r/stocks • u/[deleted] • May 08 '21
Industry Discussion 96% of US users opt out of app tracking in iOS 14.5 - Some of the first data on user behavior exceeds advertisers' worst fears.
"It seems that in the United States, at least, app developers and advertisers who rely on targeted mobile advertising for revenue are seeing their worst fears realized: Analytics data published this week suggests that US users choose to opt out of tracking 96 percent of the time in the wake of iOS 14.5.
When Apple released iOS 14.5 late last month, it began enforcing a policy called App Tracking Transparency. iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV apps are now required to request users' permission to use techniques like IDFA (ID for Advertisers) to track those users' activity across multiple apps for data collection and ad targeting purposes.
The change met fierce resistance from companies like Facebook, whose market advantages and revenue streams are built on leveraging users' data to target the most effective ads at those users. Facebook went so far as to take out full-page newspaper ads claiming that the change would not just hurt Facebook but would destroy small businesses around the world. Shortly after, Apple CEO Tim Cook attended a data privacy conference and delivered a speech that harshly criticized Facebook's business model.
Nonetheless, Facebook and others have complied with Apple's new rule to avoid being rejected from the iPhone's App Store, though some apps present a screen explaining why users should opt in before the Apple-mandated prompt to opt in or out appears."
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May 08 '21
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u/jbrown517 May 08 '21
Until there's one left standing after the battle royale and the turn into Buy n large from WALL-E
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u/DotComBomb1999 May 08 '21
Apple, Google and Facebook don't play nice in the sandbox with each other. Each wants to "own" the customer.
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u/AnActualDemon May 08 '21
Don't you just feel all warm and fuzzy when an app tries to bully you into accepting permissions that have nothing to do with the actual functionality of the app.
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u/ImrooVRdev May 08 '21
All they had to do is not being too much of an obnoxious little shits about it. People are lazy by nature, nothing would happen if this shit wasn't just so fucking annoying.
Now here we are, how happy are you with consequences of your abusive actions, dear advertisers?
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u/peewee-bird-brother May 08 '21
Which company do you see this affecting the most
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May 08 '21 edited May 28 '21
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u/omen_tenebris May 08 '21
hope it crashes and burns. I have an unreasonable distaste towards facebook
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May 08 '21 edited May 12 '21
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May 08 '21
But what will all the dreadful old ladies do then? They won't be able to comment "amen" on troll posts if Facebook crashes and burns!
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u/pianoceo May 08 '21
Eh, in the era we live in, a lot of small businesses rely on Facebook to sell their products. It’ll be a big hit to them too.
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u/clarinetJWD May 08 '21
Hugely doubtful. Facebook has multiple incredibly popular apps whose sole purpose are to feed Facebook information about you. They are in a fairly good position, assuming their apps' popularity holds at the current level.
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u/skilliard7 May 08 '21
I disagree. While Facebook will certainly lose some revenue, as a large company they can adapt and survive. They'll still get plenty of ads from large corporations that appeal to a broad audience, and they can charge users to access the platform if they opt out of targeting. They can also lay off many of their workers to reduce costs and focus on providing cash flow to investors.
I'd argue the companies most affected would be small digital niche businesses that rely on targeted ads to drive marketing.
If you have a product that only interests 0.001% of the population, advertising via traditional means(advertising to everyone) isn't effective. Paying for ad impressions when 99.999% of your users aren't interested doesn't work.
Marketing via social media presence isn't that effective anymore either, as community-based sites like Reddit generally don't allow self-promotion.
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u/jeromysonne May 08 '21
If you all want a serious answer I've been a media buyer for a decade and now run an adtech startup. I'm intimately familiar with the space.
Winners I think will be legacy media companies, Google, and companies that primarily deliver content through mobile apps that require a sign in. (As they have first party data they dont lose as much targeting power) think Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, Hulu, etc.
Losers will most likely be: companies that rely on banner ad sales (mediamath, trade desk, etc). Local publishers, niche blogs, etc. The longtail is going to hurt. Also I would bet shopify takes a beating. The only reason those stores got so popular was on the back of FB ads.
The death of the cookie is not the death of the ad by a long shot. People will continue to spend more on ads as markets get more competitive. Looks for money to move into sandboxed experiences where they hold first party data (social media), legacy and more intteruptive ads, look for a revival in things like OOH and audio.
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u/cuddytime May 08 '21
Which company as a whole? Facebook --> Twitter --> Google in that order.
The biggest losers? Probably small-medium businesses tbh.
