MTM#33: iOS 14 Roll Out To Severely Impact Facebook Advertising Measurement & Optimization

– If you are advertising
and reaching users[00:00:05.04] on their mobile devices,
through apps, such[00:00:08.03] as Twitter or Facebook, et
cetera, this will impact you.[00:00:13.02] Hey, welcome back to More Than Marketing.[00:00:15.03] I’m your host Arsham Mirshah
big topic for you today.[00:00:19.02] Apple’s IOS 14, IOS 14.4 is
being rolled out this quarter

[00:00:25.05] and it has major
implications for advertisers

[00:00:28.06] who are doing user acquisition
or advertising otherwise

[00:00:34.05] on app based platforms,
such as Facebook, Instagram,

[00:00:38.03] YouTube, Tik Tok,
LinkedIn, Twitter, right?

[00:00:42.01] If you are advertising and reaching users

[00:00:45.03] on their mobile devices,
through apps such as Twitter

[00:00:48.02] or Facebook, et cetera,
this will impact you.

[00:00:52.03] I’m going to talk about what it is,

[00:00:54.07] what the potential impacts
are, what you can do about it

[00:00:57.01] and some predictions.

[00:00:59.00] Without further ado, let’s jump in.

[00:01:01.02] So what’s happening?

[00:01:03.00] Apple is rolling out a
new IOS operating system

[00:01:08.04] for their iPhone where all apps

[00:01:12.00] are going to have a prompt that says

[00:01:16.01] do you allow this app
to track you? Basically.

[00:01:20.01] If you’re watching this on
YouTube you can see that here,

[00:01:23.03] if you are listening to this as a podcast,

[00:01:25.08] imagine you open an app,
you’ve done this on your iPhone

[00:01:28.07] and it says, you know, this
app wants to use your camera

[00:01:31.01] or this app wants to send
you push notifications

[00:01:33.03] and you have the choice
to allow or deny that.

[00:01:36.05] The same thing, the same
prompt is going to come up

[00:01:38.00] and it’s going to say
instead, do you allow this app

[00:01:41.01] to track you and otherwise,
you know, use the data

[00:01:47.09] from your activity on this
app, for whatever reason.

[00:01:50.09] And then the app developers
going to be able to say,

[00:01:52.09] you know here’s what we do with that data,

[00:01:55.05] as well as you as a user are
going to be able to go in

[00:01:57.06] and see exactly what they
are collecting, right?

[00:02:02.07] So Facebook is kind of
at the forefront of this.

[00:02:05.08] They’ve done a lot of webinars

[00:02:08.05] for their advertisers and
they’ve rolled out new policies

[00:02:11.07] and regulations and features

[00:02:14.03] and what have you to not
combat this, but you know,

[00:02:18.07] to prepare for this really

[00:02:21.02] and Facebook is really
kind of upset with Apple

[00:02:25.02] because this is going to impact
the way that targeting works

[00:02:29.03] on Facebook, as well as the data that you

[00:02:31.07] the advertiser are going
to be able to get back

[00:02:34.04] from apps like Facebook, I’m
going to use Facebook a lot,

[00:02:38.03] they’re kind of at the forefront of this.

[00:02:39.06] So, you know, you can interchange Facebook

[00:02:42.08] with Instagram obviously

[00:02:45.02] but also Tik Tok and Twitter
and LinkedIn and others.

[00:02:50.04] So that’s, what’s happening.

[00:02:51.07] You know, users are going
to update their iPhones,

[00:02:53.04] they’re going to buy new iPhones,

[00:02:54.03] it’s going to have IOS 14.4 on it.

[00:02:57.08] And they’re going to be able
opt in or out of tracking

[00:03:01.03] on each app that they use on their phone.

[00:03:03.06] Right now we’re
guesstimating that maybe 30%

[00:03:07.00] of people opt in.

[00:03:08.04] That means 70% of people opt out

[00:03:10.08] and some statistics for you,
so that is just a hypothesis.

[00:03:15.00] You know, we don’t know
what it’s going to be

[00:03:17.02] but if you are in the US
or advertise in the US,

[00:03:21.02] or you know that’s primarily
where your business is,

[00:03:24.07] 61% of people in the US have an IOS iPhone

[00:03:31.07] versus about 39% have an Android.

