For digital marketers accustomed to the precision of Meta’s algorithms, the immediate concern is the creation of "data black holes." When a user pays for the subscription, they don't just stop seeing ads, they effectively vanish from the advertiser's tracking ecosystem. Is this going to lead to a drop in Impressions and Reach as key KPI’s? Potentially it could, especially if you are running hyperlocal ads but only time will tell, as of now, there is no clear decrease to the amount of active accounts we can target.
This COULD then present a significant hurdle for attribution. Subscribers can no longer be retargeted based on previous interactions, nor can their data be used to build "Lookalike Audiences." If a high-income demographic, which is arguably the group most willing to pay £3.99 to avoid interruptions, opts out, luxury brands may find their most valuable prospects have become unreachable via paid social.
Most importantly for many the big question is what will this do to average CPM and what's it going to cost us. Well early sceptics are suggesting that basic supply and demand economics suggest a potential rise in costs. As the pool of available ad inventory shrinks with the idea being that there are fewer people watching ads, the competition for the remaining eyeballs heats up and in turn driving the price up. HOWEVER there is no evidence yet to be presented that this is the case. In my personal experience of Meta Ads, I have been running, the opposite is happening. I can see slight drops in CPM, higher engagement rate and as a result a lower Cost Per Click. What could be causing this well from Data from Meta Ads library suggests there is a larger-than-normal drop in the amount of ads being run across January. The difficulty here is that there is always a drop in demand for businesses/organisations running ads in January so the data could be skewed. But again from what I am seeing, I’d suggest not as many people have opted for this subscription as people thought mixed with businesses/organisations seeing this move, panicking and then pausing their ads. All this meaning more breathing room for the ads that are running and lower Cost as a result.
On a more positive note what doe we know we are getting from this… well the users who remain on the free tier have explicitly consented to seeing ads. This creates an audience that is, by definition, "ad-tolerant." They are less likely to experience ad fatigue and potentially more receptive to commercial messaging than a user who is frantically looking for a "skip" button.
Wrapping this up my final thoughts are that after several weeks of this being live there appears to be very little difference been made. My initial thoughts were oh no does this mean everyone will stop wanting Meta Ads and my thoughts since are NO… they are getting better exposure at a cheaper rate with more engagement. So far so good from this “Game Changing” update.
Ultimately though, there is no simple answer and with updates like this, it is proving exactly why you should have a Meta Ads Agency looking after your account who is analysing these changes as they happen and steering you in the best direction for the use of your marketing budget.
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