How to Work Around and Keep Facebook Lookalike and Audiences Up to Date
By: Trapica Content Team
Tags: Facebook Marketing, AI, Apple, Lookalike Audiences, Facebook

How to Work Around and Keep Facebook Lookalike and Audiences Up to Date Trapica Content Team May 24·7 min read

Believe it or not, the new Apple iOS 14 update doesn’t mean the end of the road for Facebook lookalike audiences and other advertising opportunities. Regardless of what you might read online, and regardless of what your marketing friends might be telling you, there are ways to get around the new Apple update and ways to keep advertising campaigns alive.

What’s the Problem?

Apple has released one of its many updates, but this one has caused quite the stir rather than passing by without so much as a flicker of attention (like most iOS updates). Why? Because this one affects every single app on the App Store and every advertiser on Facebook (we told you it was big!).

Long story short, the App Tracking Transparency system means that all apps must ask users for permission to track their activity. That’s right — every single app, including giants like Facebook. If users tap against tracking, the platform cannot track activity.

As you’ve probably guessed, this is a huge problem for a platform that relies on masses of data. With this data now limited, advertisers and Facebook alike are concerned about what this means for the future of advertising.

According to early estimates, around 60% of all iOS users are tapping against tracking, and this is a large percentage of data to lose instantly. With the pixel affected, it means that retargeting audiences are harder to build and it also becomes difficult to use lookalike audiences to our own advantage.

For one thing, the seed audience in a given campaign is likely to shrink as more people tap against tracking. The more people who choose against tracking, the smaller the seed audience becomes. With lookalike audiences based on a smaller audience, this may mean less accurate results or not as many people coming out the other side.

What’s the Solution?

If you clicked on this article because of the title, you’re probably excited about the potential of a solution to this damaging problem. Instead of focusing on the issue, it’s always best to look for a solution, and you have some options after this latest Apple update.

Option 1 — Use an AI Tool

For those who have been avoiding AI tools, it’s finally time to take advantage of the technology. With artificial intelligence and machine learning, the idea for these tools is to automatically collect data. Even after the iOS 14 update, tools like Trapica can still offer visibility into age, gender, location, and any other data points that you need.

Remember, 60% of Apple users may stop tracking, but you still have 40% of Apple users as well as 100% of all Android users. As long as you use a tool to harness it, there’s still data to be had. An AI tool ensures that you’re always accessing the available data.

Why invest in an AI solution? Among other things, it works automatically, and this means that you don’t need to spend lots of marketing hours to make it happen. While the technology gathers important insights, your marketing team can focus on the bigger picture.

Meanwhile, the advantage of having machine learning and artificial intelligence is that you’re also utilizing automated optimization. Not only will tools gather insights, but they’ll also put the insights into action. For example, they will automatically optimize bidding, budgeting, targeting, and creatives based on the data.

Now, the marketing team has even more free time to handle bigger tasks. Rather than constantly assessing data and making small adjustments to campaign bidding, the technology does it for you.

Every year, the number of solutions in the AI niche grows and this means more and more opportunities. With the right tool, you’ll have automation across campaigns not only on Facebook but also on Reddit, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

Especially if you run a marketing agency, it’s harder than ever to run campaigns for several clients across numerous platforms. You need an automation tool to gather the right insights after iOS 14 and inform marketing campaigns accurately.

Option 2 — Refresh the Audience Manually

As well as automation, we also recommend refreshing the audience of your lookalike audience campaigns manually. Admittedly, this will require more effort than in the past. However, it’s a good workaround after the recent Apple update.

Of course, we can no longer use the data of those who have rejected tracking. Yet, we still have access to real data from converted audiences. To purchase from your brand, customers will have provided some personal information…information that can be used as part of a lookalike audience campaign.

Depending on your sales numbers, you can update the audiences and lookalikes every couple of days using raw data from your converted audience.

Unfortunately, the days of creating a lookalike audience from people who spend the most time on our app or website are over. In the past, we could create a lookalike audience based on the people who spend time on product pages. Alternatively, another option was to create a lookalike audience based on app activity.

With iOS 14, our options are now limited because lots of people keep their activity private. You can try to persist, but you’ll encounter the issues mentioned earlier in that the seed audience will shrink and the results will lose accuracy and size.

In your converted audience, you have plenty of data to explore. Of course, customers will have given permission for you to use this data at some point during the buying journey. Who better to model an audience on than your existing customers? Eventually, you’ll find trends and patterns within existing customers which then become the focal point for a lookalike audience campaign.

When following this tip, you’ll need to refresh the audiences every couple of days using raw data. This being said, the results you get on the other side should make it worthwhile. As more people convert, you add their data to the campaign and Facebook will find people with similarities.

After making this change, there’s no reason why you can’t continue your lookalike audience journey as normal. For example, starting with a 1% lookalike audience and seeing what comes up. After exploring this small audience, widen the percentage.

If you’re not too experienced with lookalike audiences, a 1% audience means that Facebook looks for people who closely match your seed audience. They have the most similarities to your converted audience and, in theory, should have the biggest likelihood of conversion.

Since Facebook looks for close matches, the audience is small but valuable. As you increase the percentage, the audience grows while the chance of conversion slowly decreases. For example, a 10% lookalike audience is much larger but also contains more people who are unlikely to convert (since they don’t match the seed audience as closely).

As you constantly update the audience, you should find new opportunities to convert each time. As the seed audience adjusts with raw data, you’re always finding new people (who hopefully have an interest in the product or the brand).

Overcoming iOS 14

In the world of marketing, you’re probably always reading rumors and about how things ‘could’ change and how the future ‘could’ look. For the most part, they remain rumors and nothing really changes. Since March 2020, businesses have grown accustomed to the unknown, and iOS 14 is an extension of this.

Rather than remaining a rumor, iOS 14 is a very real threat to Facebook and advertisers all over the world. In fact, you can gauge the importance of the update based on Facebook’s reaction. Normally cool, calm, and collected, the company is clearly panicking and desperately fighting against Apple.

As an advertiser, it’s important to keep updated with the news, but don’t let all the excitement affect your marketing campaigns. You have two ways to work around the Apple update and ensure strong performance.

Many marketers are used to securing long-term results, but the shape of the industry right now has everybody looking for short-term security, and this is all we can ask for. Nobody knows what will happen as the war between Apple and Facebook rages on. All you can do as an advertiser on the platform is to protect your business and ensure results in the environment in which you’re in.

What does this mean? Utilizing an AI tool and updating your audience manually with raw data from converted customers. Good luck!