What is IOS 14.5, Why Is It Hurting Facebook Ads and What You Can Do About It!

What is IOS 14.5

IOS 14.5 is the latest version of Apple's operating system which Apple users are updating to.?This update dropped in April 2021 and includes a seismic change to user tracking.?

Pre-IOS 14.5, Apple allowed Apps (like Facebook) to track user behaviour across all of their apps and internet activity.?This enabled tech companies like Google / Facebook / Snapchat to deeply understand user behaviour and as a result, provide Advertisers with an unparalleled ability to reach the right people – at the right time.

With IOS 14.5, Apple has started its privacy movement and it is a giant first step.?No longer will Apps and tech companies be freely awarded tracking capabilities across Apple products.?Instead, with IOS 14.5, users will need to provide Apps with explicit permission to track their activity across other companies’ apps and websites.?

And this is just the beginning…?As the tagline of Apple’s new TV commercial proclaims:

“Choose who tracks your information… and who doesn’t!?Privacy.?That’s iPhone.”

Why IOS 14.5 is hurting Facebook Ads

Facebook has become one of the most powerful advertising platforms through its ability to analyse user behaviour – not just on Facebook – but across Apps and the web, to deeply understand users’ interests, preferences, peer groups and purchase behaviour.??

Facebook relies on this data to constantly feed its machine learning, and deliver hyper targeted ads that serve users with the right products – at the right time.?This combination has provided advertisers with phenomenal results.

IOS 14.5 changes all of this.?As users update to IOS 14.5, they are opting out of tracking and as a result, they are turning off Facebook’s ability to track their behaviour outside of Facebook. Moreover, the change also restricts platforms retargeting users who have opted out on their platforms (see Apple's terms of service below):

How big is the problem??It’s big…. and it’s growing.?Unfortunately IOS updates take time (months) for users to update and adopt.?This why advertisers did not see performance drop of a cliff, instead, it’s been a slow tail off, or as a friend described, “death by a million updates”.

Mobile Analytics consultants – Flurry, highlight that only 22% of worldwide IOS users have allowed tracking at the end of July 2021.

When we zoom into the US market, we can see that the opt in rate is much lower with only 14% of US IOS users allowing tracking at the end of July 2021.

As a result, Facebook advertisers are increasingly seeing drops in ad performance and also a reduction in reporting accuracy within Facebook Ads Manager.?

The bottom line… If you’re a Facebook advertiser, it’s most likely been a tough few months and unfortunately, this ‘turbulence’ will be with us for some time to come.?

In the months ahead, we will see more people update to IOS 14.5 and with Apple’s next update IOS 15 (drops October 2021), we will see more changes to tracking and user privacy.???

Facebook - A New Hope!?

Despite the challenges posed by IOS 14.5, Facebook continues to be the best social advertising platform in the world.

Yes, it is going to take some time for Facebook to re-calibrate its machine learning with reduced data points, but you can rest assured Facebook is going to do everything that is humanly and ‘AI’ possible, to protect and grow its $84bn advertising revenue business.

You better believe Zucks and Facebook are all over this!

How You and Your Brand Can Take On IOS 14.5

In the meantime, there are a number of actions you can take right now, to make sure your business can grow using Facebook Ads.?

1. Make sure you are leveraging Facebook’s Pixel (You’ll be surprised how many brands aren’t).
2. Implement Facebook’s Conversion API (CAPI). This helps Facebook report your performance more accurately and continue to learn your customer profile. It does not however, circumnavigate the restriction of tracking. So many agencies get confused with this. CAPI and the hashed emails / contact details passed from your server to Facebook DOES NOT provide Facebook with the ability to track a user who has opted out. Apple clearly state this.
3. Ensure you have prioritised the 8 tracking events in Events Manager - in order of importance to you (most likely purchase event should be first). You also need to ensure that your events are being matched corrctly. Facebook provide a handy tool for this in Events Manager.
4. Ad Campaign Structure – Consider condensing Prospecting, retargeting and remarking into single campaigns to leverage Campaign Budget Optimisation.?This allows Facebook to deploy spend where it feels it can best deliver your campaign objective.?I have seen strong success through maximising broad audiences - with persona led creative, and letting Facebook decide where to focus attention.
5. Upload customer lists to Facebook with your customers Email address, telephone numbers and lifetime values.?This helps feed Facebook’s machine learning for your brand and lets Facebook target these users when they are not using IOS devices (assuming they have opted out).
6. Educate Your Audience.?Use email and social to ask your customers and followers to Allow Tracking on Apple devices to ensure they don’t miss your biggest launches and discounts.?Keep it simple, but the more customers you can persuade to turn on tracking, the better your remarketing / retargeting will perform.

If you need any help, I'm always happy to help anyone in network, so feel free to reach out.