Apple’s iPhone Privacy Update Is The Reason Why Facebook Underreported Ad Performance
Facebook has admitted that it has underreported ad performance due to the recent privacy changes implemented by Apple.
Apple’s Changes Affected Facebook’s Ads Performance Report
The social media giant Facebook has revealed earlier today that it underreported ad performances due to the recent privacy changes Apple made to its iPhones. Facebook said the privacy changes affected the performance it was reported to iPhone users.
In a blog post published earlier today, the social media giant admitted that it underreported web conversions on Apple’s iOS by roughly 15% in the third quarter of the year. The company added that there is a wide range of reports for different advertisers.
Graham Mudd, Facebook’s VP of product marketing, stated that they believe that the real world conversions, like sales and app installs, were much higher than what was reported to numerous advertisers.
“As we noted during our earnings call in July, we expected increased headwinds from platform changes, notably the recent iOS updates, to have a greater impact in the third quarter compared to the second quarter. We know many of you are experiencing this greater impact as we are,” Facebook added.
Facebook CFO David Wehner had previously warned of the potential effect of the iOS changes during the company’s last earnings call in July. Apple’s privacy changes gave iPhone and iPad users the choice to decide whether to opt in to be tracked when they first launch an app. This has affected businesses like Facebook that depend on specialized tracking to deliver more personalized ads to the users.
Facebook’s Stock Price Down By 4%
Mudd said he is optimistic about Facebook’s multi-year effort to put in place new privacy-enhancing technologies. These technologies are expected to minimize the amount of personal information Facebook processes while allowing the social media giant to show personalized ads and measure their effectiveness.
The shares of Facebook are down by 4% since the company published the blog post earlier today. FB is trading at $342 per share, down from the $349 it was trading when the market opened a few hours ago.
YTD, FB has still performed excellently. FB started 2021 trading at $268 per share but is now up over 30%. It is one of the best-performing tech stocks so far this year.
This article was originally posted on FX Empire