[00:03:36.02] Globally, those numbers
are very different.

[00:03:39.03] Globally, it’s 72% of
people have an Android

[00:03:44.03] and only 26% or 27% of
people have an iPhone.

[00:03:48.09] So if you’re globally

[00:03:49.08] this is kind of a less
of an impact for you.

[00:03:51.07] If you’re in the US much bigger impact.

[00:03:54.09] So what does it mean again,
you’re going to have less data.

[00:03:58.02] What’s happening is, you
know things like events

[00:04:01.04] are being limited and attribution
windows are being limited

[00:04:05.07] and events and conversion
data is being aggregated.

[00:04:10.05] This is to help aid the user’s privacy.

[00:04:14.07] So, you know, for instance
in extreme example,

[00:04:17.06] you know today you’re able to say,

[00:04:20.03] Oh, you know, I got a conversion.

[00:04:22.03] It was John Doe Or Jane
Smith, I got it at this time,

[00:04:28.00] And then I see the Facebook
event and I can tie

[00:04:30.04] that Facebook event back to this ad.

[00:04:32.02] And this ad says, you know,
it’s about this pain point

[00:04:35.06] so now you know that Jane Smith
has this pain point, right?

[00:04:39.03] That’s kind of an extreme example

[00:04:40.07] but that’s the idea,
is that Facebook is now

[00:04:42.08] going to aggregate events, so
it’s going to be harder for you

[00:04:45.00] to analyze the data, generally speaking,

[00:04:48.03] especially if you’re in a low event,

[00:04:51.00] low conversion kind of
environment like that, you know,

[00:04:53.04] if you only post, I don’t know, three

[00:04:55.05] or three to seven conversions a week

[00:04:58.04] versus 70 or 7,000 conversions a week,

[00:05:01.07] you’re going to have even
less data to work with, right?

[00:05:08.00] So what’s changing? I’ll
give you a quick rundown

[00:05:11.01] and then we will go into details

[00:05:14.07] of each and action steps for you as well.

[00:05:18.01] So the first thing is attribution windows.

[00:05:20.03] If you’re used to a 28 day
click attribution window,

[00:05:25.00] it will be no longer is going down

[00:05:27.00] to a seven day attribution window.

[00:05:28.09] So if you have a longer sales cycle

[00:05:30.05] and you have people who
are clicking your ads

[00:05:32.04] but they’re not taking,
you know a certain action

[00:05:35.03] or the action that you want for, you know,

[00:05:38.03] more than seven days,
that conversion or event

[00:05:43.03] is no longer going to show
up in Facebook’s platform.

[00:05:48.06] I think that it will still show up,

[00:05:50.08] I’m still learning about this one

[00:05:52.06] because I think that the
event will still show up

[00:05:55.02] but it just won’t be attributed to an ad.

[00:05:59.00] And so that’s going to hurt your analysis

[00:06:01.04] maybe your optimization as well.

[00:06:03.09] And I’m still looking into like,

[00:06:06.05] why would the events still
show up or will it show up?

[00:06:08.06] I don’t know, but I
think it might be akin to

[00:06:11.07] what Safari did, another
Apple product obviously,

[00:06:14.04] their browser and Firefox as well,

[00:06:17.03] where they limited all cookies
down to seven day lifespan.

[00:06:23.06] So maybe that’s the same thing here

[00:06:25.00] maybe they’re doing that
and I just haven’t seen it

[00:06:28.02] or they haven’t published it.

[00:06:29.06] And so like they’re
providing a temporary ID

[00:06:32.09] or something like that, I don’t know.

[00:06:36.01] And that temporary ID, you
know, expires in seven days.

[00:06:39.06] The next thing is domain verification.

[00:06:41.08] This is extremely important

[00:06:43.03] for anyone who’s using the Facebook pixel

[00:06:47.04] which is pretty much everyone.

[00:06:49.08] If you don’t verify your domain,
your ads will be shut off.

[00:06:54.08] Now, luckily, this is really easy to do.

[00:06:57.05] It’s akin to Google search
console verification

[00:07:02.06] where you change the DNS record

[00:07:04.02] or upload a text file to
the root of your domain

[00:07:08.02] and then it verifies your domain

[00:07:10.06] and adds that legitimacy
to your ad account.

