How iOS 14’s New Privacy Feature Could Affect Your Facebook Campaigns
Apple’s new privacy feature in iOS 14 could have significant impacts on Facebook and the advertisers who use its platform.
What’s happening?
Beginning in early 2021, iOS users - aka, anyone using an iPhone or iPod Touch - will need to “opt-in” to allow mobile apps like Facebook to continue tracking their activities across other apps and websites. Currently, iOS defaults to allowing apps to track its users across the internet, and it requires a proactive opt-out to avoid tracking.
When the change takes effect, iOS users attempting to download an app will first see a prompt that describes how the app shares and tracks the user’s data. Then, if the user decides to download the app, the user will see the prompt below requiring them to opt-in or opt-out of tracking (note that “Ask App not to Track” is presented first):
Image: Apple
When is the new policy taking effect?
Apple plans to begin enforcing its new privacy policy in “early 2021,” according to an update posted to its developer site in September, in an effort to give app developers time to adjust to the change. However, the specific date in early 2021 the feature takes effect is unclear.
Why is Apple doing this?
Apple’s move is intended to shed more light on how data is shared across the internet and offer consumers more control over the extent of that sharing.
As there are currently no US laws regulating how companies track people’s data, the development is a victory for data privacy advocates and is likely the first step in a larger trend towards greater consumer protections over how their information is handled. For most individual iOS users, this will come as a welcome change (more on that below). But for Facebook, Apple’s step towards greater user privacy represents a threat to its business model.
What will the impact be on Facebook and businesses that use Facebook’s advertising platform?
Facebook believes it will likely lose revenue as a result, as its targeted advertising of iOS users will be less precise, since it will have less information on user preferences than it once did. The impact will be most acute to Facebook advertisers in the US, where iOS users constitute 51% of Facebook users. Worldwide, Apple’s share of Facebook users is only 14%, by contrast.
John Loomus offers an insightful summary on the update’s potential impact over at his Advanced Facebook Marketing blog:
“Updates to iOS 14 will lead to less tracking of people on mobile devices. This will impact the pixel and everything associated with it (conversion tracking, optimization, targeting). It will impact mobile app ads. Audience Network publishers will take a hit, and the placement may be less effective. This may even spill over to location targeting and actions performed within the Facebook app.”
In a nutshell, Facebook believes the resulting “loss of personalization” in its audience targeting will make it harder and more expensive for client businesses to reach the customers who may be most likely to convert on an ad.
What is Facebook’s response?
Facebook launched a website along with an aggressive PR campaign late last year to try to woo regulators and advertising businesses to its side. The campaigns focus on how Apple’s policy will hurt small businesses, claiming that “Apple's new iOS14 policy requires apps to show a discouraging prompt that will prohibit collecting and sharing information that's essential for personalized advertising, unless users opt-in on Apple's terms.”
Certainly, the ramifications for Facebook and its advertisers could be significant and will require close monitoring as the update rolls out over the next days or weeks.
How will iOS users react?
According to recent research, iOS users will largely opt-out of tracking, with only 16% of respondents indicating they would be likely or extremely likely to “Allow Tracking” when given the choice. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, younger respondents (18-24) were more likely to allow tracking than any other age group.
Source: TapResearch
How to Adapt Your Facebook Campaigns for iOS Users Moving Forward
Though the full impact of Apple’s update on Facebook ads is anyone’s guess, businesses who advertise on Facebook will need to keep a watchful eye on campaign performance among iOS users going forward.
Specifically, advertisers should compile or revisit device-based Facebook campaign reports to familiarize themselves with baseline metric results for iOS and Android audiences to compare with campaigns that run after the update takes effect. We recommend leveraging Facebook Ads Manager’s custom reporting to pull reporting by device type to get a sense of your audience’s historical device proportions (see the example below). You can find additional steps Facebook recommends taking here.
Sample Client Campaign Performance Report by Device Type
The Road Ahead
Facebook will still likely remain one of the most effective advertising platforms in 2021. But as public opinion continues to tilt toward increased data privacy and with the Biden Administration’s plans for greater oversight of the tech sector, marketers and businesses should plan to have a diverse portfolio of advertising options beyond Facebook to effectively reach all segments of their audience.
How to Apply Psychology + Neuroscience Insights to Digital Marketing
The recent advances in psychology and neuroscience offer a wealth of essential insights for digital marketings.
Recent advances in neuroscience and psychology have given us a clearer understanding of how the human mind works. For marketers, nonprofits, brands, or anyone looking to persuade other humans to take an action to support a cause or company, these insights offer a critical framework for designing effective creative, writing actionable ad copy, and setting winning marketing strategy in general. The key insight seems to affirm what many marketers have long suspected: ads that appeal to human emotion are typically more effective than ads that appeal to rationality. But why?
How do humans make decisions?
