Sure – change is the only constant in life, we’re told. However, the new iOS 14 changes have marketers and advertisers all on edge. Facebook themselves claim these changes will “harm the growth of business and the free internet.” But what does it mean for your online business exactly?

What Is Apple Doing?

Apple will now prompt users to allow tracking or not allow tracking for Facebook applications. Should users opt-out, advertisers won’t be able to track the events and conversions of those users, limiting the data advertisers have to optimize appropriately on Facebook. This will diminish your ability to track conversions, retarget to your audience, run effective dynamic ads, and more.

Whilst comprehensive industry-wide reports are still limited, initial reports indicate up to a whopping 90% in user opt-out rates (especially since the default is for tracking to be disabled when iOS 14.5 is installed). This is a huge cause for concern for advertisers on this platform. As their reachable iOS audiences may decrease dramatically, App publishers depending upon an advertising-supported model and advertisers who target users with personalised ads will face significant revenue drops.

In light of this, Facebook has developed a “Speak up for Small Business” campaign that encourages user generated content from business owners to voice their concerns.

This campaign states that “…these changes will limit your ability to:

• Effectively deliver ads to people based on their engagement with your business
• Measure and report on conversions from certain customers
• Ensure your ads are delivered to the most relevant audiences at the right frequency
• Accurately attribute app installs to people using iOS 14 and later
• Predict and optimize cost per action over time and efficiently allocate budgets”

In another attempt to overcome this, Facebook will also show a pop-up mentioning the consequences of the changes this will bring depending on the user’s choice. This will provide more details on how Facebook uses data for personalized ads and the ways it limits the use of activity other apps and websites send them if people don’t turn on this device setting. 

“So What Can I Do For My Business Now?”

While this may call for a shift in strategy regarding your marketing channels, Facebook ads are here to stay (albeit in a changed state). As data privacy continues to be a big concern for customers, businesses everywhere would have to accept that limited access to customer information will be the new norm. But update or no update, it’s critical that businesses continue to test and learn and innovate ways to adapt to a digital landscape which is in constant morph mode to begin with. Meanwhile, be sure to prioritize data governance, adopting incentivised value-exchange strategies to attain consumer data and seek out alternatives to cookie-tracking.

Other Tips On Surviving Apple’s iOS 14 Changes

• Ensure that the data collected and stored has proper user consent.
• Make sure that the data stored can be appropriately leveraged for media execution purposes. 
• Implement Conversions API to ensure that the events are passed back to Facebook directly from the server—not just from the pixel. 
• If you use Shopify, set up the Facebook Sales Channel App. Simply connect your Facebook account and watch all your products sync automatically – this will make it easy to promote on Facebook & Instagram.

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