Facebook Marketers Grapple With Apple‘s Privacy Changes

Facebook was none too pleased that apps like itself would have to ask for users‘ permission before they could be tracked across the web for marketing purposes.

Early numbers for ATT seem to suggest consent rates of between 4 percent and 40 percent. That‘s causing a stir among the small businesses who run ads on Facebook and changing how brands spend on the platform. The policy is also poised to enrich a company that doesn‘t need any favors: Amazon.

Also this week in news that will impact the future of advertising, Oracle supports Unified ID 2.0, the IAB Tech Lab‘s former CEO heads to Facebook and Facebook faces data restrictions in Europe.

It‘s been a busy week. Let‘s dig in.

Living in a post-ATT world

Brands will be grappling with Apple‘s privacy changes for some time. Small businesses who advertise on Facebook are reportedly “panicked,” while others are “leaning in” to the new environment. Ad spend has risen on Facebook since ATT went into effect as marketers try to maintain their share of voice, according to retail platform StitcherAds. Marketers‘ cost per acquisition may also be on the rise.

“To maintain the volume of purchases, brands are leaning into the update by increasing spend levels allowing them to reach more audiences and maintain a target volume of sales,” said Bryan Cano, StitcherAds‘ director of media strategy.

Of course, any identity-related restrictions make first-party data all the more valuable. Data-rich companies stand to benefit, particularly Amazon, which will have to ask for consent from customers using its app. But the company will still be able to track customers in its app when they are logged into its properties, according to CNBC, regardless of whether they opt in or not. Amazon‘s first-party data may also give marketers more insights than what other platforms provide.

In case you missed it, Amazon‘s “Other” category, which includes its advertising revenue, hit $6.9 billion in Q1, a 77 percent year-over-year increase.

Oracle joins the Unified ID 2.0 movement

The hashed-email cookie alternative picked up more steam this week. Oracle will integrate with the identifier, which will help marketers improve their identity resolution and do things like identify consumers with multiple email addresses.

Unified ID 2.0 was launched by The Trade Desk but is now overseen by the industry nonprofit Prebid. It boasts many supporters from across the ecosystem, including The Washington Post, PubMatic, Magnite, Nielsen and LiveRamp, but it still needs more participation from publishers and integrations with supply-side platforms and demand-side platforms.

“The more participants in a solution like Unified ID 2.0, the larger the breadth of identifiers marketers will have access to in order to fill the gap for third-party cookies and MAIDs [mobile ad IDs] within the martech ecosystem,” Mollie Spilman, SVP and CRO of Oracle Advertising, told AdExchanger.

Facebook beckons

We were wondering last week what happened with Dennis Buchheim, who resigned as CEO of the IAB Tech Lab only four months after accepting the top job.

Turns out he‘s headed to Facebook, where he‘ll be the new VP of advertising ecosystem, acting as a liaison between the platform‘s various ad teams to ensure their efforts are informed with in-market context. His departure comes at a pivotal time for the trade group‘s efforts to help the industry navigate the impending loss of third-party cookies.

Closing the spigot?

Facebook may be forced to stop sending the personal information of EU users to its US-based computer servers.

In September, the EU preliminarily ordered Facebook to suspend the data transfers because of a larger ruling based on Europeans‘ inability to challenge US government surveillance. Facebook tried to block the privacy decision, but its complaints were dismissed today.

If the decision becomes final, Facebook — and other tech companies — may have to rearchitect its service to stop the trans-Atlantic data flow by walling off European user data or even temporarily withdrawing service in the bloc.

That‘s it for now. See you next week!