Increased privacy requirements in Apple's iOS 14 will have a significant impact on data collection, targeting and tracking across the advertising ecosystem. On January 7th, Facebook shared its updated response to the iOS 14 release, including more detail on sweeping changes Facebook is making to its ad platform to comply with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework. ATT requires all iOS apps to receive explicit opt-in from users in order to share their device identifier for advertisers (IDFA). Apple’s previous operating systems allowed apps to pass back a user’s IDFA for tracking and attribution unless the user manually opted out. Apple has delayed enforcement of the IDFA opt-in requirement due to the considerable engineering lift required for the millions of apps to comply, but it intends to begin enforcement sometime between February and March of 2021.
Due to an expected drop in volume of IDFA-based matched users, Facebook has built a framework, called Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM), to maintain support for advertisers’ tracking, attribution and measurement needs on its platform.
As a Facebook Marketing Partner, Kepler has been at the forefront of these tracking developments and is analyzing Facebook’s platform changes to assess the impact for our clients. Although Apple still hasn’t announced exactly when enforcement of ATT will begin, it is extremely important for advertisers to adapt to these updates now to mitigate the impact of changing data collection and performance reporting.
This guide will help web and app advertisers understand the upcoming changes, how they should prepare, and what information is still pending to more completely understand the impact of Facebook’s measurement rollout.
As with anything in ad-tech, knowing the jargon is half the battle. Below is a cheat sheet for the relevant terminology to understand Facebook’s platform changes.
Facebook’s updates will affect all advertisers on the platform, and this checklist will help prepare for these changes in the short term. However, even with all of the information Facebook has provided, there are still unanswered questions, such as “What percent of my iOS users will opt-out of sharing their IDFA?” or “What methodology will Facebook use for modeled conversions?”. The answers will only start to reveal themselves when Apple begins to enforce the ATT prompt, until which there are plenty of steps advertisers can begin to take now to develop measurement, targeting and optimization strategies that are compatible with Facebook’s platform updates. At Kepler, we will be continuously monitoring updates and will provide more information as it becomes available. Please contact marketing@keplergrp.com if you have any questions related to the IDFA update.
As part of Facebook’s AEM protocol, advertisers will be limited to eight events per domain. While no changes are required for pixel tracking code on a brand’s site, in Facebook Events Manager, advertisers will be prompted to select preferred events for reporting and optimization and to rank those events in order of priority. If a user opts out, Apple’s replacement technology will still allow for the highest priority event to be tracked. More detailed instructions are available via this link.
Apple’s ATT framework will limit certain ad set features, specifically:
Upon enforcement of Apple’s ATT framework, Facebook will only support up to 7-day post-click and 1-day post-view attribution windows. 28-day click, 28-day view and 7-day view attribution windows will no longer be available, so advertisers using these windows will see significantly fewer Facebook conversions in reporting. More information about Facebook’s attribution updates can be found here.
Due to the reduced granularity SKAdNetwork provides, Facebook will no longer be able to support A/B testing below the campaign level. This means that any lift tests or creative tests will no longer be available at the ad or ad set level.
This is a required step that advertisers can take now. Instructions can be found via this link.
Conversions API is an alternative to the pixel, that allows advertisers to pass consented user data to Facebook. This method enables event matching by leveraging PII-based identifiers, instead of cookies, brands collect from key conversions or logged-in users. Adopting the Conversions API requires additional engineering, especially if a brand is not currently using a customer data platform (CDP) or e-commerce integration. That said, it will significantly help as an alternative to id-based event tracking from environments with technical limitations, such as iOS 14. More information from Facebook can be found here.
Apple will require that all app developers who wish to be available on iOS App Store, regardless of whether they advertise on Facebook, install the ATT prompt to allow users to opt-in or out of sharing their IDFA.
Where third parties such as Facebook were previously able to track app-based events, app event tracking on iOS 14 will only be available through SKAdNetwork. To “pass” these in-app conversion events to Facebook for optimization and reporting, advertisers will have to use one of these three methods. See Facebook’s Business Manager site for helpful information.
The app event tracking option an advertiser selects will determine the technical work required to configure conversion schema. More information on configuring your conversion schema can be found here.
App advertisers will face more limitations around reporting in Facebook. Upon enforcement of iOS 14 privacy guidelines, Facebook will be required to model conversion totals at the ad and ad set level, and it will have to wait up to 3 days after a conversion takes place to receive data for that conversion. More detail on these app reporting limitations in Facebook can be found here.
Each advertiser will be limited to 1 ad account, 9 campaigns per account and 5 ad sets per campaign, in order to measure app, installs for iOS devices. Please note that, contrary to the original guidance from Facebook, it is no longer required to have a separate ad account dedicated solely to iOS app install. However, iOS app install ad sets will need to be in a standalone campaign, separate from Android and other operating system app install campaigns. More information can be found here.