Apple has finally joined the United Nations in recognising privacy as a fundamental human right.
In their latest software update Apple will give their millions of mobile users control of their privacy by providing them the choice to opt-out of advertising tracking on their mobiles. If you were thinking of running any campaigns over Facebook or Google this year, this change directly impacts you.
Read on to find out more about the Apple update and what you can do to adapt your campaigns and prepare.
What is the Apple update?
Apple’s iOS 14 software update will prohibit certain data collection and sharing with advertisers and data brokers unless people opt-in to tracking via a prompt on their devices.
With the new update it’s estimated the amount of iPhone users who share their information with apps will drop dramatically from 70% to 10-15%.
The impact of Apple’s update
There are three key impacts for advertisers and their digital campaigns with the Apple iOS 14 software update:
1. Information will be incomplete
If users don’t opt-in to tracking it will be harder to understand how your advertisements are performing as you can’t monitor the full number of people who engage with your campaigns. This will impact your ability to demonstrate return on investment and to plan future campaigns based on insights.
2. Conversions through Facebook ad campaigns will be hit hard
Almost 80% of Facebook users access the platform on mobile and 40% of Australian mobile users use an Apple iPhone. With such a large proportion of the population using Facebook through iPhone, as this new update gets adopted your Facebook ads conversion tracking will be affected.
3. Custom Audiences will be compromised
Custom Audiences can really give your advertising a boost, however with the new update you won’t be able to match to audiences using iOS 14.
For example, at the moment you can target users based on the web pages they’ve visited, allowing you to tailor your message based on how far through the conversion funnel they are. The changes with Apple’s update to iOS 14 will make this tough.
5 practical steps to help you prepare for the iOS 14 Apple update
1. Become verified with Facebook ads
Verifying your domain is strongly recommended as this update comes in for two reasons. Firstly, to ensure there is no immediate or future disruption when configuring your conversion events. Secondly, it will allow Facebook to continue to attribute conversion events to your domain.
To verify your domain, login to Facebook Business Manager and go to Business Settings, then Brand Safety and then “Domains to Verify”.
2. Cut down to 8 conversion events
Facebook will only be able to track eight conversion campaigns (including custom conversions) in your account. So make sure in Facebook Business Manager you reduce the number of events to eight or less.
To do this, you’ll need to go to the Business Menu, and then Events Manager.
Facebook will use aggregated conversion tracking designed to help measure campaign performance while taking into consideration how users choose to share their data. This is important as it allows conversion events to still be run with the new update.
3. Get a historical perspective
Compile your past performance data and other data sources (e.g. market research) to determine how you can effectively reach your audience moving forward.
4. Communication is key
Inform those in your organisation about the impacts of the change, letting them know your future reporting may not be like-for-like.
5. Change course
Now is the time to experiment with your campaigns to rely less on Facebook.
You might update your website to require visitors provide their information earlier in the conversion process. From there, you could create web visit campaigns, using your website’s internal tracking to determine if a sale or conversion resulted from the ads.
You could also explore other platforms like LinkedIn to build remarketing audiences.
If you want help adapting your marketing and advertising campaigns to succeed, reach out to our team today.