With Apple's official launch of iOS 14 at the end of 2020 (already available in version iOS 14.5 ), advertisers have been drastically restricted. However, if you take a close look at the issue, everything is actually half as bad. Nevertheless, Apple has of course taken a huge step in the direction of data protection. In today's article, I would like to take a closer look at the whole issue.
Even though we are only talking about Facebook's restrictions in this article, Apple's iOS 14 update naturally also affects other social media portals such as Pinterest, LinkedIn and TikTok. Advertisers will therefore have to live with severe restrictions in the future when it comes to targeting, reports and tracking.
I will try to explain all the important changes in this article so that you know how you should proceed since the iOS 14 update and what restrictions have been in place since then.
iOS 14 data protection vs. Facebook advertising campaigns
As Apple announced last year, iOS 14 brings with it a number of changes that significantly increase user data protection and restrict advertising tracking. This refers to the so-called "App Tracking Transparency Framework" (ATT for short). With the update to iOS 14, Apple users will be asked via a tracking opt-in whether they want to consent to tracking or not. The introduction of the tracking opt-in affects all apps listed in the App Store.
Basically, you can think of this tracking opt-in from Apple as a kind of cookie banner, which you can now find on all websites. Before using the app, users can decide whether and how many cookies they want to allow and, of course, which data may be tracked and forwarded to Facebook via the Facebook pixel, for example.
For advertisers, this means that only the highest-priority event will be tracked without active consent to the tracking opt-in. If a user consents to tracking, the advertiser will still have to deal with severe restrictions that affect targeting and delivery, tracking and optimization as well as attribution and reporting, among other things.
How are you restricted as an advertiser?
To help you understand how the changes with the new iOS 14 privacy policy affect Facebook, below you will find an overview of the three most important areas when it comes to Facebook advertising campaigns. It also makes no difference whether you use the Facebook Pixel or the server-side Conversions API. With both sources, you as an advertiser will have to live with restrictions in the future.
First of all: All custom audiences that are measured on the basis of Facebook's own tools, such as interactions, can still be fully measured and reported by Facebook.
Tracking & Optimization
Conversion events are now limited to eight for tracking and optimization. This means that with an opt-in, i.e. consent for tracking, up to eight events per domain can be tracked.
If you opt out, i.e. refuse to be tracked, only the highest-priority event will be tracked. You can determine which event this is yourself in the Facebook event settings or the ad manager - but only once you have verified your domain. Important for conversion events in e-commerce: "Value Optimization" already occupies four of the possible eight events.
The most important things at a glance:
- Maximum of 8 conversion events per domain
- With opt-out, only the highest-priority event is tracked
- Events can only be defined with domain verification
- Value Optimization takes up 4 out of 8 events
Reporting & Attribution
The attribution window in Facebook could previously be set to 1 day, 7 days or 28 days. This means that if a user clicked on the ad one, seven or 28 days ago and bought something, for example, this conversion was still tracked and could be traced in the reporting at any time.
With the iOS 14 update from Apple, Facebook has also made important changes here. The attribution window can now only be set to a maximum of seven days after a click and conversions are now reported on a daily basis. In addition, advertisers can no longer break down conversions by gender, age, region or placement in reporting.
The most important things at a glance:
- Attribution window only 7 days after click
- Conversions are reported on a daily basis
- Breakdown by gender, age, placement, etc. not applicable
Targeting & delivery
Apple's tracking opt-in entails some losses for advertisers, which also affect the targeting and delivery of ads. For example, targeting (remarketing / retargeting) will be significantly worse, as Facebook will have less data available about users.
The previously measured figures for events will also decrease significantly, as only the highest-priority event will send data back to Facebook. And last but not least, the custom audiences will of course also shrink due to a lack of data, which will make delivery to the right target group less accurate.
The Dynamic Ads remain largely unaffected. Nevertheless, domains of a catalog should be verified and you should ensure that only one pixel is used per catalog in order to make the best possible use of conversion events.
The most important things at a glance:
- Target groups (custom audience) for targeting are getting smaller
- Deliveries to target groups become imprecise
- Not all events provide data
- Dynamic Ads remain unaffected
What should you do now?
As part of Apple's iOS 14 update, there are a few things you should do as an advertiser in Facebook Business Manager and Ads Manager. These include ensuring that your domain is verified, selecting and prioritizing your events, calculating the deviation using the new attribution window, exporting your historical data and checking your automatic rules.
Verify domain
To ensure that you as an advertiser can easily adjust the conversion events in the future and optimize them for the eight available events, you must verify your domain in the Business Manager. By verifying the domain, Facebook ensures that you are actually the owner.
Only a few steps are necessary to verify your domain. You must proceed as follows:
Step 1:
Callthe Business Manager.
Step 2:
Clickin the Company settings area.
Step 3:
Clickon "Domains" in the "Brand Safety" menu item and click on the "Add" button.
Step 4:
After clicking on the "Add" button, the first step is to enter the domain you want to verify.
Then click on the "Add domain" button.
You have a total of three options for verifying your domain:
Meta tag verification: You must copy the tag and paste it into an HTML section of your website (header).
HTML file upload: You must download the available file and upload it to your server (FTP / main directory). And then call up the specified URL from Facebook.
DNS verification: To do this, you need access to the DNS settings of your domain. You can usually find the settings for this with the registrar with whom you have registered your domain.
In my opinion, the quickest and easiest verification method is option 1: Meta tag verification.
To do this, log into WordPress and install the "Insert Header and Footer Code" plugin, for example. Once you have installed and activated the plugin, go to the plugin settings and insert the meta tag there.
As soon as you have saved the plugin settings, go back to the Business Manager and click on the "Verify" button. If the verification of your domain was successful, you will see the following message:
Selection of conversion events & prioritization
As already mentioned several times, with the introduction of iOS 14, you now have a total of eight conversion events to choose from in the Event Manager, which you should define and prioritize.
You can define the events in just a few steps:
Step 1:
Call up the Events Manager.
Step 2:
Click here on "Measurement of aggregated events" and then on the "Configure web events" button:
Step 3:
Now select the domain you have verified and click on "Edit events".
Step 4:
Now create your event set, i.e. define 8 conversion events for your domain/pixel and prioritize them. To apply the settings, click on the "Send" button.
You can of course adjust these settings at any time.
Calculate deviation of the attribution window
In order to better evaluate the deviations and the ad performance of your campaigns after the iOS 14 update, you should calculate the deviation with the elimination of the 28-day attribution window and the new 7-day attribution window.
The prerequisite is, of course, that you have already run campaigns in the past. For the calculation, you need access to historical data, i.e. data from past campaigns.
You can find a very helpful sheet for calculating and entering your data here. You can simply copy the Google sheet and then fill it in with your data.
You can also export your historical data directly via the reporting view. To do this, create a report beforehand and select the maximum time period available in order to save as much data as possible.
Automatic rules
To avoid problems in the future when using automatic rules that have already been created and to avoid receiving incorrect data, you should also switch to the 7-day attribution window within your automatic rules in the Ads Manager.
Conclusion
With the iOS 14 update, Apple has sent a clear signal in the direction of data protection. It is clear that advertisers now have to work with significantly less data and consider new strategies in order to achieve the best possible results.
Although the restrictions are considerable, we should see the changes as an opportunity. Because despite this fact, Facebook still offers enough tools to run successful advertising campaigns. To make full use of these, you should definitely implement the measures mentioned above.
Presumably, more and more attention will be paid to data protection in the future, so we can look forward to many more adjustments in the coming years.
