eCommerce Townhall Ep6: How To Optimize Your Facebook Ads with Antoine Gagne of J7Media

0:02 – today with Antoine Gagne from J7 Media
0:06 – and what J7 does is they run Facebook
0:08 – ads for a lot of e-com brands they do
0:10 – about 30 million dollars a year in ad
0:12 – revenue right now and growing and in the
0:14 – episode Antoine goes into basically
0:17 – macro view of what he sees Facebook
0:20 – doing to really you know to operate
0:23 – really well in this post-IOS 14 world
0:26 – and he’s got some really good contacts
0:28 – and some good insights from higher
0:30 – up people at Facebook um so I think he’s
0:32 – got a good perspective of like the
0:33 – ecosystem and what’s happened and what
0:36 – Facebook is doing to overcome it but
0:38 – also he goes into some super super
0:39 – tactical things that you can do both now
0:42 – based on what they see working well with
0:45 – their brands
0:46 – but also what you can do to be ready for
0:48 – what’s coming there’s a lot of change
0:50 – and shake-up happening in advertising
0:52 – and if you’re an econ brand that’s
0:54 – focused on advertising which every e-com
0:56 – the brand is or should be I think this
0:58 – the episode’s going to give you some really
0:59 – good perspective to make sure you have
1:01 – the right things now make sure you have
1:03 – the right things based on what’s coming
1:04 – and also to make sure that you have a
1:06 – good understanding of what your agencies
1:08 – are doing if you’re running with
1:09 – agencies as well because agencies have
1:11 – been shaken up a lot by what’s going on
1:13 – too so I hope this episode helps you go
1:15 – ahead and dig in and let us know how you
1:17 – implement things
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1:23 – store leaders learn how to scale and
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1:54 – now let’s dive into today’s episode
1:58 – welcome back to the show guys super
2:00 – excited for today’s episode today
2:03 – we’re gonna dig into advertising and
2:04 – specifically
2:06 – advertising and how to crush it in this
2:08 – you know post-IOS 14 world I guess we
2:10 – could say  we’re recording this
2:12 – episode in early 2022
2:15 – and basically we’ve just gone through
2:17 – the first holiday season
2:19 – after apple essentially you know maybe
2:22 – indirectly tried to kill the advertising
2:24 – industry with IOS 14. so we’ve gone
2:26 – through Q4 we’ve gone through black
2:27 – Friday we’ve started off the year um you
2:29 – know it’s middle of February right
2:31 – now and I really wanted to bring
2:33 – somebody on that has a good handle on
2:35 – what’s going on because
2:37 – I mean frankly it’s been really hard for
2:39 – a lot of people it’s been hard for
2:40 – agencies it’s been hard for skilled
2:42 – advertisers it’s been hard for brands
2:43 – like it’s been hard to have the Facebook
2:45 – game essentially change and so I was
2:48 – referred to Antoine Antoine Gagne who
2:51 – is the founder and CEO of J7 Media and
2:54 – basically what they do they’re a
2:56 – really data-driven and creative Facebook
2:58 – ads agency
2:59 – working with you know mix of B2C
3:02 – online brands also some lead generation
3:04 – companies and they manage a lot of
3:06 – budget they drive over 30 million a year
3:08 – in ads at this point and growing and
3:10 – just have a lot of experience on how
3:14 – to run ads in general right the bigger
3:16 – picture stuff that’s important but also
3:18 – like how to have uh adapted to IOS 14.
3:22 – and a lot of what uh we’re going to
3:24 – talk through today comes from you know
3:26 – more senior people um on the Facebook
3:29 – side so I’m not talking about you know
3:30 – junior ad reps that Antoine’s team talks
3:32 – to but more senior people that have a
3:34 – a lot of understanding of what’s going on
3:36 – and um you know people that are trying
3:37 – to solve some of these problems at
3:38 – Facebook and so I think you’ll be able
3:40 – to use a lot of what we’re gonna share
3:41 – today uh to drive better results um and
3:44 – uh you know that’s our hope so super
3:46 – excited to dig into it Antoine
3:48 – welcome to the showman thank you so
3:50 – much for joining us
3:51 – thanks Jon I’m very happy to be with
3:53 – you today
3:54 – awesome so I know we talked a
3:56 – a lot about uh quite a bit of things
3:58 – before we started recording but give the
4:00 – audience kind of um just a quick
4:02 – overview of how you got into advertising
4:05 – where the experience comes from like
4:07 – kind of paint a picture so we know you
4:09 – know this is the guy to kind of guide us
4:10 – through what’s going on
4:12 – I love this question so yeah
4:14 – first thanks for having me today I’m
4:16 – very very happy to discuss with you
4:18 – so basically like you said I created
4:21 – J7 Media a Facebook advertising agency
4:24 – close to 10 years now close to 10 years ago
4:27 – I started this company because first of
4:30 – i was hosting a lot of events in a
4:33 – a lot of nightclubs where I’m coming from
4:36 – and I was able to bring all these people
4:38 – to my events
4:39 – by using social media in early 2010 – 2011
4:44 – and then slowly but surely I realized
4:46 – that you know what it can be an asset to be
4:49 – in order to be good at social media
4:52 – you can help a lot of companies if you
4:54 – can bring these tools to these companies
4:56 – so slowly but surely after doing this
4:58 – events I decided to start this company
5:02 – and basically what we were doing at the
5:04 – beginning we were managing a lot of
5:07 – social media presence for restaurants we
5:09 – did that for three to four years and in
