Apple’s iOS 14 Update and the Link to Facebook Advertising
Social media advertising is a fantastic option if you’re looking to reach new, targeted audiences quickly. Whether you’re looking to drive conversions, build awareness, or generate leads, Facebook offers a wide range of advertising formats to help you to communicate your message effectively and on-brand.
In addition to enabling advertisers to target audiences of all sizes and types, Facebook’s ad tracking capabilities also allow advertisers to analyse the performance of their ads in great detail, helping users to refine and optimise their paid efforts to drive a better ROI. Apple’s upcoming iOS 14 update is however set to alter the ways that Facebook receives and processes conversion data. In this article, we’ve put together an overview of what the changes include- and how we can help you to prepare for the roll-out.
Firstly, What Is The Facebook Pixel?
The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code which is generated from within an advertiser’s Business Manager account. Once embedded onto your website, it collects data that helps you to track conversions and events from your ads, in addition to helping you to build targeted audiences.
This is hugely important if you’re looking to remarket to people who previously visited your website but failed to convert. The pixel also enables you to create Lookalike Audiences, helping you to reach new users who are likely to be interested in your business, because they’re similar to your most valuable existing customers.
Remember when you checked out a pair of trainers online only to then see an ad for the exact pair within your Facebook newsfeed days later? You guessed it, that’s the Facebook Pixel at work.
iOS 14 and Facebook
Apple’s iOS 14 update revolutionises consumer privacy. Once it has been installed, users will have the option to opt-in or out of having their data tracked by third-party sites and apps such as Facebook.
When a user opens an app on their device, following the installation of the update, a pop-up will instruct them to opt-in or out of having their data tracked by the app in question. The option to opt out of data tracking in this way has always been available to Apple users, however previously, users had to find this option themselves within their devices settings. As users will now be required to manually opt in or out before accessing an app, the update is set to have a knock-on effect on the way that the Facebook Pixel collects and reports on data. It’s possible that if Facebook is unable to track user behaviour, the amount of data collected may be reduced. The reporting of this data could also be delayed.
Are you ready?
Don’t worry – it isn’t all doom and gloom, and our team of digital marketing experts are here to help!
Facebook advertising is a vital tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes and especially useful for ecommerce sites. If you currently run Facebook ads or you’re looking to venture into the world of paid advertising, there are steps that we can take to limit the impact that the upcoming update has on your business’ advertising.
How To Prepare For The Roll Out
Verify Your Domain
Firstly, it’s important that you verify for your domain via Facebook Ads Manager- it’s likely that you will already have been prompted to do this.
Set Your 8 Preferred Events for Conversion Tracking
In addition to submitting your verification to Facebook, you will also be required to configure eight preferred conversions per domain in your Facebook Event Manager. To do this you will need to decide which events and custom conversions are most important to your business. Events can vary from Viewing Content, Adding an Item to the Basket, Completing a Purchase and many more.
It’s important that you prioritise which events are most important because when a user completes two or more events on your website, only the higher-priority event will be reported. If you have ad sets for events which aren’t included within your eight, those ad sets will be paused so it’s hugely important that you review these too!
Other Options
As a short term solution, to maximise the amount of data you are receiving, you can also tailor campaigns that feature conversion objectives to Android devices only, as android devices will not be affected by these changes.
Of course, you can also consider alternative methods of tracking instead of, or alongside, the Facebook Pixel. For example, simply measuring your website traffic around the time that a Facebook Ad is live should give you an indication of whether there has been an increase in traffic derived from this ad.
While the iOS 14 update could have an effect on Facebook Advertising in the short term, it’s likely that methods of working around the changes will start to evolve too. If you want to chat about the upcoming changes and how they may relate to your business’ Facebook Advertising in the coming weeks, we’re here to advise and support you.
Contact Us Today For More Information
If you’d like to learn more about Facebook advertising, or just want some social media advertising info – speak to us! A member of our Digital Marketing team would be more than happy to help and can also work with you to put together bespoke social media campaigns.
