You have likely seen Facebook appear in news headlines for the same few topics of privacy and data. While the world was watching Facebook under pressure to revisit their privacy and data policy, Facebook passed down this pressure to its advertisers as well.
A few recent changes you should be aware of that will certainly impact your campaigns:
- Apple’s iOS14 Update
- Facebook 28-Day Attribution Window
Apple’s iOS14 Update
Apple’s policy will prohibit specific data collection and sharing unless people opt to track iOS 14 devices via the prompt. As more people, opt-out from tracking on iOS 14 devices, ads personalization, and performance reporting will be limited for both app and web conversion events. (Source: Facebook)
Whilst it’s quoted that ads personalization and performance reporting would be limited – it also means that Facebook’s performance algorithm will be unable to drive the results you desire.
You could be wondering, why isn’t Google mentioned in this iOS14 update?
For a few reasons, Facebook’s properties (Facebook, Instagram & Whatsapp) are all Apps. Meanwhile, Google exists in both App, web, and analytics formats. Google has a $12bn per year deal with Safari to make its Search engine the default for all Apple users. The update undoubtedly impacts Google; however, the extent of its impact is expected to be more limited than Facebook.
Facebook removing its 28-day attribution window option
What do these changes mean for advertisers? It will mean that advertisers will no longer be able to track direct actions based on their campaigns over a more extended period.
In the past, the 28-day attribution window was the default for most Facebook advertisers, and this would only make sense to keep it that way if your buying cycle is long. This ultimately led to double reporting or over-inflated Conversion and Revenue figures from Facebook. It’s a preference for most savvy advertisers to leverage a 1-day or 7-day conversion window to better measure the impact of their Facebook ads activity.
Going forward, and likely due to the pressures from the authorities worldwide, Facebook is reducing its attribution window, which will impact most advertisers that have not shifted their windows from 28-days to 7-days.
You can expect:
- A lower Return on Ad Spend
- Lower Conversion Figures
The impact will differ between one advertiser and another. We have witnessed some advertisers experiencing a 5-10% unnoticeable difference, while others observed a significant 30-40% difference in their performance metrics.
In summary, these changes are substantial, and they could just be the beginning of changes to come in 2021.
