What You Need To Know About The iOS 14 Update

Facebook advertising is one of the best marketing tools out there for small businesses. But might that  all be about to change with a pending update courtesy of Apple?

The imminent update has caused quite the ruckus in ad-land because it will enforce new privacy measures that alter the way apps and websites (including Facebook) track iOS users.

In a nutshell, this is going to impact how effectively marketers can target and track many of their advertising campaigns.

If your business utilises online marketing, you may be wondering how the iOS 14 Apple update will affect you. So, let’s take a closer look at what it’s all about and how you can prepare your business for it.

Why The iOS 14 Update Is Causing Waves

Apple’s iOS 14 update is already out, but the controversial privacy feature has yet to be rolled out. Initially expected in September last year, the update was delayed to give companies more time to prepare for the changes.

What changes exactly?

Welcome the App Tracking Transparency privacy measure. This feature requires companies to ask permission from the user before tracking them across other apps and websites. If you are an iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV user, you will see a request pop up the first time you use a new app or the first time you open an existing one after the update.

This pop-up will ask you to grant permission for the app to track your activity across other companies apps and websites. You can deny or allow the request.

Every iPhone has a unique identifier known as an Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA). Marketers use this number to study your browsing and shopping habits, helping inform their targeted marketing and hone their sales funnels.

Suppose you deny an app the right to track you. In that case, Apple will block your IDFA from the app’s developer, basically taking away their ability to follow you across the internet via your iPhone.

That’s the issue in a nutshell, but you can find more in-depth info about the update on Apple’s website.

How Does It Affect Marketers?

While Apple and some other big players claim this update is a win for privacy and transparency, many others – including Facebook and Google – are worried about the impact it might have for small businesses who rely on the tracking data to reach customers.

While we can’t know exactly what impact the update will have on small businesses, we can predict a few things based on the data we have on hand.

Because this is an Apple update, it will only affect iOS users. But, these do make up a large chunk of devices in the country.

In NZ, mobile makes up about 46 percent of all internet traffic. When you include tablets in the mix, this increases to 52 percent.

As of December 2020, a whopping 42 percent of mobile devices were Apple iOS. In other words, this is a big chunk of the population that we advertisers may be about to lose track of.

If small businesses lose the ability to reach and understand their target audience, it could be harder for them to market effectively and grow.

How You Can Prepare

As a marketer, you must know how to decipher what your analytics data is telling you so you can make informed decisions about how to structure ad campaigns and how to best optimise them.

This update may make it a little harder to track, optimise, and analyse your important metrics, but that doesn’t mean it will be impossible.

Facebook isn’t sitting on their hands in the face of the update. The company is rolling out plenty of changes that will help advertisers adapt – and there are ways you can get your business ready, too.

Start with a little research. Do you know what percentage of your audience use iOS devices? While you can’t predict how many will opt-out of being tracked, the number should give you some idea of the update’s potential impacts.

If you use Facebook or Instagram Ads for your business, you will need to get up to speed on what the changes mean for you. There are alterations to auction bidding, and real-time reporting will no longer be supported. For more insight into the changes, check out Facebook’s blog post.

Right now if you are running advertising on FB you are going to need to action some updates in your business manager or you may be at risk of having your ad account paused. UPDATE as of 15th April 2021. Verifying your domain and prioritising the events you are tracking via your pixel are the two critical actions you need to take, do it NOW as this update is rolling out imminently. 

While some further changes are inevitable (and Ill keep you posted as these continue to surface), the basic concepts behind marketing and advertising your business will remain the same. Rather than putting all your marketing eggs in one basket, make sure you utilise a variety of channels, and put extra effort into those you own, such as email lists and your website.

Make sure you are clear on your ideal customer, and have a solid marketing plan in place to get the best ROI for your efforts.