How Apple’s iOS 14 May Affect Ads

4.9.21

Hey there, Facebook advertisers, publishers, and developers! There’s a good chance you’ve heard that Apple is making some pretty big changes to data tracking permissions in iOS 14. These updates could significantly impact the structure of advertising on the social media giant Facebook, including audience analysis, data collection, retargeting, and other critical pieces that greatly influence brands’ marketing efforts.

These changes are going live “early spring,” 2021. That’s now.

Whether you’re a small startup with a healthy, hungry advertising budget or a medium-sized business who has adapted to countless digital updates without batting an eye, Sage Digi highlights changes you can expect with your Facebook advertising.

What’s iOS 14 All About?

To put it simply, Apple’s new policy will prohibit apps from data collection and sharing unless users opt-in to tracking on iOS 14 devices when prompted. Users can now choose whether they consent to third-party sites, like Facebook, tracking their data and location. This will heavily impact marketers.

How iOS 14 Impacts Facebook Ads

Thanks to the iOS update, Facebook is giving users the power to decide whether or not they want to share marketable data. Read that again: remarketable data. That’s a huge component that fuels every digital marketer’s advertising strategies. What would we do without this data? How would we retarget? Learn which audience segments are worth targeting? How users are responding to ads? Where they’re located? The list goes on.

Here are the biggest changes for Facebook:

  • Campaign management and event data will be restricted to a maximum of nine campaigns and five ad sets per campaign for every Facebook Ads account.
  • Pixels may only be optimized for a max of eight conversion events for each domain. Facebook will initially configure the conversion events they believe are the most relevant to your business based on your activity. All other events will be made inactive for reporting and monitoring purposes.
  • Real-time reporting is no longer supported. Event reporting will be delayed up to three days. Here’s a statement from Facebook about the update and its potential impact on reporting.
  • App and web conversions, delivery and action breakdowns (including age, gender, region, and placement) will no longer be supported.
  • Lift measurement will be unavailable for iOS 14 App Install and App Events campaigns.

Who Will Be Impacted?

Businesses that advertise mobile apps, as well as those that optimize, target, and report on web conversion events from any of Facebook’s business tools will be affected.

What to Expect

We expect Facebook location-based ad targeting to drop like a rock. It’s likely that up to 85% of people would choose “Ask App not to Track.” For millions of local businesses like restaurants who rely on location targeting, they will be hit hard.

What You Can Do NOW

If you have an in-house marketing team, work with an agency, or manage marketing efforts on your own, here’s what you can do now to prep for existing updates and potential changes:

  • Verify website domain.
  • Account for the new 7 day attribution setting in your reporting to avoid alarming surprises.
  • Figure out how many current users convert from IOS devices to help give you an understanding of how you may be impacted.
  • Shoot us an email. We’re more than happy to set up a free consultation to chat about where you’re at, your risk, and what’s realistic to adjust now.

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