Introduction:

In June2020 Apple has announced they will be releasing an IDFA (Identifier For Advertising) along with their latest iOS 14 update. These changes aim to give users more control over their data usage and browsing behaviours. App stores will be forced to ask users for permission and if apps don’t comply with these rules, they will be removed from the app store. 

‍What impact could it have on my campaigns:

• Reporting &  Optimisation: You  may not be able to track events from users with iPhones. Events such as  Add to Cart, Checkout and potentially purchase events. This will hinder our ability as marketers to optimise our campaigns due to a lack of data. 
• Targeting: You may be wondering how it will affect the targeting. Well as more people opt out of being tracked online, due to the negative headline around privacy. This will likely cause problems for Facebook’s interest targeting. Facebook will no longer be able to categorise people based on browsing behaviour. We anticipate that some of the interest targeting could also be affected. 
• Tracking & Attribution: From 28 day click it will go down to 7 day click. The possibility of having 28 day view through will be reduced to 1 day. Which will mean your result will look worse than     potentially they actually are.

When is this happening:

• A concrete date has not been  provided by Apple or Facebook. We can expect this to happen in early 2021.

What can you do to prepare:

• Ensure the use of UTMs  across all facebook creatives to ensure there is visibility to what creative and what audience is driving conversions. This will be visible in Google Analytics.
• Verify your domain with Facebook Business Manager. There are two ways to do this; the first one is to include a TXT record into your DNS and the second way is to upload a HTML file. 
• Set up Server to Server  Conversion API. What is a Conversion API: “Conversions API is one of our Facebook Business tools that lets you share key web and offline events, or customer actions, directly from your servers to ours. Conversions API works with your Facebook pixel to help improve the performance and measurement of your Facebook ad campaigns.” - Facebook

Don't panic!

• We don't know what the real  impact of this will be, as Facebook does also use other signals to assign interest targeting. 
• We don’t know how much data is going to be unavailable, it could potentially mean that the changes are insignificant. 
• Facebook might be working on a work around regarding this data.

What could happen:

• There are a lot of businesses that will give up on Facebook advertising. Why? Well because people that are not willing to invest to experiment and innovate will likely believe that Facebook doesn't work. However, if you can potentially change the way you advertise on Facebook. As a result you get it to work at a favourable CPA, you will stand to benefit as there will be a lower number of competitors and a lower CPM.