We first shared this Facebook ads targeting hack with our Team Traffic monthly subscribers back in May, 2022.
And when I tested this same strategy for a client at the Smart Marketer Agency two months ago, we were able to acquire 11,153 new customers at a profitable return on ad spend (ROAS) of 140%.
That’s incredible for customer acquisition on a large scale — especially at a time when most people think that Facebook ads are dead.
In this article, I’ll quickly walk you through what the targeting hack is, why Facebook may be suppressing your ads, and a simple test you can run today to solve this problem if they are.
Okay, so what’s the hack?
Facebook Ads Hack: Target Specific Mobile Devices & Operating Systems
Back in May, we heard a rumor that Facebook was under-reporting conversions on iPhones compared to Android and desktop users.
If this rumor was true, then the algorithm could wrongly identify iOS traffic as worse than Android traffic because it wasn’t tracking the true number of sales happening on iOS devices.
And if that was true, then Facebook might stop sending your ads to iOS devices and instead spend most of your ad budget only on Android devices — even if iOS users are actually your best buyers.
How To Find Out If Facebook Is Suppressing Your Ads
Is this reporting error affecting you? Find out by using the breakdown filter in Meta Ads Manager to view results by platform, device and placement.
If the majority of your ad placements are happening on Android devices, then you should run the simple test below.
A Simple Experiment
Here’s the simple test we shared with our Team Traffic subscribers to help solve this problem:
- Split off iPhone users, Android users, and desktop users into their own campaigns
- Divide your ad budgets accordingly between all three campaigns
This will force Facebook to deliver your ads to iOS users, and if the results are profitable then you can throttle up how much you’re spending on iOS users and lower your budget for Android users.
Example from the Smart Marketer Agency
When I did this experiment for a client at the Smart Marketer Agency, I created a new campaign in Meta Ads Manager that targeted the following mobile devices and operating systems:
Targeting Specific Mobile Devices and Operating Systems
Devices:
- iOS
Included devices:
- iPad
- iPod
- iPhone
OS versions:
- 2.0 +
Only when connected to Wi-Fi:
- No
I was able to unlock 11,000 new buyers with this simple experiment.
Other brands we spoke with have also reported huge increases in performance, and some have shifted their budgets almost entirely to iOS campaigns.
But not every brand has been so fortunate…
Results May Vary
This is not a “one-size-fits-all” strategy guaranteed to give you amazing results.
However, there is a real possibility that it will work for you, and we think that makes it worth sharing.
In fact, Ezra experienced a small decrease in ROAS for iOS traffic in one of his ecommerce brands. But even though the ROAS wasn’t as high, he was still able to scale his iOS campaign 300% larger than his Android campaign, so it was still a big win for his brand.
Team Traffic subscribers were the first to hear about this strategy, months before we shared it on the blog.
If you’re a media buyer looking for on-going education and professional coaching like this every month, you can learn more about Team Traffic here:
