The Apple iOS 14 update will have a big impact on how we advertise going forward so it is important to be aware of how it will actually influence us as event marketers. In this blog we will share vital information that you need to know about how the updates impact event marketing on Facebook.
Facebook expects Apple to roll out the changes mid-January, so whether you are running event marketing campaigns yourself or work with an agency, make sure that any actions are implemented as soon as possible.
How Will iOS 14 Affect Event Marketing Campaigns on Facebook?
Delayed Reporting
There will be no support for reporting in real-time for iOS devices and there may be a delay for data of up to 3 days. Reporting for web conversion events will be based on the time that conversions occur and not when the associated ad impressions occur.
What do you need to do?
When assessing campaign performance, be sure to bear these changes in mind. You may not be able to simply look at yesterday’s data when assessing performance.
No Support for Breakdowns
There will be no support for delivery and action breakdowns including age, gender, region and placement for neither app nor web conversions.
What do you need to do?
Going forward, you may need to rely more on Google Analytics, although Google Analytics may be affected by the changes in the future (nothing is confirmed currently), so we need to be cautious.
Attribution Changes
Rather than setting the attribute window for new or active ad campaigns at the account level, this will be set at the ad set level. Additionally, for active campaigns 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through attribution windows will not be supported.
For inactive campaigns, you will still be able to access historical data for attribution windows that are not supported anymore through the Facebook Ads Insights API. The legacy account-level attribution window will still be used to report for the inactive campaigns.
What do you need to do?
After the Apple’s updates are implemented, historical data will still be accessible from the Facebook Ads Insights API. For any 28-day view or click and 7-day view attribution window data that you require, make sure to export it.
To avoid unexpected updates, ensure you modify the attribution window to 7-day click now, as once the updates come into effect, all automated rules will update to a 7-day click attribution window.
Audience Sizes will Reduce
Not all data will be collected from iOS devices and we anticipate that not many Apple users will agree to data being shared. As more users will likely opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, app connections, app activity Custom Audiences, and website Custom Audiences may reduce in size.
What do you need to do?
With remarketing audiences being smaller (potentially 50%+ drop off if you bring half of your remarketing audience in via iOS devices), you need to be prepared to use other remarketing sources such as Engaged With FB Page and Data Lists. You will also need to be prepared to spend more on MoF and ToF audiences, possibly excluding iOS devices if your aim is to build remarketing audience size.
Potential Disruption of Website Campaigns
What do you need to do to prevent disruption?
If you are running your own event marketing campaigns on Facebook, you should verify domain ownership within every ad account in Business Manager. Domains with pixels that are used by multiple businesses or personal ad accounts should be prioritised for domain verification. The easiest way to do this will be Meta-tag verification, which must be placed directly on the home page of the domain (e.g. www.tagdigital.co.uk) Click here for more information on how to verify your domains.
Limited to Eight Conversion Events per Domain
There will be a restriction on unique conversion events per website domain (for example, Purchase, Complete Registration, Add to Cart, etc). You will be limited to tracking eight conversion events per domain. If ad sets optimise for conversion events that are outside of this limit, they will be paused when Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework is implemented by Facebook.
What do you need to do?
Once a domain has been verified, you will then be able to select the 8 events and rank them in order. You must select a priority list for the eight events, e.g. prioritise the ‘Purchase’ event.
Facebook have also mentioned that there will be changes being made to how Ads Manager works later this year, so event marketers need to make sure to keep up with the latest changes and updates.
For more information on implementing any changes for your event marketing campaigns, feel free to get in touch with our team who will be happy to help.
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15th January 2021