optimizing and measuring Facebook ad campaigns more difficult for some marketers. 

In some cases, the updated policies lead to increased advertising costs and underreported conversions (Facebook estimates that iOS web conversions are underreported by an average of 15% across their advertising platform).

To aid struggling marketers, Facebook shared a list of tips for optimizing ads and improving the accuracy of reporting. These include:

  • Giving reporting time. Facebook needs time to collect data, so daily check-ins on campaigns optimized for conversions may lead to inaccurate insights.
  • Analyzing results on the campaign level. Some data regarding conversions is aggregated, so, for the sake of accuracy, Facebook advises against analyzing individual creatives. 
  • Setting up the Conversions API. The API connects Facebook with other, off-platform marketing data (e.g. website conversions) and measures user actions across marketing funnels.
  • Testing. Trying out different targeting and creative strategies can help marketers find solutions that work best in the current social advertising landscape.

Find more tips and learn what Facebook is doing to improve the advertising platform.