Watch: Facebook ad training below (iOS Update)

In the year 2013, I ran a small music production workshop in Petaling Jaya. To promote the workshop, I ran a RM50 ad budget on Facebook.

A ticket for the workshop was RM60. Within a week, the workshop received 10 sign-ups. I generated RM600 in revenue, at RM5 per conversion.

My return-on-ad-spend (ROAS) was 12. For every RM1 spent, I got back RM12.

Gone were those good ol’ days.

Today, there are more businesses advertising on Facebook. This made the cost to advertise on Facebook increase a lot.

And now, with the new Apple iOS update – advertising on Facebook will never be the same again.

Wait, what Apple update?

In case you missed it,  Apple just released a new software update for iPhone users – that adds lots of new features. The biggest feature though is a new privacy change, which allows users to decide whether to allow certain apps to track them for advertising.

So what? – you think.

Turns out, a lot of Facebook users (and your customers) use Facebook.

If you’re a business using Facebook ads, this means: 

• You can’t retarget iPhone users who opt-out of Facebook advertising.
• You’ll lose 25-40% of your ad tracking & re-targeting abilities.
• The campaign optimization strategy that gave you lots of sales – might stop working.
• You can only set a maximum of 8 pixel events on one website.
• If you put all your eggs into one basket (Facebook), you’re going to have a hard time.

Oh no! Facebook ads is my main revenue source.

Some people are new to marketing and they only know Facebook. Which is alright. Please, don’t beat yourself up for not exploring other marketing platforms earlier.

Take this post as your second warning – a call to re-strategize the way you do marketing.

The good news is that marketing has existed before Facebook. And doing marketing is not doing Facebook. (As funny as that may sound.)

Here are 3 things you can do as a business owner: 

1 – Start building a brand.

You buy Nikes (the shoes) because of the brand. Not because they ran an attractive Facebook ad with a 70% discount.

If your mindset is to build a business and not a brand, it’s a race to the bottom – because you constantly have to create one-time-offers, discounts and rebates to get clients. Your price keeps getting lower and lower. Your marketing team has to continue building funnels after funnels.

2 – Build an audience that you own.

If you have created ‘custom audiences’ on Facebook ads – you have been building audiences that does not belong to you. If Facebook decides to close your ad account, you’ll lose everything.

Shift to building your own audience. Build an email list using platforms like Mailchimp or Sendfox, and work on building a relationship with your audience.

Email marketing is underutilized in Malaysia. But with advertising platforms becoming less effective, it’s going to make a huge comeback.

3 – Diversify into different marketing channels.

Many business (and gurus) are single-channel minded. They only run ads on Facebook. But the reality is there are many platforms & methods to do marketing – like YouTube, Google Display Ads, Magazines, Affiliate Marketing and more.

In today’s marketing landscape, it’s not enough to rely on a single marketingchannel.

Move into omnichannel marketing, where you build presence and market across a few channels – blogs, website, social media, offline, magazines.  And make sure to measure your conversions across different channels, not just from one channel.

In short, become a ‘Full-Stack’ digital marketer and diversify.

Marketing hasn’t changed

Data privacy isn’t something that will go away. The good old days of targeting customers on Facebook and Google without their consent is gone – so it’s time to re-align your strategy.

But marketing is the same.

Who are your customers? Where do they hang out? And how can you reach them?

Watch Training – How Apple’s Update is Affecting You (And What To Do)

In this training, I go into fuller detail on how the Apple update actually affects your businesses. More importantly, I’ll share what your business can do.

You’ll learn: 

• How the Apple update affects your business.
• Inportant things to update in your Facebook ad account.
• 3 marketing strategies you should move to.

Presentation Slides: How Apple’s Update Affects You – And What to Do (PDF)