5:11 – 2016 2017 we realized that the organic
5:15 – reach on Facebook so basically when you
5:17 – post something on your page and you
5:19 – don’t pay for it this avenue was dying
5:22 – it was almost impossible anymore to
5:25 – to reach people just by posting content
5:28 – on a Facebook page so at that point in
5:30 – time I decided to pivotal with the
5:33 – company and keep our people that were
5:37 – doing the content
5:38 – and add to this team a lot of people who
5:41 – know how to manage media
5:43 – and then so we integrated that to the
5:45 – company and from there we changed the name
5:48 – and we decided to only run Facebook ads
5:52 – with the content that we were already
5:53 – creating before we did that in 2016 2017
5:57 – and from there the company really grew
6:00 – we’re close to 40 members today like you
6:02 – said we manage over 30 million dollars a
6:04 – the year in Facebook ads 90 of our
6:07 – clients or e-commerce owners that just
6:09 – want to achieve what we do call hyper
6:11 – growth and let’s be honest a lot of
6:14 – things happen in the past year and I’ll
6:16 – be super happy to discuss all these
6:19 – different changes with you today
6:21 – awesome yeah our whole client
6:24 – base is e-com and
6:26 – I think you’re gonna bring some really
6:28 – unique perspective to it based on some
6:30 – of the conversations you have with
6:32 – with Facebook and you know really just
6:33 – attacking this IOS 14 stuff so
6:37 – help us understand like from your
6:39 – perspective how did Facebook like
6:40 – initially
6:42 – react to IOS 14 and then like how has
6:44 – that kind of you know changed I know that
6:48 – I want you to kind of paint that picture
6:50 – I’ve got my own rough understanding of
6:51 – kind of maybe what’s going on at
6:52 – Facebook but um it’s been a little bit
6:55 – rough I would imagine so help me
6:56 – understand like how Facebook initially
6:58 – reacted and how you’ve seen that evolve
7:00 – over time so that listeners can be
7:02 – confident that like you know Facebook’s
7:04 – all hands on deck to solve this
7:06 – yeah that’s a really good question so
7:07 – first of all I think it’s important to
7:08 – understand what really happened so what
7:11 – really happened if you look at these
7:13 – different advertising players if let’s
7:15 – say we take a look at google so
7:17 – basically google they have an
7:19 – advertising platform and they also own
7:21 – google chrome right so people can click
7:25 – on the ad and then land on a website and
7:27 – then google owns the browser owns google
7:31 – chrome so they own the
7:32 – the entire customer journey from a
7:35 – client from a to z
7:37 – we take Facebook now Facebook is a
7:39 – platform and when someone clicks on the ad
7:42 – the person leaves the platform and
7:45 – arrive in a place that Facebook do not
7:47 – own so, first of all, it’s super important
7:49 – for the audience today to understand
7:51 – this concept
7:53 – Facebook at the beginning of IOS 14 the
7:56 – end of third-party cookie they were not
7:58 – in a strong position because they only own
8:02 – the advertising platform they do not own
8:05 – the land and that’s super important to
8:08 – understand because when you are in this
8:10 – position you don’t necessarily have
8:13 – the same ability as google that can
8:15 – react differently uh so I think for your
8:19 – audience today it’s super important to
8:20 – understand this concept that being said
8:23 – what happened
8:24 – then apple came in and said you know
8:26 – what now we’re going to ask our users if
8:29 – they want to be tracked or not
8:32 – so you click on the ad you’re on
8:34 – Facebook and people can say if they
8:36 – obviously use
8:38 – IOS device I don’t want to be tracked i
8:40 – don’t want my data to be sent back to
8:42 – Facebook and
8:44 – Facebook basically
8:46 – what the
8:48 – they are most
8:49 – important asset is the data that they
8:52 – so if you remove this data automatically
8:55 – the platform will be affected
8:56 – automatically the platform will be
8:58 – affected and you know what at the
8:59 – beginning we knew that it could be
9:01 – something if we lose a little bit of
9:03 – data maybe our targeting will not be as
9:05 – good as before
9:06 – maybe our campaign and our audiences
9:10 – will be not as good as before but we
9:12 – were not really concerned we thought
9:15 – everything will be good
9:17 – and then things became a bit more
9:19 – complicated
9:20 – things became a little bit more
9:21 – complicated so
9:23 – if we go back in time att basically it
9:26 – means app tracking transparency so
9:29 – IOS 14 let’s say uh has been integrated
9:32 – on April 26th
9:35 – and then the first two or three weeks no
9:37 – big deal campaigns were good things were great
9:41 – things really start
9:43 – to become more difficult
9:45 – around May and June and it’s also
9:48 – important to remember that at the same
9:50 – the time it was slowly but surely the end of
9:52 – covet right things were opening it was
9:55 – summertime
9:57 – so all the boom that e-commerce had in
10:00 – the past two years’ ultimate
10:01 – automatically got affected by the end of
10:03 – covid and then by IOS 14. so that moment
10:06 – in time may June July has been super
10:10 – hard for advertisers and super art for
10:13 – the engineers at Facebook
10:15 – super art for the engineers at Facebook
10:18 – why because the platform even if they
10:21 – lose 5 10 15 of the data
10:24 – which maybe is not that much when we
10:27 – think about it but this affected the
10:29 – entire advertising platform the entire
