Apple iOS Privacy Update: 5 Things Marketers Should Know

An update can ruin all the marketing plans of marketers and business owners. As a marketer, you should be future-ready for all the updates hitting the market. In this article, you will gain an overall knowledge of “How Apple’s iOS privacy update can become a game-changer for the Marketers?”

If your customers are iPhone users, then the latest update can dramatically change the advertisements, so at the outset, let us understand:

Why Apple’s iOS 14 update is that important for the Marketers?

The latest Apple iOS update is most impactful for the business owner as well as for the marketers. The update is directly striking the data tracking permission and affecting the efficiency of Facebook ads, which is making marketers anxious. With this update, Apple has announced changes in the product and policy, limiting the data sharing across iOS. Now for the Marketers, the data collection and optimization through Facebook’s ad-tracking Pixels will no longer be a reliable option.

For the iOS 14 update: 5 checklist point every marketer should be prepared with

• Fragmenting the audience
• Prioritizing your events
• Verify Domain and Implement Facebook’s Conversion API
• Enable Value Optimization (VO)
• Rely more on First-Party Data Collection

Fabricating the Audience:

The biggest mistake any marketer can do is to stay still. As soon as you know about the update, the initial step that you should follow is to start segmenting your audience based on the device they use. The iOS update will have no impact on Android users. Hence, target only Android users and let Facebook track the users across the internet.As per the best practices, it is not a very good option, but it is better to gain some data rather than losing all your data from a single update.

At the time of campaign creation, segmenting the users can ease you to divide the campaigns according to the devices. You can simply do it by going to the Specific Devices and Operating system, then selecting Android devices only for the campaign

Focus on your 8 most valuable events:

As only eight pixels per domain data will be received by Facebook after the iOS 14 update. It is a must to prioritize the initial events as only the highest-priority eight events will be reported. You may select the event based on the following explained priorities:

• P1: Purchase product or services
• P2: Payment Information
• P3: To add or remove a product from a cart
• P4: Click a link to open the product page
• P5: View Content

The point to be marked here is; if you have an ad set and that ad set is not included in your eight high priority events, then that ad set will get paused.

How to set the priority of your conversion event?

• Go to Ads Manager> navigate to Event Manager
• On an extreme left select Relevant pixel
• Under the Aggregated event measurement select the Edit Event option
• Verify the domain (if you have already verified the domain you can skip the step)
• Click on Pixel/Custom conversion; Select the Pixels
• Now configure the event under the Event name
• You can follow the prompts for optimizing your conversion campaigns

For a detailed description, you can follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/422408905612648

Verify Domain and Implement Facebook’s Conversion API:

Facebook is making businesses ready for the update by appealing to them to verify their domains. The elaborated domain verification is done to control the misuse of ad accounts. The verification process consists of a code given to the webmaster to put in your domain. It ensures that the data received by your pixels are accurately delivered to Facebook.

Similarly, Facebook explains the use of Conversion API, which allows advertisers to send web and offline events from their servers directly to Facebook. CAPI guides the supplements signals from the business websites or apps. The proven methodology to use the Conversions API is in concurrence with Facebook Pixel; it will maximize the effectiveness of website customer data.

Enable Value Optimization (VO):

Value Optimization is the future of ad campaigns on Facebook. It is an essential and the most efficient technique to predict the revenue value of individual users by the means of machine learning. If you are already using VO, then based on your previous data, the existing values will automatically be moved from Business Manager to Event manager. But if you are not using VO, then from today, you should start preparing yourself to enable VO.

However, to enable Value Optimization you have to prove the eligibility and fulfil these criteria:

• Must have Software Development Kit (SDK)
• Prioritize Purchase events
• Should have at least 100 purchase in the last 10 days
• And a minimum of 10 distinct purchase in the last 7 day

With the above-mentioned criteria, you are ready to have this feature.You can even test Value Optimization for ad delivery and can optimize it at the time of ad setup.

Rely more on First-party data collection:

The policies are changing now and then. The more you depend on your personalized data, the less you will be anxious about the change in the platform’s policies. As the iOS 14 update will be fully implemented, most of the Facebook campaigns will lose their proficiency, and you will no longer be able to personalize ads to specific users.

The data gathered from the first-party avenue like websites, emails, surveys have minimal privacy concerns. Thus First-party data are with you forever, it offers you the flexibility to enter additional data with the time as per your needs. Manual data collection can be arduous. It requires high effort, time, and dedication, but it is the most intuitive and robust technique to gather genuine data.

The exact impact of the iOS update cannot be predicted until the full rollout is complete. The updates have always made Marketers think out of the box and get outside of their comfort zone. So, fold your sleeves high, make the essential modification and prepare yourself to experience something utterly new.