Facebook says underreporting of iOS web conversions is now down from 15% to 8%

Meta, formerly Facebook, claimed that it has closed the underreporting of iOS web conversions from 15% in September down to approximately 8%. 

In September, the company warned advertisers that Apple’s privacy changes were causing Facebook to undercount web conversions on iOS by about 15%. In a blog post on Monday, Meta said underreporting of iOS web conversions is now down to 8%, meaning that only around 8% of iOS web conversations are now unreported. 

“As we continue to build ad solutions that can do more with less data, we expect some level of underreporting will remain as part of our baseline. However, we remain committed to helping your business succeed and grow as we adapt to ecosystem changes together,”  said Goksu Nebol-Perlman, Director of Product Marketing, Ads, Meta. 

On the company’s Q4 2021 earnings call, Meta CFO Dave Wehner said that  Apple’s App Tracking Transparency will decrease the company’s sales in 2022 by about $10 billion. 

For the fourth quarter of 2021, Meta beat analysts’ expectation in ad revenue at $33.67 billion, but missed the top end of its guidance from the last quarter’s earnings call. 

Facebook’s operating chief Sheryl Sandberg said: “As we described last quarter, Apple created two challenges for advertisers. One is that the accuracy of our ads targeting decreased, which increased the cost of driving outcomes. The other is that measuring those outcomes became more difficult.” 

“These challenges are complex and interrelated. We’re working to try and improve things, for example by making progress in closing the underreporting gap for iOS web conversions, and by introducing tools like our Aggregated Events Measurement solution to deliver better insights for advertisers. These efforts will help to mitigate some of the challenges, but we expect the overall targeting and measurement headwinds to moderately increase from Apple’s changes and from regulatory changes in Q1 and throughout 2022.”