One of the most talked about topics during the last year in the field of digital advertising is the abiding iOS 14 update which after a gradual entry process has finally taken effect across all of the major advertising platforms in the world.
Before we dive deep into the effects and changes of this update we need to first understand what aspect it is running on
Using cookies becomes much more difficult
Facebook’s pixel has allowed advertisers to report to Facebook every action on the site and thus provides the wonderful Facebook advertising engine the information and fuel it needs for a successful campaign when all the information about the user and the actions the user performs are passed through cookies.
Some of the best and most cost-effective campaigns are built on the use of cookies like a dynamic remarketing campaign which now will become much less effective.
The update is so dramatic that it threatens to disrupt the way we have viewed customer journey and advertising strategy in recent years.
So what does this actually affect
Measurement –
Many times a campaign that has resulted in a lot of conversions will not show the conversions in the Facebook advertising system or will show much fewer conversions than what actually happened.
This can make the campaign manager think that the campaign performance is not good and disable it even though in reality the results can be excellent.
How to overcome the impact on measurement quality
If in the past it was very important to work neatly with links with UTM features
today it has become necessary to also understand the true performance of campaigns
We recommend that you include as many parameters as possible in the link so that you can get the full picture of your campaign on the most granular level.
Keep in mind that in many cases you will not be able to get the result on Facebook so it is important to indicate not only the source of the traffic but also the name of the ad group campaign and even the ad in order to be able to optimize later with the best information
Tip – It is important to update the privacy policy on your sites & apps also add the option for users to confirm the collection of data on your website & app. Apple are looking out for non privacy compliant sites and being compliant with apple is important.
What else does the iOS 14 update affect?
The crucial change has affected the quality of Facebook audiences.
If in the past, we could just let Facebook work with a wide targeting and trust them that they know how to perform the targeting themselves with their excellent algorithms
Today due to the restrictions of the update it no longer works seamlessly and more detailed is needed when setting up campaigns and targeting.
How to overcome the impact on Facebook audiences quality
That’s why it is advisable to work with a larger number of audiences and a more limited and specific audience segment for advertising to a cold audience.
In addition it is advisable to split your hot audiences into hot and very (proven recurring) hot audiences to improve the relevance of the ads you serve to users who come out in your advertising panel.
For example, you can create an audience of visitors in the last six months.
And another audience for visitors in the past week or an audience of users who performed a certain action such as adding items to a cart.
The point is to control and serve the advertising message to those who really need to see it,
otherwise your message will meet irrelevant users and the budget will be used without results.
Another thing that can be fruitful is to separate the audiences between iOS and Android.
Many advertisers claim that it improves their performance and from our experience this is not always the case but it is advisable to give it a try
work with the Facebook Conversion API
This method eliminates the use of cookies and transmits the data through the campaign server directly to Facebook servers.
This significantly reduces the drop in reporting and greatly strengthens the campaigns.
This action is not complicated and there are integrations for WordPress and Shopify
Using lists is becoming more relevant than ever
Businesses who have invested in building a mailing list of clients are likely very happy about their efforts in recent months. As it is a means of direct contact with the users.
The ability to upload a list of users who have approved you to advertise to them helps us retain our customers.
Definitely consider investing a budget in building a mailing list.
Summary words
We are in a challenging time to manage Facebook campaigns.
It’s time to go back to the basics, old advertising techniques and a more tightly control of campaigns Will be prudent
There is no doubt that Facebook is also trying to get better and overcome the new restrictions.
At the same time there is no doubt that the best advertising engine in the world (Facebook) will improve over time.
In the meantime it is important to get down to advanced resolutions and always be in close contact with our clients to understand in depth the impact of advertising on their business.
It is important to consider additional advertising channels such as programmatic advertising
If you have any questions we will be happy to receive comments and answer you.
