Businesses that advertise mobile apps, as well as those that optimize, target and report on web conversion events from any of Facebook business tools will be affected.

Specifically, Apple will begin to require that all apps in the App Store show a prompt to users on iOS 14 devices, in accordance with their AppTrackingTransparency framework.

Apple’s policy will prohibit certain data collection and sharing unless people opt into tracking on iOS 14 devices via the prompt. As more people opt-out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, ads personalization and performance reporting will be limited for both app and web conversion events.

In response to these changes, Facebook will also start processing pixel conversion events from iOS 14 devices using Aggregated Event Measurement. This will support your efforts to preserve user privacy and help you run effective campaigns.

Asking Permission to Track

Starting with iOS 14.5, iPadOS 14.5, and tvOS 14.5, Facebook and other social media networks will need to receive the user’s permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework to track them or access their device’s advertising identifier.

Tracking refers to the act of linking user or device data collected from your app with user or device data collected from other companies’ apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Tracking also refers to sharing user or device data with data brokers.

Here are a few important things you MUST know if you plan to deliver ads optimized for conversion events that occur on your business’s website:

Ad Creation Limitations

Your pixel may only optimize for a maximum of 8 conversion events for each domain. Facebook will initially configure the conversion events they believe are the most relevant to your business based on your activity.

All other events will be made inactive for campaign optimization and reporting. You will be able to manage your preferences in Events Manager. When you create your ad set you’ll choose only one of the 8 designated conversion events to optimize for.

Ad sets that were optimizing for a pixel conversion event that is no longer available, will be turned off. In advance of this limitation, consider if changes will need to be made to your campaign or measurement strategy. You may need to consider if you’ll be required to optimize for upper funnel objectives like landing page views and link clicks.

New Delivery Statuses

The Delivery column of Ads Manager is where you can check the status of your campaign, ad set or ad and find information about any problems. To help you understand the impact of ad creation limitations, Facebook introduced the new delivery statuses to Ads Manager.

The following statuses apply exclusively to website event conversion campaigns:

• Unsupported Event: When you try to optimize for a website conversion event that you haven’t set as one of the 8 prioritized website conversion events for your domain, your campaign’s ad set will be turned off. It can’t be turned on again. You’ll need to create a new ad set for the relevant campaign and choose one of the events you’ve already prioritized with Events Manager. To run a similar ad set to the one that was turned off you can duplicate the ad set, edit the website conversion event and publish the new ad set.

• Setup Error: When there is no domain associated with a pixel event pair and your ad, that ad will be turned off. You’ll need to edit your ad or configure a pixel event pair in Events Manager to resolve this error. To turn this ad back on, either select a new domain for your ad or configure a pixel event pair for your domain in Events Manager.

• Updating Events: When you, or someone who manages your account, updates your conversion events in Events Manager or imports a new conversion schema from a partner app, your ad sets or campaigns may be paused. It takes 72 hours until the update is complete. Once the update is complete, you can turn on your paused campaign. Please note that paused campaigns won’t restart on their own after the changes are applied.

Reporting Limitations:

Under Apple’s new policy, businesses will be limited in their ability to measure the performance of some web conversion events. The following limitations are expected across Ads Manager, Ads Reporting, and the Ads Insights API.

• Delayed reporting: Real-time reporting will not be supported, and data may be delayed up to 3 days. Web conversion events will be reported based on the time the conversions occur and not the time of the associated ad impressions.

• Estimated results: For web conversion events, statistical modeling may be used to account for conversions from iOS 14 users.

• No support for breakdowns: Web conversions, delivery and action breakdowns, such as age, gender, region, and placement will not be supported.

• Changes to account attribution window settings: Going forward, 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through, and 7-day view-through attribution windows will not be supported for active campaigns.

After these changes take effect, except for iOS 14 app install campaigns and automated rules, the default 7-day click attribution window can be modified by you to one of the other windows that are still supported. The following windows will be supported under the new attribution setting:

• 1-day click
• 7-day click (default after Apple prompt enforcement)
• 1-day click and 1-day view
• 7-day click and 1-day view (initial default)

Targeting Limitations:

As more people opt out of tracking on iOS 14 devices, the size of your app connections, app activity Custom Audiences, and website Custom Audiences may decrease.

Dynamic Ads Limitations:

As more devices update to iOS 14, the size of your retargeting audiences may decrease.

If you plan to deliver dynamic ads for your business’s website:

• Set up your catalog to use only one pixel. Your pixel will only report and optimize for a maximum of 8 conversion events for each domain. Facebook will initially configure the conversion events we believe are the most relevant to your business based on your activity. All other events will be made inactive for campaign optimization and reporting. You can manage your preferences in Events Manager. When you create your ad set you’ll choose only one of the 8 designated conversion events to optimize for.

Actions you can take to prepare

Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement allows for measurement of web events from iOS 14 devices. Here is what you can do to prepare so that you can continue to deliver and measure the performance of your campaigns.

If you plan to deliver ads optimized for conversion events that occur on your business’s website:

• You may need to verify your website’s domain to help avoid any future disruption of your website campaigns. Domain verification must be done for the effective top level domain plus one (eTLD+1). For example, for www.books.jasper.co.uk, books.jasper.co.uk and jasper.co.uk the eTLD+1 domain is jasper.co.uk.
  Domain verification should be prioritized for domains with pixels used by multiple businesses or personal ad accounts. This will enable you to configure pixel conversion events when Aggregated Event Measurement becomes available.

• Configure 8 preferred web conversion events per domain in Events Manager. Aggregated Event Measurement limits domains to 8 conversion events that can be used for campaign optimization. Facebook will initially configure the conversion events we believe are the most relevant to your business based on your activity. All other events will be made inactive for campaign optimization and reporting.