iOS 14 is coming. What does this mean for tracking? (3)
Hi everybody,
As you probably already found out, there is a real craziness these days about the launch of iOS 14 in 2021 and about the anti-tracking options that it will bring through their Intelligent Tracking Prevention.
From what we could find out so far, the war is with Facebook. ⚔️
Long story short, if you are running campaigns on Facebook Ads, data available from iOS 14 devices in Facebook Ads Manager will be limited:
- no more age, gender, region, and placement
- there will also be a delay in conversion reporting of up to 3 days
- some data will be only estimated based on statistical modeling
All these will be affecting targeting, reporting and ultimately the performance of campaigns at Facebook Ads level. Retargeting and dynamic remarketing will definitely become more difficult on Facebook.
But what about the tracking of your campaigns with a tracker?
Well, from the information gathered in the simulations we did so far we found out that tracking in CPV Lab Pro is NOT affected in any way by these changes! Tracking in CPV Lab Pro will work in the same way as before, conversions will be reported correctly and in real-time to the tracker and you can still see the same metrics from your audience.
This highlights again the importance of using a tracker for your campaigns in parallel with Facebook Business Manager (and especially a self-hosted tracking solution which offers great flexibility
)! You will have accurate and real-time data in your campaigns in order to optimize them at any time!How do you expect these changes to impact your business?
It is now clear! Apple and Facebook are at war with each other after the release of iOS 14!
Recently Facebook came with some clarifications and advice about how our businesses should prepare for this major change. They will use a new protocol called “Aggregated Event Measurement”.
What we all know for sure is that the new iOS 14 update has a big impact on the reporting and processing of conversions registered with the Facebook Pixel.
What will happen exactly?
Apple will begin to require that all apps in the App Store show a discouraging prompt to users on iOS 14 devices, in accordance with their AppTracking Transparency framework. Apple’s policy will prohibit certain data collection and sharing unless people opt into tracking on iOS 14 devices via the prompt.
How can you get ready?
If you are running campaigns for events regarding APPs, then you need to run the latest update 8.1 Facebook SDK for iOS 14.
If you are running campaigns for a website/Landing Page then the recommendation from Facebook is to verify the domain of your website.
Also, very important, if you have multiple domains where you have the Facebook Pixel installed, and this pixel is used by multiple ad accounts, you need to verify your domain as soon as possible.
How can you verify your domain?
You need to go to Business Settings – Brand Safety – Domains – Add Domain.
Here are more details:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs...n-verification
OTHER CHANGES
The “Aggregated Event Measurement” protocol comes with a limitation for the number of conversions.
So you will be able to measure up to 8 conversions to optimize your FB campaigns. Initially, FB will setup the conversions based on your historical data.
REPORTING LIMITATIONS:
- Delaying reporting – the real time reporting will no longer be available for the iOS 14 campaigns and data may be delayed up to 3 days.
- Estimated results in the reports; The breakdowns based on age, sex, region or placement will no longer be available.
- Attribution window settings – the attribution window for all new or active ad campaigns will be set at the ad set level, rather than at the account level.
Also, the setup for the following intervals will no longer be available: 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through.
For the new attribution setting the 7-day click will be the default after Apple prompt enforcement.
Conclusion: VERIFY YOUR DOMAIN! That is the most important thing to do now if you are running campaigns on FB for your domain(s).
Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/331612538028890
There's still lots of confusion around the topic, and I would be careful with making bold statements so early.
There are two aspects of tracking campaigns:
1. Tracking the actual conversion event and its associated data - what tracking software usually do.
2. Attributing the conversions inside Facebook for AI/ML / ROAS optimisation.
The iOS 14 update affects all mobile app developers - not only facebook - and all of them will be subject to the same restrictions as to which event data will pass back to their attribution SDK.
Event: Purchase
Event data: clickid, campaignid, adsetid, adid, productid, etc... etc...
Attribution SDK are: Appsflyer, Tune, Adjust, Kochava, singular and a few others.
They are embedded within the mobile apps, and are responsible to fire back conversion data to the marketing channels that brought the installs, inapp purchases and other events.
The channels can be ad networks such as google, facebook and others, but they are also the affiliate networks that partner up with the mobile apps developers.
The fact that you see a conversion in your tracker, doesn't mean that all conversions were reported back to you
- if the user did not specifically optin to be tracked the conversion event data hasn't been sent to you.
- If the mobile app attribution partner isn't yet fully approved / integrated with the new apple sdk / protocol (unlikely since the release was planed long ago).
The main reason Facebook is under the spotlight is because their advertisers heavily rely on the targeting options provided by facebook, which in turns relies on their ability to track the users' behavior, location and co... to create custom audiences. So if FB doesn't have the ability to leverage the user data to help advertisers run better campaigns, the ad spent will be drastically affected.
Finally, the biggest challenge will be for advertisers running app to app campaigns, because they will not only lack the targeting options, but they will also miss the attribution options since conversions won't be tracked back facebook pixel / api.
Just by checking facebook business manager, you can see that they've added tons of options, warning and other goodies, that were specifically developed and released ahead of the iOS 14 update, including the aggregated measurement.
In addition, all attribution platforms like the one I mentioned above, have been preparing for this release by developing probability tracking models (similar to facebook), and that are meant to cover for a portion of the missed data.
Specifically to facebook tracking - it goes without saying that the standard facebook pixel is being deprecated, in favor of the conversion api (previously known as the server side api), which enables advertisers to bypass adblockers, intelligent /enhanced tracking protections - by tracking and sending conversions via api, as opposed to standard js/image pixels.
I am sure we will keep hearing from facebook and apple, whether here, via the courthouses, or on the news
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