Thoughts on Facebook's Updates and Apple iOS 14 (updated Feb. 8, 2021)

A lot of people have been asking me lately…

“What are my thoughts about Apple’s new privacy rules and Facebook’s updates?”

It’s a huge topic. And it’s still evolving day by day.

Nevertheless, I want to share with you the email that I sent out to all Zammo Digital clients earlier this month…

Email Subject: ✅ Important Updates To Your Facebook Ads Account

Hey Client! 👋

I wanted to give you a quick heads up about a few developments currently happening in the Facebook ads world…

These changes are pretty significant but I’m extremely confident that Facebook will remain a hugely powerful customer generation platform for a long time to come.

Please keep in mind that, although we are already starting the see the impact of these updates, this situation is still evolving and our recommendations may change going forward.

That being said, there are some things you need to be aware of…

First the background…

Apple is in the process of rolling out an update to the iOS 14 operating system for iPhones and iPads. As part of the update, they are requiring users to opt-in or opt-out of allowing apps like Facebook to track their behavior on their devices.

This includes tracking like pixel data.

No pixel = no retargeting and no conversion tracking.

How this affects Facebook…

Obviously, Facebook relies very heavily on the data they receive from pixels. They need that data for things like:

Conversion Tracking
Retargeting
Campaign Optimization

In the United States, approximately 60% of ad impressions happen on Apple devices. So this will have a big impact.

Changes to Facebook Ads

In order to work within these limitations being imposed by Apple, Facebook is making a number of updates to the ways that Facebook Ads work. Here are a few of the most important changes that you should be aware of:

Age, gender, and placement breakdowns will no longer be available.

Each account will be limited to 8 total conversion events.

28-day attribution windows will no longer be reported. The default maximum attribution window will now be only 7 days. This will result in a reduction in conversions being reported and an increase in the reported cost per conversion. I won’t necessarily impact the actual number of conversions you get.

Real-time reporting will no longer be supported for iOS14 users. In fact, it may take up to 3 days for data to be visible in the business manager. This will unequivocally impact advertisers’ decision-making process. In order to mitigate the problems from delayed reporting, Facebook will estimate some results.

You can read Facebook’s full announcement details here

What you need to do now

Here are some things we can do ASAP to prepare for the coming changes to Facebook.

1. Verify your domain in Business Manager. Instructions can be found HERE

2. Install the Conversions API on your website. Instructions on how to set that up can be found HERE.

3. Be prepared for a loss of reporting data & performance in Facebook

Here are my recommendations for B2B and SaaS marketers:

1. Focus on your fundamental marketing – Improve your messaging. Optimize your conversion funnel. For example, I believe that

Lead Generation and nurture will become vitally important to all businesses in 2021, along with taking a far more holistic view of overall marketing performance.

2. Diversify your marketing efforts – Don’t be dependent on a single traffic source like Facebook ads for your revenue. Add strategies like LinkedIn Ads, Email marketing, SEO, Community building, etc to your marketing efforts.

3. Work to improve marketing attribution through your backend software – Don’t rely on ad platforms to report and attribute conversions at the top or bottom of the funnel.

4. Don’t expect to track the direct impact of all marketing efforts – We’ve all gotten a bit spoiled over the past few years with an expectation that we can track and attribute all marketing efforts and spend to bottom line sales. Unfortunately, that trend is probably about to get set back a few years.

And we at Zammo Digital are here to help you understand and implement these changes.

We are still very excited about the future of Facebook advertising.

Facebook still has the largest audience on the planet and the most sophisticated ad platform. In fact, most of the functions we’ve come to know and love are not going anywhere, including reporting, tracking and optimization without equal in the industry.

We’re just going to have to accept a little less granularity fed into Facebook’s machine learning and a little less precision in reporting.

So over the coming weeks be prepared to have strategic conversations with our team – and keep an open mind to new ways of acquiring customers, retaining current customers, and increasing Customer Lifetime Value.

We’re in this together, and we’re excited about the new opportunities this change will bring to grow and scale your business.

If you’ve got any questions, please let me know.

Best,

Aaron

PS – Here are some additional resources you can use to learn more…