iOS 14 Impact on Google Ads

iOS 14 has dropped and both businesses and marketers are panicking about the performance of their Google Ads. You might be reading this very article because you’re looking at Google Analytics wondering where it all went wrong. Normally, drops in performance are temporary and slight adjustments help fix the issue. However, this time it’s an external change that has caused all the problems.

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Marketers and businesses are worried, and we’re going to explain why in this guide. While most people are focusing on Facebook and other social campaigns, Google also has yet to escape Apple’s clutches after this update.

iOS 14 — Why Does it Matter?

If you’re like most people, the extent of your attention on Apple updates includes the changes on your phone from time to time. The company might release some security improvements, some aesthetic changes, and then the obligatory new apps. On the contrary, iOS 14 has a completely different feel (don’t worry, this same feeling is experienced by even experienced marketers too!).

Read More: How iOS 14 Changes Affect FB Ads for In-House Marketing Teams

What makes the iOS 14 update different from all its predecessors? Three main components have captured the attention more than others:

1. App Privacy Details

Consumers using an Apple device now get more details about the information collected by specific apps. Available for all apps, users can see not only what information is collected but also why and how the information is used. Therefore, they can make more informed decisions and take a proactive approach with regard to their privacy.

2. ITP

You may have also seen people talking about ITP — this is short for Intelligent Tracking Prevention. Previously, this was a feature for all those using Safari. Now, Apple will expand it so that it works across Chrome and all iOS WebKit browsers.

3. ATT

By far the biggest change, ATT is short for App Tracking Transparency and has huge consequences for advertisers. Simply put, it requires all apps on the App Store to request permission from users to track behavior and activity. For example, let’s say that a user downloads a new swimming app to help with their front crawl when they’re in the pool. After downloading, the first launch will lead to a message. This message will ask for permission to track activity and behavior across other apps and websites.

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When faced with this message, users will either choose to allow tracking or reject it. Typically, the message suggests that allowing tracking encourages more personalized ad experiences.

At long last (at least from the consumer perspective), users of iOS devices have an option to stop tracking and regain control over their privacy. Of course, this has caused nightmares for advertisers. It’s the change that most people thought would eventually come but were sticking their heads into the sand to avoid.

What does this mean for Google Ads? If a user doesn’t agree with tracking and doesn’t want to offer their activity and behavior information to an app, they tap against tracking. Despite rejecting tracking, they enjoy the app, click on an ad, and then buy a product. Because they rejected tracking in the first place, the conversion event isn’t linked back to the campaign.

As a result, your campaign performance might look poor not because it isn’t generating results, but because conversions aren’t attributed to ad campaigns. Suddenly, Google only gets the conversion data for the people who are allowing tracking with the apps (the apps used within the respective campaigns). If the early statistics are to be believed, this is just four in ten people.

Likewise, ITP is causing issues for Google Ads because not everybody converts immediately. As an example, let’s say that a user searches using iOS Search. After clicking on an ad, they decide to wait a couple of days before converting. Even if the person eventually converts it will not be reported as part of the ad campaign.

Read More: How to Optimize Google Ads in 2021

Other Issues for Google Advertisers

Consequently, incorrect reporting is the first problem encountered by Google advertisers. You might end up deleting an ad that is performing really well just because you aren’t seeing over half of the conversion events. When an ad performs poorly, you don’t know if this is down to ATT or something you’re doing wrong.

However, this isn’t the only problem for Google advertisers. As noted, they can no longer track people who tap against tracking. As well as affecting ongoing campaigns, this impacts new campaigns too. Why? Because you cannot get vital insights into your audience. This includes:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Parental status

You also can’t see the actions they take when browsing apps and websites. Google has always relied on the free movement of data so that advertisers can narrow down targeting within ad campaigns. Especially with interest-based targeting, we aim to advertise to people with a specific interest. It’s a low-risk strategy because all the users in this audience have already shown interest in the topic.

For the most part, Search Campaigns are immune from the iOS 14 update. Sadly, the same can’t be said for Discovery, Display, and YouTube campaigns. With reduced data, it’s harder to reach out to such a large group of people. If you can’t access demographics and behavior data, how can you know whether somebody fits into a group or not?

Just in case this wasn’t enough of a problem for marketers, match rates are decreasing with Customer Lists and the size of remarketing audiences is shrinking.

Therefore, you can see how more control for consumers creates new problems for advertisers. Reporting is inaccurate, we know less about our audience, and remarketing audiences are smaller. We also need to consider the likelihood of Android users getting a similar feature. Users have already called for an alternative to ATT, and Google has been forced to respond by promising them more information about how tracking works with each app.

Read More: Why CPA is Increasing Following iOS 14

Solutions for Marketers

You didn’t just think that we would explain all the problems and then leave you to the madness, did you? Read this last section if you need advice on navigating this new environment!

Choose a Path

First, you need to decide whether you’re going to ask users for their permission with an ATT prompt. If you choose against it, you’ll immediately lose access to the IDFA, which causes issues with retargeting and various other aspects of marketing on Google. If you do want to offer the prompt to users, play around with the message and see what language and tone bring the highest opt-in rate.

The jobs of marketing professionals just got harder because they now need to convince people to allow the tracking of their activity and behavior information. Test different messages and find the one that generates the best results. By doing this, you limit the damage caused by ATT as much as possible.

Move Away from tROAS

Google has already advised marketers to choose the tCPA (target cost per action) bid strategy rather than the tROAS (target return on ad spend) strategy. As well as helping with scaling, you should notice a more consistent performance with this simple switch.

Use the Global Site Tag

You can also help the measurement of conversions (app-to-web) by implementing the global site tag. Google Tag Manager is simple to use, and it offers more control over first-party data. It should also offer more protection should future changes come in the advertising industry.

Focus on First-Party Data

Speaking of first-party data, this must be the focus for your marketing team in the coming weeks and months. The reason this iOS 14 update is so problematic is that most advertisers still rely so heavily on third-party data. Although this won’t come as a surprise, the whole industry has been moving away from third-party data and cookies for many years. The longer you wait to adapt, the harder each of these changes will hit. Even Google is removing cookie tracking from its Chrome browser in 2022.

With a database owned by the business, you’re not at the mercy of external industry changes. Gather as much data as possible through social media, your app and website, email campaigns, surveys, and more. As you start to build first-party data, you can rely on this to inform Lookalike Audiences and Customer Lists instead.

Use an External AI Tool

Finally, you should also think about using an advanced AI tool because this helps you to get around iOS 14 while also saving your marketing team lots of time. These tools use artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate insights (even after iOS 14) and implement them automatically to optimize Google campaigns. You should see improvements to targeting, bidding, budgeting, and other areas with little action required for the marketing team itself.

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