Apple's iOS 14 update and its impact on digital marketing

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ayshakhatun450
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Apple's iOS 14 update and its impact on digital marketing

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Apple announced last year that it would release an update to its iOS version 14.4 in early 2021. Among other features that this update will have, the most important will be the change in policies concerning user privacy and the use of their data for advertising purposes .


What is the update?
First off, there will be a change to the privacy details on the App Store, where app developers will now be required to provide information about their privacy practices , and users will be able to learn about the types of data the app can collect, as well as whether this data is list of belize consumer email used to track them. With this policy, Apple seeks to help users better understand an app’s privacy practices and give them the opportunity to decide whether or not to download it .

The second policy concerning privacy, and probably the most important, is the new “App Tracking Transparency” , where apps will have to receive permission from the user in order to track them or access the advertising identifier of their device. To do this, Apple will notify mobile iPhone users that they can choose one of two options: 1) Share their phone activity and data with apps; or 2) Opt out of sharing this information. This means that if a user chooses not to share their activity, no information about that user can be collected across apps, websites, or “offline” properties, which is typically used for advertising purposes or for targeted ad measurement .

Additionally, even if a user chooses not to share their information with apps, some data can still be tracked, but in a limited and hampered manner, as the latest policy also states that third-party SDKs cannot be placed. These policies will be applicable to iOS 14, iPadOS14, and tvOS14.

Why and how does it affect my digital marketing strategy?
The information collected from 'tracking' user activity is typically used by platforms typically used for digital marketing, such as Google and Facebook. This information allows platforms to assign behavioral and interest profiles to users, so that companies that carry out digital advertising can reach their target market by creating personalized ads.

Definitely, one of the companies that will be most affected by this will be Facebook and its Ads Business Manager platform . For this reason, Facebook has not wanted to share much information about how it will specifically be affected, but this is the information that you should take into account if you are an advertiser on Facebook:

Image

First of all, if a user chooses not to share their information with Facebook, they will become a “ghost” in terms of their activity outside of the app. Facebook will still have access to the user’s activity within the app, but it will not be able to know in all cases which users who interacted with an ad were the ones who actually converted.

Retargeting will be the biggest problem that an advertising company will face, since redirecting traffic from what happens on an external page or application will be very difficult, if not impossible.

Custom audiences will be greatly affected, and will most likely become smaller and less reliable.

Interest targeting will also be affected. You will still be able to learn about users' interests, but only based on what they do within the Facebook platform.

Ad performance reports will be highly compromised and unreliable.

Automatic campaign optimization will also be affected, and this optimization will have to become more manual.

Here's an example that illustrates one of the problems you might face if you're an advertiser on Facebook:

searches-google-facebook

Previously, if a person searched for something of interest on Google (or any other app outside of Facebook), such as “mountain bikes” in this case, Facebook would be able to obtain that information through tracking, and the next time that person logged into the app, they would be shown an ad based on that interest, such as an ad from a mountain bike seller or a promotion for an event targeting people interested in mountain bikes.

Now, with the new update, Facebook loses the information it would normally obtain through tracking, and therefore will also lose the opportunity to show a user with a certain interest targeted advertising. In this case, Facebook would never find out that that person searched for “mountain bikes” on Google, and would not show them the corresponding ads.

How much does this update affect the Mexican market?
In 2019, Deloitte launched a study on mobile consumer habits in Mexico, where 2,000 adults between the ages of 18 and 25 were interviewed. The study found that Apple only accounts for 10% of smartphone users in Mexico, with Samsung being the preferred manufacturer.

participation-preference-smartphone-2019

Source: Study on mobile consumer habits in Mexico. (Deloitte, 2019)


Also, remember that the App Tracking Transparency policy will only affect advertisers when Apple users opt out of sharing their information with apps, so Facebook’s platform will only really be affected if the majority of iPhone-using consumers opt out.

How can I prepare for this update as a Facebook advertiser?
As we said earlier, Facebook hasn't shared much information about how it will be affected by this update, however, it did release a statement where it assured that it is developing a machine learning model to help compensate for some of the attributions that will be lost, and it also outlined certain activities that you should do as an advertiser to prepare for January 2021. Here are the most important ones:

Verify your domain in Business Manager , this will ensure there are no immediate or future interruptions to your ability to set up conversion events.

Make a plan to only use 8 conversion events per domain , as ad sets with more than 8 will be paused.

Avoid using URLs that redirect users to a different domain.

Be prepared to use only one pixel per catalog to optimize conversion events.

Prepare for changes to your attribution window (disabling 28-day post-click, 28-day post-view, and 7-day post-view windows).

If you don't have the Facebook Conversion API yet , consider adding it to your strategy, and if you do have it, make sure it is kept updated to the latest version.

In addition to the recommendations provided by Facebook, you can also implement other strategies to take the effects of this update into your own hands. First of all, you will need to establish new strategies for targeting your audiences , using information generated within Facebook. For example, when creating your Facebook ads, you could choose to have your ad shown to people who have clicked on Call to Actions on ads similar to yours, or who have reacted to posts similar to yours.

You will also need to generate new retargeting strategies, since this is what will be most affected. You can do this by making sure to always collect your consumers' personal information through the implementation of forms on Facebook, and then retargeting them specifically.

And last but not least, with this update, it will be more important than ever to generate organic and valuable content within the Facebook platform , so that users interact within the platform with your brand and your ads can continue to be effective.
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