Facebook parent revenue, Meta Platforms Inc. potentially cut billions of US
dollars due to social media which can no longer collect a lot of iPhone user
data. Not wanting to lose alone, now Facebook is attacking Google about
Apple Inc's privacy policy.
According to Bloomberg, Thursday (10/2/2022), Facebook's owner accused
Alphabet Inc.'s Google, which also sells personalized ads on iPhones, of
having an unfair advantage under Apple's new policy.
Apps including Facebook had to ask users if they agreed to be tracked, but
Google's search engine and browser did not experience anything similar. This
causes some advertiser budgets to turn to Google for more effective
targeting.
Meta has begun to criticize other tech giants in recent years. The social
media giant, now facing antitrust scrutiny around the world, has benefited
from framing itself as an underdog, threatened by a larger power.
However, Meta told investors it expects to lose $10 billion in ad revenue by
2022 due to Apple's changes.
Facebook relies on data from other apps and websites to make its ads
effective. Without it, advertisers would need to spend more money to achieve
the same results.
“Facebook advertising is still important, it just costs more,” said Doug
Zarkin, head of marketing for Pearle Vision, which relies on Facebook and
Instagram to drive people to its websites and eye care stores.
He estimates that advertising campaigns are about 15 percent to 30 percent
more expensive than last year.
Last year, Google said it would not ask consumers about data collection
because, after Apple's changes, it decided not to use any data on iPhones
that required permission.
Google also doesn't need the kind of data that Facebook does from third
parties for its ads to work. Google runs its own mobile operating system,
Android, and its own ad exchange.
When users perform a search, their intent is to provide sufficient data to
effectively advertise to them across Google-owned properties. This strategy
can encourage advertisers to move their advertising budget to Google instead
of Facebook.
“Google just happened to be in the right place at the right time. They are
the biggest beneficiary of shifted ad dollars because of their
effectiveness,” said Rick Watson, CEO of RMW Consulting. The lack of
tracking data also means it's difficult for Meta to prove that its ads are
generating sales, which makes it less valuable.
Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg noted Wednesday that this was a
problem for Meta during the holiday quarter, saying Meta received less
granular conversion data on a delayed basis.
“This makes real-time decision making very difficult. That's especially
important during holiday periods, where people often spend a lot of money
and actually monitor their ads and adjust spend not even on a daily basis,
but often on an hourly basis,” he said.
Apple Consumer Protection says the company has a long history of helping
users prevent unwanted tracking and began blocking cross-site tracking in
the Safari browser in 2017.
Those privacy protections extend to searching in Safari, minimizing the
amount of data passed to third-party search engines.
Apple also says it offers alternatives, such as Duck Duck Go, for searching
in Safari.
Apple's latest changes don't just affect Facebook. People give apps
permission on average to track their behavior only 27 percent of the time,
according to Branch, a company that analyzes the growth of mobile apps and
deep links.
Those numbers have remained consistent over the months since Apple first
started pushing iOS updates to users last summer, said Alex Bauer, head of
product marketing at Branch.
But Facebook relies more on data than anything else, including its smaller
social media counterparts, such as Snap Inc. and Pinterest Inc. Both
companies reported strong sales or less affected by Apple's policies.