What is going on with iOS 14?
Apple has announced changes with iOS 14 that will impact how you’re able to track and manage your Facebook Advertising campaigns.
What are the big picture implications of this change?
Apple’s policy requires users to opt in to tracking when downloading an app rather than opt out. This will likely reduce the number of people who will allow tracking, which is where much of the information comes from for building the ad targeting algorithm. As more people opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, ads personalization and performance reporting will be limited for both app and web conversion events.
What are the more specific changes to iOS 14 that I need to know that affect Facebook Advertising?
- The number of conversion events that are tracked by the Facebook Pixel will be limited to 8.
- Custom Audiences (which are when you upload customer data like email addresses for serving Facebook ads) may see their size limited with a lower match rate.
- The 28-day click and 7-day view attribution window will be reduced to 7 day click and 1 day view. This means that equally effective ads may be driving the same number of overall conversions, but the number of conversions reported will drop. This is especially true for products or services with a greater than 7 day purchase cycle.
- Delivery and action breakdowns, such as age, gender, region, and placement will not be available.
What do I need to do now?
- Verify your domain in your Facebook Business Manager. This will give you authority over which conversion events are eligible for your domain. This process is done through your business manager account. If you have questions about how to do this properly, we’d be happy to set up a call to walk you through the necessary steps.
- You’ll need to make sure you’re setting the correct attribution window whenever you build a new Ad Set. (Note: If Gemini is managing your Facebook ads, then we will be doing this on your behalf.) The attribution window is no longer an account wide setting. Every time you build a new ad set, you’ll need to update the attribution window, if you want it to be anything other than the new default, 7 day click 1 day view. In general, our recommendation is to use a unified attribution window for all ad sets because it makes them easier to compare performance to one another.
- Discuss with your Gemini Account Manager whether or not adding other prospecting efforts that are unaffected by ad personalization should be explored in the medium to long term. These would be things like Influencer Advertising and Host Read Podcast ads where you are advertising to the whole audience of a specific channel based on that influencer or podcast’s overall follower demographics rather than micro-targeted personalized ads like Facebook, Twitter, Etc.
If you’re unsure of how to approach these changes and how to adjust your strategy accordingly, you can always reach out to us for a quick consultation!
