Synchronise Facebook Ads Strategy with Apple’s iOS 14 Changes
On September 16, 2020, Apple iOS 14 launched the company’s biggest iOS update to date. The upgrade introduced Home screen design changes, exciting new features, updates on existing apps, Siri improvements, and many more upgrades that streamline the iOS interface.
However, one of the most impactful changes as part of the iOS 14 update that will directly impact people and businesses who advertise on Facebook.
In this blog, we will highlight the steps that you can do to make your marketing campaign complaint with the recent changes in optimising, targeting, and reporting on any business tool you’re using. Specifically, we will analise how it impacts Facebook Ads and the essential steps you can take to your current and future ad campaigns.
Changes in Apple’s iOS 14
The recent changes affect mobile apps ads and other business tools that optimise, target, and report on web conversion events.
Apple now requires apps available in the Apps Store that have tracking capabilities to show a prompt to iOS14 users. The prompt will notify users that the app has data collection and sharing ability. This measure is in accordance with the company’s AppTrackingTransparency framework, a policy that prohibits data collection and sharing unless the users opt into tracking via the prompt.
This policy poses a challenge to businesses since many users opt-out of the tracking feature of iOS 14 devices. Less tracking option means lesser opportunities to process ad personalisation and performance reporting for both app and web conversion.
In a snapshot, these changes will limit your ability to:
- Deliver ads to consumers based on their online engagement;
- Measure and report conversions on some customers;
- Specifically target the right audiences at the right frequency;
- Accurately attribute app installs on IOS users, and
- Predict and optimise cost per action and effectively determine the proper budget.
You will gradually feel the adverse effect of these changes over time. There is a big possibility that you will see a decrease in ad performance and an increase in cost per action.
Small businesses can feel the effect even more. Since the update makes it harder to reach their target audience, it limits their growth and their chance to compete with more prominent companies.
Facebook’s recent studies revealed that small businesses saw a reduction of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spent. The iOS update made it harder for them to use their own data to find the right customers on the social media platform.
How Can Your Business Adapt to this Change?
In response to these changes, Facebook has started processing pixel conversion events in iOS 14 through Aggregated Event Measurement. Through this strategy, Apple can preserve its users’ privacy and allow you to continue running effective campaigns.
The following steps can only mitigate the impact of the iOS update, but they don’t guarantee 100% assurance that it can outsmart Apple technology. As much as Facebook disagrees with Apple’s policy, they have no choice except to show the prompt. Otherwise, Apple might block them from the App Store, which would further harm their business and users that depend on their services.
Here is what you can do to continue using Facebook as a marketing tool for iOS users:
- Update to Facebook’s SDK for iOS 14 version 8.1. This step helps you in personalising the ads directed to iOS users and receiving app conversion events reporting. To do this, you can go to Events Manager using an admin log-in. Facebook’s SDK for iOS 14 version 8.1 supports Apple’s SKAdNetwork API, making it possible for you to measure app install ads.
- Verify your website’s domain. This will help to avoid disruption of your future website campaigns. Use top-level domain plus one (eTLD+1) for domain verification. For instance, for www.books.athena.co.uk, books.athena.co.uk, and athena.co.uk, the eTLD+1 field is athena.co.uk.
Facebook will continue to support domains that already appear in the Public Suffix List. This will allow businesses to verify their eTLD+1 domains if the hosting domain (eTLD) is in the Public Suffix List. For instance, if the domain mywebsite.com is registered o the Public Suffix List, then the advertiser “athena” with the subdomain “athena.mywebsite.com” would be able to verify “athena.mywebsite.com.”
This step is crucial for those domains with pixels used by multiple businesses or personal accounts. This will enable you to set up pixel conversion in Aggregated Event Measurement system.
- Set up 8 web conversion events per domain in Events Manager to be used by Aggregated Event Measurement for campaign optimisation. Initially, Facebook will do this for you by choosing the conversion events relevant to your business based on analytics. Events not set as part of the 8 conversions events cannot be used for optimisation. However, they can still be used for partial reporting in Ads Manager and website Custom Audience targeting.
Conclusion
Apple’s recent changes affect sharing data of their iOS users. This policy puts limitations on personalised ads that can reach the right audience. As more iOS users are opting out, it will be harder for any business to grow its market.
The steps outlined above don’t guarantee that everything will be the same before the policy has been implemented. They are just baby steps that you can do to allow your ads to be shown to those who opt-in for Facebook ads effectively.
Unfortunately, there is no legal workaround that can bypass the limitations set by Apple yet. Even Facebook, which does not agree with the policy, also admits that they can’t do anything at this point. Let’s just hope that a dialogue between these two tech giants can happen sooner to reach an agreement where personalised ads and user privacy can coexist.