When Facebook Ads Got Harder to Measure

If you run Facebook or Instagram ads, you’ve probably noticed the numbers look different this year. Fewer reported conversions. Results that seem to show up late. Reports that don’t line up with what you see in the store or hear on the phone.

A lot of that traces back to April, when Apple released iOS 14.5. The update started asking iPhone users whether they want to let apps track them across other companies’ apps and websites. Many people said no. When people opt out, the ad platforms can see less of what happens after someone sees an ad.

Facebook’s parent company changed its name to Meta a few weeks ago, but the problem for local advertisers is the same one it was in the spring.

What actually changed

The short version: the ads still reach people. What changed is how much the platform can report back to you about what those people did next.

Facebook has adjusted how it counts results, including limits on how many conversion events a business can track and shorter default windows for giving an ad credit. The practical result is that your Ads Manager dashboard is probably undercounting. A sale that happened because of your ad may not show up there at all.

That’s frustrating. It’s not a reason to panic, and on its own it’s not a reason to stop.

Don’t let one dashboard grade your marketing

Here’s the bigger lesson, and it applies to more than Facebook. If the only way you know whether marketing is working is the report the ad platform gives you, you’ve handed the grading to the company selling the ads.

That was always a little risky. Now it’s clearly not enough. The good news is that the better ways to measure were always available. Most local businesses just didn’t need them this badly before.

Measure in ways you control

Here’s where I’d start:

1. Ask every new customer how they heard about you. On the phone, at the counter, on the web form. It’s old-fashioned and imperfect, and it catches things no dashboard will.
2. Track calls and forms. Use a separate phone number for a campaign, or at least note which calls and form fills came in while a campaign ran and what they were about.
3. Watch the whole picture. Look at total sales, website visits and searches for your business name over time, and line them up against when campaigns ran. If everything rises when an ad runs, that tells you something even when the ad report is quiet.
4. Use landing pages and tagged links. Send ad traffic to a page built for that ad, and tag the link so your website analytics can tell where visitors came from.
5. Build a list you own. Email addresses and phone numbers from customers who opted in belong to you. No app update can take them away.

The list matters more every year

That last point deserves more attention. Every change like this one is a reminder that on someone else’s platform, you’re renting your audience. The rules can change with a single software update, and you find out when your numbers move.

Even email measurement got fuzzier this fall. Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection, which arrived with iOS 15, makes open rates much less reliable than they used to be. But the list itself is still yours, and a customer who hears from you directly doesn’t depend on anyone’s tracking to get the message.

Keep going, measure smarter

If your Facebook ads were bringing in business before, they may still be, even if the report says otherwise. Before you cut them, check the other signals. Before you add to them, set up a way to see results that doesn’t depend on the platform grading its own homework.

If you’d like to see where your measurement has gaps, the Marketing Checkup takes a few minutes.