By Moses Nosike

A digital marketing expert, the CEO, Digital Marketing Skill Institute, Tobi Asehinde has critically responded the effect of a recently announced Apple update to IOS 14. He said, “like every other products, changes must occur and could come in form of an update for an existing product.

The young CEO continues by saying that this change will have an effect on digital marketing especially for small and large scale businesses that run Facebook advertising. He recalls that in May 2018, Apple introduced what they call the ‘SKAdNetwork’ API, majorly to increase the privacy of users who install mobile apps. “In 2021, this API is no longer a concept, it has now become a reality that is here to stay and this reality is what will affect the way Facebook Ads is being used.

According to him, this API will restrict, or delay app event data that you won’t be able to access the data of Facebook users who installed the app on IOS 14. “These changes will also affect the way in which Facebook receives and processes conversion events from tools like the Facebook pixel.

The way it works is that data of every user, their comments, the pages they visit and every other useful data that can be used for campaigns won’t be available and even when they eventually be, it would be with the permission of the users. Again, this will actually affect the target audience feature in facebook ads as you may not have data to show who targets your ads at.

However, from the point of Apple, this move of theirs is meant to protect their users privacy and so before you can access a user’s data, the user must give you permission which is unlike before where you can access every Facebook user’s data and target your ADs at them.

Furthermore, Apple requires that all apps in the playstore show a prompt to its users on IOS devices that request for permission from the user for the app to track them outside the platform.

Tobi further said that some of the ways to still move on with Facebook Ads in preparation of the actualization of this new update and even after the update has been effected is for businesses to

exempt IOS devices from campaigns that have conversion objectives. “As much as this might not be a perfect solution, it still helps to get insight into what to expect when the update finally takes effect”.

Continuing, Tobi advised users to verify domain name with facebook, find alternatives to cookie tracking, and focus on strategic alliances with innovative data products that provide advertisers with privacy and safe access to data with events tied to various user IDs for ID management.

In his final words, he said “One of the things you should also consider as a business owner is to be open to change and innovations, and when it happens be swift to develop new strategies to get the best out of it”