It’s become increasingly clear that consumers value their privacy. The last couple of years have shined a light on the notorious and flippant use of people’s data.
Apple responded to this during 2021 by making a significant iOS update.
This new privacy move offered a landmark change in respect to how apps can utilise their user’s data. The feature called ATT (App Tracking Transparency) puts iPhone and iPad users in the driving seat and they decide who gets to use their data for tracking purposes.
How does ATT work?
When you use apps on your phone, they may track you across other apps and websites to target you with their advertising. This is done through the IDFA (identifier for advertisers) which tracks without revealing your personal information.
The new iPhone feature adds transparency to this process. Users are aware it is happening so they can choose if they want to be tracked by a particular app.
In Apple’s feature announcement, they said “App Tracking Transparency will require apps to get their user’s permission before tracking their data across apps or websites owned by other companies.”
Opting into data collection, rather than having to opt out, is part of data privacy regulation such as the GDPR. So, Apple’s move is the right thing to do for its users.
What does this mean for your business?
It could mean that if you collect information for your advertising you may have to find another way to fund your business.
If you rely on the Facebook Pixel to understand how your ads are performing and build powerful retargeting audiences, you may have to consider another method of tracking, as the Pixel becomes redundant in the face of Apple’s new privacy feature.
Time to use Facebook’s Conversion API
Facebook’s Conversion API has always been around. It helps advertisers who want to accurately track their conversions, but Facebook has improved it and now it’s essential for Facebook advertisers who still want a Facebook advertising strategy in an ever-increasing privacy-first world.
Facebook’s description of its CAPI is “Conversions API is a Facebook Business Tool that lets you share key web and offline events, or customer actions, directly from your server to Facebook’s.”
Let’s simplify this:
- API stands for application programming interface. It’s a connection between two applications that lets them talk to each other. For example, your website and Facebook.
- Web and offline events mean actions that are taken on your website such as ‘viewed a page’ or ‘filled out a form’, or actions taken offline like a phone call. These are all actions from people who have interacted with your Facebook ad.
- Your server is the machine that houses your website and all the data connected with it. As a small or medium sized business, it’s likely your website is hosted on someone else’s server (for example, Go Daddy’s).
- Facebook’s server is the machine that hosts Facebook’s data and for the purpose of this blog post, we want to think of the server that hosts the Ad Manager data (Facebook has thousands of servers!).
So, Facebook’s Conversion API connects your website data (from your server) to Facebook’s Ads Manager (on Facebook’s server) so you can see how people interacting with your Facebook ads are behaving.
The Facebook CAPI is different to the Facebook Pixel (which uses cookies to link your website, your Facebook ads and Facebook) as your website collects a user’s data as opposed to Facebook collecting it via a cookie.
The data is stored on your server instead of the user’s browser and is sent to Facebook via the API rather than the Pixel.
So, CAPI is iOS 14 user-friendly
The privacy feature of iOS 14 creates gaps in data collection as users can turn tracking off (through ATT). This negatively impacts Facebook ad targeting.
Facebook CAPI sends user data directly from your server, not the user’s device, to Facebook. This negates the need for the cookie and browser data that the Facebook Pixel collects.
What else can the Facebook CAPI do?
It tracks all the same standard events that the Facebook Pixel tracks, such as:
- Add payment info
- Add to cart
- Complete registration
- Contact
- Donate
- Location searches
- Lead
- Page view
- Purchase
- Schedule
- Submit application
- Subscribe
- View content
But with the API, these are server-side events, not client/browser-side that comes with the Pixel.
It is beneficial to continue using the Facebook Pixel and add the CAPI, to capture every event possible and obtain a full picture of a user’s behaviour.
We can help!
Adding the Facebook CAPI isn’t simple. It may require a developer.
You need to install some code to build a direct connection between the Facebook CAPI and your server or if you’re using one of Facebook’s partner platforms (such as WordPress or WooCommerce) you can set up the CAPI that way, though there is a cost.
We can help you if you’re unsure and need some professional guidance. We have many years of experience integrating businesses with Facebook’s Ad Manager and it’s many tracking elements.
Get in touch at info@future-marketing.co.uk and we can guide you through the best tracking method for your advertising campaign.
