There has been an extensive discussion in the digital world about Apple’s iOS 14.5 Facebook update. How is it linked to Facebook ads and how does it impact performance. We all have read and heard rumours over the past few years that there will be rules put in place that will restrict tracking. So far, we have never seen anything having such an impact on an advertising platform. In this article, we will cover the following points:
- How iOS 14.5 affects Facebook marketers?
- iOS 14.5 and the impact on Facebook ads?
- Planning around the iOS 14.5 Facebook update
So keep reading if you want to keep getting more out of your Facebook advertising and marketing efforts.
How iOS 14.5 affects Facebook marketers
Several websites and other resources are detailing the scenario with iOS 14.5, including those from Facebook. To simplify this, with iOS 14.5 Facebook update, Apple introduced improvements that would affect how Facebook accepts and processes information from its pixel. In other words, any company that advertises smartphone applications, as well as those that target, optimise and report on-site conversion incidents, will be impacted. In brief, Apple is demanding that all App Store applications display a notification to their customers on iOS devices, effectively asking for approval for the application to follow them even outside of the platform. This iOS 14.5 policy forbids the collecting and transmission of data unless users agree to opt in. If iOS users want to stay out of Facebook monitoring, the resulting domino effect would be as follows:
- Facebook cannot monitor customer behaviour – This will lead to inaccurate tracking of events or conversions, including retargeting.
- Marketing strategies weaken – This can significantly impede the capacity to established personalised advertisements for viewers.
- The points mentioned above can lead to an increase in cost per results and wastage of advertising dollars.
iOS 14.5 and the impact on Facebook ads
There are several ways this update can change Facebook advertisements. A few of them, as mentioned on Wordstream are:
- Businesses will require in-app purchases and subscriptions
Having in-app purchases or subscriptions will allow you to bypass the rules since you will be able to capture relevant information about the users.
- Less effective and less efficient advertisement
This is due to its ability to monitor activities and behaviours. If done correctly, all Facebook ads campaigns would have some sort of conversion event, lookalike audience, or retargeting audience through the Facebook tracking pixel. Now, if people sign out of monitoring, this makes the Facebook pixel worthless, thus making it impossible to track conversions or build retargeting audiences.
- Less web revenue from Facebook ads
The shift to de-personalised advertising would affect anyone seeking to improve sales through Facebook. It is estimated that revenue generated from Facebook ads will drop by approximately 60%.
- Greater challenge for small companies to attract the right customers
Small businesses who might now have rich first party data will struggle. This is because not only will they struggle to build retargeting audiences but they will also have issues with creating look-a-like audiences.
Planning around the iOS 14.5 Facebook update
As mentioned earlier, the key element that will impact Facebook ads is pixel tracking. What are conversion cases, retargeting lists, etc? When a user creates a Facebook marketing campaign, the algorithm learns and optimises to generate more of the required actions.
Some clear quick fixes for upgrading will be:
- Exclude iOS devices from conversion goal campaigns
This is not a definite solution for running paid ads on Facebook, but this gives insight on what to anticipate whenever the update takes place.
- Develop campaign beyond the conversion target
This will involve running landing page view campaigns and using the website’s internal monitoring to decide whether the advertisement resulted in a conversion or a sale. UTM’s and several other tracking methods can be used instead to track conversions and other onsite events.
- Use Facebook Lead ads
Facebook lead ads does not use any tracking pixel so can be a great alternative for those focused on lead generation.
- Make an additional layer or interrupt the transition flow on landing pages
You can use phone numbers or email addresses in Facebook to create custom audiences. It is a roundabout solution to the problem of personalising ads for specific audiences.
By Manesh Ram, Digital Marketing Specialist. Please follow @maneshram & Meta
