Facebook Updates Ads Platform to Mitigate iOS14+ Reporting Losses

Facebook continues to try to strike a balance between honoring user privacy and providing advertisers with accurate reporting following Apple’s iOS14 update. 

Most recently, they have made some changes to their Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) feature as well as other areas to help improve campaign reporting from those using Apple devices. 

If you’re an affiliate using Facebook Ads to acquire traffic, it’s possible that these updates may improve your overall reporting metrics.

Let’s look more closely at the specific changes.

What is Aggregated Event Management?

Aggregated Event Management is essentially Facebook’s way of mitigating the impact iOS14 has had on their reporting. It allows them (to a degree) to still measure web events from Apple users. However, there are a limited number of campaign optimization pixel conversion events available to advertisers.

Here’s Facebook official description of AEM: 

Facebook’s Aggregated Event Measurement is a protocol that allows for measurement of web events from iOS 14 users… Our solution is analogous to Apple’s Private Click Measurement, but is designed to solve for key advertiser use cases not addressed by Apple’s proposal.

Newly Introduced Reporting and Measurement Features 

Here’s a full list of the most recent reporting-related changes and their purpose: 

• Third-Party Domain Reporting: Advertisers will be able to access reporting for ads that auto-redirect to domains they do not own. This is a first-time feature for the platform. 

• Improved Aggregated Event Measurement: New changes to AEM aim to make it easier for advertisers to understand which ads are responsible for specific conversions like app installs and purchases. 

• View-through attribution now default: Any new web campaigns with new web events will have view-through attribution automatically enabled. This feature helps to identify Facebook users that will eventually generate a conversion for advertisers without actually clicking on an ad. 

• Simplified Conversions API Set-Up: Facebook’s conversions API connects advertisers’ marketing data to Facebook’s ad platform to assist in ad optimization. The hope is that advertisers will take advantage of this feature which its set-up now simplified.

Facebook and many of those using its ad platform have struggled to find the same level of campaign success they were achieving prior to the iOS14+ update. This new round of updates re-introduces some reporting elements in hopes of providing new data that can help advertisers regain their previous form.