10:32 – ecosystem automatically from one day to
10:34 – the other the CPM went up uh it was
10:37 – almost impossible to see our results in
10:39 – the Facebook ads the algorithm was not
10:41 – reacting properly
10:42 – everyone had problems it was way harder
10:46 – to advertise on Facebook than it was before
10:49 – then slowly but surely things
10:51 – got better it’s not better it’s not
10:53 – perfect today but things got better and
10:55 – I think maybe to give context to your
10:57 – audience
10:58 – three to four months after IOS 14 has
11:01 – been integrated uh Facebook or meta
11:04 – let’s say they made they made a
11:06 – a statement saying
11:07 – with the numbers that we see right now you
11:10 – as an advertiser you are losing you are
11:14 – losing at least
11:16 – at least 15 of the conversion
11:19 – that usually you generate
11:22 – you are losing at least 15 you’re not
11:24 – seeing these conversions anymore so if
11:26 – you go look in your ads manager you’re
11:28 – losing at least 15 percent of the
11:30 – a conversion that you were generating
11:31 – before they said that three to four
11:33 – months after
11:35 – uh everything started and now a couple
11:37 – of weeks ago so we’re recording the
11:39 – podcast on February 17 they said you
11:41 – know what it went from 15 to 8
11:45 – so it’s 15
11:47 – better
11:48 – things are improving
11:50 – things are improving so to make it super
11:52 – simple
11:53 – it was it became more difficult than we
11:57 – thought it would
11:58 – but then the engineers are working
12:01 – they’re finding the solution and things are
12:03 – getting better and I do think that
12:06 – uh slowly but surely again they will
12:08 – find new solutions and uh ultimately i
12:11 – do think it will be
12:13 – it will be maybe a bit easier to
12:14 – advertise on Facebook
12:16 – got it god it totally makes sense
12:20 – we’ll see we have time at the end
12:21 – because I kind of want to go down a
12:22 – a little bit of a rabbit hole around like
12:24 – does this mean apple eventually launches
12:25 – their own network um but I think that’s
12:28 – there are a lot of angles to that question
12:29 – so we’ll come back to that later um but
12:32 – with uh with Facebook
12:34 – what are some of the specific things
12:36 – that they are doing that advertisers can
12:38 – learn from or that advertisers need to
12:40 – be aware of I know there’s a couple
12:41 – couple things um and I kind of want to
12:44 – split those into like explicit reactions
12:46 – so like what are some things Facebook is
12:47 – saying or doing but then also like
12:49 – implicit of like the things that you see
12:51 – or the way that they’re talking about
12:52 – this or their earnings reports they’re
12:54 – like all those types of things like what
12:56 – is what can advertisers learn by the
12:59 – a giant of Facebook reacting to this
13:02 – that makes a little so let’s say we
13:04 – start technical and tactical
13:06 – ear because I know you have a lot of
13:08 – advertisers e-commerce owners that are
13:10 – listening today one thing that is super
13:13 – super important that you do now
13:16 – that you do now is to
13:18 – integrate is to install your conversion
13:21 – API
13:22 – your conversion API this is the most
13:25 – the important thing to do right now so
13:27 – basically what is the conversion API to
13:29 – make it simple for your audience is the
13:31 – pixel
13:32 – 2.0 the pixel 2.0 okay so
13:36 – a lot of people advertise on Facebook we
13:38 – know what is the pixel basically the
13:40 – pixel is a code that you integrate on
13:42 – your website and because of this code
13:44 – Facebook is able to see exactly what’s
13:46 – going on on your website and is able to
13:48 – report different conversions in the ads
13:50 – manager the problem is the pixel is
13:53 – going away a lot of things are changing
13:55 – IOS 14 the end of third-party cookies
13:58 – gdpr in Europe i do think that you have
14:00 – something similar in California right
14:02 – now yeah all these different things
14:04 – right now what they do
14:06 – are they
14:07 – remove the ability to for the
14:10 – pixel to give information to Facebook
14:13 – so because of that
14:14 – because of that
14:16 – Facebook needed to create something
14:18 – different which is the conversion API so
14:20 – how it works the pixel
14:23 – was triggering because of your browser
14:25 – so let’s say you use safari google
14:27 – chrome
14:28 – any of your browser someone does an action
14:31 – on your website
14:32 – then the browser receives the
14:34 – information and then the browser sends
14:36 – the information back to Facebook the
14:38 – problem now is the browser so what they
14:40 – did they remove the browser and they
14:43 – created a system that we do call server
14:45 – to the server so your website server takes
14:49 – the same info and send it straight up to
14:51 – Facebook and do not use
14:54 – do not use the middleman which is the
14:56 – browser here and this is super important
14:59 – because by the end of the year 2022
15:03 – there’s a pretty good chance that the
15:04 – pixel will not work anymore than the
15:06 – pixel will not work anymore so if you
15:08 – want to see conversions in your ads
15:10 – manager you do need to integrate you do
15:13 – need to install the conversion API so on
15:15 – the technical side tactical side is
15:18 – super important to know if you don’t do
15:20 – that right now you’ll be in bad shape by
15:22 – the end of the year I do think you also
15:24 – wanted to talk about from a macro
15:26 – perspective what’s happening with meta
15:28 – uh what we we should expect from
