What the new iOS Update means for Estate Agents…

It’s fair to say that within the last few months there has been a lot of talk over how the new iOS14 update will affect Facebook ads and the different industries that rely upon it. As a company that uses and offers Facebook ads as a service ourselves, we have also had to do our research and adapt to the changes to allow us to keep optimising and creating campaigns for Estate Agents worldwide.

What does the new iOS14 update mean?

The new iOS14 policy will restrict certain data collection and sharing unless the person opts into tracking via the prompt. This will impact the way in which Facebook is able to receive and process conversation events from tools such as the Facebook pixel. We have listed below a few issues that will arise if the user elects to opt-out of the tracking:

• If Facebook is unable to track user behaviour the effectiveness of the tracking pixel is reduced.
• Weakened Targeting Options, meaning the ability to create super personalised ads to certain audiences may be restricted.
• Due to having less targeting options not only will your ads be less personalised but you will also potentially have wasted ad spend.

Over 98.3% of Facebook users use ‘any kind of mobile device’ to access Facebook, with a large percentage of those using an iOS device. Although some of the iOS users will agree to allow the app to track their data, there will be a large percentage who won’t, potentially leaving you not being able to directly target campaigns to a large percentage of your audience. 

If a user opts to ‘ask app not to track’ this will impact your agency in the way that your pixel will no longer be able to track that user and therefore you will not be able to deliver personalised ads to this customer. This will have a large impact on campaigns such as retargeting where you will no longer be able to target catalogue based ads based on properties/pages they have previously engaged with. 

How to give yourself a head start…

As an agency, if you plan to deliver dynamic ads for your business’s website you may need to have a few things in place to avoid any disruption.

• Verify your website’s domain, if you use multiple domains throughout your catalogue, you will need to verify each website domain that you use as a product URL. Facebook also recommends avoiding using any product URLs that redirect to another domain.
• Another recommendation from Facebook is that you only use one pixel per catalogue and domain. If you are using more than one pixel they may not be able to accurately capture and optimize for conversation events you care about the most.

Although the new iOS14 update may have an impact on your campaigns with the conversation objective, you can still utilise the awareness and consideration campaigns to ensure your marketing efforts are still as effective as always. 
If this is something that will potentially affect you as an agency or just something you would like more information on, feel free to contact us and we will be happy to discuss with you the potential positive and negative impacts this could have on your agency.