Christina: (00:01) You are listening to the scaling to freedom podcast. I’m your host, Christina Bernhard. And this is episode 155. And we are chatting about meta add or Facebook ad trends for 2022. So we are about halfway or, well, actually we are over halfway through the year. And so I wanted to go over the trends that we’ve been seeing for this year that I believe will carry on. And, um, so a lot of this is in, in relation to what’s working this year the most. And of course I say that broadly because it really is different. All of all of the time, I often as have people ask me, you know, what are the best types of, um, copy or creatives or the best type of media. And honestly it’s different for every campaign and for every client. Um, but there are definitely trends for sure. Um, and some of these are, you know, in relation to what’s, uh, working this year, but also post iOS 14 because we’re still always kind of dealing with that.

Christina: (01:03) Um, it’s gotten, you know, a lot better. We are finding ways around the tracking. And if you don’t know what I’m referring to, I do have a podcast episode on that. And, um, in past episodes I bring it up quite often because it is so different and it’s really important that people know the differences and you’re able to stay on top of the trends. So I talk about that a lot because, um, I hear people say, oh, ads don’t work anymore and all these things, but when you’re staying on top of these trends, they absolutely do work. So, um, I’m going to basically just go through a list of things we’re not just talking about, um, creatives. We’re also just talking about very, very broadly. Like what has 2022 been like, um, for Facebook ads or meta ads I’m using both, but some people aren’t really, uh, resonating with meta yet because the name change is fairly recent.

Christina: (01:55) Um, and we just know it as Facebook ads, but meta or Facebook ads, whichever you would prefer to call it. Um, so we’re gonna talk about the ad creatives that are doing the best in 2022, um, specific ad strategy changes this year. Um, how important fundamentally like, or fundamental good marketing is for your ads and also what to expect for the future. So let’s dive into the content for a minute. Um, so the first trend I wanna go over is, um, reels ads and short videos. So I’m sure you’re seeing this organically, um, especially with Instagram, um, really focusing on reels. Um, and then TikTok is obviously doing really, really well. So short videos are definitely a thing and they’re holding people’s attention, they’re catching people’s attention and they’re holding it. And, um, we’ve definitely seen that from the ads perspective. So using reels as ads has been really, really effective.

Christina: (02:51) Um, again, you always want to test everything because it does not mean just because the reels are doing really well, does not mean that images aren’t, um, or other types of videos or even longer videos. Aren’t, um, they’re always all kind of doing really well in their own specific campaigns that they’re winning at, but overall the trend, um, these short videos and the reels are like killing it in ads for most of our clients. The second trend is, um, organic or like native content ads. And what I’m referring to is one thing that we have, we’ve always done this a little bit, but I haven’t seen it work so well until more recently over the past like year or so. Um, and that is taking some organic looking posts or even the client’s actual organic posts on Instagram and adding them to that particular creative to the campaigns.

Christina: (03:46) And, um, just having that organic, like native feel, uh, can work really well. This isn’t particularly new, I’ve just seen it take off so much more lately for our coaching clients. Um, and so what I mean by native is that whenever someone is scrolling in the, um, app, it doesn’t actually look like an ad. It looks like a post because it is a post. It is something that they posted on their organic, um, account. And so, um, it being native, I think it’s just having people, uh, take a look at it, especially if it’s just a photo of them, um, like a selfie or something, and it doesn’t look so curated like an ad. Um, again, this is just, you know, I’m just seeing this as a trend, the graphics with the photos with text on them still do incredibly well. Um, we’re not taking away any of the other ones.

Christina: (04:37) I’m just seeing a big trend in the native, organic looking content. The third trend, um, is rising costs and this one’s not as fun. Um, but we’ve definitely seen a rising cost for sure, over the past year and a half. And some of this is, um, it is an actual rising cost, so it is getting more expensive, but some of it’s also due to visibility. So it just looks more expensive. And what I mean by that is our CPMs have been a little bit elevated. CPMs are what Facebook charges you to get in front of a certain amount of people. It means cost per a thousand impression. And, um, what it is, is we can actually see, you know, how things have changed, um, within a client’s account, you know, pre iOS 14 and post, and the CPMs have rised a bit, but I would say that for most of our clients, it’s fairly slight, but if you look at cost per leads and cost per results and things like that, um, things are looking more expensive, but it’s not necessarily like part of it is because the CPMs are higher, but a lot of it is going to be because of visibility.

Christina: (05:45) Um, and what I mean by that is just what, um, either what Facebook is able to view as a result or a conversion, um, due to our attribution window and due to tracking gaps because of the, um, people being able to opt out of tracking, but also with the attribution window, it’s what Facebook is now taking credit for. Um, the ads are taking credit for less than they used to at a 28 day attribution window, meaning that if someone clicks the ad and then they convert within a 28 day period, that ad would actually take credit for it. It’s a little bit inflammatory in some situations, it might not even, uh, it might not be exactly fair for it to take credit for that. Um, if it happened in a 28 day period, it depends on what happened within that 28 day period. Do we want to attribute it to the ad?

Christina: (06:33) Maybe? So it depends on what the ad was for. Um, but now it’s down to a seven day attribution window. So if someone does, um, click on an ad or, you know, if they sign up for a webinar and then after seven days, um, you know, let’s say the webinar is not for another two weeks and then they go into a launch. Um, and so three weeks later they actually purchase, technically the webinar ad should get credit for that purchase, but they’re not going to, because it happened outside of that seven day window. Um, there are some ways around this. I won’t get into that, but, um, that’s going to make that cost per result look much higher. So it’s gonna look like the cost per purchases from the webinar are going to be higher because it’s not gonna track every single purchase like it did before.

