The latest iOS updates always come packed full of surprises, however, iOS 14 will impact online advertisers, Facebook in-particular this time around. For the purpose of this article, we will discuss the impacts and actions for Facebook advertisers.
In a nutshell, we are talking about users privacy. It remains (and rightfully so) a hot topic for the years ahead. Apple has taken a strong stance towards ensuring their customer’s privacy and looking after their data. In conjunction with the latest iOS update, Apple has released the following statement around consent and permissions when using their products.
What Are The Impacts You Say…?
Facebook has revealed that there is likely to be significant impacts felt across app and web conversions based advertisers. From this information, we can presume that the SDK, pixel and event script-based tags will be affected. In the common tongue, you might not get the same marketing data you had before…!
What Changes Are Happening For Users?
Apple users will now be asked explicitly, with a pop-up, to opt-in to all tracking for app and web-based third-party tracking.
Here is a list of current potential scenarios where you may have to explicitly request consent from Apple users (non-exhaustive):
- Any online targeted advertisements based on third-party data (not your own).
- If you wish to share location data or similar database information such as email addresses with another party. This includes other data strings that may provide the receiver with the ability to retarget the users (or similar users).
- Where you may be combining multiple/third party tags/SDK’s (owned or external) across your analytics suite as a workaround to gain audience insights.
Are There Any Exceptions?
There are of course exceptions where you will not need to request explicit permission:
- If you are only collecting anonymous device information that cannot be used to later identify the user or the specific device it has been obtained from.
- When the data broker with whom you share data uses the data solely for fraud detection, fraud prevention, or security purposes, and solely on your behalf. For example, using a data broker solely to prevent credit card fraud.
What Actions Should You Be Taking?
To combat these impacts, Facebook has been working on Aggregated Events Measurement and recommends you implement the following changes:
App Advertisers:
Web-Based Advertisers:
Outside of the above recommendations your ability to collect users data very much lies in their hands. This is where your brand and its reputation surrounding data protection will have to come into its own. Ultimately long-term user-centric data collectors and processes will come out on top.
