How Apple’s iOS 14 Update Will Impact Real Estate Facebook Ads

If you’ve been poking around the internet lately, you might have come across talk of Apple’s new iOS 14 updates. It’s sort of taken the world of digital advertising by storm, and for good reason. If you are running Facebook ad campaigns for your real estate business or plan to do so in the future, this update will directly impact you.

The good news: the effects of the update will probably not be nearly as bad as anticipated. In fact, Facebook advertising is still highly effective and lucrative, Apple update or no Apple update. 

So, if you happen to read about the downfall of Facebook or Facebook advertising “not working” anymore, don’t pay it any mind. As long as you stay informed and make the needed adjustments, your Facebook ads performance should be just fine. While we won’t know the true impact of the update until it officially rolls out, we do have the facts on how Facebook advertising is changing in response. 

What Is Apple’s iOS 14 Update?

Apple’s iOS 14 update is causing major changes to digital advertising and how ad networks can track and use data. Once the update goes live, users will see a pop-up asking them whether they would like to opt-out of their data being tracked. Apple claims they are doing this to increase users’ data privacy, though many experts are speculating ulterior motives. 

The Data Privacy Debate

Digital advertising is one of the most effective and inexpensive forms of advertising. The reason it’s so cheap? Because it uses mass amounts of data to efficiently connect businesses and consumers, based on data tracking and AI. 

Ad networks such as Facebook know their users’ preferences and track their actions on the Facebook app and websites it sends users to. Facebook offers this information to advertisers so they can make their ads more targeted. Essentially, advertisers only have to pay to reach consumers who are interested in what they offer. This is a big leap forward from traditional advertising, which drives up costs by showing ads to everyone without discretion.

Are digital advertising and data tracking an invasion of privacy? Probably not, even though it seems so at first glance. Advertisers only see data as general statistics. They are never provided personally identifiable information, unless, for instance, a user chooses to provide an email address when prompted. In addition, users are able to change their tracking preferences in their settings at any time. 

How Apple’s Update Could Impact Real Estate

Digital advertising is one of the major playing field levelers in the business world. That’s to say that small businesses, bootstrapped startups, and entrepreneurs can partake in this form of advertising because it doesn’t require large amounts of capital. While traditional advertising is often reserved for big corporations, digital advertising makes it possible for anyone to reach an audience, including real estate professionals.

The fear in the real estate industry is that Apple’s pop-up will persuade an overwhelming number of users to opt-out of tracking. And in turn, it would make getting results with Facebook ads harder, and therefore more expensive. This could potentially knock smaller players on the ad network, such as real estate professionals, out of the game.

iOS 14 and Facebook Ads: Fast Facts

The best thing real estate investors can do about the update is arm themselves with knowledge. Knowing what changes the iOS 14 update is causing and how to adapt your real estate Facebook ads strategy will be key to succeeding on the platform in 2021.

Here are the fast facts:

• Facebook is not the only ad network affected by iOS 14: all ad networks will be impacted.
• An overwhelming 40-50% of traffic comes from Apple devices.
• A hopeful estimate is that only 10-20% of Apple users will opt-out of tracking, though many people are estimating much higher.
• Facebook’s updates in response to Apple’s update will be affecting all devices, not just Apple devices.
• Facebook users will still see ads, even if they opt-out of tracking. Tracking simply allows ads to be more relevant.

Major Changes To Campaigns

One of the biggest changes regarding the iOS 14 update is conversion campaigns and custom events. When a Facebook user leaves the app and visits your website, it was possible in the past to track an unlimited number of actions that users took on your website. These are called custom events, and they can be used to create custom audiences to send ads to.

For example, as a property manager, you might run real estate ads to get leads for your business. In doing so, you’ll likely send them to your website. There, you can track action by clicking on a contact button. You may have it set so all website visitors who click on your contact button are placed in a custom audience called “leads,” for example, and you may want to send follow-up ads to that custom audience to remind them to finish filling out a contact form. Unfortunately, Facebook tracking on privately owned domains is changing.

Domains Must Be Verified

The first change to note with conversion tracking is that you must verify your domain. This is a fairly simple process that will allow Facebook to ensure the legitimacy of websites they are sending users to. 

The process can take as long as 48 hours to complete and can be done through a number of methods. You can alter the DNS records for your website, add to the HTML code of your website, or simply drop a piece of code into your website’s header.

Custom Events Will Be Limited

A big change for real estate ads will be the limitations placed on tracking custom events/conversions. Advertisers will now be limited to only 8 custom events, regardless of whether users have opted out of tracking. There will be even greater limitations for users who have opted out of tracking. 

Major Changes To Data Reporting

Attribution Window Has Changed

Prior to the update, the attribution window for actions taken on ads was a 28-day view, a 7-day click. Now, all campaigns will be set to 7-day view, 1 day click.

The difference? Not as many conversions will be attributed to a 7-day view, 1 day click. If someone views your ad 10 days ago, then decides to visit your website and contact you, their actions won’t be attributed to your ad. This is because the ad view happened outside of the attribution window.

This is important to understand because it might start to look as though your ads aren’t performing as well when in reality, your conversions might be underreported. So, look at your overall results (how many leads you get), and realize that many of them were likely the result of running Facebook ads, even though they aren’t being reported in the Facebook ads manager as conversions.

Delays In Tracking and Reporting

Prior to the updates, data reporting was fairly instantaneous. Due to limitations on tracking, there will also be delays in reporting. If metrics aren’t appearing in your ads manager right away, don’t panic. Changes can now take up to 72 hours to be reflected.

How To Adjust To The Changes

Use Alternative Tracking Methods

Still, determined to understand the results of your campaigns? You can use alternative methods of tracking, such as UTM codes. These can be added to a URL, and they’ll help you understand your lead’s actions. Unfortunately, this won’t help with populating custom audiences in the Facebook ads manager. However, it will give you insight into the performance of your campaigns.

View Ads as a Part of an Overall Marketing Strategy

For real estate professionals such as real estate agents, property managers, real estate investors, and others, you’ll want to view Facebook advertising as a part of a larger marketing strategy. While Facebook will still be able to generate results, depending on your strategy and business, you’ll get the best bang for your buck if you are using ads to leverage other marketing strategies as well.

A great example is using email marketing. A real estate professional can run ads asking leads to provide their email address in exchange for a free downloadable guide or video training. By using ads to build an email list, you’ll be able to retarget your subscribers with ads as well as reach them via email.

The Takeaway:

Facebook ads will still be profitable for real estate professionals in 2021. The main differences moving forward will be a lack of reporting and the ability to understand the results of campaigns. Luckily, there are other ways to solve this problem outside of relying on Facebook reporting. 

The other effect is a potential decrease in size for custom audiences, though this will depend on the number of users who opt-out of tracking, which remains to be seen. The good news is that advertisers can still use behaviors and interest targeting to reach the right audiences.

Some great ideas for using ads as a real estate professional include:

• Targeting buyers for a specific investment property
• Targeting homeowners who may be interested in selling a house to flip
• Targeting potential clients for property managers
• Targeting potential clients for real estate agents

Whatever you do, don’t stress about the iOS 14 update. With technology always comes new changes, and the best we can do is stay informed, adapt, and succeed.