New report shows how Meta was forced to change its ad tech on iOS because of Apple's ATT

As you may have heard, recently Meta (Facebook's parent company) reported a substantial decrease in its revenue, and more specifically, a big 26% drop in revenue, a total of $250 billion, and a large part of this decrease is due to Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature, which changed the way ads work within iOS apps.

Now, a new report from Recode dives deeper into how Meta has tried to find a workaround for iOS advertisement, reports 9to5Mac.

Apple's ATT is forcing Meta to change the ways it gathers info for relevant ads

Meta, upon the report of the decreased revenue, singled out Apple's App Tracking Transparency as one of the things that affected it the most. App Tracking Transparency was announced back in June of 2020, and was released with iOS 14.5, and gave iPhone users the ability to opt-out of app tracking their internet behavior in order to deliver personalized ads.

App tracking, however, is important to advertisers as they use your information to deliver ads relevant to your interests, and understandably, the more relevant the ad is to you, the easier it is for advertisers to make you buy the products.

Apple's ATT then made the information less relevant for users, and advertisers on Meta suffered from it. Nevertheless, Meta and many of its advertisers reportedly expect to see an increase in revenue this year, but it has become harder for them to advertise to iOS users.


On the other hand, the report underlines that Facebook also pushed selling products on its own apps, like digital storefronts on Instagram and Facebook, which is a plan laid out last spring just as Apple's privacy changes went into effect. Facebook could generate revenue from those sales as well. However, despite that, the report indicates that Meta's ads for iOS users will never be at the same level of efficiency as they were before ATT.

We are left wondering what these changes might lead to in the future, but all we can do so far is wait and see.

Recently, Meta shares value has been going down

A couple of weeks ago, we reported on the exact toll Apple's App Tracking Transparency feature cost social media giant Meta. Back when it published its initial revenue report, Meta's stock dropped by $73.95 to finish that day at $249.05. And now, at the time of writing, Meta's stock has gone even lower at $217.70.

And it seems that Facebook's issues will be continuing through this year. As we reported earlier, the company's forecast for 2022 doesn't seem to get much better, and it stated that there are headwinds from increased competition from other apps and social media platforms for people's time and attention. Additionally, there has been a shift in engagement without its own apps towards video platforms such as Instagram Reels, but they monetize at lower rates than Feed and Stories. Basically, it is struggling to find ways to grow its business during these changing times.

Unfortunately for Meta, it is looking at a possible cost of $10 billion just because of Apple's App Tracking Transparency and users spending their time on Reels and finding other things to do than just sit for ages on Facebook.