Christina: (07:18) Um, so this is also where I don’t want you to, uh, compare your old ad results with your new ad results. If you’re just going off of what is displaying an ads manager. Um, and I, I’m going to talk about this more because I’m just seeing more people compare the two and you just can’t compare them. Um, the data is just different. It’s displayed differently. It is calculated differently. It’s just all different. So, but rising costs is something that’s happening. It’s expected to continue to happen. Like, um, Facebook ads are not going to stay the same cost forever. It’s just like BC used to, uh, like Google ads used to be so much cheaper. Now it’s more expensive. Everything’s going to rise in costs. Right. Um, the next trend that I wanna go over is using broader audiences. So this is a specifically a strategy focused trend.

Christina: (08:11) Um, and the reason that we’re doing this is because, um, with the lack of visibility with the, um, tracking, um, the, a lot of the custom audiences and the cold audiences are, have decreased in size. Um, and so this requires us to stack some more audiences sometimes, um, and just have those broader audiences. And by broader, I just mean that we are expanding them a little bit and not narrowing them down. So, um, we used to have use multilayer audiences way more often. We still do. Um, we’re not going away from that at all. We’re still seeing a lot of, um, really good results with that. We’re still seeing a lot of good results with our lookalike audiences. There was a time period last year, where everyone was saying that looklike audiences were going to be dead because the source audiences had decreased so much in size that, um, as people were opting out of the tracking during the iOS 14 update, those audiences started to shrink.

Christina: (09:10) And so everyone thought that the looklike audiences were going to suck. Um, and they don’t, , they’re still doing really well. Um, we’ve, you know, we’ve made some changes, but, um, they’re still doing well. And that also goes for narrowing your audiences down, but most of the time, definitely seeing a trend of those just broadening up those audiences, um, it doing a lot better. Um, the last trend that I wanna go over, um, and I just wanna mostly just talk about this is, um, talking about having better marketing and better funnels. And the reason why, I mean, this really shouldn’t be a trend , um, it’s just more necessary now than it used to be. And what I mean by that is that with Facebook ads, because there was so much data and because they were cheaper, um, and they were, you know, years ago, they were much, much cheaper than they are now.

Christina: (10:02) So whenever I was talking about rising costs, I’m talking about like, you know, year to year, cuz we’re talking about 20, 22, but if you were to, you know, go over several years, then like the costs have risen a lot. Um, but because they have gotten so much higher, we need the funnels to convert better. And because we are going for broader audiences because we do have smaller audiences that we’re able to, or the ads manager is able to track and keep track of. And um, hold in those audiences, as those numbers are lower and we are broadening that audience, we need our creatives to be even stronger because we are, you know, blasting it to more people and we need our creatives to be able to really attract the right person, but also repel who we don’t want. Because as you broaden audiences, you’re going to be targeting more people that you actually, that don’t actually belong in your audience or that you don’t actually want to sign up for your webinar or move forward with you or whatever the case is, whatever you are promoting to them, you don’t actually want them on your email list.

Christina: (11:08) So you have to make sure that your ad creative is a lot more specific and really, really good. Um, and just very intentional. And this isn’t new, this is very, very fundamental, but like I said, I think that from what I’ve seen, um, I started doing ads in 2015. So over the past seven years, I’ve just seen a lot of like poor creatives do well. Um, I’ve taken over lots of people’s accounts and um, I’m just seeing that happen less and less. You’re just not able to get away with that as much. So having that just fundamental marketing is going to be more and more important. And also, I mean, this is something that, you know, is just kind of an evergreen strategy, right? Like, um, and I don’t mean evergreen as an evergreen funnels, but I just mean that a strategy that’s always, always going to work no matter what platform you’re on, no matter what your marketing strategy is, having these fundamental pieces where your messaging is very dialed in and your funnels are converting really well, that’s going to work everywhere.

Christina: (12:12) So that’s going to be a strategy that you’ll never ever have to abandon. So like if you are creating an Instagram strategy, whereas before certain types of posts did better or whatever, and now it’s all reals, you know, you had to pivot your strategy, but when your strategy is focusing a lot on these fundamental marketing pieces, that’s never ever going to change. You’re never gonna have to come up with a new strategy. You still have to follow all of these other trends, but make sure a big portion of your effort for your marketing is these fundamental pieces, making sure that your messaging is super dialed in, you have really good copy. Those funnels are converting really well. Your offer is really based on market research and you are providing people an offer that they really, really want and that they’re willing to buy, um, super important.

Christina: (13:01) Um, so those are the trends that I have for you for 2022. Um, I expect these to carry on. Um, we’ve just seen a lot of great results. I’ve definitely seen a shift in these trends. Um, so for creatives, that’s gonna be Real’s ads or just short videos, um, organic looking like native looking content, um, ads and the rising costs. That’s definitely gonna continue forever and ever so expect that that just means that we have to be better, um, with our marketing and our conversion. Um, and then also the broader audiences and then just really focusing on the backend and focusing on your messaging even more. So it’s gonna get more and more important as the space gets more saturated and you need to stand out, you really need to nail down that marketing or the messaging and a good way to do that is going to be, um, through market research and talking to your audience and figuring out what exactly they need, what they want, all of those, um, different details.

Christina: (14:02) Um, I do have content on that. So definitely go back in the older episodes. I talk about messaging and, um, market research and stuff like that. So check those episodes out. Um, thank you so much for listening today and spending this time with me. And I will see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the scaling to freedom podcast. If you are a seven figure coach looking for ads management with an agency that partners with you to get your work out into the world and amplify your impact. See if we are a good fit by applying for a spot in our agency@christinabernhard.com slash apply. Find the link in our show notes.