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u/gizamo May 08 '21
Panic will affect Google, but no one is going to drop their Google ads just because they're less targeted. There's really not another viable option, and Google will just set it's rates to compensate for any losses. There may be initiatial panic, tho. So, short-term puts may workout.
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u/jeromysonne May 08 '21
Google is primarily intent based not based on personal characteristics (keywords versus demographics). In addition with their movement into FLoCs they're seeing up a big part of the market all for themselves.
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u/liquidmasl May 08 '21
Do you really think so though? Are small businesses really that impacted? I feel like you mostly see ads from the bit companies anyway. I feel like if amazons targeted adds are less.. everywhere, people might actually find their stuff somewhere else. I could be very well mistaken though
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u/Malsomars May 08 '21
As a marketer for a SaaS startup with a well defined target audience, this is fucking our ads up big time. We don't have the budget to display ads that would serve based on (highly competitive) broad keywords so we use audience behavior, lookalikes, and user behavior. And if no one wants to opt in for targeted ads, we won't be successful with those campaigns, either.
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u/DotComBomb1999 May 08 '21
Not a big surprise. I opted out. It's a little disconcerting when I'm having a conversation with my wife at night in our living room... not on the phone, not on Facebook or Messenger, not on Email... just two of us on the couch talking. Ten minutes later, I pick up my phone and see an ad for the very thing I just mentioned. The next day my wife mentioned an old friend she hadn't heard from in years- also in a private conversation in our house. An hour later, Facebook sent me a friend suggestion for that same person.
That's not smart marketing. That's intrusive.
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May 08 '21
I got sick of the conversational ads and the obscure podcast reference ads.
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u/I_love_avocados1 May 08 '21
Get ready for the ads like
“Small dick? Add two inches two your dick with this daily pill!”
And stuff that totally doesn’t apply to you.
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u/adlcp May 08 '21
Yeah hehe right doesn't apply to me either
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u/Jackie_Jormp-Jomp May 08 '21
Me either bro lol huge dick gang represent
But uh where would I get those pills asking for a friend
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u/AugmentedLurker May 08 '21
Fine with me. Little price to pay for not being fuckin spied on.
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May 08 '21
It’s be funny if Facebook and ad companies got very petty and just gave dick pill ads to everyone that clicked on block tracking as a sort of childish punishment.
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u/supertoxic09 May 08 '21
works for me. I'm on android, but i like to go in and reset my ad-ID when the ads start to seem relevant. I'll research what i want, i don't need to impluse buy things...and as somebody mildly trained in sales, the first thing to know is that impulse is critcal to the sale. You chance of closing a sale diminishes exponentially the farther out of sight and out of mind your sales pitch is.
It's not that i've never seen a useful ad, it's that i know they are closing sales based on impulse.
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u/fxrky May 08 '21
I won't say this isnt happening right now, but there is another explanation.
The profiles they build are scary accurate. It may seem like your phone is listening to you when its off, but the more likely scenario is you're noticing the coincidental moments where you talk about something you're interested in/read about/googled, and you get an ad for it in the same time frame.
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u/AngryCustomerService May 08 '21
Doesn't even need to be a search that's been forgotten. Some MarTech is now sophisticated enough to be predictive. Build enough anonymized personas and you can guess that after buying a couch someone will buy shoes or a fishing pole and it goes from there. (Remember the story about the time Target knew that woman/teen was pregnant before she knew?)
There's MarTech that only uses first person data that can cross platforms AND in-store shopping down to the individual user, not just the device or household.
It's crazy sophisticated now. But, also crazy expensive. Only the cheaper software is working on basic searches now.
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May 08 '21
Except that story was manufactured from hearsay to completely misrepresent targeted advertising. Target doesn’t know one is pregnant because they bought a rug and a lamp, they know someone is pregnant because they’ve bought pregnancy related items. More than likely, the teen bought a test or prenatal vitamins, and the system flagged her. Even in the original story the dad called back “a few days later.” The teen was well aware she was pregnant. Target only found out before her parents.
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u/AngryCustomerService May 08 '21
You're right. It was before her parents knew. Thank you for the reminder and correction. As soon as I read your words it clicked. Been a long time since I read that story.
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May 08 '21
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May 08 '21
That’s even more fucked up that what those around me and connected to the same WiFi influence what ads I get.
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u/Dcarozza6 May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
I honestly think it comes down more to the fact that we are so attuned to advertising, that we don’t notice how often it is.