[00:07:16.02] The next thing that’s
changing our conversions

[00:07:19.01] and events at large, and
basically anyone who opts out

[00:07:25.00] of the ATT prompt, the tracking prompt,

[00:07:28.04] will have their conversions
beyond a delay back to Facebook,

[00:07:34.00] 24 to 48 hour delay.

[00:07:36.01] So anyone who is kind of
doing a real-time reporting

[00:07:40.02] or analysis or whatever, you know,

[00:07:42.01] you’re going to want to wait
basically and look back, you know,

[00:07:46.09] for longer time periods like
a week or something like that.

[00:07:50.05] And even start your
analysis two days behind

[00:07:52.08] to make sure all the
events and attributions

[00:07:55.04] has it been captured.

[00:07:56.08] On top of that conversions and events

[00:07:58.04] are going to be aggregated, so again,

[00:08:00.01] this is not good for like
low event environments

[00:08:03.08] ’cause you’re just going
to have less and less data,

[00:08:06.03] it’s going to be less granular

[00:08:09.04] and make it harder to do deep
analysis, which, you know,

[00:08:15.03] there’s pros and cons there
’cause if you have an N of two

[00:08:20.06] and you’re making decisions based on that,

[00:08:22.03] it’s probably not a good thing anyway.

[00:08:25.01] Okay, so also we’re only going to be able

[00:08:27.07] to use eight events total.

[00:08:31.09] I’ll go into a deep detail about this

[00:08:34.05] but you’re going to be
limited to eight events

[00:08:37.04] and you’re going to
have to prioritize them

[00:08:39.04] and in what order you want
Facebook to collect them

[00:08:42.06] I’ll go to detail on that one later.

[00:08:45.00] And then the last kind
of overview piece here

[00:08:47.06] is audience insights, anyone who opts out

[00:08:49.09] of the ATT prompt will be
blocked from demographic data

[00:08:55.07] so that’s going to make it a
little harder to see you know,

[00:08:59.03] who your target audiences is you know,

[00:09:02.06] you’re still going to be able to see it

[00:09:03.05] but it’s going to be kind of
skew to the people who opt in

[00:09:06.02] and to Android users, right?

[00:09:08.07] So that I guess, and
towards desktop as well.

[00:09:13.00] That’s interesting because I
think people will still use

[00:09:16.03] that data but they may forget
that it’s kind of skewed now,

[00:09:20.02] you know, you’re looking through
a opaque lens, so to speak.

[00:09:24.08] You know, that’s something
to keep track of.

[00:09:27.08] So that’s an overview,
attribution windows are changing,

[00:09:31.01] you need to verify your
domain, conversions and events

[00:09:35.02] are going to be delayed,
aggregated and limited

[00:09:37.08] and audience insights is
going to be opaque now.

[00:09:40.08] Let’s jump into some action steps.

[00:09:43.03] You know, one of the action steps here

[00:09:46.05] is to download your historical
data so you can use that

[00:09:50.03] to analyze offline, off of Facebook,

[00:09:52.09] ’cause Facebook is going to start changing

[00:09:56.03] their attribution windows,
you know no longer

[00:09:58.06] with a 28 day attribution
exists, for example, right?

[00:10:02.07] Everything’s going to
seven and one, I believe.

[00:10:05.02] So, you’re going to need to
download your historical data

[00:10:09.00] so that you can analyze that later

[00:10:11.02] cause that’s going to be going away.

[00:10:13.06] Another action step for you is to audit

[00:10:16.01] and prioritize your customer events.

[00:10:18.02] If you are, you know,
running the Facebook pixel,

[00:10:21.06] you’re going to be limited
to eight events only.

[00:10:25.00] Now, if you’re running like a basic

[00:10:26.07] kind of lead gen campaign
or e-commerce program,

[00:10:29.06] you’re probably going to be okay

[00:10:30.09] with just eight events
like let’s use e-commerce

[00:10:33.01] for example, you know,

[00:10:35.03] your eight events will
probably be purchased,

[00:10:38.06] add payment info, add to
cart, add to wishlist,

[00:10:42.00] view product, you know,
lead, view content.

