The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving and changing, but arguably nothing has changed it more than Apple’s iOS 14.5 release in April of 2021. This new update allowed users to opt out of data tracking for advertising purposes, and other brands are following suit. Privacy is at the forefront of the collective digital mind, and it has given marketers a run for their money (so to speak) as measurement uncertainties increase. Marketing leaders are now in a world where IDFA (The Identifier for Advertisers) no longer tracks user behavior like before. This change is driving marketers to think creatively, tap into new resources, and look beyond third-party data.
Emad Hasan, CEO and co-founder of Retina AI, points out that, “As customer acquisition becomes increasingly expensive, businesses need to stay away from one-and-done customers. Marketers now have limited third-party data, which makes it even more complicated for them on who they should be optimizing their ads and targeting campaign towards. In order to attract and retain high-quality prospects who can be converted into loyal customers, marketers should consider leveraging data analytics and business intelligence tools to figure out who exactly those loyal customers are. It is even more critical now to find those with a high customer lifetime value (CLV). Once these segments are identified, make sure to personalize marketing campaigns to speak directly to these high-value audiences.”
Third-party data, or cookies, allow marketers to track prospects and customers across different websites to help them understand their buyers’ interests, preferences, and behaviors. It guides decisions about where to advertise, how to manage campaigns, and how to measure performance. This third-party data also provides metrics like Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). The problem with this kind of data following the increased privacy in Apple and other brands’ platforms is that it’s no longer available. If a consumer does not opt in to third party cookies, digital advertising becomes far less effective. Ads will be less targeted and personalized because brands no longer have insight into a user’s behaviors.
What are marketers doing about this? At Retina, we connected with a few marketing leaders across different industries to find out how they are navigating these changes, and we came back with some incredibly valuable insights. The techniques they are employing help them navigate new challenges and approach digital marketing in a way that aligns with customer behavior. To learn what these techniques are in detail, download our new eBook, How Marketing Leaders are Adapting to the Changes in the Digital Landscape, today.
One of the techniques listed is to gather enough information yourself about your customers. Zack Werner of the Maze Group says, “Due to IOS 14.5 blocking the custom audience pixel, you are not able to engage potential customers in that second part of the funnel, which means potential customers are not getting to the place where they have enough information about your brand to feel comfortable signing up or converting…use customer information whenever possible for all browser-based pixels. This will help increase the match rate for all standard events on Facebook letting your remarket to your audience and conversion match at a higher rate. This can be done by storing data like email addresses, name, location, etc on your data layer and then linking it in your Facebook pixel configuration.”
Testing is another method, as Anish Shah, CEO of Bring Ruckus, shares. “What leads to building a quality customer lifecycle is testing,” said Anish Shah. “You can segment out your [customer] list and can look at people who’ve only made purchases at a discount of X percent or above, and run very specialized tests to those audiences. For example, you could [perform] a 50/50 test… 50 percent of that cohort is going to continue getting discounts and the other 50 percent will get zero discount.”
Be sure to download this eBook for all of the information available about marketing in a post-IDFA world.