Why Meta is Removing Conversion Tracking from Some Campaigns

[00:00:01] It is Tuesday, December 3rd. Welcome to the first of our weekly deep dive episodes. If you're still not sure what's happening, we have scaled the podcast down to two episodes a week. Tuesdays, full coverage of a big story in the digital marketing world. Sometimes we'll talk to the author of new marketing science research, sometimes mini documentaries. And Fridays, the weekend review with all the news in our space in a single weekly episode.

[00:00:25] Today, an old friend of the podcast, Andrew Foxwell, joins me for a check into Meta's ad platform. Andrew is a veteran Meta ads buyer and has visibility into $300 million in Meta ad spend through his Slack community called Foxwell Founders.

[00:00:41] Andrew, the big news in the last few days is that Meta is taking away a whole bunch of tools from some brands, big tools like parts of the ad platform, the conversions API. What is going on here?

[00:00:53] There are changes that are going to be happening on Meta with health and wellness related brands along with changes with politics as well. The changes that are taking place are ongoing. Basically, about two weeks ago, health and wellness brands that were currently categorized under what Meta is saying is health and wellness and the AI read their website and determined that they probably were health and wellness.

[00:01:21] So there's for sure imperfection in this. They sent out emails to these brands and said, you're going to be categorized differently and you might lose your lower funnel purchase events, which is significant for a couple of reasons.

[00:01:37] One is, of course, if you lose, you know, add to cart, initiate checkout and purchase Meta saying, well, you could use lead forms, you could use app installs and all these other objectives that really aren't direct response vehicles in a lot of for a lot of these brands.

[00:01:51] So it decreases the efficacy significantly, which is a big problem.

[00:01:56] Another one that really isn't talked about is if you're losing the data on initiate checkout and add to cart and some in some cases Meta saying, oh, you know, maybe you'll keep a purchase, but you were going to lose all the other things within your within, you know, pixel.

[00:02:12] Um, then your Cappy integration, which you also wouldn't be able to use loses its efficacy as well.

[00:02:20] So you wouldn't be able to make things, you know, the ads wouldn't work as well.

[00:02:24] You wouldn't be able to track them and the optimization algorithm wouldn't work as well because you wouldn't have them being able to be tracked within Cappy.

[00:02:31] I think people don't understand like that data is really important for optimization.

[00:02:37] Like if I go to a website and fill in my email, that's tracked under Cappy and this would lose that.

[00:02:41] And so you wouldn't really be able to know if a person is heading into your funnel and where they are.

[00:02:46] Okay. A lot of information.

[00:02:47] Can we, can we just kind of pull some of this stuff apart so that I understand it better?

[00:02:51] So health and wellness politics.

[00:02:53] Did I also read that financial services were one of the brands that were affected?

[00:02:56] Yeah, that was.

[00:02:57] So that supposedly is not going to be part of this now, even though that was originally communicated that that change is taking place.

[00:03:03] And interesting that they sent their AI bots to the brand websites and the stores to see what they are instead of relying on the category that we, the advertiser, selected.

[00:03:12] That's what we've heard.

[00:03:13] We don't know that for sure.

[00:03:15] Some people have said, oh, Meta said that this was reviewed by humans.

[00:03:18] And some people said, no, this was reviewed by AI.

[00:03:21] Now it's going to the human phase.

[00:03:22] So based on what I can tell, that's true, that they put all these into saying, you know, go read these websites that are categorized or that we think and then categorize them.

[00:03:32] The sheer volume of those makes sense that it would be something that would be automated, in my opinion.

[00:03:37] You mentioned Cappy.

[00:03:38] That's the conversions API.

[00:03:40] That is a.

[00:03:41] In fact, I would say I would argue the critical piece of of selling something online if you're in a DTC kind of situation.

[00:03:50] Am I wrong?

[00:03:51] Is it like, am I overstating this?

[00:03:52] Is this not a huge deal for people who sell things online?

[00:03:55] So if you're a health and wellness brand and you are currently utilizing Meta as, let's say, 90 percent of the budget and, you know, as your main vehicle, that this is a major change.

[00:04:08] And this is, this will affect you.

[00:04:11] And it's going to affect the bottom line of your business.

[00:04:16] And you're going to have to find alternative channels.

[00:04:20] You're going to have to get creative in terms of, you know, lead gens, lead gen forms, apps, you know, maybe messenger ads.

[00:04:28] Like, I don't know, you know, but I think the other side to this coin is, you know, if we ask ourselves, like, is there currently a problem as it relates to brands making false health claims on Meta?

