iOS 14 and Above Users May Not Be Targeted in Facebook Ads

Apple Brings New Rules and Bans on Ad Tracking to Facebook

In 2021, Facebook boldly declared that Apple users cannot be tracked, making them untargetable. However, if users opt-in to tracking, they can be targeted in Facebook and Instagram ads. The number of users who will choose to allow tracking remains uncertain.

This cutting-edge application is not only compatible with Facebook and Instagram, but it is also seamlessly integrated with all of your mobile applications on your Apple-branded devices running on iOS 14 and above, including iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV. It's important to note that we mean all Apple-branded devices when we say "phone".

What Kind of Campaigns Will This Affect?

We can expect our remarketing campaigns to be particularly impacted by this situation, resulting in a significant decrease in the number of targeted users (audience size).

Let's think like this…

• The user searched for Nike sneakers on his mobile phone.
• It went to the Nike website from the results that came out as advertisements.
• She viewed the product, added it to the cart, but did not make the purchase. In the end, she closed the website after only going through the product viewing process.

Typically, we would easily target this user with our remarketing campaign and advertise to her on Facebook or Instagram. However, due to a current limitation, we are unable to do so at this time.

How Can We Solve This Situation With Least Damage?

First of all, it is important to realize that this change is permanent. Although it has currently only affected Apple, a similar decision could be made for Android in the future (although I personally doubt it). When we consider Google's primary source of revenue, which is advertising, it seems unlikely that they would implement a similar change on Android.

Let's focus on our subject at hand: How can we exit this situation with minimal harm? I'm confident that we can find a solution together.

Start by reviewing analytics and reports.

Use Google Analytics or a similar analytics tool to determine which mobile devices generate the most sales. Specifically, find out Apple's share of sales.

Then detect cross-device touchpoints.

To achieve an average sale, it is imperative to determine the number of devices that the user has changed.

Based on the available information, it appears that customers who initiate their visit on a computer and subsequently make a purchase on an Apple device are frequently the outcome of remarketing campaigns. However, additional analysis is required to obtain precise ratios and calculations.

Click to read my article about Google Analytics Top Conversion Path.

Learn new targeting strategies.

Let's take this opportunity to segment your campaigns based on mobile operating systems in Google Ads. By prioritizing campaigns with the most conversions through remarketing, as we previously discussed with touchpoints, we can create tailored ad campaigns specifically for Android users.

Create new audiences in Google Analytics or similar tools and keep Apple and Android users as two separate groups. This will help you better understand the conversion or sales rates of these users when analyzing your reports.

Application Requesting User Behavior Tracking Functionality

What caught my attention is that this feature has only been added to Facebook and Instagram applications. This means that the "Allow Tracking" option will appear in the Settings for some apps but not for others. The reason for this is that not all apps follow user activities for targeting purposes, and some apps have not yet added this option even though they do.

Why wasn't this permission option added to Messenger and WhatsApp?

It is important to note that despite WhatsApp and Messenger being under the Facebook umbrella, WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption makes it impossible for Facebook to access users' private messages or data. Therefore, WhatsApp users can rest assured that their data is secure and cannot be used for targeted ads on Facebook or any other platform.

Many things may still be unsettled, but it is clear that privacy is a topic that will continue to be widely discussed in the future.

As a result, I do not allow this application to track me, and I think it is a very correct and successful decision. 🙂 Even though our business is digital advertising, we need to recognize and defend the importance of privacy in some matters.