The people have spoken ✊

(here’s your video)  ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­

Hey, I got a huge number of replies to last week’s email on a huge Facebook change that is coming soon – and I’ve answered your questions below. Well, the biggest request was for a video. I was able to condense it down to just eight minutes, covering everything about what is happening and what you need to do. Plus, I share my screen so you can follow along. Watch it now on YouTube. You guys had some great questions about this. What do you need to do now? Nothing, as such. I recommend familiarizing yourself with the issue, and with value rules generally, and perhaps even creating your value rule set – like I show you in the video – so you are ready the moment this change drops. Meta sometimes gives us a long lead on big changes – like author targets disappearing, for example. At other times the change seems to happen overnight, and everyone is scrambling to adapt to the new reality. My guess is that this might fall in the latter camp, given the type of change and how Advantage expansions like this have generally been handled over the last few years. When is this happening? We simply don’t know. Only a minority of users are seeing the warnings in their accounts (which you can see in the above video). My guess – again, a guess – is that these warnings will roll out to everyone in a staggered way and then the change will follow shortly afterwards in a similar pattern. Again, based on how Advantage changes are typically rolled out. Will this affect existing ads? A big worry among you, if my mailbag is any guide. And understandably so. And I’m sorry to engage in guesswork again on such an important point but that’s all we have to work with. But we have seen several years of Advantage rollouts, and they do tend to be handled a certain way, unlike other tweaks to the system. So, my guess is that it won’t affect existing ads. Using targeting again as an example, when Facebook took away a swathe of author targets, it first put warnings in the accounts. Then it prevented you from creating new ads with those targets. Then it stopped existing ads with those targets from running until you deleted the discontinued targets. While it is possible something similar could happen here, and while we should always be prepared for anything… hence my advice to set up value rules now, I don’t actually expect it to play out this way. My guess – that word again! – is that it will only affect new campaigns and that existing ones with manually selected placements will be allowed to keep running. However, IF I am right about that, then I also expect that you would lose that manual control when duplicating those existing campaigns, once that change kicks in, and then you will need to apply those value rules I show you in the video. Will applying value rules put a campaign back into the Learning Phase? I get this question a lot in different forms about any changes or edits and it always makes me want to be difficult and respond with a question. Namely, why are you so worried about the Learning Phase? For me at least, if an ad is good it will fly through the Learning Phase with nary a scratch. And I kind of view it as a proving ground of sorts which weeds out ads I probably shouldn't run. Yes, a small amount of money might be wasted in a sense as the system recalibrates, but I think it’s small beans over the course of a campaign. Unless you are running lower budget campaigns, or doing a lot of testing, or whatever, I think you shouldn’t worry about it when your ads are in good shape – they’ll barely feel the bump. But I don’t always want to be difficult, and some people will be testing or running low budget campaigns so let me off this high horse so I can actually answer the question. *rolls eyes at self* Meta’s official word is that applying value rules to an existing campaign won’t re-trigger the Learning Phase. You might assume otherwise, given that dramatically raising the budget often does so, but that’s what Meta says. But you should know by now that you can’t exactly take that to the bank. Same goes with social proof on an ad. Changes at the ad set level shouldn’t wipe social proof, but, again, the system doesn’t always work as stated. Which brings me to… Can we test this now? Absolutely. But always be cautious around existing, successful ads. I’m generally loathe to change them unless I have to. Much better to duplicate any winning ads and then tinker with those. This also has the advantage of giving you a clean way to compare performance and measure the effect of your changes – as well as protecting existing wins (and social proof!). You can also simply create your value rule set – as I show you in the video – and then wait for this change to drop before applying it to your new campaigns. That’s what I’ve done, at least. Inbox Zero… ish Let me close with an apology. I’ve discovered an issue with the replies you have been sending to this newsletter. If you use Google Workspace like I do, and forward newsletter replies to your personal email, you might want to double check that all of them have been forwarded in recent weeks. Apparently, some security protocols have changed which is messing with that. (HMU if you are affected and I’ll let you know what to do.) I’ve had to set up a new system for handling newsletter replies which should work better going forward, but as part of that I’ve had to declare an amnesty of sorts and start fresh. So, if you are waiting for a reply from me on something, please resend. These messages will now go to a dedicated inbox, and I shouldn’t miss so many things in the future. I get a lot of email between this and my site/books and it’s hard to respond in good time, but this should help. Just know that I read everything personally as it arrives and all your emails shape the resources I create, even if I can’t respond as quickly as I would like or in the detail you might require. I do try and get that information out to you in one format or another! Dave P.S. Music this week could only be Dolly 😢 with Down from Dover. Interesting Paths, Apartado 108, Loja CTT, Lagos, Faro 8601-902 ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile​