What happens with Facebook Ads, Attribution Settings, Custom Conversions, Custom Audiences, Lookalikes, or DPA.
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iOS 14 will impose apps to ask user’s permissions before using their private information. It has a direct impact on how Facebook and Instagram apps operate and prompted Facebook to implement global changes.
iOS 14 privacy changes can have an impact on Facebook Ads delivery and tracking, Attribution Settings, Custom Conversions, Custom Audiences, Lookalikes, and Dynamic Product Ads.
It’s a new protocol that will allow Facebook to track iOS 14 related events from opted-out users while respecting their privacy.
Facebook will still be able to track and optimize for conversions related to opted-out iOS users.
To do so, they introduced something called Aggregated Event Measurement protocol.
You are limited to just 8 conversions (Standard Pixel Events or Custom Conversions) for a domain.
Facebook will automatically configure these events based on historic data. You can change the initial setup.
Learn how to use Aggregated Event Measurement.
Learn how to verify your domain.
Once Aggregated Event Measurement is configured, ads optimization and tracking will work for all users, including those that opted-out on iOS 14 devices.
You will be able to use only one of the 8 conversion events configured under Aggregated Event Measurement.
Ads optimized for other events will stop.
Get familiar with the new Aggregated Event Measurement protocol.
If you run ads, Facebook already configured the events for you. If you didn’t run ads for a domain before, you probably need to configure them yourself.
Go to Events Manager and click on Aggregated Event Measurement.
Verify your domain. This will let you reorder, remove and add events.
Reconfigure your ads strategy to use only one of the 8 events as ads objective.
Standard Pixel Events can be directly added under Aggregated Event Measurement. The condition is for the event to send data first.
Only Standard Events configured under Aggregate Events Measurement can be selected as ads objective.
Custom Events can’t be added directly. You need to create a Custom Conversion first.
You can use Standard or Custom Events for Custom Conversions or Custom Audiences regardless of their presence under Aggregated Event Measurement.
Custom Conversions work, but there is an extra step you need to do. You must add the Custom Conversion under Aggregated Event Measurement.
After you add the Custom Conversion under AEM, you can use it for ads. Facebook will measure conversions and optimize ad delivery for all users, opted-out iOS 14 included.
Custom Conversions allow you to track and optimize your ads for activities that are not captured by Standard Events. Custom Events can be used for Custom Conversions.
Learn how to create Custom Conversions for PixelYourSite Signal event.
Is not yet clear how iOS 14 will impact Custom Audiences for Website traffic.
We don’t know what Facebook will do if an iOS 14 user opts out of tracking in the Facebook app. It’s not clear if this user will be removed from Custom Audiences.
Assuming action is taken for opted-out users, we don’t know if it will be limited to Facebook and Instagram apps.
We can guess that opted-out users’ activity won’t be tracked if a website is open in the app. But the website will continue to send data from browsers. It’s not clear how this data is processed for iOS 14 opted out users.
It’s possible for remarketing to be less effective. We can assume that an iOS 14 opted-out user won’t be retargeted on the Facebook or Instagram app. Maybe they will still be retargeted on the desktop version.
Consider using as many sources possible for your Custom Audiences, like email lists.
Don’t stop doing remarketing campaigns, but they should not be the core of your strategy.
With Dynamic Product Ads, you can promote products from your Product Catalog.
Facebook says that there are no changes related to Dynamic Product Ads.
There are two types of Dynamic Product Ads. You can retarget people that visited, or added to cart products without buying them (dynamic retargeting), or you can use DPA to reach new audiences.
We don’t know how retargeting DPA will be impacted.
It’s not clear if opted-out iOS users will still see retargeting DPA on their Facebook and Instagram apps, or at all.
We can assume that, at least on Facebook and Instagram apps, dynamic retargeting will stop for opted-out-users. So it’s fair to expect fewer results related to DPA.
Lookalikes are audiences that Facebook creates automatically. These are people similar to the ones from your audience source. The audience source can be a Custom Audience, a Pixel Event, or a Product Catalog.
Even if they can use less info after iOS 14, Facebook has powerful algorithms and plenty of information to keep Lookalikes highly efficient.
Attribution Window and Conversion Window are merged under Attribution Setting.
On January 19, Facebook merged the account level attribution window and the ad set level conversion window into a new ad set level attribution setting that can be accessed during campaign creation Optimization & Delivery.
You will have Attribution Setting at the ad set level.
The new default will be 7 days after clicks.
The view window will not be available anymore.
The newly supported windows are:
Once iOS 14 changes are enforced, the view window will not be available. Only conversions result after clicks will be reported. The new default will be 7 days after a click.
Attribution Window is the time Facebook looks for conversions starting when the ad is delivered. This affects how ad results are reported.
In the past, default windows were 28 days for clicks and 7 days for views.
It means that if someone clicked on an ad and performed the desired action in the next 28 days, this was considered a conversion.
If someone just saw the ad without clicking and performed the desired action in the next 7 days, this was considered a conversion.
Various other Attribution Windows were supported.
Conversion Window is used for ad delivery optimization. In the past, this was different from Attribution Window and it was available at ad set level.
It’s possible to see decreased results for your ads. Since the time to measure conversion is shorter, the reported numbers can be lower. This will not necessarily result in fewer real conversions.
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