Many businesses that are running Meta Ads (previously known as Facebook ads) are seeing diminishing returns in 2022. One of the major reasons for this is because of iOS tracking and Facebook changes from their end. In this article, we will cover how these businesses can recover from this loss on their Facebook portal and also how ad accounts need to be set up to prevent Meta ads from giving a ROAS of less than 1. 

Reasons For Your Old Facebook Ads Suddenly Not Working 

iOS Changes

Apple products that have iOS 14.5 or later have an AppTracking policy framework in which users have to opt-in for tracking. Unless these users have opted in, they will not get targeted ads that can be tracked for conversions using the Facebook pixel. This prevents Facebook from learning whether showing ads to a specific profile has worked or not. And without this knowledge, it is difficult for Facebook to optimise the ads for the goal. However, Facebook has also launched the conversion API, which pushes events from the server of the advertiser and helps in better tracking.  

Audience Rollback

Over the last few months, Facebook has been rolling back a lot of audiences which they believe was overlapping with other audiences. Because of this, ad sets are getting affected, and it can affect the performance of the ads. 

Frequency Cap

Another reason for Facebook ads to stop working would be an increase in the frequency in which users are seeing your ads. Because of this, the users have developed banner blindness, and your ads could also stop working. If your overall frequency is higher than 1.3 for conversion campaigns, then you need to either change the audience or change the creatives. 

Facebook Issues

Many-a-times, Facebook has its own issues which are not understood by the advertisers. These issues could be due to some bugs on the Facebook side or could be because of macro-level issues like a decrease in the number of advertisers during covid or an increase in CPM due to high spending by all brands during the Christmas season. 

Steps to Successfully Solve Facebook Ads Which Have Stopped Working 

Reduce the spends 

The first step when you see diminishing Facebook returns consistently for a period of 3-4 days (excluding weekdays) is to reduce the spending. This is very crucial, but still, many businesses will not do this for fear of losing their business. However, it is better to stop these campaigns rather than spend it and get a ROAS of less than 1. Making changes at this stage might also help, like scaling campaigns that have been working well. However, this could also come at a risk of these campaigns stopping from working once you make the changes and hence you might want to hold back any changes for the time being. 

Try to understand if it is a macro-level problem or specific to your account 

To solve the problem of diminishing Facebook returns, first the root cause should be identified. It could either be an account level problem or a macro-level problem. Check with other entrepreneurs in your group to see if they are facing the same problems on Facebook. If yes, then this could be a macro-level issue, if not, then this is an issue specific to your account and more in your control 

Make Changes to your campaigns 

For macro-level problems that are not because of the holiday season or the Superbowl, your account needs to be restructured. If you have a few campaigns which are still working in the same ad account, then create a new ad account and do not make changes to the current ad account. 

Campaign Structure 

Structure your ad campaigns in the following manner 

1. Create 2-3 campaigns using 2-3 targeting which have previously worked well for you 

2. Each campaign to only have 1 ad set 

3. Use campaign budget optimisation 

4. Start with a budget of $100 per day 

Give these campaigns at least three days to a week to learn as Facebook learning has changed in the last few years and campaigns are taking longer to optimise. 

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Facebook Ads Not Working Only For You? Account Level Problems

For Account level problems, check a few parameters and make changes based on them 

1. Frequency: If your frequency is higher than 1.3, then change your audience or your creative 

2. Lower CTR: If you had a better CTR before your campaigns started diminishing, check the ad creative and the comments on the ad creative. Usually, bad reviews on the ads result in lower CTR 

3. CPM: If your CPMs are higher then head over to account health to check if Facebook is penalising you for low quality feedback scores 

4. Conversion Tracking: Head to events manager to check if all your tracking is getting properly accounted for. If you have not implemented Facebook’s conversion API, then go ahead and get it done for better learning of the campaigns 

5. Create new campaigns similar to the aforementioned campaign structure. 

By making these changes and giving Facebook time for learning, your campaigns should start performing better. You can also check out the ideal business strategy for new digital businesses here.