SKAdNetwork: Changes to Facebook Data on Clarisights

With the introduction of Apple's ATT for devices running iOS 14.5 and above, Facebook Ads data went through quite a few changes. This article explains how those changes show up in the Facebook data on Clarisights.

"Attribution Setting" at ad set level [1]

Clarisights has a dimension at ad set level called Attribution Setting, with a value for each ad set. The dimension always reflects the latest attribution setting of the ad set.

Table widget with Ad Set, Attribution Setting and FB Spend with sparklines

Conversions in different attribution windows

Clarisights also exposes all conversion metrics in all the possible attribution windows:

7d Click
1d Click
1d View

Table widget with purchases in different attribution windows

We will continue to support individual attribution window metrics for as long as we receive this data from the Facebook Ads API. You can use Custom Metrics to combine the click and view metrics, for example Purchases in 7d Click + Purchases in 7d View windows.

Note: on Clarisights, the Attribution Setting dimension is simply an attribute. It has no connection with the report's Attribution Window configuration.

Conversion metrics without an attribution window in their name always display the number of conversions with respect to the attribution window of the report. This was done to maintain existing behavior and may be deprecated in future releases with ample notice.

For example, if the report's Attribution Window configuration is 7d Click:

FB App: Purchase shows the number of purchases recorded in the 7d Click attribution window.
FB App: Purchase - 1 day (click) always shows the number of purchases recorded in the 1d Click attribution window, whatever the report's attribution window configuration.

SKAdNetwork conversions [2]

App install campaigns targeting devices running iOS 14.5 and above will have ad sets with attribution setting as skan. Such Ad Sets will not have values for the standard conversion metrics like FB App: Purchase or the attribution window metrics like FB App: Purchase - 1 day (click). Instead, the conversions reported by SKAdNetwork to Facebook for these ad sets are available as a separate set of conversion metrics with the "skan" suffix.

For example, iOS 14.5 Ad Set 1 with attribution setting skan has no values for FB: Installs. Its recorded installs appear under FB: Installs (SKAN) instead.

Table widget with SKAN installs and purchases for skan ad sets

Conversion time vs impression time reporting

Since 19 January 2021, Facebook reports conversions by conversion time (the date of the conversion) instead of impression time (the date of the impression or click), both on its dashboard and through the API. So the conversions you see on Clarisights after 19 January are also reported in conversion time, not impression time.

Unsupported breakdowns [3]

Since 27 April 2021, Facebook no longer reports website conversions for certain breakdown dimensions listed in the reference above, such as country and device. In Clarisights, website conversions (such as Pixel Purchase) are attributed to the different countries and devices only until 26 April. After that, all of them are attributed to a single bucket, such as others or unknown.

There is currently no alternative way to fetch this data. We suggest tracking it another way, for example by using different campaigns or ad sets for different target devices and including the OS or country in the naming convention.

Purchases by Country table where country values drop to zero and move to unknown

Reach out to us if you have any questions.