15:30 – the company in the future
15:35 – yeah I’m looking for
15:37 – so they’re telling us to do the
15:38 – conversion API but i guess I’m also
15:40 – looking at like what’s your read right
15:42 – because you see things you see
15:44 – how the industry plays and so that’s
15:46 – kind of what I meant by implicit is
15:48 – basically you know what do you
15:50 – think is happening that they might not
15:51 – be saying
15:53 – yeah so first of all it’s except
15:55 – extremely interesting to see that for
15:57 – the first time in time
15:59 – since social media literally exists they
16:01 – do have strong competition
16:04 – they do have a strong competition now
16:06 – and it never happened in
16:08 – you know 18 years they started the
16:10 – company in 2004 so it just started
16:13 – now like social media different
16:15 – platforms were there snap was there
16:17 – Pinterest was there but they were not as
16:19 – big and now tick TikTok came in and they
16:22 – are as big and they are growing faster
16:25 – so for the first time in time
16:27 – they do have a very very
16:29 – strong competitor against them so
16:32 – because of that obviously a lot of
16:33 – things are changing
16:35 – a lot of questions a lot of people
16:37 – ask questions about his the company will
16:40 – be in good shape in two or three years
16:41 – is the end of Facebook or anything like
16:43 – that
16:44 – you know
16:45 – I honestly do not think that only one
16:49 – platform
16:50 – will be the main player in the next few
16:52 – years I think it’s great that the
16:53 – different platforms are there like
16:54 – Facebook like Instagram like
16:57 – Tiktok like snap so it’s not the end
16:59 – of Facebook but it’s good that for for
17:01 – the first time we have competition and
17:03 – people will
17:04 – and people in in the government and the
17:06 – state will stop to say that Facebook is
17:08 – a monopoly and they own everything it’s
17:10 – not true we have numbers now that it’s
17:12 – not true
17:14 – now
17:14 – let’s be honest they’ve been affected a
17:16 – lot and the earnings that they just
17:18 – released they said that I was 14
17:21 – affected at least
17:23 – 10 billion dollars in revenue in the
17:25 – past year so they lost at least 10
17:27 – billion dollars in revenue in the past
17:28 – year because of the problem that
17:30 – happened with IOS 14 and all these
17:32 – different things so I think it’s
17:33 – important for people to understand that
17:35 – that right now they’re trying to recover
17:37 – from that the moment they will the
17:39 – the moment they will recover is the moment
17:41 – where they will start to sell
17:44 – things straight up on their platform the
17:47 – the moment they will start to sell things
17:49 – straight up on their platform
17:51 – that’s the big problem that they have
17:52 – right now because if I go back to the
17:54 – things that I was saying at the
17:55 – beginning google owns the advertising
17:57 – platform and they own the land so they
17:59 – can do whatever they want Facebook does
18:01 – not own the land and what they try to do
18:03 – right now is to
18:05 – make sure that the platform at some
18:07 – point can be transactional and when the
18:09 – platform Facebook will be transactional
18:12 – all the problems that they’ve been
18:13 – experiencing in the past year with IOS
18:15 – 14 will be in the past because all the
18:18 – signal because they will own all the
18:20 – signals on their platform they will not
18:22 – lose any data and at that moment
18:25 – they will be uh in a way better shape
18:28 – and it could happen as soon as the end
18:30 – of the year they are working really hard
18:32 – right now to create this kind of
18:33 – commerce environment so i think that
18:36 – when this will happen um automatically
18:38 – the stock and everything that
18:40 – advertisers are doing will be a bit
18:42 – better
18:43 – what do advertisers need to be ready for
18:46 – when it comes to you know Facebook uh
18:48 – selling on a platform like I know that
18:50 – there’s already a lot of movement
18:52 – happening and there’s stuff with Shopify
18:53 – and Facebook and those types of things
18:54 – but um I’m curious like how do you
18:58 – think it’s going is it ready yet and
19:00 – what are the things advertisers can do
19:02 – to kind of to get ahead of that so that
19:04 – as Facebook starts to gain traction
19:06 – there you know where we’re in a
19:08 – good spot um not ignoring it and saying
19:10 – oh they’re probably not going to figure
19:11 – it out like what do advertisers
19:13 – need to do now um to be ready for that
19:16 – so so it’s already in beta in the states
19:18 – right now so I guess a lot of people who
19:20 – listen to your podcasts are based in the
19:22 – united states so if you’re an e-commerce
19:25 – in the united states right now you can
19:27 – do what we do call Instagram check out
19:29 – Instagram check out so basically buying
19:32 – a product straight up from Instagram
19:34 – using the Instagram checkout so this is
19:36 – already there they are testing it
19:39 – so I guess the most important thing
19:41 – right now to do is look if you can
19:43 – integrate the Instagram checkout and see
19:45 – how your audience reacts that being said
19:48 – there’s a couple of other things making
19:49 – sure you’re it’s more technical but your
19:51 – the Facebook shop is on that you have a
19:54 – product tags on all your product because
19:56 – this is the foundation of what’s coming
19:59 – this is the foundation of what’s coming
20:01 – the Facebook shop the product tag the
20:03 – Instagram checkout e-commerce owners
