Week 15 Part B: What we Learn from Facebook Analytics

     In April 2021 Apple added a feature that would let iPhone users to opt-out of their data being tracked. The feature is meant to give people more control of their data but had a large effect on companies that relied on users' data. According to Forbes Facebook/Meta are probably the ones who lost the most from the change. While the change hurt Facebook, the change actually benefited Apple because people decided to go to apple instead of other companies to advertise their apps.

    Facebook/Meta has been seeing a drop in profits recently. In early 2022, Meta's CFO said that they anticipate losing over $10 billion in sales in revenue. According to Forbes, this caused a 26% drop in their stock price. Those $10 billion made up about 8% of Facebook's yearly revenue. It is pretty obvious that because of Apple's move, Facebook lost a good chunk of its revenue. They still haven't been able to recover. Their stock never recovered very well and even after Meta's "Metaverse" was created, Facebook/Meta's stock keeps on going lower.

   Many iPhone users didn't want their information being tracked; according to CNBC,  62% of users are opting out of their data being tracked. This has caused Facebook's ads to be worse at targeting people who are potential customers. The 38% of people who opted into their data being tracked are really valuable to Facebook and other companies like Peloton and Snapchat. For Facebook, they need those people to fine-tune campaigns for people who chose to opt-out, so it's clear that they are holding on to those users. Without them, Facebook's ads aren't as effective as they were before or possibly could be.

    Apple's changes also led to changes in ad campaigns for iOS 14+ campaigns on the Facebook app. According to Meta, it limits reporting with things such as hurting estimated results and doesn't give support for breakdowns (such as age or region). Meta also advised people to use a broader audience and to use targeting expansion to target people more effectively. Ultimately, the change also hurt businesses' ability to advertise on Facebook. Meta estimates that people will spend less money while on Facebook. While this hurts Facebook and its profits, it also hurts the businesses that advertise on the platform because their advertisements won't reach as many people in their target market.

    Ultimately, it's people's decision to opt-out of Facebook's tracking. It makes sense that people want to opt-out because people don't trust Facebook with their data. According to a different CNBC article, Facebook hasn't given us any evidence that we should trust them with our data. Since Apple is giving people the option to decide if they data is being tracked, Facebook's ad system isn't as good as before and many people are struggling to get the correct people to see their ads. This means that many people might move on to other ways of advertising such as Google ads and find different ways of targeting their target market.