Post-Cookie Marketing: How to make Facebook Ads work for you (episode 082)

by April Buencamino-dy

Antoine is the founder and CEO at J7 Media, a creative and data-driven Facebook Ads agency managing over $30m in yearly ad spend. J7 Media specialise in helping DTC brands grow their sales, so Antoine is perfectly placed to explain all about what’s working on Facebook Ads right now.

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About Antoine

Antoine comes from the French part of Canada, and he founded his company about 9 years ago. It was initially called Jour7 Communication, which specialized in managing social media for various restaurants.

In 2016, Antoine discovered that to reach more people on Facebook, you had to pay. What he did was learn and understand how the platform worked, and also changed his agency’s name to J7 Media.

Since then, they’ve put a lot of time and effort on Facebook, and now manage over $30M a year in Facebook Ads mainly for eCommerce businesses.

Changes On Facebook

Antoine explains two concepts resulting from the iOS 14 changes. The first concept compares advertising on Google and Facebook, with the latter not being in a strong position because consumers are taken to an external site not owned by Facebook when they click on your ad.

The second thing is the iOS 14 update — the ad tracking transparency — that had iPhone users opting out of being tracked on Facebook. It got harder for advertisers to run ads on Facebook because of the data that was lost with the update.

Antoine says it’s important to first understand these 2 concepts and why the update affected Facebook more than Google.

What Do We Need To Do?

J7 Media has launched the iOS 14 Squad Newsletter which discusses the different tests they conduct weekly on how to manage Facebook Ads and their takeaways from these tests.

Going back to the first concept in the previous section, the question now is how to generate results without your audience leaving the platform, which J7’s tests try to answer.

Tips On How To Approach Facebook Ads Today

Antoine gives us four ways:

  • Videos: use videos in your ads and do remarketing
  • Dynamic Ads on Broad Audiences or DABA: add dynamic links to your product catalog to allow Facebook to find the right audiences for you
  • Native or User-generated content: the challenge is to be more creative and make content that don’t look like ads.
  • Conversions API: integrate a conversion API because just using your Ads Manager to make business decisions will be a big mistake.

The Triangle Approach

The best way to look at the whole picture is through the triangle approach:

  • The first leg is getting data from the platform itself, albeit not completely accurate.
  • The second is looking at your back-end and knowing whether you’re making the right investment on your ads.
  • The last one is looking at third-party software that can provide you with additional information.

Monitor these three consistently to understand what’s happening with the ads you put out, and whether you’re making the right decisions and investments.

Insider Tips

If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with Facebook Ads – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?

Buy a good phone with a good camera and start shooting a lot of content.

Right now, you can already create a great piece of content without investing millions of dollars. So take your mobile phone, create content, launch different types of ads for your product, and find out which one will perform best.

Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve Facebook Ads performance?

Antoine has a strategy called PACSO, which stands for:

  • Parameters – Review the parameters of your campaign to see if you’re using best practices.
  • Audiences – Look at your audiences and validate if you’re also using best practices. 
  • Creative – Work on your creative only after reviewing your parameters and audiences.
  • Sales funnel – After working on the first 3 factors, if your campaign is still not working, reevaluate your sales funnel.
  • Offer – If all 4 items have been reviewed and your strategy still doesn’t work, take a look at your offer and the possibility of changing or updating it. Do this at the end because it’s going to be a major change.

If someone listening wants to learn more about Facebook Ads is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?

Antoine says sign up for the iOS 14 Squad Newsletter because it’s free and it’s full of content about finding new ways to advertise on Facebook.

Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in Facebook Ads?

The challenge of advertising on Facebook will still be around in 6-9 months.

In the meantime, integrate the conversion API, work on your creatives, use dynamic ads on broad audiences, and implement the rest of the tips I mentioned today.

Interview Links

Antoine on Social media:

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