If you stay up to date with the latest tech news or have spent time reading our blogs in the past, it won't be news to you that Apple & Facebook are at war with each other over your privacy.

While this may seem like a surface-level confrontation, as it's played out in the media through statements and newspaper ads (click here to read more on that), the ramifications for marketers could be a lot bigger.

Last week Apple finally released iOS 14.5 with this update Apple is asking users if apps like Facebook can track you for ad purposes and selling your data. This means is that all businesses must now request users gives permission to their unique identifier for advertising, otherwise know as IDFA. It was estimated that a whopping 80% of users would opt-out of tracking across apps on the iPhone, since the update went live last week we are now seeing estimated figures as high as 96%. This figure might have you worried but it shouldn't, part of our job has always been adapting to changes. If you have worked in marketing for a while you will already be used to Facebooks constant changing policies that have implications across your ads, while this is a bigger change, it’s no different to the changing landscape you are used to.

Lets Diversify 

This is something that has rung true to us here at UNBXD over the last 16 months. With the pandemic uprooting the entire eCommerce world, it was important to us that we diversify marketing campaigns. You can do this by not being so heavily reliant on just paid social. Try and focus on marketing plans that drive customer engagement and long-term relationships.

If you can also use your paid marketing to focus on brand awareness, you can bring potential clients from across your entire social network that will see organic posts and are more likely to check out more than once. Our aim should always be to put the customers back into the sales funnel after purchase, make the customer journey the centre of your strategy. 

iOS 14.5 doesn’t mean it’s the end of social ads, it means the opposite. Despite the negativity around social media, the average user loves using it. Apple protecting users data means that Facebook can't take data you don’t want them to have while using other apps. If someone spends 4 hours a day scrolling through Facebook, they are going to interact with a lot of people and businesses that are relevant to your business. This data is still fully accessible to Facebook as it happened on their platform so they own it. All this data can still be used to target relevant shoppers, this isn’t going away, however, it does mean that you may need to rethink your ad budgets as the pool of people you can target will shrink.

Don’t forget, while we still don’t know the long-term ramifications of these changes, you can still use content marketing to plug any immediate gaps. Your social presence, website and activity are now your key touchpoints for addressing customer pain points. 

Building Trust

Building a brand’s trust has always been important, so this is nothing new, however, you are now having to ask customers for immediate trust to opt into your marketing activity. Unless you have a native app, if you are adverting through paid social only then you don’t get a choice, you are reliant on a customer being happy sharing data with Facebook. 

We now need to focus on building relationships with people that share the same values as your brand. You can do this by consistent messaging and showcasing what your brand stands for throughout the customer journey. This is a tried and proven method that will result into long-term revenue. Many companies are hesitant to put the effort in needed to nurture this kind of behaviour, if you haven’t done it before, it’s now the time to check over and make sure this is a key metric in your marketing strategies. 

Did you know that 51% of people trust a friends recommendation more than any other advertising? If you can turn your customers into advocates, you have unlocked the biggest marketing tool at your disposal. Think about how you can build referral programs into your customer journey. This can be through sharing reviews, sharable discount codes when you refer a friend, or social competitions where you incentives customers to share with their friends. 

Opportunity 

While articles in the run-up to 14.5 would have you believe doomsday was approaching for marketing, this simply just isn’t true. While we are still yet to see what the long-term implications are, we are not seeing a noticeable trend of soaring costs or plummeting conversion rates. 

It’s time to turn what could be seen as a negative into a positive. Paid advertising was only ever meant to be a piece of the customer acquisition journey, not the only route. We are still living in a changing landscape of the consumer spending journey and shopping habits, this might just be the push we all need to rethink and strategies a broader marketing strategy.

Let’s go back to basics and make the customer the heart of your business. 

Not sure how to get started on your next marketing campaign? Get in touch with a member of the team now!