If you’re a business or an advertiser and you’re still in the dark about the iOS 14 issues, hop on! And if you’re on Twitter, check us out here!

We have all the details on the iOS 14 issues on Facebook advertising. Let’s get right into it! 

What is iOS 14?

First of all, what is UP with iOS 14? Apple has updated their operating system to its fourteenth version and iOS 14 has some big changes in need of your attention as a business. 

Origin of iOS 14 

The new update of iOS 14 was on September 16, 2020 but it’s impact is now. Aside from its rocky system issues, the new update has a prompt for its user when users use applications. 

iOS 14 Prompt

This prompt is visible to the users and it displays a question like this: 

For example, when you use Facebook after the update, you will see this prompt and can opt to allow the application to track your activity on the application or not. 

Most users would ask the application not to track, right? This is how it affected your business. 

How big are iOS users? Compared to Android users?

Now, we can’t forget that Facebook isn’t ONLY made of iPhone users. But, iPhone users make up about 50% to 70% users on Facebook. With the new update where their activities can’t be tracked, this is why your campaign is doing poorly now, compared to before. 

When was this happening?

The update was a while ago, but the impact on Facebook advertising is recent and now. Not only does the update affect iPhone users, the update is said by experts to affect the whole business industry. See here for more.

Why is this happening?

As for why it’s happening, iOS is said to give its users a safer online experience. In a way, it is safe for users as their activities online are not tracked by random applications but on the other hand, users now see less targeted ads. 

Which is also good for users, if they hate seeing ads, but it’s bad news for businesses. With no information on users, it’s harder to make targeted ads now. 

How it impacts iOS users.

As mentioned before, iOS users now have the power to make their activities known or not. The impact on them now is they have more power on showing their visibility and their online experiences.

This is a flow of how it will go: 

Every iOS 14 user has the capability to opt-in and opt-out during the iOS 14 Prompt.

Users can opt-in and opt-out when prompted. They can choose to ‘Allow’ or ‘Ask app not to track’. The choice is in their hands, literally.

There is nothing happening if they opt-in, the data transfer will remain the same. It’s like nothing is happening.

They opt-in, click ‘Allow’ and their information is tracked as usual. The data transfer between the app, in this case it’s Facebook and users, will remain the same. It’s like nothing is happening. The changes only affect iOS 14 users that opt-out during the iOS 14 Prompt.

When they opt-out, this picture below happen: 

When they opt-out and click ‘Ask app not to track’, they’re directed to this picture.

Basically it says that their data is not collected in real time, and that not ALL of their data are collected while they’re using the app, only the 8-events conversion chosen by specific advertisers. 

How it impact Android User

Many businesses would think that these changes won’t affect advertisers, this is simply not true. Since this is a global change that Facebook is applying, attribution will change globally.

With only an 8- event limit for optimization, this would affect business decisions drastically, thus impacting almost all Facebook users.

How it impact Advertiser

The key here is you as Advertiser, would have very limited data, with only 8-event, you probably miss a lot of important data. This would lead to bad advertising decisions.

Overall, we’re looking at a likely negative impact to the following:

• Attribution/Reporting (fewer conversions reported)
• Optimization (fewer events to optimize for, and based on less complete data)
• Targeting (smaller and less complete remarketing audiences)

The result, it’s assumed, will be less effective advertising.

What action can you take as an advertiser?

Be REALLY careful in choosing which event to look out for. You really need to set out expectations and objectives. If your campaign objective is to make sales, you don’t need that “Video Views” anymore. Choose metrics that really help you to make better decisions.

Advertisers like us have to be really careful here in making business decisions, they need to be really mindful in choosing which type of ads works.

Hope from Monocal.

Limitation breeds creativity. We believe that these changes would challenge advertisers to think critically and creatively.

How we adapt to these changes are what set the distance between experts in the industry and fakes. Increase your sales even by these new changes by referring to our post here!