Improve your return on ad spend with first-party data

Billions of users log into Meta technologies like Facebook and Instagram every day – an advertiser’s dream. But reaching these users with ads that are relevant to what they’re looking for is a challenge if you don’t have the right data, particularly in the era of third-party cookie deprecation and data privacy restrictions.

To reach the right customers at the right time with the right message, you need a strong data strategy. One built on first-party data from your website, apps, and other properties that you can then match with Meta accounts to serve up personalized ads to loyal customers and prospects alike. Meta Conversions API is designed to help you improve your marketing by creating a direct connection between your marketing technology and Meta’s platform, providing you with more complete data to better optimize your ads.

One of the ways Meta Conversions API helps improve advertising performance is by providing event match quality (EMQ) scores. EMQ scores let you know how likely it is that your customer information parameters match an existing Meta account.  

By pairing data from an industry-leading customer data platform (CDP) with Meta Conversions API, you can improve your event match quality scores, leading to optimized ad performance and higher return on ad spend (ROAS). Let’s look at some of the ways you can improve your data strategy to boost your advertising campaigns’ effectiveness.

Gather the right parameters…and more of them

To improve ad performance with better matches between visitor activity and existing Meta accounts, you need information from your customers—referred to by Meta as “customer information parameters.” These parameters cover a wide range of customer data, from phone numbers and email addresses to geographic location and first names.

The more parameters you have, the more likely one of those parameters will match to an existing Meta account, so that you can connect an event (like signing up for a newsletter or booking an appointment to visit one of your locations) to the user who completed the desired action.

There’s obviously a balance to strike when asking for customer information on your website or app. You want to make sure you’re gathering the information most likely to result in a match. But you want to ensure you’re not asking for so much information that it turns the customer off completely. You also want to make sure all data privacy protocols are followed when collecting this information.

Typically, focusing on collecting email addresses and phone numbers will give you the best results. Then you’ll need to use a CDP solution with event forwarding that passes that data along through Meta Conversions API to better inform your ad targeting and help personalize your ads on Meta.

Better understand attribution

Once you have data coming in and informing your ad targeting, take a look at which parameters are driving campaign performance and conversions to further improve your return on ad spend.

Are you seeing higher returns from campaigns that use email addresses? If so, consider asking for email addresses in more places on your website, maybe with an offer for a discount for those who provide it. Have you noticed higher conversions from ads that target someone who previously started a free trial of your product or service? Perhaps you build a remarketing campaign around that event.

With a solution like Adobe Real-Time Customer Data Platform (CDP) and Meta Conversions API, you can view campaign activity and EMQ scores in a single dashboard, so you can easily decide what actions you need to take to optimize ad performance. Meta Events Manager provides recommendations on how to make your advertising campaigns more effective (like asking for a phone number in addition to email addresses), which can help increase your ROAS.

Keep customer data privacy front and center

While gathering the right data and tracking campaign performance can help improve your advertising effectiveness, you also need to ensure you’re respecting customer data privacy. This means ensuring the customer information parameters you’re collecting are hashed. Hashing turns the data into randomized code that can’t be reversed. That helps protect your customer’s data privacy and ensure it’s being used only for its intended purposes.

If you use a solution like Adobe Real-Time CDP and Meta Conversions API, you have multiple safeguards built in. Adobe Real-Time CDP hashes sensitive data, while Meta systems are designed to not accept customer information that is not hashed and send you notifications to let you know if something has gone wrong. But in either case, you should still pay extra attention to keeping your customers’ data safe and secure.

Get a higher return on ad spend with Adobe and Meta

Interested in learning more about how you can improve return on ad spend with more personalized ads? Check out our latest eBook, “5 data-driven practices for boosting return on ad spend” and learn how Adobe Real-Time CDP and Meta Conversions API can help drive better ad performance while improving the customer experience and bottom-line results.