IOS 14.5 - The Aftermath

The Problem

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The iOS14.5 update that took place in April 2021 needs no introduction to the advertising community. 

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96% of iPhone users opted out of app tracking after the update was released. What followed was a massive loss of data, less accurate retargeting, awful attribution, and above all, dropping ROAS across nearly all ad accounts. These things were and still are commonplace across the board. Not to mention the fact that Meta shares are down over 40% since the update at the time of writing. A truce has yet to be declared in this war of Privacy between Meta and Apple. 

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Business owners and agencies alike have been scrambling for solutions over the last year to get their results back to how they were. All of this begs the question: what can advertisers do on their end to make their results profitable again? 

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Blended - A Potential Solution?

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The use of blended figures seemed like the most logical way forward initially. Less purchase data was being made available to Facebook so in-platform metrics weren’t telling the full story. Therefore it made sense to take a “Total Revenue divided by Total Ad Spend” approach to advertising rather than rely on unreliable data. 

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However, this still doesn’t give the full picture. Anyone who advertises seriously on Facebook or any platform knows how important it is to be able to know exactly where your purchases are coming from. Which creatives are driving sales? Which audiences are bringing the best returns? These are vital questions we need to know to be able to scale an ad account, otherwise we’re simply throwing 💩 and hoping something sticks. 

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Simply put, a business cannot scale their advertising, and therefore cannot scale their revenue, without being able to attribute successes and failures to various assets across their ad account. Metrics like CTR% and CPM are helpful, but not enough. We’ve seen situations where a particular ad has the best CTR% but the worst FB attributed-ROAS. This makes it virtually impossible to grow a business through advertising in the current climate. 

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What do we do?

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Don’t forget about the non-advertising metrics. The ones right in front of your nose: conversion rate, and average order value. It’s easy to get caught up on ROAS, Traffic, CTR etc, but none of these will have a positive impact if you don’t have the basics of your website covered. Before you go to spend another cent on an ad platform, make sure your CR% and AOV are as strong as they could possibly be, because the slightest increase in either of these metrics adds a whole new level to your ability to scale. Once these metrics are at the level, you can go back to devoting your full attention to paid ads,  knowing that every click has a higher chance of converting and with a stronger return on that spend. You’ll be making it rain in no time. 

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