The Rise of Anti-Tracking Facebook Ads: How Entrepreneurs Can Adapt

I logged into my Facebook ads manager today and was greeted with this:

In short, this means the new Apple iOS 14 is limiting how Facebook receives and process conversion events from tools like the Facebook pixel.

It will be much harder:

• For small businesses to compete with bigger businesses in Facebook ads because there will be an increase in cost per action due to an overall decrease in ad performance with the new limitations. (Meaning the less budget you have, the less likely you will see any performance.)

• To reach those who have engaged with your page again because engagement is no longer tracked as effectively as it is now.

• To understand certain customers, including conversions and reactions to personalized ads.

• To have your ads be delivered to the most relevant audiences at the right frequency due to the limitations on tracking.

• To accurately predict and allocate budget due to the inability to measure performance.

How Facebook is countering iOS14's anti-tracking Facebook Ads

What are anti-tracking Facebook ads?

Anti-tracking Facebook ads are designed to protect user privacy by preventing advertisers from tracking users across multiple websites. These ads use a unique identifier that resets every 24 hours, making it difficult for advertisers to track users over an extended period of time.

Fast Fact

One way to overcome the limitations of anti-tracking Facebook ads is to focus on building strong relationships with your audience. By creating quality content and engaging with your followers, you can foster a loyal community that is more likely to engage with your brand organically.

Key takeaway

It's important for entrepreneurs to be aware of the changes to Facebook's policies and to adapt their marketing strategies accordingly. This may mean exploring other platforms or finding new ways to reach their target audience on Facebook. By staying flexible and exploring new options, entrepreneurs can continue to use Facebook as a valuable tool for reaching their target audience.

As more people can opt-out of tracking on iOS 14 devices based on the new AppTrackingTransparency framework by Apple, the tracking of both app and web conversion events will be limited. The magic pixel tool which a lot of us use as the key element for retargeting and driving potential leads down the funnel will become obsolete.

To counter that, Facebook will be releasing their Aggregated Event Measurement, but this will require domain verification to configure pixel conversion events. Even so, your pixel may only optimize for a maximum of 8 conversion events for each domain. This means marketers should start looking into moving their strategy to top-funnel objectives such as landing page views and link clicks instead. All of these will affect custom audiences, attribution, and dynamic ads. Click here for more information.

Ways to counter anti-tracking as a brand

Apart from having a more widespread, omnichannel marketing approach, the key is to ace your content. There is nothing else you can rely on better than to create content that has organic attraction. This is where your always-on content will play a key role in your marketing strategy.

Like I have mentioned before, now is the best time to get into content marketing.

"Without cookies, highly targeted and segmented digital advertising is still possible - in fact, it's better! That's because it's forcing us to rely more on first-party data, AKA the data your customers share with you willingly (think: using their email addresses, or retargeting people from your website). This is a way better way to target your audiences, because not only are you reaching them in highly-targeted ways, but you're also building trust in your relationship by only using the data they want you to. So the key to cookieless survival is going to be first-party data."

- Terminus, First-party Data Is The New Hero

If your brand relies heavily on PPC, or you do not have a solid content strategy, you are definitely in trouble. May it be this new Apple update or any other upcoming changes with Facebook, any company should be placing all their efforts on building their inbound marketing framework. Even I may not be able to continue to achieve such a high ROI for my clients soon.

Don't hesitate any more and schedule a free 30-minute diagnosis session with me below or shoot me an email at joyce@stuvvz.com to prepare your brand before paid social is no longer effective for you.