[00:04:44] Is that an issue that we've seen?

[00:04:46] And the answer to that is, in my opinion, is yes.

[00:04:48] Like, there are brands that have said this, you know, hey, this solves acne or, you know, solves bloating or whatever.

[00:04:56] And it's not substantiated.

[00:04:58] So there's class action lawsuits that are related to this.

[00:05:01] And I think Meta is essentially reacting to that.

[00:05:07] And so, you know, I think that's true that there are brands that have made, that have made health claims and there does need to be more regulation under this.

[00:05:16] And I think that's ultimately, like, what the idea of what this is is good.

[00:05:20] Like, I think it makes it more transparent for the consumer, et cetera.

[00:05:23] That's a good thing.

[00:05:24] I think the issue that I have with this is, one, the communication has been people are clueless.

[00:05:33] They get an email they don't know.

[00:05:35] And the ongoing communication with it is challenging.

[00:05:38] You know, some brands we've heard will only have core events be taken out that add to card, initiate, check out everything, but they'll still have a purchase event.

[00:05:46] Do brands know where they fall in that?

[00:05:48] No.

[00:05:50] And they won't know until it happens.

[00:05:52] Yes.

[00:05:53] So it's just a big, muddy mess in terms of, like, they don't know what's going to happen.

[00:05:59] And currently the prescription for those that are really affected by this is, well, just try our other stuff.

[00:06:06] You know, we have lead forms.

[00:06:07] And a lot of these other platforms as well kind of look to meta to see what they do and then adapt their own stuff.

[00:06:13] They're kind of, you know, wait for the elephant to sneeze first before they decide to move.

[00:06:16] Is this a trend?

[00:06:17] Are we going to see other platforms begin to pull this out?

[00:06:20] I'm thinking TikTok.

[00:06:20] I'm thinking Reddit.

[00:06:21] I think the answer to that is yes.

[00:06:23] I don't see any reason why they wouldn't follow suit in the way that they're going, you know, about this.

[00:06:28] So I'm sure there'll probably be some initial, you know, first mover advantage in other platforms.

[00:06:35] But I would think that the regulation has to come soon because I think the FTC and the FCC know, like, this is in the United States, like, this isn't an issue.

[00:06:44] And they, you know, they're trying to kind of get this more resolved.

[00:06:49] All right.

[00:06:49] So let's say you are one of these brands affected, but you are miscategorized.

[00:06:54] You sell shoes, but meta's AI or some human that is reviewing a thousand sites every minute has made a mistake.

[00:07:00] What do you do?

[00:07:01] So you can submit an appeal and supposedly within seven days, meta will give you an answer on where that appeal lands.

[00:07:10] And, you know, a lot of it is around website language.

[00:07:14] So a lot of the issue is tied to if you say your shoes solve plantar fasciitis, that's a problem.

[00:07:21] But if you say your shoes solve, make things more comfortable for you and give you general better health, then you're not categorized improperly.

[00:07:32] Like and so it could be that you used to say that you update the site, you appeal, you update your site, and then they give you a new thing.

[00:07:40] It's like, no, you know, you're back.

[00:07:40] You can do this.

[00:07:41] That's where a lot of folks are going to try to appeal and change their language to be more general health, not talking about symptoms.

[00:07:50] When will this start rolling out or has it already?

[00:07:53] So it's already happening.

[00:07:54] We have website.

[00:07:55] We have, you know, resources on our website about this.

[00:07:58] Foxwell digital dot com forward slash blog.

[00:08:00] That's it's happening on a rolling basis as we speak.

[00:08:03] And as we speak, it is Cyber Monday.

[00:08:05] So, you know, great timing.

[00:08:06] Andrew, thank you.

[00:08:08] Thank you.

[00:08:08] Andrew Foxwell is our meta ads correspondent.

[00:08:10] You can learn more about his digital ads training at today in digital dot com slash Foxwell or his Slack community of senior meta ad buyers at today in digital dot com slash founders.

[00:08:22] Both of those are affiliate links.

[00:08:23] You can find those links at the top of our show notes.

[00:08:26] So that is it for the first of our Tuesday deep dive weekly episodes.

[00:08:30] I'll be back Friday with all the news.

[00:08:31] Don't worry, you will not miss a thing because we're not doing the daily episodes.

[00:08:34] We're still covering everything that's happened on those Friday episodes.

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[00:08:50] All right.

[00:08:50] I'm Todd Maffin.

[00:08:51] Thanks for listening.

[00:08:52] See you Friday.