20:06 – need to be ready by doing these things
20:08 – because the moment we’ll be able to
20:10 – launch ads on the platform and make sure
20:12 – that people can buy our products
20:14 – straight up on the platform it will be a
20:17 – a different story you can see that a bit
20:18 – like amazon be on the advertising
20:22 – platform and then people buy on their
20:23 – platform as well Facebook will be a bit
20:26 – like that in the future
20:28 – yeah completely makes sense um
20:31 – is there anything I know you’ve been
20:32 – been chatting with Facebook um on some
20:34 – of the things that they’re working on
20:36 – and uh you know you guys are well
20:38 – connected one of the uh you guys are the
20:40 – an only agency with a Facebook badge in
20:42 – Canada right
20:44 – I don’t know I guess there are others i
20:46 – don’t know how many they are in in
20:48 – Canada but definitely we’re we’ve been
20:50 – one of the first years yeah one of the
20:53 – few and we’ve been in the first 30
20:54 – agencies in the world to be on the
20:56 – Facebook marketing partner program when
20:59 – it started in 2018 so yeah we have great
21:01 – connection with Facebook
21:03 – nice um is there anything else that
21:05 – you’re hearing from them um that that
21:07 – kind of helps you understand like how
21:09 – close they are too kind of um getting
21:11 – through this how close they are to
21:13 – cracking um you know selling on the platform
21:15 – all those types of things um I think
21:17 – this direction has been clear to people
21:19 – for quite a while but
21:21 – from the outside at least it seemed like
21:23 – you know they’re not quite there yet
21:24 – they’re not quite figuring it out like
21:26 – what are you seeing if anything of
21:28 – like uh the velocity of how fast they
21:30 – are approaching being able to solve it
21:32 – yeah they work hard they work really
21:34 – hard uh I can’t I can tell you that
21:36 – because we have so many updates about
21:38 – that on a weekly basis
21:40 – so I do think it’s coming they will not
21:42 – obviously give a date publicly because
21:45 – they are not necessarily ready and it’s
21:46 – also important to understand that when
21:48 – they launch these kinds of initiative
21:50 – it’s only in a couple of countries at
21:51 – the beginning
21:53 – that being said I do think that by the
21:54 – end of the year 2023
21:57 – the landscape of advertising on Facebook
22:00 – will be slowly but truly different
22:01 – because it’s coming they’re not creating
22:04 – these old metaphors
22:06 – uh commerce platform for nothing they
22:08 – want to create all included platforms
22:12 – the ads the content uh the um uh buying
22:17 – the products straight up on the platform
22:18 – and this they’ve been working on that
22:20 – for years they’ve been telling us that
22:22 – for years so I do think that by the end
22:24 – of the year 2023 at the pace they are
22:26 – working right now we’ll see a lot of new
22:28 – things
22:29 – I just had a thought
22:32 – I know that they’ve been working on
22:33 – metaverse and all of that for
22:35 – quite a few years I just had a thought
22:36 – of like this kind of fits into
22:38 – essentially say like if they don’t own
22:41 – uh the browser they don’t own the like
22:43 – the the the place where the commerce is
22:45 – happening it’s almost like they’re
22:46 – skipping the part of like let’s create
22:48 – our own google chrome and they’re saying
22:49 – let’s just create our own internet
22:50 – like let’s create the yeah and then
22:52 – Facebook is part of that
22:53 – because they realize that they
22:55 – were not in good shape they realize
22:57 – that they’re not in good shape because
22:59 – the browser the apple the google can
23:01 – do whatever they want
23:03 – can say hey from one day to the other
23:05 – your pixel is off and that’s what they
23:07 – did that’s what they did because you do
23:09 – not own the land but when you own the
23:12 – land you can then do
23:14 – roughly whatever you want right so so
23:17 – that’s what they do and obviously
23:19 – it’s kind of clear that the first
23:20 – iteration will be to buy the products on
23:23 – the platforms and then the second
23:25 – iteration or the third iteration will be
23:27 – this kind of metaverse that they’ve been
23:29 – selling us in the past few months
23:32 – let’s uh let’s shift and talk about um
23:34 – IOS squad um IOS 14 squad um yeah what
23:38 – are some of the key takeaways give us an
23:39 – overview of what that is and then what
23:40 – are some of the key takeaways um that
23:42 – you guys learned uh from the kind of going
23:44 – through those tests
23:46 – yeah this is a great question so if we
23:48 – go back to the summer of 2021
23:50 – when it was total chaos in the ad
23:53 – ecosystem we realized that people were
23:55 – looking for answers and we realized that
23:57 – we were also looking for answers and the
24:00:00 – the only way to get answers in this kind of
24:02:00 – the environment is to test a lot
24:04:00 – of different things
24:06:00 – so inside our company we created a small
24:09:00 – team
24:10:00 – dedicated to
24:11:00 – test test test non-stop so basically it
24:18:00 – and the idea was to crack the crack
24:20:00 – the code to crack IOS 14. so we did so
24:23:00 – many different tests and we were asking
24:26:00 – ourselves hmm maybe it could benefit our
24:29:00 – audience so what we decided is every
24:32:00 – the single week we’re going inside this
24:34:00 – newsletter to share the latest test that
24:36:00 – we did to crack this IOS 14 thing and a
24:40:00 – a lot of great things uh happen and I can
