How iOS 14 Will Affect Facebook Advertising And How To Prepare
February 7, 2021

As users become more active and aware of their digital footprint, the need for data security and transparency is continuously growing. Apple’s latest operating system overhaul, the infamous iO14, spearheads online data privacy - with a catch.

The technology giant will allow users more transparency over who and what is tracking their data, with the option to opt some apps out of collecting this data altogether. However, as we’ll explain in this post, this may affect how advertisers use Facebook in the future.


On the surface, it may seem like this is a fair move on Apple’s behalf. They appear to have their users’ best interests in mind - protecting their data from being stored, shared and sold by third-party websites. For advertisers, however, Apple’s crucial new policy change could prove detrimental.


What is iOS14 and Why Is It A Problem For Facebook?

Apple’s latest major operating system update was released in September 2020 but will become mandatory in March 2021. While the updates bring plenty of updated features and aesthetic changes, it also implements a drastic security policy change that has Facebook concerned. Apple’s Tracking Transparency framework will prompt users to allow or deny a third-party app to track their data both while using the app and offline. It’s expected that more than 50% of iOS users will opt-in to this notification. This directly impacts and limits Facebook’s personalisation and performance, making it more difficult for advertisers to understand and accurately promote to specific audiences.


How is Facebook Reacting?

Facebook has reacted quite publicly and negatively toward Apple’s new policies. In an extensive blog post, Facebook expresses retaliation to Apple for “not playing by their own rules.” Facebook has stood by small businesses, which rely on the platform to advertise their goods and services. While Facebook has vehemently disagreed with Apple on this unprecedented change, they have no choice but to react accordingly to its many disadvantages.


What Will Change?

For Facebook users who opt-in to Apple’s Tracking Transparency framework, their experience on the social media platform will be less streamlined. These users will be presented with ads that are less targeted and personalised to their online behaviour. Simply, this is due to Apple not allowing Facebook to store, track and share a user’s data for advertisers to utilise. As a result, there will be fewer conversions as Facebook isn’t serving ads it thinks you will potentially be interested in and click on.


For Facebook advertisers, a handful of backend algorithms and resources will be changed. Facebook is proactively updating advertisers with best practices and actions to take in order to prepare their current and future campaigns. Here’s a comprehensive list of what tools are changing and what you should be doing to your accounts to ensure continued optimisation and strong performance:

  • Domain verification is essential for all domains with active Pixels used by multiple ad accounts. Verifying your domain ensures there is no disruption to your campaigns when iOS14 becomes mandatory in March
  • Aggregated Event Management is a new tool found in Events Manager designed to measure campaign performance in a way that’s consistent with your consumers’ decisions about their data. Facebook will limit the number of conversion events to 8 per domain. If you currently track more than 8 events, use the Aggregated Event Management tool to prioritise which conversions are most important to your marketing objectives. Prepare an action plan now so to avoid ad sets being paused immediately
  • Certain attribution windows will no longer be supported, making ad performance analysis more difficult and overall reporting further delayed. Facebook will sunset the 28-day click-through, 28-day view-through and 7-day view-through attribution windows. Ad sets will now be automatically built with the default 7-day click-through, 1-day view-through attribution. In anticipation of this change, advertisers should use the Comparing Windows feature to compare reporting across different attribution windows. It’s also recommended advertisers calculate your delayed attribution multipliers to understand which percentage of your conversions occur after 7 days. Understanding the customers’ journey will better prepare you these newly restricted reporting periods
  • Shopify and other e-commerce store advertisers should implement CAPI (Conversions API) right now


App Advertisers Are Also Affected

App ads are a niche area of Facebook advertising, but will still be impacted by Apple’s new data security policy. Users of the Facebook SDK for iOS, App Events API or a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) are offered instructions on how to best prepare for the update. Facebook recommends updating Facebook SDK for iOS to version 8.1 or above to create iOS14 app install campaigns. Additionally, measurement and optimisation configurations are strongly recommended for Apple’s SKAdNetwork in Events Manager.


Stay Updated on New Changes

Facebook is constantly providing new updates on this unprecedented change. It is already rolling out some new tools to help prepare advertisers for the forthcoming mandatory iOS 14 update, including the new addition of Aggregated Event Management. Be sure to continuously check their News for Developers blog for detailed instructions and analysis of changes to the ads platform.


We’ve also provided some additional resources so our fellow Facebook advertisers can best equip themselves with the knowledge and skills to be proactive for iOS14. If you need any assistance navigating this new advertising environment,
please reach out to our team.


