Do Meta Ads Perform Better on Android or iOS?

As the largest social media company in the world, Meta continues to be one of the most reliable digital advertising networks. Despite the brief outages in February and March this year, the ongoing iOS14 privacy changes, and the cookie adpocalypse; media buyers worldwide continue to favor spending on Meta.

How did those iOS14 changes affect performance on Apple devices?

Apple used to automatically share anonymous user data through its IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). In 2021, Apple released iOS 14 and iOS 14.5, software updates that changed the default privacy settings on iOS devices. The new default is that users now have to opt in to share their data. This was hailed as the death of Facebook direct advertising. Bring this up to any marketer and watch them shudder with flashbacks to this horrifying change.

Does this mean Android is better at delivering on Meta ads in 2024?

The Meta team at media agency Pilothouse recently ran a test to compare Android vs iOS and the results are surprising.

From a split test segmenting Android vs iOS, iOS has been more efficient in scaling up the results.

“This is a good opportunity to set up a test pushing more spending into the most efficient platform,” the DTC Pilothouse team wrote.

We believe this is an important distinction to make. While this test showed iOS as the winner, results may vary for you. It’s important to always be testing your creative and targeting to gather the most accurate data about your audience.

The positive takeaway here is that iOS14 didn’t kill Meta advertising to those devices. Far from it. To those marketers that abandoned ship in 2021, it might be time to take another look at Meta as a viable ad platform again.