The advertising scene is changing.

Again.

And we’ve been here before… remember?

Apple’s changes have had major effects on the advertising industry.

These changes limited creators like you in tons of ways, including:

• Being able to track and measure conversions
• Being able to retarget visitors
• Effectively delivering ads to the relevant audiences
• Monitoring people’s engagement
• Optimizing ad budgets and predicting long-term success

Facebook estimates that small businesses and new brands saw more than a 60% drop in sales!

But we couldn’t expect everything to always go smoothly, could we?

I can remember how back in the day, there was almost no competition on Facebook.

Everything seemed so easy and achievable!

If I was selling fitness products, for example, all I had to do was choose fitness as an interest in the detailed targeting section, and easily get my products in front of people who were interested in fitness.

But as time went on, the number of advertisers increased significantly…

And so did the competition!

This increased costs, as we needed to bid higher and spend more to out-perform everyone else.

But this wasn’t all — the behavior of these audiences changed as well.

Gone were the times when I could select fitness as an interest and be done with it!

Those people were now going to gyms…

Instead, now I had to describe my buyer. Understand who they were. What moved them. What they preferred.

I had to target people who were interested in indoor physical exercise, sporstwear, and a healthy lifestyle.

Luckily, Facebook still provided us a means to track user actions — and their monetary value.

It wasn’t as easy as before, but it was pretty manageable. And still profitable.

Ohhh… we didn’t know how good we had it back then…

Because then the BIG one hit us — iOS 14.

What did that bring?

People no longer had to opt out from being tracked… now they could choose to opt in!

Meaning most actions our visitors took on external websites were no longer tracked.

Facebook couldn’t track the effects of ads. Or feed its algorithm. Or determine target audiences…

And what did this mean for us — for you — as advertisers and entrepreneurs?

• You won’t have access to data
• You won’t know which ads or directions are performing well
• You won’t be able to retarget
• You won’t be able to narrow down target audiences

PANIC?!

No. Not yet. Well, maybe a little. But there’s still hope!

Maybe Facebook lost some of its detailed targeting magic skills, but not all.

But now you really have to up your game.

Because all your campaigns’ success comes down to the connection you create with your customers… through the copy and visual representation of your product.

What’s the best way of connecting with them?

• Know your customer
• Understand their pain points
• Come up with a selling point of your product that solves their pain
• Reach out to them
• Visualize their pain point through ad banners and videos
• Emphasize their pain or offer strong solutions through your copy

Confused?

Don’t worry, I have an amazing working structure that you can just copy and paste.

Just do some competitor research & customer analysis, and then fill in this Creative Strategy Map:

What do each of these blocks mean?

1. Identify different pain points that your customers have
2. Consider what USP (unique selling proposition) solves that pain point
3. Discover the “hook” or way to capture that audience’s attention
4. Create a CTA that will get them to click after being hooked

Here’s an example for a toy company:

This awesome structure will help you not only dive deeper into your customers’ needs but also identify your working angles with visuals and copy.

After testing various angles, you’ll end up with a few winner angles.

These will help you focus on building powerful creatives that speak directly to these audience’s pain points.

Download a copy of our CSM template here!