Apple iOS14 and Your Facebook Ads – Why Is It Important and What You Need To Do To Prepare?

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Timestamps:
00:29 – Episode Overview
01:57 – About the iOS 14 Update
04:30 – Why is it Important and Why You Should Care
08:05 – Ways to Deal With The Update
10:00 – What To Expect With This Major Update Moving Forward

Episode Overview

Ilana:

Welcome back to another episode of Teach Traffic. I am your host, Ilana Wechsler. And in today’s episode, it’s a Quick Tip Episode, talking all about the effect that the latest Apple iOS 14 software update is going to have on your Facebook ads.

Now this may or may not be news to you, perhaps you’ve seen a notification recently in your Facebook Ads Manager, or this might be completely new to you.

But this latest Apple iOS software update is actually going to have a really big impact on your Facebook ads going forward.

So in this episode, I’m going to really summarize essentially, what this is all about why it’s important, and probably most important, what you need to do about it.

All right. But before we get stuck into all that information, a request for me, if you enjoy this show, and these episodes that I create, I would absolutely love. If you were kind enough to leave me a review on iTunes, it would absolutely mean the world to me.

So yeah, let’s get stuck into essentially what this iOS 14 update is about why it’s important and what you need to do.

About the iOS 14 Update

Okay, so as you know, if you’re an Apple iPhone user, they release software updates for their entire ecosystem on the Apple iPhone. And this latest software update that iOS 14 is basically going to come up with a prompt, once you install it, obviously.

But after you install it, when you start using apps for the very first time, you’re going to get a prompt, saying that that particular app would like permission to track you across apps and websites owned by that company.

So say, for example, you install the Apple iOS 14 software, you then go into the Facebook app or the Instagram app. And then you will see this prompt come up saying that Facebook would like permission to track you across apps and websites, etc.

And you have two options, then one is to say allow tracking. And the other is to say, Do not allow tracking.

So what and you can imagine, most people and Facebook are anticipating that probably about two-thirds of the people are going to elect to say do not track.

Now the big difference with this software update is that the default setting was to automatically allow tracking.

So yes, prior to iOS 14, you could opt-out from, you know, allowing apps to track you. But that required an extra level of steps that you didn’t sort of get a prompt about obviously, you could kind of go into the settings.

And it was probably a long convoluted way to not allow apps to track you which Facebook was counting on most people not doing. And I would say most people didn’t.

Now obviously with the prompt coming up like that and making it so easy for people to opt-out.

Facebook is anticipating that many that most people will opt-out. And I would be absolutely not surprised if that is the case.

Because obviously with you know, Cambridge analytical scandal, etc, people are becoming more aware and more sensitive about being tracked.

Okay, so rather than it is a default setup, it’s already opted in.

Now the default setting is opted out unless you explicitly allow Apple or Facebook or whatever it is to track your movements within the app and also out of the app. Okay, so that’s essentially what it is. All right.

Why is it Important and Why You Should Care?

Why is this important? Well, basically, it means that if Facebook can’t track your movements, and what you’re doing a sort of on other websites, and you know, so for example, if you were to click on a Facebook ad and you elect for Facebook to not OPT, you elect for Facebook to not allow them to track you when you click on an ad and you go to a website and you end up buying something as a result of a Facebook ad, then Facebook can’t deliver that conversion data into your ads manager.

So as you can imagine, for Facebook ad managers, this is going to massively affect their reporting.

So when you look in your Facebook ad reports, you’ll be out and you won’t be able to see as many sales that have come through as a result of your ads.

And you might think, well, doesn’t matter the sales are coming through anyway, yes, that is the case.

But from an attribution point of view, that is attributing the sale from the ad, it’s going to be under-reporting.

And that affects your optimizations of the ads because you won’t know which ads lead to sales, you won’t know a bunch of information about how you can optimize and improve your Facebook ads.

It is also going to have a really big impact on your custom audiences and your retargeting audiences.

As you can imagine, if the users aren’t allowing Facebook to track them, then they don’t know if you know, they’ve gone to your website, to you know, browse your products or services and didn’t buy and so, therefore, your custom audiences or your retargeting audiences will no longer be populating with those particular people.

So we’re going to expect a drop in our retargeting audiences, and probably also our lookalike audiences as well. So this is really going to affect retargeting.

But also our cold traffic campaigns where we’re using, lookalike audiences.
Another big impact that it’s going to have is, it’s probably going to reduce the effectiveness of the targeting. Because it’s not, it’s going to have fewer people to really monitor what websites they’re going to and what they click on and what they don’t click on.

And we are also in relation to the optimization aspect, not going to get any demographic breakdown of the performance of our ads. So no age and gender information as to who you know, which audiences are clicking on the ads, and converting.

Another big change as well, which is also really important is that it’s going to affect what’s called the attribution window, which is attributing an ad within a certain time period. So the default setting was a 28-day window, I believe. But now the new attribution window is going to be what’s called a one day view or a seven-day click.

And what does that mean? Essentially, if somebody sees your ad in a one day period, and let’s say doesn’t click or clicks on your ad in a seven day period, and does convert, only then will Facebook attribute the sales within that period.

So it’s basically a shorter window in which it’s going to say that Facebook was responsible and wants to take credit for that ad.

Ways to Deal With The Update

Okay. So what do you need to do about this, there are a number of things that you need to do.

The first is, and probably the most important is that you need to verify your domain on Facebook.

So you go into the business manager, and in the business manager settings, that’s where you need to verify your domain.

And it’s going to give you a bit of code, which you need to upload to the head section of your website. And that’s kind of your way of saying to Facebook, yes, I’m a proper business, and I’m verifying my domain with you.

So that’s kind of the first thing that you need to do.

This new update is also limiting advertisers to only track eight conversion events, which kind of does feel a little bit weird, like why eight and not seven or nine, it feels a bit arbitrary.

But anyway, and so you are restricted to only eight conversion events in which you need to add. So if you’ve got more than eight, it would be recommended to remove some redundant conversion events that you’ve got in your ads manager. And you will need to make them in a hierarchy as well. Okay.

And you know, you really need to, I guess, to prepare yourself for a drop in reported conversions because obviously, fewer people being able to be tracked.

I’m a big fan of using UTM parameters. So I would still recommend using UTM parameters in your ads. And then in Google Analytics, you could then at least see the more accurate performance as a result of your Facebook ads.

But probably those two main things that you need to do to verify your domain and create just those eight conversion events in your ads manager.

What To Expect With This Major Update Moving Forward
It is also worth mentioning, this is all very, very new. And the truth is many advertisers and even ad agencies don’t really know the full impact of this.

I’m sure Facebook is scrambling to find some kind of workaround here for advertisers because it is such a massive revenue-generating activity for them. So stay tuned, you know, this is a changing space.

And we are all real, really discovering the true effect of this. As this is being rolled out.

Apple did say this iOS update was going to be rolled out in January, but there are rumors that it has been pushed back a little bit to allow the pressure from Facebook to allow people to prepare with these steps that I’ve mentioned.

So there you have it, make sure you make those two action steps that I mentioned in this episode so that you are best prepared for when this is rolled out.

And if you’d like some help with running profitable ad campaigns on Facebook and on Google, then be sure to check out TeachTraffic.com and I’d love to help you in our online training community there.

Thanks so much for listening, and stay tuned for future episodes.