With more advertising insights, Facebook wants to prevent even more customers from switching to Apple’s advertising service. (Photo: Xose Bouzas / Reuters)
Apple’s Tracking Transparency puts Facebook in a mess – only 25 percent of all users agree to the tracking. And because Apple is the only advertising service that offers reliable data on iOS users, Apple’s own advertising business is booming. Facebook wants to take countermeasures and has announced changes in tracking and ad measurement. These are of a technical nature and intended for companies with larger budgets. Nevertheless, they show that Facebook is trying to develop its own technical solutions.
More on the subject
- Facebook share falls after losses due to Apple’s tracking opt-in
- Apple’s app tracking transparency: How brands should deal with first-party data now
- iOS 14.5 restricts advertising tracking: This is what the new rules of the game mean for iPhone users
Updates to the aggregated event measurement
On the one hand, the campaign reporting for iOS users has been improved. It is now easier to see which ads are responsible for conversions such as a purchase or the installation of an app. View-through attribution is now the default setting for new campaigns that use web events. It ensures that an ad is also considered a trigger for a conversion if, for example, there was a pause between the impression and the actual conversion. In e-commerce and retail in particular, advertisers would have more insights into customers who see an advertisement, do not click on it and still buy the product.
For this purpose, conversions should also be recorded that take place due to a redirect on another page – for example, if an ad leads to the global page, but customers then buy via the regional version. There are now reports on this at the advertiser level. So if you place an ad that leads to a website that he or she does not own, you will now receive reports on your own campaigns with the update. So far there has been no data in such a case.
Finally, the global rollout of the AEM for apps has started. This should be able to measure actions within the app, such as a purchase or that a new level in the game has been reached. This should help with re-engagement campaigns that iOS users also have as an in-app target. In-app advertisements are also possible, which are played to the people who are likely to interact with them.
New SK Ad Network functions for campaigns
The view-through attribution is also activated for campaigns that target app installations on iOS 14 and higher and those that use data from Apple’s SK-Ad-Network (SKAN) API to measure conversions based. The limitation of the ad accounts for SKAN campaigns will be increased – nine SKAN campaigns are now possible with up to nine ad accounts per app ID.
Faster setup of the conversion API
Setting up the Conversions API should now be easier. Facebook explicitly thought of advertisers who do not have their own developers. In the future there should be the option “Conversions API Gateway” in the Events Manager. This should help with setting up the interface. The Conversions API links your own marketing data with the Facebook systems and enables server-side tracking. The results should be most accurate when marketers use the conversion API and Facebook pixels in combination. Conversions API and the associated gateway option should also help in the future to use “technologies to improve data protection”, as Facebook describes it. As an example, they cite Private Lift, a new performance measurement model that will improve data protection and privacy. Private lift will be available to all advertisers from next year.
