Facebook Advertisers Are Bracing Themselves for iOS 14 Tracking Prompt Fallout

A new article on Search Engine Journal offers some practical help for advertisers on the popular social media platform who are nervous about the roll-out of iOS 14, which includes a tracking prompt that looks set to disrupt Facebook Ads targeting.

Facebook advertisers are bracing for the impact from the forthcoming roll-out of Apple's iOS14 update. This new iteration of Apple's operating system allows users to opt in or opt out of tracking, making users fully aware of the extent of that before they download the new version:



Users are asked for permission to opt into tracking before they install the new version of Apple's operating system.



Apple has called the new feature "Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT)" prompt. To say that Facebook isn't very happy about the change is a massive understatement, and that's been well-publicized in recent weeks. That's because the social media company relies heavily on usage information. Without the ability to track effectively, Facebook will lose reporting and remarketing capabilities. Although users have always had an option to opt out of permissions for data sharing, finding that has always been a lot more difficult - and most probably were not even aware that they could - until now.

Facebook has already outlined what advertisers can expect, with the changes affecting Ads Manager, Ads Reporting, and the Ads Insights API. 28-day attribution will also no longer be supported, and historical data for that will only be accessible via the API:

• 7-day click attribution will still exist
• 7-day view-through attribution will also be gone.

Facebook is creating "Aggregated Event Measurement" to try and minimize the impact of the change. Some experts have had their say on the matter. Andrew Foxwell is the owner of Foxwell Digital:

The author also spoke with Christian Lovrecich from Pixl Feed Media. When asked to rate the severity of the impact from the changes on a scale of one to ten, he had this to say:

"At first, I would definitely say it will be a six. But, as someone who has been doing this for over a decade, we all know that changes in technology are inevitable, and at the end of the day, all we can is prepare, adapt, and overcome any changes that come our way."

If this is going to affect you or your business, there are some recommended next steps listed in the original article, so I suggest you head straight over there before the changes kick in, which is only a few weeks away!