[00:10:45.00] Okay, that’s cool.

[00:10:46.00] So you can live with eight events.

[00:10:48.07] You will need to prioritize them.

[00:10:50.03] That means you have to go

[00:10:51.01] into Facebook’s event manager
and set the priority of them.

[00:10:57.05] There is some reason
for that it’s, you know,

[00:11:00.08] Facebook is going to say, if
I can’t collect certain data,

[00:11:03.09] that I’m going to opt to collect

[00:11:05.08] the more prioritized data first,

[00:11:08.08] if you have a complex
funnel and you have lots

[00:11:11.04] of brands or lots of
websites, or lots of actions,

[00:11:15.05] for your users to take, and
you’re used to having a lot

[00:11:18.03] of events to use for
optimization or reporting

[00:11:20.09] or whatever or analysis,

[00:11:22.08] you’re limited to eight
now, unfortunately.

[00:11:26.00] Another thing you’re going to
need to do is verify your domain.

[00:11:28.09] So you’re going to have
to add a DNS record

[00:11:32.01] or a text file to verify

[00:11:34.00] that your top level
domain is in fact yours

[00:11:37.08] and then tie that to your ad platform,

[00:11:41.04] else, your ads are going to be
shut off on Facebook, right?

[00:11:45.07] A really big one is automated rules.

[00:11:47.08] If you’re using automated
rules in Facebook,

[00:11:50.05] you’re going to want to audit them, right?

[00:11:52.03] ‘Cause if they’re running off of some data

[00:11:54.05] that’s no longer going to be there,

[00:11:56.03] they’re going to start
going haywire, going nuts,

[00:11:58.08] so you’re going to want to audit them

[00:12:00.09] and you know, choose
wisely what you run on.

[00:12:06.02] You know, we’re suggesting to our clients

[00:12:09.04] and what we’re doing for our clients

[00:12:11.03] is removing a lot of those automated rules

[00:12:14.00] and going back to good
old manual days, right?

[00:12:16.08] To see what happens and we’re
doing this over the course

[00:12:20.05] of the next couple months,
using that time to analyze,

[00:12:24.08] you know, what can we run

[00:12:27.00] with automated rules and what
is not going to work anymore.

[00:12:31.02] All in all I hope my tone is
not kind of here to panic,

[00:12:35.03] here to scare you.

[00:12:37.00] You know, change is the
only constant, right

[00:12:39.07] We kind of knew this was coming

[00:12:41.03] and this is just the
start of it, you know,

[00:12:43.06] user privacy is a big deal

[00:12:45.07] especially with kind of
the blue sweep in Congress

[00:12:50.03] and White House and what have you,

[00:12:53.08] it’s likely that we’re going to
see more regulation on big tech

[00:12:58.07] especially in the realm of privacy

[00:13:01.05] and that’s generally a good
thing for users, you know,

[00:13:05.04] users should have their
privacy in control,

[00:13:09.00] they should be in control of their privacy

[00:13:10.05] and big tech shouldn’t, you know
just be kind of manipulating

[00:13:15.04] or overreaching their their power

[00:13:17.08] to monetize users so to speak.

[00:13:22.04] At the same time, you know

[00:13:23.08] on the other side of the
coin is that, you know,

[00:13:26.06] I think what you’re going to see happen,

[00:13:28.09] well, we’ll see, this is now
I’m kind of in the predictions,

[00:13:33.00] but if you imagine you’re on
Facebook and you’re getting ads

[00:13:36.08] for things that you
don’t care about, right?

[00:13:38.03] You’re not going to want that.

[00:13:39.02] You want personalized ads.

[00:13:40.07] You want ads for things that, you know,

[00:13:42.05] speak to you for products and services

[00:13:45.01] that you need that you’re
in the market for, right?

[00:13:48.03] At least that’s what I
want for me personally.

[00:13:51.04] I don’t want, you know ads for
things that don’t interest me

[00:13:55.04] ’cause that’s a waste my time, right?

[00:13:57.01] I’ve learned a lot about a lot
of new products and services

[00:14:00.09] through ads and I like that.

[00:14:03.05] Maybe I’m biased, but
that’s how I feel, right?

[00:14:07.06] But generally don’t panic I mean,

[00:14:09.09] this is a great time to kind of focus

[00:14:11.06] on the things that you can control

[00:14:12.09] such as your user experience
and your creative.

[00:14:17.05] I would also say, you know,
remember that there was a time

[00:14:21.05] before Facebook and all of the, you know,

[00:14:26.04] nitty gritty data that we could
dig into and analyze, right?

[00:14:29.06] Algorithms and cookies
didn’t exist 20 years ago

[00:14:34.03] maybe cookies did but
you get the idea, right?

[00:14:37.04] There was a time where we
didn’t have all this data

[00:14:39.04] and all this machine
learning and what have you.

[00:14:42.03] And this is just a step
kind of back a little bit

[00:14:45.04] towards that, not a big
deal, things still work.

[00:14:48.02] If you have a good brand,
if you care about your user,

[00:14:51.03] you know, you have a good user
journey, you should be fine.

[00:14:55.02] You know, you may not have
all the granular detail

[00:14:57.03] to know exactly which ad is
working at which time of day

[00:15:01.01] but there was a time

[00:15:03.00] when you didn’t have that either, right?

[00:15:06.02] So, some predictions for you,

[00:15:08.03] ’cause this is kind of the fun part.

[00:15:11.06] Facebook, isn’t the only app
that’s going to require users

[00:15:15.01] to opt into the tracking prompt,

[00:15:16.06] obviously it’s going
to be every single app.

[00:15:19.02] And the more trusted the app is,

[00:15:21.07] the higher the opt-in rate is going to be.

[00:15:25.04] Also think about the
user’s demographics, right?

[00:15:28.00] So Reddit has millions of users of course,

[00:15:32.02] but there is a certain
subset of Reddit that’s like,

[00:15:34.09] hey, you know, very privacy minded

[00:15:36.09] and very kind of attuned
to this kind of technology

[00:15:42.00] and so they’re going to opt out.

[00:15:43.04] Similarly, Facebook is no
stranger to controversy,

[00:15:46.05] especially as it pertains to privacy.

[00:15:48.04] So we could see lower opt-in rates there.

[00:15:51.06] At the same time, you have kind of

[00:15:53.05] an older generation
relatively to other apps,

[00:15:57.08] such as Tik Tok and Snapchat
on Facebook that the generation

[00:16:01.02] is a little bit older

[00:16:02.09] and they may just go look at that prompt

[00:16:05.05] and click one of the buttons
and not know which one it is

[00:16:07.03] and so you may see higher.

[00:16:08.06] So we’ll see that one
is no prediction there

[00:16:11.09] but I will predict that this is
going to be like a major issue

[00:16:17.00] for the next six to 12 months.

[00:16:18.08] Many advertisers are not going
to be able to weather the storm.

[00:16:21.03] You know, their budgets are too low

[00:16:24.06] or they don’t have room for error.

[00:16:26.00] and Facebook’s tracking is
not going to be targeting,

[00:16:29.08] it’s not going to be favorable
to them and it’s going to hurt.

[00:16:33.09] So as a result, you could
see advertisers stop ads

[00:16:38.07] and move those dollars elsewhere.

[00:16:41.04] And if that happens CPMs will fall

[00:16:44.00] and there’ll be lower competition.

[00:16:46.09] And that may actually
offset the negative impact

[00:16:50.04] of Facebook’s targeting.

[00:16:53.00] It’s very possible that that happens.

[00:16:55.04] We kind of saw that at the
beginning of the Corona virus

[00:16:58.00] in March of 2020, March and April,

[00:17:01.00] where lots of advertisers left the auction

[00:17:04.06] the Facebook auction in particular here

[00:17:06.08] and you know, you saw that if
you’re still in the auction,

[00:17:11.07] your CPMs dropped pretty
pretty dramatically

[00:17:14.04] to a tune of 25%.

[00:17:16.02] And that put all your
downstream metrics got better

[00:17:19.01] as a result, right?

[00:17:21.01] You know, that’s going to
hurt Facebook’s revenue,

[00:17:22.08] so shareholders be aware,
this is on financial advice,

[00:17:26.07] some need to consider it, to consider.

[00:17:31.02] We’re going to see new ad
placements and formats be introduced

[00:17:35.02] and come out on new ad platforms
as well I imagine, right?

