By Phil Kiel

If you’ve logged into Ads Manager, browsed any digital marketing sites or read the Wall Street Journal, you may have seen some noise between Facebook and Apple around the changes that are coming with iOS14.

We’ve broken down what we know, what we expect to happen, and what is unclear:

What we know:

• At some point soon, Apple users will be given an option to allow or deny tracking from apps and advertisers
• Facebook is stating we will only be allowed 8 conversion events per domain, for ecom this is fine so at this stage it’s unclear how much of an issue this is (we focus on ViewContent, ATC, InitiateCheckout and Purchase)
• Some pixel events will receive delayed reporting, they haven’t stated which but this is likely to mean ‘on the day’ reporting (i.e how many events have happened today so far) will be limited. Again, Facebook states ‘some events’ so it’s unclear how this will affect us.
• No support for breakdowns i.e age, gender, placement or platform. This is likely because Facebook is expecting to receive less data about a user.
• The 28 day click attribution window will be removed and 7 day click will become the default, Facebook has been talking about this for a while so it’s likely it’ll finally happen. We see the majority delayed attribution happen within the first few days but we will lose any data after that period (but it doesn’t mean those sales won’t happen)
• Privacy is changing, this is just the start and will likely take years before we are at the end of this saga between Facebook and Apple.

What this means for your business:

• Ad revenue is Facebook’s business. They won’t lie down and let Apple disrupt it, we expect Facebook to come out with solutions which will enable their ad business to continue to grow and develop. They have already implemented a number of changes while predicting Apples moves (Conversions API or Server Side Pixel Events as one, which is already setup on your site if you are using the new Facebook sales channel)
• Facebook has made a number of updates over the past few years which have been unclear, and sometimes not resulted in any massive change (Campaign Budget Optimisation for example was supposed to be the forced future, and removal of budgets at the Ad Set Level, this never happened and we now run campaigns with both budget types to this day)

What we recommend:

• Facebook is recommending that all businesses verify their domains from within Business Manager, there is a guide on how to do this here.
• From within Business Manager Settings, click Brand Safety on the left and then Domains, you can then add your domain and follow the steps to verify it.
• Link to Facebook’s update.
• Diversifying your digital marketing channels. If you haven’t already started advertising on Snapchat and Tiktok, here are some learnings we have found from rolling out omni-channel campaigns earlier this year.