Apple is requiring that all apps in the App Store show a prompt to it’s users on iOS devices essentially asking the user for permission for the app to track them outside the platform in different ways.
This new iOS 14 policy will prohibit certain data collection and sharing unless people opt into tracking on iOS 14 via this prompt. This may look or sound relatively familiar as most websites with any form of cookie tracking on their website rushed to establish prompts in response to the GDPR requirements.
This means that there will be a percentage of IOS14 users who will actually allow the app to track their data but how many of which that will be is unknown and not likely to be a large fraction of the overall
Is there any reason to worried ? Not really.
Although we won’t be able to track whether or not certain conversions are an (in)direct result of your Facebook ads, these conversions will still happen, so the direct impact on you overall brand success is limited.
What will change?
Aggregate event measurement
In order to limit the loss of recorded conversions coming from IOS14 users, Facebook is using “Aggregate event measurement”. Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement is a protocol that allows for measurement of web events from iOS 14 users. Aggregated Event Measurement limits domains to 8 conversions events that can be used for campaign optimization. You will have to choose which event you want to track and rank them into event manager.
Funnel optimisation
Of those 8 conversions events, only 1 will be recorded. It means that if someone add to cart and then purchase, only the purchase conversion event will be recorded. This will limit Facebook funnel optimisation. All in all, It means that advertisers will still be able to track users behavior but the tracking will be much more limited than before.
Delay in event recording
There will be a delay of 24 to 72h before a conversion is reported into Facebook event manager, this means that any decision making process will take longer.
Attribution model
Facebook will remove the 28 days click attribution models that was available before. This attribution model, enabled advertising to record a conversion that occurred 28 days after a user clicked on a Facebook ad’s, in order to allocate this conversion to Facebook performance. After the update, advertisers will be limited to a 7 days click attribution window. In that regard, considered purchase will be heavily impacted as it will not fall into the new Facebook attribution window.
Not so bad?
With that being said, we should not forget that some conversions coming from IOS14 users will not be recorded by Facebook but will still happen. The great downside is that it will be harder to track if a conversion comes from Facebook or not and also to use those conversions for optimisations purpose.
Moreover, advertisers have the possibility to use Conversion API & Analytics in order to limit the loss of recorded conversions.
Conversion API
Conversions API is a Facebook Business Tool that lets you share key web and offline events, or customer actions, directly from your server to Facebook's. Conversions API works with your Facebook pixel to help improve the performance and measurement of your Facebook ad campaigns.
Analytics
Tracking your campaign with analytics utm’s will enable you to limit the loss of your data inside your Facebook ad account.
