The short answer is the changes to Apple IOS14 will only affect marketers for Apps on Facebook… the long answer is….
Firstly, in terms of Apple crippling the IDFA there’s always been contention around privacy ever since Facebook changed their algorithm to display user behaviour on feeds rather than reverse chronological – from that moment social media users realised they were being watched.
Apple has always been protective of privacy (when it doesn’t suit them) so I’m not surprised that Apple has come up with a way to stifle marketers on this one.One thing that happens is when we do a search on an apple device rather than an android – the prices change.
When someone looks at something on an apple device some algorithms are set to increase the prices for them – it’s stereotyping that’s used all over the internet by marketers and a particularly sinister one IMO so I hope this new tech will stop that or at least minimise it. But it doesn’t look like it will in my research.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s been changes like this happening across the internet for some time now. Have you noticed how almost every website you go to gives you a notification and ‘opt in’ for them to track you?
This change has been rolling out across the internet in some countries due to global governments stepping in to control the internet in some small way… good luck to them haha.Now, it’s been possible for people to limit their ad tracking for years now – on all devices. And by moving this feature Apple is merely responding to market trends where a massive increase to Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) has been going on for Apple user mobiles.
By crippling IDFA, Apple is helping Apple users to be less targeted because the reality is, Apple users are targeted by marketers above android users (again because of stereotyping).
Although unless you’re an app marketer using your app data to find new customers through retargeting this shouldn’t effect you because that’s really what the IDFA does.
Also note that in developing the SKAdNetwork Apple isn’t stopping the data collected from an ad they’re just removing the personal information (also they’re controlling that information but Data is money these days so…). So the retargeting that’s happening in reality is purely where the mobile ID for a user is needed to assess if your ad campaign is working +retargeting to the user that clicked on that add (but for an app).
But, again, this tech would only apply to app marketers.
Essentially, though, I don’t think this change would effect regular small business marketers (unless it’s an app of course) because our ad targeting is based on stereotyping behaviours – sad but true. FB has more data on the human species than any app on the planet (possibly rivalling Google but that’s a rabbit hole).
In short – I wouldn’t worry.