24:42:00 – share with you a couple of uh things to
24:45:00 – just to keep in mind first of all
24:48:00 – targeting on Facebook is dead so
24:50:00 – targeting on Facebook instead if you are
24:52:00 – e-commerce and in 2022 you’re running
24:55:00 – ads on Facebook and you have
24:57:00 – a micro audience with 25 interest
25:01:00 – with five look alike and it’s super
25:04:00 – narrow
25:05:00 – you’re losing so much money the only
25:07:00 – great audiences that work and we tested
25:09:00 – that and now it’s more than 95
25:12:00 – percent of our clients that use roughly
25:13:00 – the same audience is a broad audience
25:15:00 – targeting an entire country
25:18:00 – why because Facebook now
25:21:00 – Facebook now needs flexibility
25:24:00 – Facebook needs flexibility even with IOS
25:27:00 – 14 their algorithm is still super strong
25:30:00 – the algorithm is still super strong if
25:32:00 – you tell Facebook what you’d like to
25:34:00 – achieve
25:35:00 – generate a purchase generate a lead
25:37:00 – whatever it is they will find it for you
25:39:00 – the only thing that they’re asking is
25:41:00 – give me some space
25:42:00 – give me big broad audience give me some
25:45:00 – space and I will find these buyers for
25:47:00 – you and this bring us to
25:49:00 – stop doing some narrow targeting so
25:52:00 – basically for e-commerce owners
25:54:00 – targeting is roughly dead just use broad
25:57:00 – audience and then iterate on your
25:59:00 – different content
26:01:00 – speaking of content
26:03:00 – this is no news but now stats are there
26:07:00 – the content that’s working more than
26:09:00 – ever now it’s what we do call UGC so
26:11:00 – user-generated content that does
26:14:00 – not look like ads and even to give you
26:16:00 – an idea uh Jon we started our own video
26:21:00 – video studio inside our agency and the
26:24:00 – first thing that we bought for the
26:26:00 – people or shooting the videos is an
26:28:00 – iPhone 13.
26:30:00 – just to give you the idea that now if
26:32:00 – you want to shoot content in 2022 you
26:35:00 – need to start by doing content with your
26:37:00 – cell phone because that’s the kind of
26:38:00 – content that that works and Facebook did
26:41:00 – a webinar a couple of weeks ago and they
26:44:00 – said that just in terms of engagement
26:46:00 – just in terms of engagement a UGC
26:49:00 – content compared to a traditional
26:50:00 – content will generate 6.9 times more
26:54:00 – engagement
26:55:00 – than traditional content and then
26:57:00 – after that they also said that people
27:00:00 – who see user-generated content 83 of the
27:03:00 – time and they did that they did the
27:05:00 – a survey with a lot of people will be more
27:08:00 – willing to buy will be more willing to
27:10:00 – buy the product than on the traditional
27:12:00 – content why because they think it’s more
27:14:00 – human they believe the brand a bit
27:17:00 – more
27:18:00 – so if you’re running as on any social
27:21:00 – platforms in 2022 and you still have
27:23:00 – this idea that you need to create an
27:25:00 – amazing ad like you were doing on tv or
27:28:00 – newspaper or whatever it is you’re
27:30:00 – losing money people want to see native
27:33:00 – content user-generated content this is
27:35:00 – outperforming for
27:37:00 – outperforming any ads that we’re running
27:39:00 – right now so no targeting
27:41:00 – uh make sure that you use the user
27:44:00 – generated content and another thing that
27:46:00 – I do think could benefit your audience
27:48:00 – is to use the different tools that
27:50:00 – Facebook gives you
27:52:00 – when you advertise on their platform
27:54:00 – what I do mean by that there’s something
27:56:00 – called the instant experience instant
27:59:00 – experience to make it simple Jon it’s
28:01:00 – like a landing page that is built on
28:04:00 – Facebook
28:05:00 – so instead of building your landing page
28:07:00 – outside of Facebook you build it inside
28:09:00 – on Facebook and it’s called the instant
28:10:00 – experience and this is a native
28:12:00 – this is something native this is
28:14:00 – something immersive for the 40 end-user
28:17:00 – the end-user do not
28:19:00 – do not have to leave the platform you
28:20:00 – can stay on the platform and then shop
28:22:00 – your product with an instant experience
28:24:00 – these kinds of approaches are working super
28:27:00 – well because then Facebook is able to
28:30:00 – again to to to
28:32:00 – your user will stay on the platform
28:35:00 – so it’s easier for them to find the
28:36:00 – signals and find the right buyers
28:38:00 – for for for your specific product so
28:40:00 – instead experience these kinds of native
28:42:00 – integrations are working super well
28:45:00 – and the last thing that I would tell you
28:46:00 – that we find
28:48:00 – uh it’s an acronym it’s called data
28:50:00 – so d-a-b-a
28:52:00 – uh dynamic ads on broad audiences I know
28:55:00 – it’s technical but dynamic ads on broad
28:58:00 – audience super useful approach so
29:00:00 – basically dynamic ads what it means is
29:03:00 – to use the product on your website
29:06:00 – and to integrate it to Facebook and then
29:08:00 – Facebook will create dynamic ads with
29:11:00 – these products
29:12:00 – broad audiences so this is
29:14:00 – self-explanatory so um
29:17:00 – this approach it’s another term that
29:19:00 – Facebook created is working super
29:21:00 – well so we’re doing that with all our
29:23:00 – e-commerce owners right now so dabba
29:26:00 – instant experience are working well
29:28:00 – broad targeting user-generated content
29:30:00 – this is where you need to go in 2022.
