With 2.8 billion people logging on to Facebook Monthly it is the perfect market space to promote, push and chase for donations for non profit, charities and all associations.
In the past few years we have seen how privacy policies became more complex and that there was more and more data being collected by platforms like facebook, which meant an advantage for advertisers, and a disadvantage for the privacy of users.
However the Apple IOS 14.5 update is here, and so is its new privacy policy. Meaning that users will be given the opportunity to decide whether they want their data collected or not. This is a game changer, as retargeting ads will not be as efficient as they used to be, and statistics and data about certain users will not be shown in your ads performance.
So if you have seen a decrease in your campaign performance, don’t panic, we got your back!
What is the IOS14.5 update
To better understand what you can do to ensure a great ad performance, let’s first understand what exactly the IOS 14.5 update is, and what it entails.
Apple has introduced a new “prompt” that is currently popping-up when people access any IOS app that gathers data and tracks users. The prompt informs users that the app they are about to use tracks their activity, and provides them the option to allow tracking, or opt out. If the user allows tracking, the app will be able to monitor, retarget and receive activity data from that user. However, if people opt-out of tracking, it means that all data that facebook and similar apps were able to gather will be interrupted. 
In short, what this new opt-out feature means is that facebook cannot link user data from their system with the activity that person takes on your website. Therefore, Facebook cannot use a person’s activity to retarget or optimise ads. It also limits the report in conversions, as you will no longer be able to report users’ activity outside of facebook after clicking in your ad.
How does it affect your facebook ads
Facebook is aware of the impact the new IOS14.5 will have on their advertisers and provides a very extensive guide on how this update will affect their users.
The following changes will affect your ads performance: Conversion tracking: Since the data collected will be seen restricted, so will be the tracking of its conversion. Actions such as view content, add to cart, checkout, purchase and other similar events will be under reported. To prevent this, configure eight preferred web conversion events per domain in your EVENTS MANAGER. Facebook will configure the conversions more relevant to your business based on your activity.
Ad objectives: Certain objectives such as views, engagement or interaction will not be affected, however, ads whose objective is based on landing page views, app installs (that target IOS) will be impacted. Remarketing campaigns which have an objective to track people who have been on your website will also be impacted, as facebook will not be able to identify or track activity from users who opt-out.
Reporting: Real-time reporting will no longer be a reality. Apple will be delaying data up to three days after the event has occurred. For you, this means that for correct data analysis and reporting, you should consider this delay and allow 3 extra days to understand your collected data.
What can you do to prevent its impact
While facebook works on putting in place measures to reduce the impact of this with methods like Aggregate Event Measurement (AEM) – a tool that allows you to rank conversion events in order of importance – there are certain changes you can make in your ad account/Business manager to reduce the impact of IOS 14.5 new policy.
1. VERIFY YOUR DOMAIN.
Go to your event manager and make sure your domain has been verified. This will prevent any disruption to your website campaigns. Check out this step by step video on how to verify your domain.
2. PRIORITIZE YOUR EVENTS.
With the new AEM facebook has put in place you will only be able to optimize 8 events per domain. Carefully consider which pixels & events you want to use in your event tracking, as they will count as an aggregate. This means that if you have 2 pixels each with 5 events you will be accounting for 10 events, and will need to prioritise which 8 ones you want to use to measure your ads performance.
3. PERSONALISE AND LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES.
Since some of the custom audiences you can build are based on your pixel’s data gathering, and this data will be restricted, your agencies are expected to be considerably reduced. However, this new update does not affect lookalike audiences, as this data is based on stored data in Facebook and not day to day activity data collection. Use lookalike audiences to build your audiences, and consider using some of your directly acquired data ( such as list of email addresses, followers etc…) to create lookalike audiences and increase your reach.
4. USE CLICK BASED OPTIMISATION.
Since conversions are not going to be 100% accurate when tracking data, your most accurate optimisation strategy is the one based on data you can 100% be certain of. Objectives such as reach, engagement or click-through will be more effective in data analysis, and as useful as conversions based on lead generation or sign ups.
There are many more changes and updates to come as facebook works toward updating the way they run their ads and conversions, social media is a constantly changing game. Stay on the known, sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest information, or contact us if you need support with your current digital marketing campaigns.