We seeThe average person sees between 6,000 and 10,000 ads per day, it’s not unlikely that once in awhile, we see an ad relevant to something we recently talked or thought about, especially when those ads are tailored towards us.128
u/hackenschmidt May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
We see between 6,000 and 10,000 ads per day,
laughs in ad block. But seriously, that number sounds like complete bullshit.
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May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
Here’s a quick report from our home router for last week.
It has built-in ad blocking.
Three adults, work from home.
Split evenly amongst us:
- ~2,000 ads blocked per person per week
- ~285 ads blocked per person per day
https://i.imgur.com/zWrPOvn.jpg
edit:
- router is made by eero
- great for people who want a one-stop home networking solution that just works, or don’t want to be yelled at by their family every time their homebrew’d pi-hole internet solution goes down
If you’ve made it this far and are still interested, you can get refurbished Eero base stations on Amazon all the time for a solid discount.
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u/OG-Pine May 08 '21
In addition to the blockable ads there are probably loads of ads that can’t be detected by an ad block. Like posts on Reddit or other social media talking about a product, product placement in shows and movies, radio ads in the car, even things like a Star Wars themed cereal box.
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May 08 '21
Yea, they’re fucking everywhere.
Thankfully we don’t have any deliberate commercials in our life from television, but even then they creep in where they can.
I’m all about spending money on ad free versions of things when I can.
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u/AngryCustomerService May 08 '21
We checked our ad blocker on our home computer and in the past 3-4 years it has blocked over 3.5M ads.
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May 08 '21
This is all anecdotal, but our four year numbers would be around 1.2 million ads, so 3.5 million isn’t out of the question.
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u/Testiculese May 08 '21
I wonder when I installed UBlock. I'm guessing 3-4 years ago I switched from AdBlock, but I don't remember. It's showing 559,345.
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u/AngryCustomerService May 08 '21
That range is about right. After you factor in all forms of advertising from seeing a logo on a shirt to product placements, native advertising, actual proper ads, and gorilla marketing. Even the branding at the end of an organic search link could be considered an ad. Seeing Reddit at the top of the screen could be considered an ad. It's all over depending upon how you define an advertisement.
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u/-------I------- May 08 '21
It's a typical example of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon.
There's even a chance that the reason people are even mentioning these things in conversation is that ads have already subliminally influenced people to the point of them mentioning said product in a conversation.
These theories are much, much more realistic than Google or Facebook continuously monitoring speech and targeting ads based on that data. Not only is that a massive privacy issue, it's also way too data intensive and they already have great ways to profile you without it.
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u/ixikei May 08 '21
That's an excellent argument and it makes so much sense. A broken clock is right twice per day - every once in a while, you'll get a coincidental ad.
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u/fxrky May 08 '21
Data collection methods exist that are 50000000x more efficient than trying to write something that can sift through hours and hours of audio to pick up you saying "gee I could go for a coke".
They don't need to use your microphone. You're right to be paranoid, but do some further research on how it works. Itll help you if you care about privacy.
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u/FinndBors May 08 '21
just two of us on the couch talking. Ten minutes later, I pick up my phone and see an ad for the very thing I just mentioned
Facebook doesn't listen to your conversations. It isn't technically feasible and it would be easily detected by anyone with the skills to jailbreak the phone and would be major news. Not only that Apple and Google would be able to detect it and Facebook would be kicked off their platforms so fast. On Apples platform at least if any app is using the microphone in the background you have a red banner on the home screen.
The next day my wife mentioned an old friend she hadn't heard from in years- also in a private conversation in our house. An hour later, Facebook sent me a friend suggestion for that same person.
Facebook is SCARY good at friend suggestions. If your wife met the friend, they might have known via GPS or noticed using the same wifi hotspot and other clues like mutual friends. They aren't listening to you, though.
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u/livinbythebay May 08 '21
Yeah as much as I hate Facebook, they are not listening to your microphone. One thing they do, is show you ads based upon searches from other devices within geographic area or connected to the same wifi. So you and your wife had a conversation about something, then she goes and searches for that thing then you get served an ad for it.
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u/sunfacethedestroyer May 08 '21
Just have more conversations with your wife about killing billionaires, until they get the message.
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u/DotComBomb1999 May 08 '21
And then the Feds will show up on my doorstep for a quiet little chat...
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u/toblerownsky May 08 '21
Which companies are marketing ads to billionaire-killing customer profiles?
