How Facebook and Apple Changes Affect Paid Ads

Most business owners have played with, or at least thought of, creating ads to gain traffic to their website. And now, Apple has thrown what seems like a scary wrench into the paid media budget.

So, what exactly is happening between Apple and companies like Facebook who serve ads?

In this podcast episode, we spoke with Carissa Richardson, owner of Kindred Strategy which is a paid media agency based in Columbus, Ohio, and helping clients nationally. She broke down what’s happening in as little jargon as possible.

Overall, what’s happening between Facebook and iOS (aka Apple)?

Apple announced that they're changing. If you’ve downloaded iOS 14 on your phone, you might have experienced that when you download a new app, a pop-up will appear that says something like, “Do you want to share your data with this app?”

The pop-up, from Apple, asks you to choose either Yes or No - which has Facebook kind of freaking out because that’s a core of what they do. That’s how they make money.

Although it’s only really applicable to those people who are seeing your ads on their mobile app, that’s still around 80% of traffic that you’re getting on campaigns.

When a user clicks on the “No” in the pop-up, they are telling Facebook that they can’t use their data on any site that has a pixel. For example, if you click on an ad, go to the site, then leave, the campaign can start sending you retargeting ads since they know you clicked. With this change, it’ll be harder to track what people did and who did it.

What Apple is saying is that it’s protecting your information, while Facebook is saying that it’ll hurt small businesses because they’re the ones with the small ad budget and will now have to cast a wider net without being able to track a return.

Note: when we say Facebook, we mean Instagram as well since they’re together.

In some cases, you could even argue that the data is important to the user as well because it’ll keep them from seeing random ads that have nothing to do with what they’re interested in.

Does this change between Facebook and Apple affect conversion rates?

Typical conversion rates on Facebook are tracked with a button click and that’s pixel information. If the user said “No” to tracking, you wouldn’t see the conversion on the Facebook side of things. In your Analytics though, you might be able to see it as long as it was tagged properly (aka UTM code). This could also mean setting up an event or goal in Google Analytics to track the completion of the conversion. This could work but it ends up being set up in GA versus Facebook.

Does this change to Apple affect ads on other platforms like Google Ads?

“It will affect anything that you're running ads on that has a heavy app user,” says Carissa. For example, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter could be affected but they have a better chunk of traffic that comes from desktop versus the app.

Has the change to Apple affected any of Carissa’s Ads?

So far, Carissa hasn’t seen it impact a lot of her ads but she’s definitely keeping a close eye on it. She does suggest having workarounds such as lead ads on Facebook. This is for those small businesses running data collection (aka email collection) in exchange for a piece of content. It works because the user is giving Facebook the information. Although they could have opted out, by them submitting via the app, you’ll still get the information.

“The other option would be you could run a traditional campaign targeting everybody but exclude iOS users. Because you can do that in your targeting, and then set up a separate campaign for thats lead ads that runs just to iOS users,” says Carissa. 

Just keep in mind that because it’s early on, it’ll take some testing to see if it’s making a difference. 

What to keep an eye on when it comes to your Facebook ads and the Apple change?

“I'm always adamant about telling people to monitor their metrics,” says Carissa. If you notice that something like your click-through or conversion rate is dropping for no apparent reason, you might be affected. 

Basically, keep an eye on any key metrics and take note of dips in the average. If you notice something, “I would look at the way you're targeting your Facebook ads, and are you relying heavily on website metrics and pixel data,” says Carissa. She suggests that, if you are, to start working on non-pixel ways of targeting, such as using Facebook or Instagram followers. Even uploading your email list will work great.

About Carissa Richardson:

Carissa has 13 years of agency experience developing paid marketing strategies that create meaningful connections between brands and their customers. She is an expert in paid advertising planning and buying but understands that most people aren’t. She loves collaborating with clients and breaking down these sometimes complex or foreign subjects in a way that is educational, relatable, and understandable.

Find Carissa on her website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn