The COVID-19 shutdowns across the world have had a huge impact on business, aside from society more broadly. Millions of people have had to adjust to working from home, some business are totally unable to operate, while many other organizations which are reliant on advertising are still measuring the impacts, which will evolve over time as more events are cancelled, more celebrations are wiped out, and the situation continues to divert things from the norm.

In this time, it's difficult to know what brands should be saying, and what response you should expect. Should you still be trying to advertise and promote amid the unfolding tragedy? With more people online, is now a good time to be maximizing reach? Do people really want to hear your latest offers - especially when they're locked inside, and in many cases, have no immediate use for your products anyway?

There are many factors at play, many elements for marketers to consider. To provide some extra assistance on this, Facebook has this week published a new guide to some of the key considerations that advertisers need to keep in mind when measuring the performance of their marketing and advertising campaigns amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The key focus of Facebook's new guide is performance impact - as Facebook notes:

"As businesses seek to navigate this difficult time, adapt media strategies and determine which marketing activities are most worthwhile, gaining an accurate understanding of ad performance is more important than ever. However, a key issue marketers and strategists face when making these adjustments is that many current behaviors depart from the norm."

Indeed, with social media usage skyrocketing amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, performance data has been altered significantly. So what does that mean for your strategy - and does that change your regular considerations for performance?

Facebook's guide outlines a range of key tips and considerations here:

In essence, your ad performance data will likely be significantly impacted by the broader societal shifts at present, and it's important that you adjust your expectations and performance measures accordingly - though that can be hard to do as your past reference points won't work as an accurate guide. Facebook's advice here is that brands need to re-evaluate their entire assessment process to factor in these shifts.

Facebook's guide covers various key points, including data on specific behavioral changes, notes on accurate A/B testing, and an overview of the metrics that Facebook's seeing significant changes in.

If you're looking to optimize your Facebook ad approach amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it's worth taking a look at this brief guide, and considering the various elements which could be impacting your campaign performance.

You can download the full "Adapting Your Measurement Strategy for COVID-19 Impact" guide here.