Facebook is responding to Apple's iOS14.5 rollout.
In late April, Apple rolled out their latest update – iOS14.5. In this update, Apple asked users to opt-in to tracking or, by default, users were left opted out. By opting in, platforms such as Facebook would be allowed to track and utilize users’ data. What does this mean for business owners using the Facebook ad platform to market? According to an analysis done by Flurry Analytics, as of May 2021, only 6% of US daily users with iOS 14.5 have selected to opt-in. By not opting in, people are choosing not to be tracked during their online sessions, which means businesses lose the ability to effectively target them. Facebook and other online platforms are drastically impacted by this update as they no longer have access to the user behavior data — which means the ability to target specific demographics and interests is severely limited.What Does This Mean for Your Business?
Businesses are only able to target people who are non-Apple users or Apple users who have opted in to tracking. This presents two concerns:- The audience sizes for targeted ads have decreased as many Apple users have chosen to stay opted out of tracking. With a smaller audience, businesses tend to pay more for their cost per lead and/or conversion.
- With the lack of tracking, businesses won’t have the same retargeting options as they once had within the Facebook platform. This could result in a lower conversion rate, as businesses will no longer be able to retarget warm leads as effectively.
How Will This Affect Facebook Ads Reporting?
The iOS14.5 roll-out has resulted in inaccurate reporting for conversions. The inaccuracies run all the way through to ineffective remarketing efforts as Facebook will guess your estimated conversions based on previous data and statistical modeling, making the data in ads manager inaccurate and inflated at times. Since there are gaps in the reporting due to a single-layer tracking ability, Facebook will use statistical modeling to account for some results. These changes also have an effect on Facebook’s reporting of the ad performance. There will no longer be breakdowns for offsite conversions and Facebook will no longer be able to support delivery, action, and dynamic creative element breakdowns for conversions, including age, gender, region, placement, etc. Instead, business owners will be forced to rely on simple metrics, including impressions, link clicks, leads, and click-through rates, etc.Facebook’s attribution window will also decrease. Prior to the iOS14 update, business owners could track a customer journey up to 28 days. Now, that has changed to only 7 days. If your customer doesn’t purchase anything from you within 7 days of starting your funnel, you won’t be able to attribute the purchase to a specific entry-point. A major hit on the Facebook reporting side is in relation to the time frame. Due to the data limitations, there is now a 72-hour delay in reporting. That means, the data you are seeing in the ads manager is actually 72 hours old.
TAG Offers Solutions
At TAG Digital Marketing, we stay on top of all the new developments and data tracking abilities when it comes to Facebook ads. If you’ve contemplated starting advertising on Facebook, reach out to us at (407) 398-6629 and let’s discuss the best way for you to get started.
While Facebook users continue to use the platform, ad targeting is influenced by Apple’s iOS14 rollout and is not as effective as it used to be.