Preparing our partners for iOS14

How Apple’s iOS14 release may affect your ads

Speaking Up for Small Businesses




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August 21, 2026
The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. 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AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. 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The Client AGA Air Conditioning is a Canberra-based heating and cooling specialist delivering residential and commercial installation, servicing and maintenance across the ACT. AGA had built a strong reputation through quality workmanship, referrals and customer service. What it needed was a digital and acquisition sy stem that matched the standard of the business and its growth ambitions, one built to support serious, sustained investment rather than one-off campaign spend. PupDigital was engaged in a multi-year partnership to bring the website, conversion tracking and paid media strategy together into a single, connected acquisition system. The Challenge AGA was already a trusted local provider, but its website and advertising weren't working together as one system. The site needed to better communicate the quality of the business and give prospective customers a clearer path to enquire. At the same time, the advertising account needed to become far more commercially disciplined. Heating and cooling demand shifts significantly through the year, and customer intent moves quickly between installation, servicing, evaporative cooling and gas heating, each with different commercial value. Residential and commercial enquiries needed to be treated differently, and the business's own capacity to take on work had to be factored into how aggressively the account was scaled. It's the kind of complexity we see all the time working with trades, services, and building and construction businesses. It's genuinely where we do our best work. A broad, static campaign was never going to cut it here. The goal wasn't more traffic, it was a system that turned demand into real, valuable enquiries, built to scale as the business did. Our Strategic Approach 1. Rebuild the Conversion Experience The first priority was improving what happened after someone clicked an ad. PupDigital designed and developed a new website that better reflected AGA's positioning and made its services easier to understand, with: Clearer service pathways for residential and commercial customers Improved mobile usability and more direct calls to action Tighter alignment between ad campaigns and the landing pages they led to Simplified enquiry journeys The website was built as part of the acquisition strategy, not a separate branding exercise. Every campaign needed to send customers to a page that matched their intent and made the next step obvious. 2. Improve the Quality of the Data Better optimisation depends on measuring the right things. PupDigital strengthened conversion tracking across the site and ad account, including enquiry forms and tracked phone calls, and critically, stopped treating every conversion as equal. AGA's feedback made clear that phone calls often represented stronger opportunities than lower-intent web actions. Tracking and optimisation were refined accordingly, shifting the strategy away from simply increasing reported conversions and towards improving the quality of the enquiries being generated, the metric that actually matters to a business owner's bottom line. 3. Structure Campaigns Around Demand and Commercial Value Rather than one broad, always-on campaign, PupDigital structured the account around AGA's core service categories and how demand moved seasonally, giving granular control over which services were promoted, how budget was allocated, and the messaging and landing pages each audience saw. This meant investment could be increased where strong opportunities existed, pulled back where intent was weaker, and kept continuously aligned with the work AGA actually wanted to win, not just the work that was easiest to generate leads for. Scaling Investment With Confidence As performance and enquiry consistency improved, PupDigital progressively scaled AGA's monthly ad investment, growing it 300% over the course of the partnership. This wasn't a case of increasing spend and hoping volume followed. Every scaling decision was informed by conversion performance, search demand, lead quality feedback, seasonal opportunity, and AGA's real capacity to service new work. Growth in ad spend only compounds when the wider system, website, tracking and campaign structure, can convert that investment efficiently. Building that system first is what allowed AGA to keep increasing investment with confidence, rather than second-guessing where the budget was going. The Results Following the website launch in May 2025, AGA's Google Ads performance improved substantially against the preceding period: Conversions up 14% 18.71% conversion rate, a 77% improvement Impressions up 22% Monthly ad investment scaled 300% across the partnership The standout result was conversion rate, not raw traffic volume. The campaigns didn't need to chase the largest possible audience. They became more focused on reaching people actively searching for AGA's services and directing them into a stronger website experience. The result was a materially higher percentage of visitors taking meaningful action, a more efficient acquisition system, not just a busier one. Broader Business Growth: A Harvey Norman Commercial Contract Throughout the partnership, AGA continued expanding its residential and commercial workload, including securing a significant commercial contract with Harvey Norman Commercial, alongside a growing volume of rough-in and fit-off work. Landing a contract like that comes down to the quality of AGA's work and reputation, not an ad campaign in isolation. What it does show is the broader trajectory of the business during our partnership, and the part PupDigital played in making sure AGA's digital presence could keep up with, and represent, that scale of growth. Winning commercial-level work like this means having a website and digital presence that looks and performs the part, and that's what we focused on throughout. The Business Impact The most valuable outcome wasn't any single campaign result or website metric. AGA moved from a fragmented digital setup to one connected system for attracting and converting customers, and gained: A website that reflects the quality and scale of the business Clear visibility over what's actually driving enquiries, not just what's easy to report Granular control over service-specific and seasonal demand Confidence to keep increasing investment because the system converts it efficiently A digital foundation that supported the business's move into larger commercial work This is the throughline in how PupDigital works with trades, services, and building and construction businesses: advertising is never managed in isolation. It's shaped by the type of work a business wants, the enquiries it actually values, and the capacity it has to deliver, because that alignment, not spend for its own sake, is what drives real business growth. Conclusion AGA Air Conditioning shows what's possible when a website, tracking and paid media strategy are treated as one connected system, working together, rather than three separate pieces bolted on side by side. PupDigital's role was never simply to drive more clicks. We rebuilt the customer journey, strengthened measurement around what actually matters, aligned campaigns with seasonal and commercial priorities, and built a structure capable of supporting significantly increased investment, investment AGA could scale with confidence because the underlying system was built to convert it. The result: a 77% improvement in Google Ads conversion rate, a 300% increase in monthly ad investment, and a stronger digital foundation that helped support AGA's move into larger-scale commercial work.
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