Facebook Worries iOS 14 Will Reduce 50% Of Its Ads Revenue

Facebook has warned advertisers that Apple’s new anti-tracking tools could reduce half the Audience Network publisher revenue by removing personalization from in-app ads.

The social giant said in a blog post that it doesn’t collect IDFA (identifier from advertisers) from its apps on iOS 14 devices because of a new feature Apple has added. It essentially requires users to agree to ad tracking to prevent cross-site and cross-app tracking used for targeted ads, saying that the iPhone maker has “forced this decision.”

Apple devices offer IDFA used by Facebook and advertising partners for ad targeting. In iOS 14, however, IDFA becomes a feature that gives more transparency to those who don’t want to be tracked on websites and in apps.

“This is not a change we want to make, but unfortunately Apple's updates to iOS14 have forced this decision. We know this may severely impact publishers' ability to monetize through Audience Network on ‌iOS 14‌, and, despite our best efforts, may render Audience Network so ineffective on ‌iOS 14‌ that it may not make sense to offer it on ‌iOS 14‌ in the future.”

The world-leading social network warns that the new operating system could make Audience Network ineffective, so it may not be offered on iOS 14 in the future. The company also says that it will be limited in delivering targeted ads in the operating system. Some user won’t see ads from the Audience Network program and others will see lest targeted ads. Developers and publishers using this program should expect lower CPMs.

“While it's difficult to quantify the impact to publishers and developers at this point with so many unknowns, in testing we've seen more than a 50% drop in Audience Network publisher revenue when personalization was removed from mobile ad install campaigns. In reality, the impact to Audience Network on ‌iOS 14‌ may be much more, so we are working on short-and long-term strategies to support publishers through these changes.”

The new Apple operating system has a Tracking section in the Settings app that allows for disabling the option for apps to track users. Even when the feature is turned off, apps must ask for permission to track the user in third-party apps and sites.

According to Facebook, many of its publishers and developers will suffer from this new feature in iOS 14 while the pandemic has already made it difficult. The social giant also said it will invest time and resources to build monetization products for publishers, supporting non-iOS 14 platforms.

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