How the Apple iOS 14 release may affect your ads and reporting

A recent update to iOS 14 and onwards includes changes that can affect how conversion events are received and processed by tools such as Facebook pixels. Any business that advertises mobile applications, or optimises targets, and reports on web conversion events using any of our business tools may be affected.

On iOS 14.5 or later devices, Apple requires an App Store app that engages in “tracking” to show a prompt, enabling AppTrackingTransparency. According to Apple’s policy, certain personal data cannot be collected or shared unless the user opts into tracking on iOS 14.5 or later devices by completing a prompt. Consequently, ads personalisation and performance reporting may be limited for both app and web conversion events.

In order to continue to track IOS 14 and later these actions are recommended.

1. Complete your Facebook domain verification

Facebook recommends that advertisers verify their website domain. Although they consider it a best practice, Facebook claims “it’s important to prioritize verifying your domains if your domains integrate pixels that are owned by multiple businesses or personal ad accounts.”

What this verification does is demonstrates that you are connected to your business. Domain verification requires the webmaster for your domain to place a special code on your website.

2. Select 8 conversion events (Aggregated Event Measurement)

In response to Apple’s Private Click Measurement, Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement is a protocol that allows for measurement of web events from iOS users.

The implications?

Domains are limited to eight conversion events that can be used for campaign optimization;

Ad sets that are optimizing for events that are no longer available have been paused.

3. Choose your ad set attribution window

Another change you need to be aware of is that of attribution window settings. The attribution window for all new or active ad campaigns is now set at the ad set level instead of the account level. The default for all new or active campaigns is the 7-day click attribution window. You have the option for one-day click, seven-day click, one-day click + one-day view, or seven-day click + one-day view.

4. Lean on your internal data

Although Facebook allows you to optimize for eight events, you will still have the visibility on the back end to discern where visitors are coming from and what they’re doing on your site once they land. This means you may need to invest more time in becoming Google Analytics-savvy or rely more on your CRM to get the proper information to make decisions on Facebook.

Similarly, the shortened attribution window makes it harder to tie internal reporting back to your Facebook ad efforts, making it even more important that your internal data is accurate.

5. Monitor remarketing campaigns and ad sets

As more people opt-out of tracking on iOS14 devices, the smaller many of your custom audiences may become. If the decrease in these custom audiences is sizable (something you probably won’t be able to gauge from the audience projections), you will have to adjust your remarketing or custom list strategy a bit. 

What I mean by this is that you will want to monitor remarketing campaigns or ad sets more closely and pay attention to the spend as well as the frequency. This may be something that you already do, but with the potential for shrinking audience sizes, you might want to spend less on these ad sets in order to reduce ad fatigue and frequency.

Audience sizes are generally expected to drop although it is unclear by how much. It is rumored that Facebook ran tests internally to gauge what the damage would be, but only time can tell. Regardless, it would be wise to devote your marketing resources more heavily on remarketing or custom lists now so that you can have alternative ways to reach out to those who are opting out.

6. Implement the Facebook Conversions API

iOS 14 privacy features are draining the power of the Facebook Pixel, and it will be rendered useless once third-party cookies are deprecated. Be sure to implement the Facebook Conversions API now to ensure accurate conversion tracking in a privacy-first world.

Set yourself up for continued success with Facebook conversion campaigns in iOS 14 and Later…
Source – https://www.facebook.com/business/help/331612538028890?id=428636648170202