How iOS 14 Affects Your Facebook Ads and Ecommerce

Apple’s iOS 14 has brought sweeping changes to Facebook Advertising. These latest changes have big implications for all Facebook Advertisers, and their Ecommerce. What has changed? What does it mean for your facebook ad campaigns? We'll cover all of that, and provide the 5 action items you need to take today in order to keep your campaigns rolling.

Why iOS 14 Matters to Facebook Ads

Apple’s latest iOS update includes new steps towards protecting more of our data. Facebook Ads' changes center around one update in particular. Whenever an Apple user installs a new app, they will be shown a pop up where they can choose to let the app track their activity across the web and other apps. Apple also introduced new app tracking settings, so users can tell certain apps to stop tracking their activity.

On the surface, you might think “Well what does that have to do with running Facebook Ads?” The answer is, it has everything to do with Facebook Ads. Without going too far down a rabbit hole, Facebook’s whole ad platform is valuable because of the incredible amount of data they have on their users. Because the Facebook Pixel is installed on an incredible number of websites online, Facebook can use that data to get a clearer picture of who their users are, what they like, and what they might like next. The more data Facebook has on a user, the more accurate they can be with what ads are shown to them. The more accurate the ad placements are, the better the ads perform. The better the ads perform, the more businesses will want to spend. This iOS update gives each user the opportunity to slow down Facebook's ability to gather that data.

5 Steps To Combat The iOS 14 Facebook Ad Changes

The details of Apple’s change don’t matter too much. What matters is how Facebook has responded, and what it means for those of us running ads on their platform. This is not the end of the line for Facebook Ads. But there are some new limitations that you need to be aware of. So, let’s cut to the chase. Here are the 5 big action items every advertiser needs to do right now, to make sure these recent iOS 14 Facebook Ad changes don't torpedo your campaigns.

1: Verify Your Domain(s) With Facebook

Step number one is simple, go verify your domains. If you want to run traffic through Facebook Ads, they want you to prove you own the domain. There’s some debate about wether verifying your domain is going to become a requirement for every ad account. But this recommended step is becoming much more important. Some users have even reported that they were unable to create new campaigns until their domain was verified.

This is an especially big problem for anyone using a third party tool for their ecommerce. If your retargeting ads are sending people to a domain you don't own, then how can you verify the domain? Thankfully, if you’re using SamCart, we’ve already added a new feature that helps you verify your SamCart subdomain (ex: subdomain.SamCart.com). So you can continue running traffic to all of your offers without interruption. To verify your subdomain, click over to our Help Article for Facebook Ad Conversion Tracking, and scroll down to our latest FAQ at the bottom. However, verifying a subdomain is really only a quick "band-aid" solution. If you only verify a subdomain, Facebook won't let you optimize for specific conversion events. That ability is reserved for top-level domains (ex: domain.com) that is verified inside of your Facebook Ad account. So the next step should be to add a Custom Domain to your SamCart account. Then verify that domain inside of your Facebook Ad dashboard. And don’t forget, you can add multiple Custom Domains to any SamCart account! Technically, you can add unlimited custom domains. But who's counting? Add your own domain to SamCart, get it verified in your Facebook Ads account, and you’ll be all set to optimize campaigns for specific conversion events. Which will keep the new orders flowing in.

2: Limit Your Conversion Events

Facebook is now limiting you to 8 conversion events per verified domain. Now, you can still create more than 8 events in your ad account. However, you can only optimize a campaign from a list of 8 conversion events. Meaning, when you create a campaign, you’re now going to tell Facebook which of the 8 events you want to optimize for. If other event you created happen, they can still track correctly in your Facebook Ad reports. But when it comes to optimizing a campaign for something, you are limited to 8 events. Facebook even added a place where you can rank your 8 events by priority. Which of course naturally brings up memories of kicking someone out of your Top 8 in MySpace.

3: Adjust To Shorter Attribution Window

Facebook has limited the click attribution window from 28 days down to 7 days. And the view attribution is also down to just a single day! The bottom line here is you will see fewer conversions tracked back to your ads. That’s a massive change, carrying the biggest real-world implications for your own Ecommerce. With this shorter attribution window, smart business owners will be changing behaviors and pushing their new visitors the right events within the first 7 days after someone clicks an ad. If someone joins your mailing list, and finally buys something 8 days later, you’ll have no idea that sale came from a Facebook Ad campaign! Keep this shortened attribution window in mind when you are deciding what new visitors will receive after clicking on an ad. Maybe don’t wait before presenting them with an offer to buy!

4: SamCart's Smart Conversion Tracking

Facebook Ads' tracking is about to become a lot less reliable. They will be able to report on fewer conversion events, that happen in a shorter period of time, with less ability to track each user. So there has never been a more important time for intelligent tracking, like SamCart's Smart Conversion Tracking.

SamCart can track each customer's individual order, down to the penny. So no matter what combination of products, order bumps, one click upsells or downsells each individual buys, SamCart can report those purchases back to Facebook. It can even dynamically tell Facebook exactly how much each customer has spent. So you are tracking every single dollar back to the ad that created it. If you'd like to see this in action, here's a link to our full Help Article about tracking Facebook Ads conversion events with SamCart.

5: Implement UTM Tracking with SamCart

Even veteran advertisers can be unfamiliar with UTM Tracking. But it's a powerful tool to help you understand where your sales are coming from (aka "Attribution"). The concept behind SamCart's built-in UTM tracking is pretty simple. Add UTM Parameters to your links, and SamCart captures those parameters when an order is placed. You can then use the SamCart Traffic Report to look at your captured UTMs.

You can quickly see exactly which blog posts, emails, sidebar banners, social media posts, etc. are generating the most sales. A great way to make up for the lost ground in Facebook's new attribution limits.

Try SamCart For Free Today

When you're spending money on paid traffic every day, you can't afford to miss sales. If you're stuck using an Ecommerce tool that doesn't give you the ability to track your sales, more accurately measure your campaigns, and maximize your profits, then get your free SamCart account today. Optimize your Facebook Ad campaigns with powerful features like the Traffic Report, UTM Tracking, Smart Conversion Tracking, and SamCart's Google Ecommerce integration. Plus, you can partner all these tracking and analytics tools with everything SamCart does to boost your conversions and maximize your average order value. If you’re not quite sure if SamCart is right for you yet, head over to the SamCart Homepage and check out our full Demo. See why over 14,000 businesses trust their Ecommerce to SamCart…having sold more than $1.7 Billion of their own courses, ebooks, memberships, and more.

If you qualify, you can even speak with a real member of our team about how SamCart can help you grow. Get help setting up your account, and get the personal service you deserve. Get the right tools for optimizing your Facebook Advertising. No matter what changes Facebook might make, SamCart puts you in control.