29:33:00 – awesome this is exactly what i’m
29:35:00 – looking forum i want to ask in a minute
29:38:00 – uh how listeners can reach out if they
29:40:00 – have more questions but um one thing
29:42:00 – that’s super common with our
29:44:00 – client is
29:46:00 – a lot of them are con
29:48:00 – everyone’s struggling um with
29:50:00 – performance and trying to kind of figure
29:51:00 – things out um and some of them like
29:54:00 – they’re unsure if it’s the agency that
29:56:00 – they’re working with or if it’s just the
29:58:00 – market or you know competitors figuring
30:00:00 – out them not figuring it out um and my
30:02:00 – question for you is like for a brand
30:05:00 – how should a brand owner or director
30:09:00 – kind of make sure that their agency is
30:11:00 – keeping ahead of things like how can
30:14:00 – an agency or how can a brand like almost
30:16:00 – re-vet their agency to know that okay
30:19:00 – like the agency’s doing the best that
30:20:00 – they can they’re doing a good job
30:21:00 – because um you know I were talking
30:23:00 – before we recorded just like there’s a
30:24:00 – a lot of agency hopping happening but it’s
30:27:00 – all the agencies are struggling to a
30:28:00 – certain extent yeah of course not
30:30:00 – sometimes it’s not the agency and so i
30:32:00 – guess that’s my question is how can the
30:33:00 – brand owner you know have confidence
30:36:00 – that the agency’s doing uh doing the
30:37:00 – right things what are kind of some of
30:39:00 – the giveaways of maybe an agency not
30:40:00 – doing the right things
30:42:00 – yeah that’s another great question
30:43:00 – and i think it’s important for
30:46:00 – brands right now to understand that
30:49:00 – nobody has a perfect magic formula to
30:52:00 – what’s happening this is common and for
30:54:00 – for any advertisers for any agency for
30:56:00 – any freelancers for any brands right now
30:58:00 – this is
30:59:00 – a common problem in the industry or
31:01:00 – let’s say a common challenge that you
31:03:00 – need to solve
31:05:00 – and
31:06:00 – we the dynamic in the agency and clients
31:09:00 – industry in the past three to six months
31:10:00 – has been
31:12:00 – a little bit hard because you know
31:15:00 – clients do not get the same results
31:16:00 – and then they blame the agency and then
31:18:00 – the agency try to explain and then maybe
31:20:00 – it can create some friction we start out
31:22:00 – with some of our clients we got a lot of
31:24:00 – new clients because they were not happy
31:25:00 – with their agency was it the agency or
31:28:00 – basically look there’s a lot of things
31:30:00 – happening right now so first of all i
31:32:00 – think this is important to understand
31:34:00 – this is hard for everyone and we need to
31:36:00 – find solutions that being said
31:39:00 – are you busting your ass to find
31:41:00 – solution this is important like this is
31:44:00 – a big challenge this is a change of
31:45:00 – algorithm are you testing all the time a
31:48:00 – new idea and you add
31:50:00 – a new content to see if you can crack
31:53:00 – the code of this kind of new
31:55:00 – challenge
31:56:00 – that’s what the brand itself needs to ask
31:59:00 – their agency
32:00:00 – what initiatives are you doing to solve
32:03:00 – this problem I understand there’s a
32:05:00 – the problem you explain that to me it’s fine
32:08:00 – now what are you doing to solve it if
32:11:00 – if you’re not doing anything to solve
32:12:00 – these issues now you have a problem now
32:14:00 – you don’t understand that the industry
32:17:00 – is shifting and you need to find ways to
32:20:00 – make sure that you’re staying ahead
32:22:00 – so I guess it goes back to the simple
32:24:00 – thing communication explaining that
32:27:00 – something is happening
32:28:00 – and the brand
32:30:00 – needs to see that
32:31:00 – the service provider
32:33:00 – is doing a lot of things
32:35:00 – to find solutions for
32:38:00 – for what’s going on so I think
32:39:00 – that’s the main thing are you doing
32:42:00 – things to help me are you testing a
32:44:00 – million things to help me and if the
32:46:00 – the agency is doing that
32:48:00 – obviously at some point you will find
32:50:00 – solutions and now it means that you are
32:52:00 – in good hands but if they’re not doing
32:54:00 – anything ask yourself some questions
32:57:00 – yeah totally makes sense I think that’s
32:59:00 – a simple the powerful answer um
33:02:00 – is there anything else you think super
