Since the iOS14 privacy changes were implemented, it has significantly decreased Facebook’s ability to accurately track your return on ad spend. Here are three easy steps to understand your new ROAS and how to get it back to healthy levels.

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1. Determine Your New ROAS‍

It’s critical to get as good of a handle on your true ROAS as possible. The current attribution gap is wide, but here are a couple of ways you can attempt to increase ROAS and identify more accurate metrics with your FB campaigns: 

• Look at your top line Shopify revenue and subtract other known channels like email or search.
• Correlate advertising budget changes with changes in YoY growth.
  

Neither is perfect, but they can be a much more accurate indicator when compared to Facebook’s currently spotty attribution performance. You can contrast pre-iOS14 Shopify metrics with pre-iOS14 Facebook Ad metrics to get an idea of any baseline difference and build that into your model. 

Another way is to run a test during a relatively stable sales period. Let ads run for a week or two with a higher than average budget, then turn off the ads. You can assume that the difference in revenue is a good approximation of lift which should be attributed to your Facebook ads. You’ll have to be careful to avoid running this test when there are other big variables at play like seasonal shifts, sale periods, or big press releases.

Having a better idea of what your true ROAS (return on ad spend) is for Facebook ads will help you make important decisions about allocating your marketing budget. Chances are you could be missing the opportunity to invest in a highly scalable channel because of a measurement error. And that may account for your inability to increase ROAS and the dip you’ve been seeing in revenue.   

2. Get More Targeted

The iOS14 changes affect Apple mobile devices only. With less ability to track conversions from these devices, Facebook will likely start investing more to advertise to users on other device platforms like android and desktop. The important point however is that change is only happening because iOS devices aren’t getting full credit. 

Try creating campaigns that target iOS users only to force ad spend on those segments. In general, eCommerce sites can increase ROAS from iOS users with this method. For most brands, iOS users are more likely to shop online with a higher average order value and conversion rate. So it’s critical they aren’t getting left out of your audiences due to a measurement error! ‍

3. Website Performance

There is almost always an opportunity to increase ROAS with site speed performance. And improving your site's speed can have a significant positive impact on your return on ad spend. That’s because the faster your site is, the lower your bounce rate will be, meaning you pay for more traffic that actually sticks around and makes a purchase. Aside from improving your return on ad spend, it also improves your organic ranking (FREE TRAFFIC!) and retention (BETTER LTV!).