Your Creative is Your Targeting

In 2021, Apple's iOS14 killed Meta ad targeting, but smart marketers found the back door.

Companies who understand this shift are still seeing high return on ad spend (ROAS), while others struggle.

The back door is best explained by D2C guru Nik Sharma. Here’s his take:

Problem: iOS and Android privacy changes made it significantly harder to track users. Now Meta has less data for accurate targeting, especially for advertisers with small budgets.

Solution: Meta has developed AI models that can target eerily well based on your message. Hence, with the right message, your creative can be your targeting.

Meaning… Meta will show your ad to people who are most likely to engage with your message. 

Here’s the process:

1. Start with multiple ad variants highlighting different customer outcomes, using broad targeting until you find winners. (Test real customer outcomes, if you just test random messages and optimise for clicks, you’ll waste money on unqualified traffic.)

2. When you find winning outcome messages, keep exploring variants and fresh creative approaches.

3. Update your site and/or app store listing, welcome emails, onboarding, etc. to reflect the winning customer outcome to further improve conversion and ROAS.

Why this is game-changing 

It's no longer only about budget. You win by understanding your audience better than your competitors.

Check your competitors’ Facebook Ads Library. Do you see dozens of test variants? Or the same 4 ads every month? If they’re not testing, they’re basically asking you to steal their customers. 😏

Next Step

You must become rigorous about testing and learning.

Don't start testing random messages. You might get clicks, but unqualified traffic won't convert.

The best way to find your true customer outcomes – Jobs to be Done interviews that uncover prospects’ exact outcomes and the language they use to describe them.

These interviews can be tricky, but we’ve created a FREE Jobs to be Done insights kit for marketers, it includes:

• Our Jobs to be Done interview questions​

• Jobs interview Chat GPT prompts

• A Jobs Canvas, to replace customer personas

• Step-by-step instructions to apply your findings to your marketing

It’s the same “paint by numbers” kit we use with our own customer interviews.

Note their exact language, and find as many (relevant) outcomes as you can.

Even when you find winners, keep testing. As Nik says, “New hooks bring new audiences.”

P.S. If you’re selling D2C using paid ads, I cannot recommend Nik’s newsletter highly enough. Most people thinking at his level don't share their tactics.