iOS 14: the beginning of a paradigm shift in digital advertising measurement

In September last year, Apple launched version 14 of its operating system: iOS 14 has arrived. Consequently, a new reality has arrived regarding the data shared by users with digital platforms. With this new update, Apple has strengthened privacy options and users can refuse the tracking of their activity between applications directly through a notification.

What has changed in iOS 14?

Apple uses an IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) code, present since iOS 6, which allows advertisers to collect information about users. Until the last update, the function to limit the tracking of this “digital license plate” that the apple company randomly assigns to its devices, was already enabled. However, it was necessary to dive into the terminal’s settings. Now, the system displays a message to the user when an application wants to access its data.

How does this change affect Facebook’s advertising environment?

Analyzing it from the perspective of Zuckerberg’s social network, this new situation has brought three main changes for advertisers:

• Decrease in the number of conversion events that can be created. Only a maximum of 8 can be measured per domain, which will also have to be prioritized in order of importance. These events will have to be under a domain verified by Facebook, which can be configured within Business Manager.
• Audience reduction. This will occur both in the case of prospecting and retargeting, since it will not be possible to target users who do not accept follow-up on the platform.
• The limitation of the visibility of part of the total Facebook audience will have as a direct consequence a decrease in the measurement of conversions. Added to this fact is the change made by the platform months ago (in anticipation of this moment) to the attribution window . Thus, it is now seven days after click and one day after impression or display, compared to the 28 days it used to operate before.

What solutions are proposed by advertising platforms?

Continuing with the case of Facebook, whose pixel is responsible for tracking the user on the web. With the changes of iOS 14, it will stop measuring your activity if there is no consent. The solution is to do this tracking from the web server and send the information directly to the Facebook server. This connection, called server to server, is done through the Conversion API. The latter no longer depends on third-party cookies, which will disappear in the near future in response to user demands for greater privacy of their Internet activity.

Against this backdrop of gradually increasing user privacy on the Internet and reduced visibility of their activity, digital advertising platforms will shift their strategy towards direct measurement with advertisers’ websites. It should be noted that this is a progressive change. Consequently, measurement based on the user cookie and server-to-server will coexist. However, for the digital ecosystem to continue to function and be attractive to brands, it is important that advertisers, agencies and publishers adopt the necessary measures to be able to correctly measure user activity.