33:04:00 – important um for listeners to kind of
33:05:00 – take away from this experience before we
33:07:00 – wrap up
33:10:00 – you know I think i think like a lot of
33:13:00 – things in life
33:15:00 – sometimes there’s a change in the
33:17:00 – industry there’s a shift and it’s true
33:20:00 – that it’s harder than before
33:22:00 – but
33:22:00 – you know you still can generate
33:26:00 – amazing results with Facebook if you’re
33:28:00 – taking the time to do the right thing to
33:30:00 – test a lot of things
33:32:00 – and
33:34:00 – yeah that’s the only thing I would say
33:35:00 – it’s not the end of Facebook it’s not
33:36:00 – the end of everything it’s just
33:38:00 – time for competition uh with tick tock
33:41:00 – with these platforms with agencies who
33:43:00 – try to find the best solutions i think
33:45:00 – that’s more this kind of time that we’re
33:47:00 – living in right now
33:49:00 – awesome yeah it’s it’s one
33:51:00 – of those shifts, i think that happens
33:53:00 – every
33:54:00 – I don’t know how often but um there’s
33:56:00 – been a number of shifts I remember the
33:57:00 – old
33:58:00 – organic search with google and there
34:00:00 – were some pretty big changes that
34:01:00 – changed that game and um you know
34:03:00 – advertising is uh is no different um
34:05:00 – what is the best way for listeners um to
34:07:00 – stay in touch with what you’re doing is
34:09:00 – there any specific resources you think
34:10:00 – would be really good for them uh to kind
34:12:00 – of dig deeper uh as we get wrapped up
34:14:00 – here
34:15:00 – yeah I think the IOS 14 squad could be
34:17:00 – really good because it’s a really
34:20:00 – I do think a really great email content
34:23:00 – that we send every single Monday with a
34:25:00 – a test that we did to crack IOS 14
34:27:00 – uh problems so I think if your audience
34:29:00 – would
34:30:00 – like I can send you a link you can maybe
34:32:00 – put that in your notes this is a great
34:34:00 – way to just stay in touch with what’s
34:36:00 – happening right now with Facebook ads
34:38:00 – and the kind of initiative that you
34:40:00 – should do to have results uh with your
34:42:00 – ads and then after that if you would
34:44:00 – like to know a bit more about what we do
34:46:00 – go on our web website J7 Media so we
34:49:00 – help e-commerce brands uh to go from
34:52:00 – growth to hyper-growth this is our
34:54:00 – mission
34:55:00 – we basically help companies that spend
34:57:00 – at least ten thousand dollars a month in
34:59:00 – Facebook accounts so if you’re in this
35:02:00 – at that point come and talk with us
35:05:00 – maybe we can help you to grow
35:07:00 – awesome uh so we will have a show
35:10:00 – notes guys at ecommercetownhall.com
35:13:00 – but we talked about a whole bunch of
35:15:00 – different things and I think the
35:16:00 – the main takeaway that I would look at is
35:19:00 – you know IOS 14 changed a lot of things
35:22:00 – um but the solution is to continue
35:24:00 – testing and continue iterating and um
35:27:00 – just increase the velocity of the
35:29:00 – efforts really is what I’m hearing um
35:30:00 – that’s part of the mindset that needs to
35:32:00 – be there other parts that Antoine talked
35:34:00 – about significantly is the Facebook
35:35:00 – conversion API making sure you get that
35:37:00 – set up making sure you have everything
35:38:00 – configured to be able to you know
35:41:00 – sell on platforms selling metaverse all
35:43:00 – these different things that Facebook is
35:44:00 – putting their weight behind make sure
35:46:00 – that you’re along for the ride on
35:47:00 – those types of things as well so
35:49:00 – again we’ll have everything in the show
35:51:00 – notes I hope that this has been helpful
35:53:00 – for everyone um feel free to let us know
35:55:00 – what you guys are implementing and
35:56:00 – what’s working especially if you hear
35:58:00 – from the uh the IOS squad newsletter if
36:00:00 – you hear of it from there we’d love to
36:01:00 – kind of get that feedback loop and hear
36:03:00 – how things are going but otherwise thank
36:05:00 – you guys so much for listening to i hope
36:06:00 – this is helpful and Antoine thank you so
36:08:00 – much for the help today I appreciate it
36:10:00 – my pleasure Jon thanks for tuning in to
36:13:00 – eCommerce town hall for more resources
36:15:00 – related to today’s episode visit
36:17:00 – ecommercetownhall.com
36:20:00 – and don’t forget to check out Helpflow
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