[00:17:40.00] Pinterest has been doing some
really interesting updates

[00:17:44.05] to their ad self-serve ad platform

[00:17:47.02] and the way the users
experience those ads as well.

[00:17:51.06] Most advertisers they’re
going to you know,

[00:17:54.08] need to diversify, right?

[00:17:56.02] YouTube is right now kind
of a wild wild Westish area

[00:17:59.08] and CPMs over there are going to triple

[00:18:02.06] over the next three years,
that’s our prediction.

[00:18:06.04] First party data is going to
become more and more important,

[00:18:09.04] you’re already hearing this

[00:18:10.05] as it pertains to third-party
cookies going away

[00:18:13.07] on Chrome browser in the next two years

[00:18:16.00] and it’s going to become
kind of mission critical

[00:18:20.01] to own your user’s data
particularly email address,

[00:18:24.07] you know, most likely is and,
you know, having some kind

[00:18:28.03] of experience web app,
experience that incentivizes them

[00:18:33.05] or otherwise encourages the
user to sign up with you

[00:18:37.01] and trade their email address
for some kind of value,

[00:18:41.08] so to speak, you’re going to want that

[00:18:43.09] because first party data
is going to become more

[00:18:45.09] and more important as
third-party data starts

[00:18:48.05] to be restricted, shut
down and even go away.

[00:18:52.08] And if that happens you
know, platforms like Google

[00:18:55.02] and Apple and other big tech
stocks are going to battle

[00:18:59.01] for the future of advertising
tracking and targeting,

[00:19:02.04] you know cookies are going to be obsolete.

[00:19:04.03] Trade desk is they have a
unified ID, 2.0 type thing,

[00:19:09.01] that’s going to become the standard,

[00:19:10.06] this is our projection, right?

[00:19:12.02] Trade desk will not monetize it

[00:19:14.00] but they’re going to be
kind of the go-to platform

[00:19:17.01] for programmatic media
buying and that the strengths

[00:19:20.06] of the universal ID is going
to be that unique positioning

[00:19:25.02] in their block, in their platform

[00:19:28.06] in their media buying and
CTV and OTT space as well,

[00:19:33.07] connected TV and over the top
for streaming, advertising

[00:19:37.02] on the streaming platforms,
if you’re not familiar.

[00:19:39.07] So again, not stock advice,
not financial advice,

[00:19:42.08] these are public companies
that we are talking about

[00:19:44.05] but you know,

[00:19:45.06] this is just what we see
happening in the industry.

[00:19:48.05] And these are our predictions.

[00:19:49.09] And, you know, as we saw
with GDPR and CCPA, you know,

[00:19:54.05] they were really big
deals when they came out

[00:19:56.04] and things have kind of normalized

[00:19:57.07] to a new standard, to a new
level and I think that’s similar

[00:20:02.06] to what you’re going to
see here with the IOS 14.

[00:20:06.04] One way or another we’re
on a roller coaster.

[00:20:09.05] This is an industry that changes
faster than your underwear.

[00:20:13.00] Hopefully your underwear
changes really quickly

[00:20:15.00] and you know, buckle up ’cause
this is just the beginning.

[00:20:19.08] It’s fun you know, changes
the only constant like I said

[00:20:23.00] and hopefully this was a helpful podcast.

[00:20:24.08] If it was share with a
friend, like it, comment,

[00:20:28.08] let me know what you’re
doing, what are you seeing?

[00:20:31.00] What are you planning on doing?

[00:20:32.00] I would love to talk
about this kind of stuff

[00:20:34.01] and we’ll share our insights as well.

[00:20:36.03] I have, and we’ll put it in the show notes

[00:20:39.09] a link to this PDF.

[00:20:42.05] And if you’re on YouTube,
you can just read the URL

[00:20:45.08] and type it in if you like,
but I’ll give it to you there.

[00:20:48.04] And thank you for listening.

[00:20:51.03] Hope this is not a big deal for you.

[00:20:56.05] And you can just go on your merry day

[00:20:59.01] and everything is normal and
your ad campaigns don’t suffer.

[00:21:04.00] But if they do, you’re not alone.

[00:21:07.01] Thanks for listening, take care.