On October 5, 2018 Facebook sent an email out to all advertisers notifying them about an upcoming update to the Facebook Pixel.
Facebook pixel update on October 24, 2018
The motivation behind the upcoming change is the announcements from Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox regarding their blocking of 3rd party cookies on recent updates to their browsers.
Currently Facebook’s pixel is a 3rd party cookie, which would mean that Facebook could not track users visiting sites if they were using Safari or Firefox.
To combat this, Facebook is releasing a first-party cookie option for advertisers on October 24, 2018.
We discussed the topic recently during our live Social Media Ad Genius Insider’s Club Call (watch below).
What are Cookies?
“Cookies are small files which are stored on a user’s computer. They are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website, and can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. This allows the server to deliver a page tailored to a particular user, or the page itself can contain some script which is aware of the data in the cookie and so is able to carry information from one visit to the website (or related site) to the next.”
via: www.whatarecookies.com
What’s the difference in a 1st party cookie and a 3rd party cookie?
A first-party cookie is cookie created by the domain that a user is visiting.
For instance, when a visitor is on this site (http://blog.socialmediaadgenius.com) their browser, say for instance Firefox, sends a web request in the first context, a process which entails a high level of trust that the user is directly interacting with blog.socialmediaadgenius.com.
Firefox would then save a data file with specific data to the user’s computer under this domain. This data contains important information that enhances your browsing experience for that particular site. Adding items to a cart and the ability to keep shopping without losing that cart information is one example of a 1st party cookie in action.
Third-party cookies are not created by the domain that a person is visiting, but instead are created by a third party. This is most often seen with advertisements that show up on a site but are not hosted by that site’s server. These third-party cookies can help the advertiser to track a user across multiple websites and further target or tailor their ads.
Some people feel that these 3rd-party pixel infringe of their privacy and threaten their digital security, which is the reason that Apple & Firefox browsers have begun blocking 3rd party cookies.
The launch of Facebook’s first-party cookies means Facebook will now create cookies that pass data back to Facebook as long as the sites have established a first-party relationship.
Is Facebook being sneaky here? Not really, Google rolled out a similar change more than a year ago, and Microsoft followed suit earlier this year for Bing. This move by Facebook just seems to be getting more attention on the heels of the Cambridge Analytica debacle and other recent data scandals that have plagued Facebook.
What Does This Mean For Facebook Advertisers
Not much really!
Advertisers can currently log into their Events Manager to edit their Facebook Pixel cookie settings. If you wish to opt-out of using the first-party pixel you have until October 24 to opt-out, but the only reason to opt-out would be if your site is handling highly confidential information such as in the medical or financial fields.
After October 24, the first-party pixel will become the default for new Pixels, but new and current advertisers will be able to change their selection at any time.
We don’t expect to see much change after the 24th. Pixel tracking will still work and our Facebook ads reports will still be giving us the data we need to make smart decisions on our ad campaigns.
If we are seeing any big changes we’ll keep you updated in our Social Media Ad Genius Facebook Group – click here to join us there.
Nick Bridges
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