How Apple’s iOS 14 Release Affect Your Facebook Ads

Facebook ads have emerged as a game-changer in today’s digital marketing world! The use of advanced cookies has made user tracking simpler than ever. Now, you can target any specific demographic, Any user who visited your site, particular pages, haven’t taken the action you want, abandoned cart user, lookalike audience creation and much more. This specific feature of Facebook allows you to achieve quick success in ad campaigns.

But we are here to alert you about an upcoming challenge in ad marketing. This disastrous apple update can turn your ad strategies topsy-turvy. Yes, we are talking about none other than the iOS14 update. It has been recently launched by Apple and will come into force in early 2021. Its major impact will be on the Facebook ads which are necessary for marketers to understand!

So, in this article, we are going to give you every possible info about this update. We will talk how this is going to change the future of ad campaigns. What should you do as a precaution measure to this update of Apple? Let us know everything without any delay!

The new iOS14 update

So, first of all, let us see what the new update has in store. The new iOS14 update focuses on protecting user privacy. It has now made it mandatory for marketers to request user permission before using any cookie. That means every time a user’s data has to be collected, he has to be informed by the site. This policy also applies to the Facebook app which is exclusively known for its advanced user tracking.

Till now, Facebook was seamlessly tracking user behaviour across websites. It used this data to help marketers in targeting and displaying ads to the ideal prospects. But this new update has dragged Facebook into a critical challenge. It is also alarming for marketers because our ad campaigns will not be that successful again, if this update is released.

We believe users should have the choice over the data that is being collected about them and how it’s used. Facebook can continue to track users across apps and websites as before, App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14 will just require that they ask for your permission first. pic.twitter.com/UnnAONZ61I

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) December 17, 2020

Why Apple brought this update?

You might be curious to know what profit is Apple getting by forcing this update. It is nothing but a struggle to protect their users’ privacy. Since 2017, Apple is striving to gift it’s users the freedom to not get stalked by advertisers. As you can see nowadays, facebook pixels(cookies) are being used to send information to the respective servers. Whereas, cookies are on every site to store user browsing data across sessions. You must have stumbled upon frustrating popups asking you permission to use cookies after GDPR. Apple wants to give its users the ultimate site experience by slashing the power of these cookies.

New technology by Apple

Every Apple device features an inbuilt Safari browser that is powered by an engine named WebKit. So, to prevent the use of cookies in the Safari browser, Apple introduced ITP (Intelligent Tracking Prevention), which is a new innovation. With every iOS update, this technique is getting stronger and advanced. In fact, iOS13 and Safari13 ITP have decreased the lifespan of a cookie to mere 7 days.

What does this mean for advertisers?

Before the scenario was like, we were targeting the visitors on our site for the last 30 days or more. But this update has reduced it to 7 days. Due to its effect, Facebook no longer can target the visitors or customers who opened your site prior to the last 7 days. Wondering how it happened? Let us know the whole process behind it. Actually, Facebook uses cookies to track and identify unique users across websites. Information from the cookies is read by pixels and is transferred to Facebook data pool. But because the lifespan of the cookie is reduced to 7 days, the older users will become strangers for Facebook. It will be a tedious task to identify and track them with a new cookie. Hence your retargeting power will go down as most of the customers take action between 12 to 30 days time frame and you can have only 8 conversion tracking for a webpage it will dramatically reduce the targeting power of advertisers

What has Facebook done in defence?

Since this update has originated, Facebook is struggling to overcome it. First, it made a change in its URL link that prevented ITP to some extent. But this tactic was also demolished subsequently. Then Facebook started identifying unique users through their email addresses. They got these email ids from the website forms. Again, many third-party tools were created like CookieSaver. This feature used by Facebook creates a backup of the existing cookie. So that when the lifespan of cookie ends, it can be replaced with the backup of the cookie. This technique used by Facebook can also be scraped by iOS in the future.

What does the new update say?

Apple CEO, Tim Cook talked about iOS14 at WWDC 2020 conference. He made it clear that Facebook will have to ask permission from Apple users before it tracks their private data. The rule applies to all the apps in the Apple play store!

How Facebook is resisting the change?

Facebook already knows that most of the Apple users won’t give the cookie permission. So, ultimately the efficacy of their ad campaigns would drop down. It will harm the earnings of Facebook because ads are its main revenue source.

That is why it has started protesting against the change. Facebook is promoting large ads which say that Apple is killing small businesses. It has also dedicated a new website for this anti-Apple protest.

How should you prepare for yourself?

In this critical time, you have to stand well equipped with all the measures. Because you can’t stop targeting your unique demographics to sell effectively.

• Stay tuned for the updates-

Keep a close check on the current developments around this issue. You can join the Facebook webinar on 7^th Jan 2021.

• Recognize visitors by their email addresses. Though the power of cookies will be reduced, you can still identify users by email addresses. So, keep show exclusive content only after email login. This would allow you to easily collect the email addresses.
• Start enhancing your buyer personas- As features of Facebook will be limited in future, efforts from your side will matter a lot. So, stay one step ahead of your competitors by understanding your customers better. Go to the ground level and collect data about their needs, pain points, and expectations.

So, these were our suggestions to you in the wake of iOS14. We hope you found the article informative enough. Stay updated, follow the instructions, and be the leader!