How Apple’s new privacy policy affects Facebook advertising and how to prepare for it

[UPDATED: 8th June 2021]

You may have read in the news that Apple’s latest iOS update includes what is being called an ‘app-tracking transparency’ measure. In short, this means users will begin seeing a pop-up from Apple asking if they want apps such as Facebook to track their digital activity across other company’s websites and apps. 

While it is hard to predict just how many users will decline, it is clear that this action will negatively impact the ability of advertisers to run highly targeted campaigns on platforms such as Facebook due to the limitations in personalisation and performance reporting. 

We got in touch with Facebook to find out more about how these changes will likely affect our partners like yourself, as well as hearing what steps you can take to prepare for this upcoming change.

Facebook told us that in response to these changes, they will begin processing pixel conversion events from iOS 14 devices using their new Aggregated Event Measurement. This aims to support your efforts to preserve user privacy while also running effective campaigns.

‍The major changes advertisers can expect from the transition to Aggregated Event Measurement are:

•  Limited to using eight conversion events per domain. Facebook are however planning for advertisers to receive partial reporting in Ads Manager and Events Manager for additional events outside of the priority eight events.

•  Default attribution windows are moving from 7-day click-through and 1-day view-through to 7-day click-through only for all conversions and catalogue sales objective campaigns. Advertisers should expect delivery to be less efficient compared to historical performance.

•  Advertisers will likely see audience sizes decrease and performance figures affected due to iOS opt-outs.

•  Website conversion events will be reported based on the time the conversions occur and not the time of ad impressions. Additionally, there may be a 24-48 hour delay when an offsite conversion is reported from iOS users.

•  Facebook will no longer be able to support 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through attribution windows.

•  Delivery and action breakdowns will not be supported for offsite conversion events. This includes demographic breakdowns such as age, gender and region.

What actions can our partners take to prepare for these changes:

•  Verify your domain in Facebook Business Manager.

•  If you have ads pointing towards your Festicket page and are set to optimise for ‘Purchase’ events, you must change your campaign to instead optimise for 'Landing page views”'or 'Link clicks'.

•  Prepare to operate and define the priority of a maximum of eight conversion events per domain. We recommend identifying the eight events most important to you. Initially every domain with existing conversion events will be auto-configured with up to eight conversion events based on campaign spend within the last 28 days.

•  Anticipate changes to attribution windows and update automated rules if necessary. Use the Comparing Windows feature to see how conversions attributed to your ads compare across different attribution windows. This will allow you to better anticipate any changes in reported conversions as a result of moving to a 7-day window. It is also worth exporting any historical 28-day attribution window data and updating any automated rules using a 28-day attribution window, to prevent any unexpected adjustments in spend once the new 7-day click-through window default goes into effect.

•  Identify campaign optimisation strategies that may require testing such as alternative audience options or different bidding strategies.

How does this affect my pixel setup on Festicket?

Any existing pixels setup on Festicket will continue to function and you will still receive statistics, however, these figures will be affected by the iOS update.. Although these figures will be less accurate than before, they can still be a useful indication of how effective your ad campaigns are.‍

Can I still build custom audiences and are these affected?

You can still go ahead and build custom audiences using a tracking pixel on Festicket, however, you will not be able to include anyone who has opted out of tracking. This will mean the number of users in your audience will likely be lower than previously. 

You can still run retargeting campaigns for customers who added tickets to their basket but did not complete their purchase, but you will need to optimise your advert for link clicks, not purchases.‍

Am I allowed to access Festicket’s domain in Business Manager so we can track events via it?

Facebook has introduced a limit of eight trackable events per domain. And because each event of each pixel counts as an individual event, there is unfortunately no capacity for Festicket to add each promoter’s pixel events to the Festicket domain configuration.

Does this change only affect Festicket?

No. This update is from Apple and therefore affects all advertisers running tracking pixels.

What are Festicket doing to help promoters tackle these changes?

We are working with the Facebook team on two long term solutions. The first is implementing the new Facebook Conversions API, which allows us to report purchases directly to Facebook via our servers, and therefore ensuring any sales which aren’t picked up by the Facebook Pixel due to iOS14 changes, ad blockers or network issues can still be recorded accurately. This means your reported ‘Purchase’ events should not suffer the same reduction as expected. 

The second solution is a custom domain shop page for our clients, which will allow them to include their own domain, again increasing the accuracy of reporting. 

Both these solutions are still under development. If you’d like to receive updates on these developments, sign up to our newsletter in the footer of this page.