As a company, Apple wants to protect users’ privacy. The brand is famous for taking a stand on this issue, resisting governments and threatening to pull its products and services from their countries if they don’t yield to its ideals.
In 2021, Apple continued this tradition with its iOS update. The development changed how advertisers could market to customers on social media by reducing their capacity to target audience characteristics. When the news hit, ad agencies and journalists condemned the move as anti-free-speech, putting the open internet’s future at risk. Small businesses would find it more challenging to compete and target customers.
Immediately after the crackdown, the effects on advertisers were minimal. Most users didn’t download the ATT prompt straightaway – the feature where they could opt into tracking. However, as iOS versions 14.5 and 14.6 rolled out, this changed. Seventy-seven per cent of Apple users updated their system, with only 37 per cent agreeing to continued surveillance. As such, the smartphone giant’s share of marketing fell from 43% of total operating system spending to under 30%, giving Android a 70% share.
The trend reflects businesses’ (correct) opinion that worse tracking would lead to poorer ad performance. Being unable to target the most promising prospects meant companies had to take more of a scatter-gun approach to marketing on the platform, reducing its appeal.
The Effect Of The iOS 14 Update On Facebook Ads
The effects of the iOS 14 update on Facebook ads are tremendous. Apple will no longer use its Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) to share anonymous user data, changing the platform’s marketing landscape.
Retargeting Issues
The main conversation revolves around Facebook’s pixel, a tracking cookie for ad users to follow people around the internet. It is a tiny file, but crucial for billions of dollars of online marketing activities.
Pixel tells advertisers where their audience goes (and what it does) after interacting with their ads. It enables effective remarketing – showing prospects ads and reminders on third-party sites.
For example, suppose a customer clicks a Facebook ad for an eCommerce store and starts putting items in their cart. With pixel, the underlying business can advertise to this customer if they abandon their cart, reminding them on third-party websites they still need to check out.
However, Apple’s iOS 14 updates limit this activity. With roughly 75% of users opting out of tracking, companies can no longer spend on profitable retargeting ads for as many people.
Less Reliable Conversion Tracking
Less reliable conversion tracking is another issue the iOS 14 update throws up. Facebook can no longer track customers opting out of pixel, preventing businesses from determining their most successful advertising channels.
Facebook tried to mitigate this impact by developing new tools to help advertisers. For example, it delayed pixel-based conversion reporting and changed the attribution window. It also adjusted its data analytics and modelling to “estimated results,” using broader statistics to guess the real statistics (were they available).
Even so, the approach still resulted in less reliable conversion tracking. Brands could no longer keep tabs on real customer data, relying on proxies.
Challenging Event Measurement
Limited event measurement capacity is another challenge of the iOS 14 update. Businesses can no longer track every step their audiences take through the conversion funnel, making it hard to know where they should focus their marketing.
Previously, Facebook let brands see the full spectrum of events, including:
- Arriving at a website
- Viewing an item
- Adding an item to a cart
- Entering the check-out screen
- Completing a purchase
However, following Apple’s rule change, Facebook can only provide users with eight monthly conversion events. Consequently, brands must strip back their analytical frameworks and adopt a barebones approach to determine how to spend their marketing budgets.
Shortened Attribution Window
Finally, the iOS 14 update reduces Facebook’s attribution window from twenty-eight days to seven. This switch is problematic because the customer journey usually takes longer. Furthermore, the changes mean companies can only discover conversions based on the event’s timing instead of when the ad impression occurred.
How To Deal With The Effect Of iOS14 Update On Ads
The iOS 14 update didn’t annihilate Apple-product-based online advertising. Facebook still offers businesses targeted marketing based on its vast user information database. However, it did cause damage.
That’s why more firms are working with a Facebook ads agency. Professionals can provide superior guidance and instructions on proceeding in a challenging privacy environment.
Companies are also diversifying their advertising channels. Various alternatives to traditional Facebook and Google ads exist that can sidestep challenging data protection issues.
