How much will iOS 14 / SKAdNetwork affect Facebook's ability to optimize campaigns (AEO)?

Question

With Facebook losing a lot of its data on users (which users are subscribing / spending money, etc.), how much will Facebook's ability to optimize campaigns (AEO) be affected?

I'm posting this question on behalf of an anonymous iOS 14 survey from the Mobile Dev Memo Slack channel

Answer 1

Hard to say
... but I don't see how FB can circumvent the limitations to feed its ML the same user-level data quantity & quality it was using (even though they have users logged-in multiple apps, and the SDK integrated - happy to be challenged on this if detailes are provided), meaning the optimization is very likely to drop in efficiency (leveling playing field with other networks?).
Maybe CPM drop can compensate partly this? But then only for very broad audience products
Maybe targeting will come back in a revival after losing importance in the last 2 years?

+ Adding the same question for UAC, where I can see even more impact due to the nature of the inventory behind.

Answer 2

My sense is that iOS14 will have a fairly substantial impact on Facebook's ability to optimize AEO campaigns, for a few reasons:

1. AEO campaigns are currently able to specifically target users that are known to trigger the conversion event that is being optimized for in the campaign (which is usually purchases). After enough time has passed after iOS14 is introduced, Facebook will know longer know that any given user is a (recent) purchaser, and so Facebook won't be able to specifically target purchasers in AEO campaigns. Facebook will receive Conversion Values from SKAdNetwork at the campaign level, so the only insight about purchasing habits it will have is that various populations (ad targeting groups) have some likelihood of making purchases, which is obviously far less precise.
2. The Conversion Value system in SKAdNetwork only allows for one value to be passed in the SKAdNetwork postback, which is the highest value triggered within the timer logic (more on that in this post: https://mobiledevmemo.com/mobile-advertising-without-the-idfa-a-comprehensive-overview/Apple killed the IDFA: A comprehensive guide to the future of mobile marketing). Right now, Facebook captures every purchase that a user makes for the purposes of building a purchase history profile, but in the iOS14 environment, Facebook will only know that any given install within a campaign triggered the single Conversion Value (and not any previous or subsequent conversion events that the user in question triggered).

Facebook has other signals that they can use for quality, but recency of purchases simply has to be the most important current signal.