Remember in 2020 when iOS 14 blocked ad tracking for 60-90% of audiences? Well, come April 2024 that change that rocked the ecommerce globe may be completely reversed.

Meta recently announced that all checkouts will have to be completed within Facebook and Instagram Shops. Meaning it will start collecting more first-party data that will be available to sellers for ad targeting and retargeting.

Could this be a return to the good old days of Facebook advertising?

In today’s Deep Dive, we break down what the upcoming changes mean for you and reveal the one thing you can do right now to get a first-mover advantage ahead of other sellers.

Let’s dive in!

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Burst Into First-Mover Advantage for the Big Facebook Ads Comeback

The online business world felt the pain of the iOS 14 update in 2020. Key data such as page views, view content, add to cart and purchase diminished. And lookalikes no longer work like they used to. Sources have said 60-90% of people opted out of being tracked.

The landscape of Meta ads completely changed, but with this update to Facebook and Instagram Shops, we could once again get access to the Facebook advertising power of pre-2020!

What you need to know about FB & IG Shops

Facebook & Instagram Shops are storefronts that consumers can browse from a brand's Instagram Profile or Facebook page. Currently, a brand can either link to their site or set their shop to checkout without leaving the app.

Starting April 2024, Meta will require all Shops purchases to happen without leaving the apps.

Currently, Meta ad campaigns can only be run for both the Shops and a website, but this may change in the future. Meta seems to be focused on becoming the exclusive checkout provider for FB & IG, which is good for data and ads optimization.

How You’ll Get Access to Customer Data

You can already use data from your Shops to build audiences, but Shop audience sizes will grow in time as Meta pushes more and more users to checkout on Shops, and this data will become more and more valuable.

Meta will be able to track shopping behavior through user profiles and populate its own audiences. And it’ll be able to retain and use this data for years since they own it.

The Challenge Meta First Has to Overcome

The challenge Meta faces is getting people to trust checkout out on FB & IG Shops. On Amazon, people trust checking out, but Meta is notorious for taking a long time to shut down hacked accounts and many people have been scammed by fake stores.

But by keeping everything within its platform, Meta will be able to regulate bad practices. It’ll rebuild consumer trust over time and the more consumers buy on the platform, the more populated Meta’s data will become. Then we could be back to the good old days of Facebook ads.

Which is why now is the best time to get ahead of the game!

“Skate where the puck is going to be, not where the puck has been.” - Wayne Gretzky

What You Can Do Now to Get First-Mover Advantage (keep this a secret)

To start, take this simple step:

• Set up your FB & IG Shops with the in-app checkout method

After April 2024, you’ll not be able to sell on Facebook or Instagram if in-app checkout isn’t set up.

Before other stores start coming in and ramping up ad prices, you can start running ads now.

You can only run Shop ads that go to both your Shop and your website. Meta’s AI sends people to where it thinks people will convert, but this should change once the ads become more effective.

Here’s a few tips on how to run your ads:

• Make the shop campaigns a smaller percentage of your ad account, as many users are still unfamiliar with shops

• If the Shop campaigns start performing better, then scale them up

• This approach will keep your campaigns profitable during this transition period

And here’s something few sellers know about…

Meta is now offering ad credits to encourage sellers to start running campaigns. One seller got $5K in ad spend for a Shops campaign.

As users gain trust in using FB & IG Shops for checkout, standard checkouts to websites should start decreasing from Meta ads. Ultimately, brand owners and advertisers will gravitate towards the approach that yields superior results.

Now, the extent to which Meta will press this change remains to be seen, but it is taking this seriously. It’s already removed FB & IG shops in other countries to focus on the US first.

It's an exciting time to be an online seller witnessing a potential reverse of the data control shift that totally changed global ecommerce!

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