Atomic Enrollment – Growth Partners for Education Companies, Trade Schools, Vocational Training, Coaching

iOS14.5 is Here – Will Paid Ads Still Work for Enrollments?

It’s official. It’s happening. And it will affect your ads. On April 26, Apple rolled out a long-awaited privacy feature for iOS. 

Since 2012, apps developed for iOS have used an Identifier for Advertising (IDFA) to conduct tracking across different websites and apps. With the App Tracking Transparency feature, however, apps will need users’ permission to access a user’s IDFA before conducting tracking, which could include collecting user data to sell to data brokers or linking a user’s app data with third-party data that was collected in order to target ads. 

 

1. Advertising for Mobile Apps & E-Commerce Companies are the Most SCREWED 

In May 2018, Apple introduced a concept called the ‘SKAdNetwork’ API. One of the main reasons behind coming up with this concept was to increase the privacy of users who installed mobile apps. 

Well, now that it’s 2021, and the SKAdNetwork API is no longer just a concept. It’s a reality that will affect the way you use Facebook Ads. 

Going forward, the SKAdNetwork API will be used by Facebook for app advertising on all iOS 14 devices, and this will either restrict, aggregate, or delay all app event data. 

For example, when it comes to campaign management, event data will be restricted to a maximum of nine campaigns and five ad sets per campaign for every Facebook Ads account. 

Verdict- facebook will have an extremely hard time tracking any data inside mobile apps or websites not of its own. 

 

2. Measuring Data Inside Facebook Ads Dashboard 

The new default attribution window will make measurement a bit complicated as it will contribute to under-reporting on organic as well as paid channels. You should also expect an increase in dark social traffic. ( when people privately share content on social media which makes it harder to track. Dark traffic has always been there, but the new iOS update might contribute to its increment.) 

When it comes to ad reporting data, there will be a three-day delay on data display for the data that comes from iOS 14.5 users. This is because of Apple’s PCM (Private Click Measurement) protocol. As explained above, PCM can restrict and delay data access. 

Limited data could make running ads a little inconvenient to advertisers. For example, clients will only be able to see a few reported conversions, and sadly, the conversion event breakdowns would not even exist. 

Verdict – this isn’t really a problem as long as you set up the conversion API to pass back the end result data (ie. purchase or lead created) back into Facebook. 

 

How to Win Even Bigger in this iOS14.5 Environment with Paid Ads 

CONTENT FIRST AD STRATEGIES – YOU CAN STILL TRACK ALL THE ACTIONS PROSPECTS TOOK INSIDE FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM , YOUTUBE, AND LINKEDIN. Retargetable actions are: clicked on an ad, visited your page, saved your ad, commented on an ad, shared an ad, watched specific videos, and how long they watched specific videos. In our experience, video retargeting generates the highest ROI because you can retarget exact videos and how long they watched the video. Please reach out to us to hear our exact content first ad strategies such as the Fly Trap. We’ve implemented content first ad strategies for over a year now in light of these upcoming pixel changes and generate on average 5x+ ROAs for our clients. 

 

Actions to take on your website right now – focus on more opportunities to capture a prospect’s contact information once they land on your site since you’ll no longer be able to retarget them with ads via your pixel. An ebook or a book list is always a good idea for a lead magnet for educational organizations.