Understanding the impact of Apple’s iOS 14 policy update on Facebook advertising

Apple has announced a policy update with iOS 14 that will significantly impact how businesses today utilize Facebook advertising and the impact it has on their overall marketing efforts. With the update, Apple will require that all apps in the App Store display an opt-in prompt on iOS 14 devices, in accordance with their AppTrackingTransparency framework. Apple’s policy will prohibit certain data collection and sharing unless users opt into tracking on iOS 14 devices via the prompt. As more people opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, Facebook ad personalization and performance reporting will be dramatically limited.

So, what’s Facebook doing about it?

As expected, Facebook is not pleased with Apple’s decision to move forward with this policy update without Facebook’s input on how it will affect advertisers. However, Facebook has no choice but to play ball. In response to these changes, Facebook has introduced Aggregated Event Measurement, a new protocol that restricts, aggregates and delays data while still supporting advertisers.

How does it work and what’s the impact?

While Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement will help advertisers to continue to run effective campaigns, advertisers will experience some impact. The following is not a comprehensive list, but outlines the major impacts of the change:

• Advertisers will be limited to a maximum of eight Facebook pixels and eight conversion events per website domain, which will require planning and prioritization for most advertisers.
• Advertisers must rank their conversion events in order of importance for tracking. For people who opt out of tracking, only the highest-ranked event will be tracked. For people who opt in, Facebook will return a maximum of eight events.
• When selecting a new conversion event, or changing the configuration of events, it will require three days to take effect.
• For app advertising, advertisers are limited to nine campaigns with five ad sets each of the same optimization.
• The default for all new or active ad campaigns will be set at a 7-day click attribution window, in lieu of 28 days, meaning advertisers will have a shorter window to track events back to an ad.
• Website Custom Audience sizes (retargeting audiences) will decrease due to the loss of some events from iOS 14 users.
• Data breakdowns (segments) will not be supported, which will prevent reporting data by age, gender, region and/or placement.
• Real-time reporting will no longer be supported and data may be delayed up to 3 days.

What is Vendi doing to help navigate this with our clients?

We are working closely with clients to ensure minimal disruption to their campaigns and performance. From verifying domains, prioritizing events and identifying ideal optimization strategies, bid types and audience definitions, we are helping clients navigate this change and develop new best practices.

Still unsure about how to successfully get through this update? We are just a phone call away to walk you through the necessary steps to take to ensure your Facebook campaigns don’t take a negative hit.

Contact Sam at 608-797-8540.