How The iOS14 Update May Impact Social Media Marketing

You have most likely seen sensational headlines regarding the iOS 14 update, that is being brought to you by Apple. The truth is that a lot of things are unknown about the update and it’s very likely that it is going to have a huge impact across the digital ecosystem. Apple have already pushed back the release and this gave everyone more chance to try and prepare for the changes. If you want to know more about iOS14 and the impact it could have on your social media campaign then take a look below.

The IDFA

The IDFA refers to Identifiers for Advertisers. This is an ID that is used by any device that runs the Apple Operating system. When it is shared with application developers, MMPs and advertising platforms, it powers the delivery of personalised advertising. The IDFA have given the platforms the chance to enforce frequency capping. This is an attribute app which can be installed onto advertising platforms to measure campaigns. It’s very important to measure campaign performance. It is very similar to the Android Advertising Identifier.

What’s Changed with the IDFA?

Apple is changing the way that application developers access the IDFA form. It’s changing from an opt-out approach to one that is opt-in. Before the update, IDFAs were available for a lot of users. It’s expected that platforms are going to have access to a fraction of the previous IDFAs that are available. iOS 14 is going to kill IDFA as being an identifier for those who have an iOS device.

Advertising and Targeting

It’s very difficult indeed to try and pinpoint how reliant advertising platforms are when it comes to IDFAs. When you look at Facebook, you will soon see that they believe that their Audience Network revenue is going to be halved. The update is probably going to have a huge impact when it comes to open advertising on the open web. If you take the conservative viewpoint that half of all social media users are on an Android device, then the announcement will show that there is going to be a complete loss of user-targeting when it comes to the iOS audience. It should be noted as well that as of yet, Facebook are not asking users to give them the IDFA. If a user did want to opt-in then they would not have the choice.

The most significant effects probably won’t be felt by Facebook or any of the other advertising solutions out there, including YouTube or even Google Search. Their in-platform user graphs are going to provide them with a more resilient targeting solution. The impact is going to hit apps and other programmatic placements the worst.

An Insight into the Hardest Hit Sector by iOS 14

The impact is going to hit apps and other placement across the web the worst. It’s not that advertising is going to stop. It’s that we are going to see a decrease in the amount of power that is gained by targeting. This is of course, going to create quite a lot of inefficiencies. You may find that you are not able to control frequency capping and that you also have very poor advertisement personalisation too.

This can lead to a negative user experience. It remains to be seen how mobile app publishers are going to combat this, but they may just be able to take on more ad units to help them to recover revenue streams Capturing emails is now as crucial as ever, as the value of this form of marketing is likely to increase.

Actions you Can Take for iOS14

Facebook’s own aggregated events management option gives you the chance to measure website events from devices that have iOS 14. If you plan to update Facebook’s SDK for the IOS then this will help you to personalise your ads when they are delivered to those using this update. You can also keep on receiving app conversion information. You can do this from your Events Manager. Of course, you will need to be an app admin if you want to do this. Apple’s SKAdNetwork API is supported and this enables measurements for application installs. If you do not have this yet, now would be the time for you to explore it as an option.

iOS 14 is certainly going to change the way that people digitally market, for a number of reasons, but there are steps that you can take to ensure that you are kept up to date with your conversions.