Although we humans have long championed the fact that we primarily use reason when making decisions, surprisingly, scientific research from the last few decades has largely overturned this assumption. Instead, the research shows that humans usually make decisions based on automatic processes like intuitions and emotions (often happening beneath our conscious awareness), and then our rational minds provide us with post hoc justifications for the judgments our intuitions have decided upon. The psychologist Johnathan Haidt uses the metaphor “The Elephant and the Rider” to describe how our intuition (the much larger and more powerful elephant) is truly in charge of our cognition and decision-making, while our logical, analytical mind (the much smaller rider) tells itself that it’s calling the shots since it holds the reigns. (1)
How are intuitions formed?
Intuitions are formed through a complex combination of our genetic makeup and our lived experience. (2) According to neuroscientist Gary Marcus, the human brain is like a book, and this book’s first draft is ‘written’ by genes during fetal development. The totality of our experience - including our relationships, environment, education, etc. - continually revises our brains. Accordingly, a person’s neural makeup, informed by genetics and experience, determines the way she responds to a particular stimulus or ad with a certain intuition or judgment over time. (3)
How does a person *decide* to act on an ad?
The science suggests that the flow of ad-based decision-making works something like this: when a prospective customer, client, or donor sees your ad, the ad’s visual elements and copy immediately trigger a subconscious response informed by that particular customer’s genes and experience (“Oooh, I should support this nonprofit!’) that the prospect will then rationalize with her conscious mind (“This organization does great work and this is a cause that’s important to me”), leading to a donation. An effective digital ad thus makes strong visual and verbal appeals to a prospective customer’s intuition, which ideally triggers a supportive action. But, as we know, creating an ad that actually sparks that supportive action in a material number of prospects is easier said than done.
Can reasoning have any effect?
Yes. Reasoning can still help shape intuitions, especially when rational points are embedded within a good story, a movie, art, or a friendly conversation, which provide an emotional foundation. (4) Additionally, some research suggests that strictly logical appeals tend to work well for advertising “essential” products, like medicine or household appliances. (5) But it is important to keep in mind that any advertisement should still attempt to make a play to a prospective customer’s emotion / intuition, even while the ad also puts forth valid justifications for the worthiness of the product or service.
Research from the nonprofit sector in particular brings some unexpected insights. Strangely, a study has shown that presenting evidence of a charity’s organizational efficacy - a solidly rational approach to soliciting contributions - can actually reduce donations in some circumstances. (6) Another study showed that purely emotional ad content outperformed both purely rational content AND content that combined emotional and rational content. (7)
Image from neurosciencemarketing.com
What does this mean for marketing?
Good marketers have long understood the value in appealing to a prospective customer’s emotions. Now, the science affirms this approach, and new insights into human decision making and conversion psychology are being uncovered every day. Brands must take a close look at how their marketing campaigns play to consumers’ emotions and intuitions to ensure they’re running effective ads.
Considerations for building an ad that activates viewers’ emotions
To build an effective ad, first consider which emotional modules you’d like to activate, whether it’s empathy (like in the heart-strings-tugging dog arthritis ad below), happiness, trust, authority, or something else. Then, run through the creative elements that can affect the ad’s emotional appeal, with an emphasis on the ad’s image. Some of these considerations include whether to use a static image, animation or video; your hero image choice; the image’s color and size; whether the person in your creative is making eye contact with the viewer; your message’s length; the diction you choose; the font color; etc. - the list goes on and on. Assessing the ad platform (Facebook, Google Search, display) bears additional thought, with research on tracking eye movements, for example, shedding new light on how consumers actually view or ignore ads depending on the digital context. (8) Studies have also shown that certain demographics may respond to ads differently, so it’s imperative to do your homework to know what makes your target audience ‘click,’ and then to design your creative from there. (9)
Image from The Psychology of Facebook Ads
Take the time to consider how the combination of your ad’s visual aesthetic and its carefully-crafted message might play to the intuitions of your target audience. Is your law firm looking to attract new clients? Consider how using the color blue in your ad might imbue a calming effect that suggests a steady hand to guide clients through a difficult time. (10) Are you a nonprofit pursuing online donations now that the pandemic that has rendered in-person fundraising infeasible? Think about the images that best appeal to your top online donor demographics based on available research and design a rigorous test to see what works.
No matter the domain, keeping a watchful eye on the latest discoveries in human psychology and neuroscience will be required for any brand or nonprofit looking to run successful ad campaigns through 2021 and beyond.
References:
1) J. Haidt, The Righteous Mind, 2012, p. 45
2) Haidt, p. 130
3) G. Marcus, The Birth of the Mind, 2004, p. 40
4) Haidt, p. 71
5) P. Inman, “Psychology of Advertising,” 5/1/2019
6) C. Fiennes, “Presenting assessments of a charity’s performance doesn’t necessarily increase donations,” 2/17/2015
7) R. Dooley, “Emotional Ads Work Best,” 7/27/2009
8) E. Higgins, “Eye Movements when Viewing Advertisements,” March 2014
9) T. Tiechert, How to Implement Informational and Emotional Appeals in Print Advertisements, 9/1/2018
10) H. van Braam, “The Color Psychology of Blue,” 10/9/2020
Image courtesy of Decision Making: Factors that Influence Decision Making, Heuristics Used, and Decision Outcomes