How small, digitally native brands are navigating iOS14 changes across the paid social media landscape

With the update, Facebook and Instagram are no longer primary marketing channels for sustainable toilet paper and paper towel brand Cloud Paper, said co-founder Ryan Fritsch. “The new data privacy updates have hindered our ability to have insights into new customers which has led to lack of attribution,” Fritsch said in an email, noting that the changes have led to an inability to optimize ad content and an increase in cost-per metrics across the board.

With a shrinking data pool, these small advertisers are turning toward newsletters, in-house digital content platforms, influencers, brand partnerships and other organic strategies to build brand affinity and re-target online shoppers. 

At present, at least half of beauty brand Kulfi’s marketing dollars goes toward content creators and influencer relationships with the other half dedicated to in-house content creation and public relations. To scale, they’ll double down on their efforts like their in-house digital content platform Bite, hoping to layer in paid ads on Instagram next year after, said Priyanka Ganjoo, founder and CEO of Kulfi.

“[iOS14] means when we do get into paid, we just have to have a lot more of our own data,” said Ganjoo. “When we do, we’ll build that attribution because it’s going to be harder than it was before.”

It’s a similar story at clean beauty brand Ami Colé. Ahead of its launch in May, the beauty brand built up a newsletter with 6,000 subscribers, building its online community via email in hopes to sidestep iOS14 changes, said founder Diarrha N’Diaye. Still, the brand spends on social, especially Instagram, regularly tweaking ad spend to maintain its presence on the platform. 

“I’d be lying to you if [I said we] think we have the answer just yet,” N’Diaye said. “Right now, we’re just trying to figure out what is actually working.”

And that is the million-dollar question, marketers say, as it’s getting harder to justify customer acquisition costs on social media platforms with limited targeting capabilities. “You’re talking about locking in like $10,000 a month for multiple months without knowing what the return [on ad spend] would be,” said Kulfi’s Ganjoo. “For a small brand, that’s a huge commitment.”

There’s more crackdown on the horizon with iOS 15 expected to impact email marketing by way of mail privacy protection and “Hide My Email” features, meaning advertisers will need to continue to diversify their media mix sooner rather than later. Advertisers will need to broaden their target audience and find alternative ways to monitor social performance as new audiences replace the “lookalike and retargeting audiences of pre-iOS14 days,” said  Phil Lewicki, media supervisor at full-service creative agency Dagger. 

“Agencies and advertisers who have taken a proactive approach to these privacy changes will be on the forefront of creating new segments and strategies to develop or maintain high conversion and engagement rates,” he said.