It’s been about a year since Apple instituted their new IOS 14 updates which made it harder for advertisers on platforms like Facebook and Google to track how Iphone users were interacting with their ads.

 
This has had a SIGNIFICANT impact on advertisers and Meta’s advertising business. 

 
According to Meta CFO Dave Whener,

 
“We believe the impact of iOS overall is a headwind on our business in 2022,” Meta CFO Dave Wehner said on a call with analysts after the company’s fourth-quarter earnings report. “It’s on the order of $10 billion, so it’s a pretty significant headwind for our business.”

 
The IOS 14 update affected targeting capabilities by making it harder for advertisers to identify Iphone users and see if and how they are interacting with ads. 

 
The anti-tracking feature is also included in iOS 15, which is running on 72% of modern iPhones, according to Apple 😲

 
While this is obviously a HUGE problem for any business that relies on Facebook ads, it also brings up a potentially even larger problem… 

 
Most businesses, heck maybe even your business are WAY too reliant on others for gathering data. 

 
If you get all of your data from Facebook or Google or wherever you are ALWAYS going to be at the mercy of those companies. 

 
And it’s only going to get worse.

 
Google is going to phase out their tracking cookies sometime in 2023…

Privacy laws like Europe’s GDPR will eventually see wider adoption…

 
The bottom line is you’re going to need to start collecting and managing your own data sooner, rather than later.

 
You need to start OWNING your customer and business data.

 
I have talked before about the importance of building your OWN email list, but it’s also things like:

 
Gathering Website Data outside of things like Google Analytics.
Creating and using Quizzes to gather information about your prospects and customers.
Storing your customer’s preferences for receiving information.
Storing customer and prospect product preferences.
Creating and using Surveys to gather information from your email list.  
Storing customer and prospect phone numbers.

I’m going to continue to beat the drum on this idea of collecting your own data, because it’s REALLY going to change the face of marketing online over the next few years.

 
And it’s better to start getting ready now then to wait until you lose all your data to THEN come up with a plan.

 
Talk soon,

P.S. If you have other ideas I didn’t mention for gathering your own data, I’d love to hear them. Hit reply and let me know what you’re doing to get off the corporate data narcotic 💉

Best Regards,

Goran B Edstrom - SWEDEN - Proud - MarketHive - Entrepreneur 1 Member.