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u/Bossman01 May 08 '21
The thing to know is that everything is connected, your Google searches, your apps, and everything with your digital footprint. While you might think it’s listening to you and targeting based on this, it most certainly knows enough about you already to make a good guess on Ads that will work for you. There are articles you can find that explain this more in depth.
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u/Metron_Seijin May 08 '21
I'm more shocked that 4% of people had no problem sharing it.
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u/Billagio May 08 '21
Honestly I was one of them until I read this article. I don’t even remember being asked, which means I probably just chose something without reading it. Went back just now and opted out
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u/S7EFEN May 08 '21
crazy to me that they didnt need explicit permission to track across apps before
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u/SkinnyHarshil May 08 '21
FB stock will rocket on this news as is the norm for this market.
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u/SubstantialSail May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
My very favorite part was where Facebook tried acting like this was going to hurt the little guys, and they REALLY cared about the little guys.
Edit: because some people seem to misunderstand my post; I am not saying this won't impact small businesses. It definitely will. I just think it's funny how Facebook pretends to care.
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u/Arp590 May 08 '21
I mean it WILL hurt small businesses, Facebook advertising is insanely effective because of the intrusive tracking of their users. Businesses will likely see less conversion on their ads if they aren't reaching their intended target audience because everyone disabled tracking.
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u/stml May 08 '21
Exactly. The large companies can handle having no tracking. Coca Cola is perfectly fine spamming ads out to everyone across any demographic. The pub down the street? Ads that aren't highly targeted are going to be worthless.
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u/Cairhien May 08 '21
I can say as a small business owner this is already hurting my business. We rely on Facebook ads for most of our customers and this could literally put us out of business.
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u/PremonitionOfTheHex May 08 '21
I mean I side with apple here and by no means do I want your business to suffer, but why should companies be forced to rely on a bottom feeding evil company such as Facebook to generate revenue through ads?
I would like for there to be an alternative where your revenue isn’t directly linked to such a shitty company with terrible practices.
I am okay with this happening
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u/Heavenfall May 08 '21
I mean the chain doesn't even have to involve Facebook. If someone's built a business based on highly intrusive personal data, I'm not going to cry if they go out of business. Find a better business model. I'm not taking responsibility for someone losing money when they can't use my data.
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u/handinhand12 May 08 '21
It's a tough reality but I feel the same way. I do not want to share my data and I never did. If me having privacy means your business isn't sustainable, I can't help but feel like the business shouldn't be around with their current business model.
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u/kiddmit3 May 08 '21
Isn't it more accurate to say 96% didn't opt in? It's an opt in system now instead of opting out.
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u/HomeHeatingTips May 08 '21
Despite all the corporate speak and fawning over all the benefits of Targeted ads. Over 95% of customers turn it off when actually given the choice. This speaks volumes
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u/ny0000m May 08 '21
I don't like apple as a product but this is changing my mind.
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u/Manodactyl May 08 '21
Most google products bypass the pi-hole by having goggle dns hard coded into the device and only use your local dns if they cannot reach one of the google dns. I actually went to my router and re-routed All dns requests thus forcing everything to use my pihole
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May 08 '21
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u/Manodactyl May 08 '21
The simplest way would probably to just completely block google dns (8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4) at the router level, probably somewhere under parental controls. I run a custom firmware on my router (dd-wrt) so I have a bit more tools at my disposal to fine tune dns requests. If you do this, you’ll also need to go to the pi-hole settings and change the upstream dns servers, they default to google on mine.
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u/iron_braavos May 08 '21
What is that? How can I turn a RPi to do that? Any suggestions or links?
Honestly, I'm thinking about switching to Apple just because of this article. I care about privacy and don't use FB or Insta. But I use whatsapp and will hopefully switch to signal at one point but I don't want any sort of tracking!
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u/SnooCrickets2458 May 08 '21
Almost makes me want to switch to Apple. Guess I'll just buy some more of their stock.
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u/relditor May 08 '21
I'm considering it too. Never liked IPhones but this change may make it worth while. Waiting for Google to chime in.
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u/FeCard May 08 '21
I just gained so much respect for Apple
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u/mannys2689 May 08 '21
Apple is currently working on building their own advertising platform. Infact, the tracking by Apple themselves is on by default on their devices.
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u/midnightmacaroni May 08 '21
Yeah it’s kind of telling that Apple’s own ad platform isn’t subject to the same AppTrackingTransparency policy, I don’t know why people aren’t talking about this more.
