How the Apple iOS 14 Release May Affect Your Ads and Reporting

 Apple has recently announced changes on the iOS 14. The recent development will affect how we receive and process conversion events, specifically from tools such as Facebook pixel. While this will involve more significant streams of businesses, advertisement, optimization, web conversion, and other devices may equally be affected.

The three new policies will shortly come into effect. You should know that the environment of the digital ad is dynamic, and there is change going on now and then. Apple announced that changes would be adequate by March 2022. However, the company plans to offer an opt-in prompt on each app.

The feature allows them to choose whether they consent to third-party sites like Facebook to track their user data.

Here V1 Technologies puts a detailed insight into changes that we can expect soon.

App Advertising

Apple launched the 'SKAdNetwork' API. The main reason was to enhance the privacy of users who installed mobile apps. The API now targets Facebook Ads. The SKAdNetwork API will be used by Facebook for app advertising on all iOS 14 devices. Now, this may either delay, restrict or aggregate all app event data. For instance, the campaign management event data will be limited to a maximum of nine campaigns and five sets per campaign for every Facebook Ads account.

The lift measurement for iOS App Install and App Events campaigns will be unavailable. Also, once the app is installed, reporting of the event will be delayed for up to three days.

Mobile Web Advertisement

The SKAdNetwork API and PCM (Private Click Measurement) are here to stay with us. The PCM protocol will contribute to restricting data that businesses and platforms can access.

Let's Be More Clear About PCM

If an iOS 14 user comes across an ad on Instagram and further takes the web browser to complete a purchase, the event would be lost due to PCM. Meanwhile, tracking different geographical locations will also be a challenge.

However, Facebook plans to launch an aggregate event management tool to counter the issue. The device will be specifically designed to help proper attribution of sales.

Optimization and Targeting

The iOS 14.5 will have an eight-pixel event cap per domain for optimization. An advertiser has the option to use eight conversion events per domain. If you are planning to advertise, you need to select eight events that are essential for you.

You should also keep in mind that eight events are only capping the number of possibilities for optimization. You may track more events for reporting or perhaps audience creation.

Advertisement Measurement

The new default attribution window makes measurement pretty sophisticated. In fact, it will contribute to under-report organic or paid channels. Also, this will enhance dark social traffic, i.e., sharing content privately, which can be hard to track.

The three-day delay on data display will be applicable here, all thanks to the PCM protocol when it comes to ad reporting data. Additionally, limited data could make running ads inconvenient to advertisers.

Business Manager Tool Setup

The Facebook Business Manager interface will have a change in design. This is compulsory as Facebook cannot have a separate interface for iOS or Android. However, this won't be rocket science as the new interface will make advertisers get used to it. Now, it can be in terms of Ads Manager settings to campaign level or from Ads Manager to Event Manager.