Apple’s Ad Ban Helps Boost Its Own Biz

What’s The ATT?

Last year, Apple (AAPL) launched a new privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency, also known as ATT, which was a huge digital privacy win for consumers.

This feature required apps like Facebook (META) and Twitter (TWTR) to ask for user’s permission in order to track their activity across different apps or websites. In other words, it gave consumers an easy way to get more digital privacy. The ATT feature has been incredibly popular, with approximately 75% of users opting in.

Tracking and understanding user behavior is one of the main ways big advertisers like Meta (META) and Google (GOOGL) are able to show such highly-targeted ads. Apple’s push for consumer privacy is directly cutting into these companies’ revenues.

Big Advertising’s Response

Some of the world’s most popular tech giants like Google, Facebook, Snapchat (SNAP), and Twitter are losing out on ad revenue due to this update by Apple. According to Forbes, Facebook lost about $12.8 billion in ad revenue this year, while YouTube will lose $2.2 billion, Snap will lose $546 million, and Twitter will lose $323 million.

In addition, this new ad update hurt some small businesses, who often rely on targeted Facebook and Google ads to acquire new customers.

However, the digital ad business for both Google and Facebook are already starting to bounce back from the initial shock. Each company is coming up with work-arounds to bypass this new privacy policy.

All About Consumer Privacy?

The new privacy update is a win-win for Apple, simultaneously championing digital privacy and benefitting its own ad business.

The adoption of Apple Search Ads has risen 4% year-over-year, while Facebook and Google ad usage both decreased. Its market share also increased by 5% to 15% among advertisers. On top of that, Apple is doubling down on the size of its ad business by hiring 216 new employees.

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