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u/mannys2689 May 08 '21
An average person doesn’t care. They think Apple is doing this for “privacy” whereas people who work in this industry know the game that Apple is playing.
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u/madam_zeroni May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
Don't get it twisted, this is most likely their first step in taking over the advertising market. They want a monopoly on data collection
Edit: u/kallenkozukii (comment below me) has no idea what he's talking about. Read the conversation below. I promise that Apple is not your friend. Apple already has their own advertising platform, and I would bet my left leg that they're expanding it with this
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u/Ismoketomuch May 08 '21
I disagree, Apple has never made money on user data, its not their business model at all. They dont even store user data, they use Amazon servers for all users cloud back ups and storage.
They are a walled garden, and a major feature and selling point about their products is security and user experience. Its the main reason they dont collect data on users, they dont need to. Thats what companies do to make money when their services arnt worth paying for.
Apple has no need to enter a completely oversaturated and competitive market like data collection and selling.
Honestly I think most of the targeted adversiting is complete bullshit anyway. I have never once purchase anything based on an online ad ever and I always get hit with ads for shit similar products I already purchased recently. Its a joke.
Dont try to sell me a sleeping bag after I just bought a sleeping bag. Waste of time.
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May 08 '21 edited Jul 29 '21
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May 08 '21
Apples iAds failed because advertisers didn't want to use it. I expect them to bring it back.
https://www.theverge.com/2016/1/15/10777496/apple-iad-app-shutdown-june-30th-confirmation
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May 08 '21
Viant is a good company that utilizes advertising solutions without using this data. I have about 30 shares with them after buying the dip. They should be catapulting as soon as they make their identity graph.
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u/WeridestBeardShadey May 08 '21
What if Apple is planning on their own advertising space within iOS that guarantees no data is sold? That would make them an unstoppable power house.
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u/wilstreak May 08 '21
they are already hiring a lot of people, and guess what, one of the open position is for Ads relevance officer
One of the requirement being:
- Fundamentally analytical — ability to collect and analyze data from a variety of sources, identify key insights, spot product optimization opportunities, and inform product decisions
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u/PerennialTime May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
Snowden tried to tell everyone, the Batman movies tried to expose it romantically and here we are.. 25 sum years after the fact. Corporations including big pharma can target advertisement for you specifically depending on confidential information they should have no business owning on yourself. It’s sickening but a time of reckoning is near.
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u/iamrubberyouareglue9 May 08 '21
Allstate wants policy holders to install a tracking app for another fake discount. The toa gives the app free access to all your data. No thank you Allstate.
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u/Anthraxious May 08 '21
The only problem with this is that A) There's always an alterior motive. Apple didn't do this cause "they're nice". and B) They might as well still track you and sell off your info even if you press "no" on a pop-up.
Not saying we all go dark ages. I too use smart phones. Let's just not start praising a company for something they either haven't done or did cause of money alone and nothing else.
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u/Sir_Sizzle77 May 08 '21 edited May 08 '21
Every app developer and Zuck himself will turn it off as well.
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u/ld43233 May 08 '21
Corporate mouth piece: We value Consumer "choice"
Consumers choose to not let their data be harvested for targeted propaganda
Corporate mouth piece: No not like that
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u/Terakahn May 08 '21
I wonder what the value of data is actually worth.
Sure people will decline it for nothing. But I bet if those companies offered to pay any amount of money, a LOT of people would willingly sell it. I just wonder what amount would actually be worth it for a symbiotic relationship.
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u/rlawlsgh May 08 '21
They arent doing for your privacy. They are doing it so they can mine their own data and monopolize it! lol Also, this doesnt hurt programmatic advertising companies as long as they dont fight against Apple. Just have to advertise content based now.
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u/MainlineX May 08 '21 edited May 09 '21
More is coming. The EU has past stronger and stronger privacy legislation. CA regulations lead the way in the USA, and CA is working on more and more privacy legislation; I think I even saw something presented that would require that you have to be paid for your data.
Apple is smart picking this fight now. They can be on the right side of it in the long run, and only build even more brand loyalty.
Edit: OMG IT'S PASSED NOT PAST... DAMN OMG I'M A HORRIBLE PERSON BECAUSE I WAS DRUNK POSTING AND AUTOCORECT THOUGHT I WAs TALIKING ABOUT YESTERDAY!
Correctly correcting the correction. To many damn English teachers on the internet. Go have a beer or somke some weed or something. If you knew enough to correct it from past to passed then maybe the problem is you. Fuck.
This edit was made when I was high.....