By Gavi Zeitlin, Israel365 Media PPC Manager
If you’re concerned about reaching your donors online, you need to know about a major change that happened in the past few weeks related to Facebook Ads and prospects that visit your site with an iPhone or iPad.
Apple released its new version of iOS, which includes a security feature that impacts how the Facebook Pixel tracks website visitors (the Pixel is the piece of code you put on your site that enables Facebook to re-target site visitors).
There’s been a panic in the online marketing world on how to adapt to this change. Many sites see 50% of their users come from Apple devices. Losing the ability to re-target them can lead to lost donations and revenue for your non profit organization.
The good news is that Israel365 Media can help you with a few tricks and strategies to minimize the impact to your retargeting, and even increase the number of donors you get.
One of the most powerful marketing strategies any non-profit can do is to re-engage prospective donors who have expressed interest in your organization.
This group of people can be one of the most profitable groups that you market to, and one of the best ways to re-engage them has been retargeting visitors to your website using Facebook Ads.
The Facebook Ad platform uses AI to get your ad in front of the right person, at the right time, and when they’re most likely to complete a purchase or donation. With the new updates, here is what you need to know and to do:
- Verify your domain
Facebook has been planning for these changes by setting up more strict rules on how we can advertise in an ad account, and one method is to verify the domain that you will send traffic to. Not only will this help with retargeting, you could even see a decrease in CPM and overall ad cost by using this method.
- Set Up Aggregated Events
One of the new limitations is that you can only track up to 8 events that happen on your website – and these events are prioritized (meaning that even if you have 8 set up, you might only receive the event that’s listed as most important – like Purchases).
Set up your Aggregated Events according to the metrics that are most critical to you, Purchases, Donations, Leads etc, and then additional events in decreasing priority.
- Engage with people on Facebook before sending them to your website
One thing that will not be impacted by the iOS change is the ability to retarget people who engage with your Facebook page or Instagram profile. Anyone who watches one of your videos, engages with a post, shares a post etc on Facebook or Instagram, can still be fully retargeted – even if they’re on an Apple device. By building a content-first strategy you can build up a large group of people who have already engaged with your brand. THEN you can send them to a landing page to make a donation or purchase.
- Leverage On-Facebook Platforms – Like Shops and Instant Experiences
Facebook enables you to create landing page experiences within the Facebook app – and even enables organizations to set up a Shop so donors and customers can checkout directly on Facebook. The user will never need to leave the FB app to complete a purchase or donation.Note that this method might not be relevant for some organizations (for example if there are other reasons they might want someone coming to their website), but for those that are a right fit, it can lead to lower ad costs and increased conversions.
The digital marketing landscape is changing and Israel365 Media is here to help your non profit organization raise more donations online.
As time goes on, different platforms will change their rules. Having the ability to adapt, and putting a solid funnel and marketing strategy in place will hedge against these changes and can make your organization stronger going forward.
If you have any questions about the latest Apple and Facebook updates, please email us at shlomo@israel365.com