Preparing Facebook Advertisers For The iOS 14.5 Apple Update

Since the news broke last summer that the iOS 14.5 Apple update would have significant changes to user privacy and impact the use of data for  marketing, the digital media team at Texas Creative has been monitoring the conversations among leaders in the industry. The new update will prompt users with a pop-up message asking for permission to allow or not allow apps to track a user across apps and websites owned by other companies. Additional information about this policy is available here. 

Many industry leaders fear that users will opt out without understanding that they will lose the personalizations of ads and that small businesses will suffer the most with less cost effective targeting options available. While that is not the focus of this blog, Facebook has continued to be an advocate for small businesses and voice their concerns to Apple as discussed in this article that was last updated Feb 1, 2021. 

As a business or agency like Texas Creative that does paid advertising on Facebook, it is important to acknowledge the change and begin to prepare.   At this time, Facebook recommends advertisers take the immediate next steps of verifying ownership of any domain(s) using conversion events, as well as limit and prioritize the events you are optimizing toward per domain. These are the steps that businesses, or agencies, need to take that are done through the business’s Facebook Business Manager. 

1. Verify Your Domain: This step will require the webmaster of the businesses’ domain to place a special code on a business's website or in their domain record to certify that they are the domain owner. This first step is done in the business setting under Brand Safety>Domains. Click the add button at the top of the screen, enter the domain URL and click the Add Domain button. There will be three options with corresponding unique instructions for the webmaster to implement and verify the domain. The code/tag provided will be unique to each domain that needs to be verified. After the code is placed, click Verify and a confirmation of domain verification is immediate if verified correctly.
2. Conversion Pixel Tracking: In addition to domain verification, Facebook is also placing limitations on the amount of pixel events it can track per domain (Max 8). First, ensure that you only have 1 Facebook pixel on your website and remove any pixels that are not being used. Next, from Business Manager, click on the menu to access Events Manager. Click on the “Aggregated Event Management” link and review your top 8 conversions. At this time, remove or add any conversion to the list. Drag and drop your conversion event to re-prioritize as needed. Please note that if these changes are made during an active conversion campaign, it will trigger a 72-hour period before any campaigns can deliver impressions against changed events. In other words, campaigns optimizing for those events will be paused. 

As a result of these changes to conversion tracking within the Facebook platform, be aware of impending differences in how website conversions are reported in Ads Manager. Moving forward, conversions will only be accounted for within 7 days after a person clicked on an ad or 1 day after a person saw an ad. Before, conversions could be accounted for 28 days after a click or a view. As a result, businesses will see a drop off in reported conversion results, and  decrease in the sizes of website event-based custom audiences. 

For a small business, these first steps to prepare for the iOS 14.5 Apple update can be very tedious and complicated. At Texas Creative, the digital media team has already worked with our in-house web team to implement these first steps for our clients in preparation for the update. Please Contact Us to help your business or client prepare for the future.