Facebook Revenue Attribution limitations after iOS 14.5 update

Facebook Revenue Attribution limitations after iOS 14.5 update

Facebook Revenue Attribution limitations after iOS 14.5 update

1. iOS 14.5 update on Facebook Revenue attribution

Facebook and others that sell mobile advertisements rely on IDFA (unique device identifier on every iPhone and iPad) to help target ads to users and estimate how effective they are.

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Note: Think of IDFA as a cookie for a mobile device.

Most critically at stake for Facebook is what’s known as view-through conversions. This metric is used by ad-tech companies to measure how many users saw an ad, did not immediately click on it, but later made a purchase related to that ad.

Think of view-through conversions like this: You’re tapping through your Instagram stories and you see an ad for a pair of jeans. You don’t tap the bottom of the ad for more information because you’re busy checking out what your friends are up to, but the jeans were cute. A few days later, you go on Google, search for the jeans you saw on Instagram and buy them.

After the purchase is made, the retailer records the IDFA of the user who bought the jeans and shares it with Facebook, which can determine whether the IDFA matches with a user who saw an ad for the jeans. This shows the retailer that their Facebook ad worked.

2. How is Facebook accounting for this limitation?

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Short answer: They are using statistical modeling for conversions that they cannot measure.
Screenshot taken from Facebook Ads Platform
Screenshot taken from Facebook Ads Platform
Screenshot taken from Facebook Ads Platform
Screenshot taken from Facebook Ads Platform

Modeling uses data from several different sources to measure activity that's hard to count directly. For example, one of our ad metrics uses data from multiple sources to estimate the number of Accounts Center accounts who might remember seeing an ad 2 days later. It uses data from similar campaigns, interactions with an ad and other signals to make these estimates.

An example of a modeled, estimated metric is store visits. Store visits are the estimated number of visits to your stores, attributed to your ads. Because not every visit to a store can be detected, we use modeling to provide approximations.

Modeled metrics don't include attributed conversions (such as online purchases attributed to an ad), where we can count and measure events. In cases where we can't measure conversions directly due to partial or missing data, we may also use statistical modeling to account for some conversions. For example, due to changes in how certain actions can be measured on the web.

Source:

3. Analysis: Facebook 7-day click 1-day view Revenue vs. Last-click Revenue

Datacop created an analysis which compared last-click revenue attribution of 10 specific Facebook ad’s with 7-day click 1-day view revenue attribution reported by Facebook.

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Note: Last-click revenue attribution for a specific Facebook ad can be measured in Google Analytics or Bloomreach Engagement or other similar tools.

The results of this analysis can be found in this Google Sheet:

The most interesting observation from this analysis is the following:

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The difference between Last-click and Facebook Revenue attribution grew higher for worse-performing campaigns from the Last-click perspective.
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Is it possible that Facebook wants you to think that worst performing campaigns perform much better compared to the reality?

If you want PPC reporting that compare Last-click and Facebook Revenue attribution side by side, feel free to book a meeting here.