Facebook iOS 14 Update – What this means for your Facebook advertising

What’s happening?

• The IOS 14 update is changing the way businesses can track users online data. 

• This update is being rolled out from 21st January 2021.

• Facebook are making changes to their own advertising platform in response to the IOS 14 update.

• There are some implications to be aware of for those businesses who run paid advertising on Facebook.

What are the changes for Facebook users?

Facebook currently collects valuable information about users by tracking them across devices. Data collected helps advertisers tailor ads to an individual’s preferences, making ads more successful as a result.

• Opting-out is currently possible, but few users actually do it due to it being masked well.

• Apple’s new privacy policy will give user’s a prompt which allows them to opt-out of tracking easily.

• As the new prompt makes opting-out easier, fewer users are expected to allow Facebook to track them moving forward.

What are the implications for businesses?

Facebook will move to a 7-day click and 1-day view attribution window. This means that Facebook will only report on conversion when a user completes a desired action within the window. This is a significant difference from the 28-day click and 1-day view window that Facebook was using before. 

Ultimately, this means that there will be fewer conversions recorded across Facebook, resulting in an inevitable downturn in return on Ad spend that is being actively recorded within Facebook Business Manager. It appears that marketeers will still have access to a 28-day view (at least for a while longer) should they customise their attribution window within the ad manager dashboard. 

Facebook has confirmed that they will look to implement a new modelling system. Essentially, this means that Facebook are aware that your conversions are now being underreported, and their new modelling system will help them understand by how much.

What is being done about it?

Facebook have announced changes to their advertising platform to minimise the negative effect of this update has on businesses. For example, ‘Aggregated Events Measurement’ is being introduced.

Essentially, this new feature is a redesign of how Facebook tracks user data, one that complies with the user’s privacy preferences while extracting as much valuable data as possible for businesses.

Changes like this mean there will be some preservation in advertisers reporting, however, where there is still uncertainty surrounding the impact, we should expect a short period of adjustment as Facebook continues to innovate its platform. 

Actions points

Despite an expected decline in available user data following the release of IOS 14, Facebook’s adjustments to their advertising platform are designed to minimise any interruption to reporting.

Nevertheless, it is advised that businesses prepare themselves for what is going to be an adjustment period in the Paid Media landscape.

Facebook have not yet confirmed this in writing – however, due to the changes in attribution reporting there may be some effects to the historical data (results) that Facebook have retrospectively reported on. However, we are unaware on the effects of the historical data at the moment but we will review ongoing and update accordingly.