Apple Increases the Stakes in the Consumer Privacy Wars

Apple Increases the Stakes in the Consumer Privacy Wars

by Tim Colucci Apple

Apple’s 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference generated a lot of news coverage because Apple unveiled its long-anticipated mixed reality headset, VisionPro. But the device won’t hit the market until 2024, and only early adopters with $3,500 to spare will use it (initially). Meanwhile, Apple announced something more impactful to the advertising world: a new privacy control.

Coming Soon: iOS 17

Apple’s iOS 17, the company’s newest operating system, will add greater protection for private browsing, both from trackers as a user browses, and from people who might have access to a user’s device. Advanced tracking and fingerprinting protections go even further to help prevent websites from tracking or identifying a user’s device. Private browsing will lock when not in use, allowing a user to keep tabs open even when stepping away from the device.

Apple will also add link tracking protection in Messages, mail, and Safari browsing. The default setting is private browsing, but the feature can apply to all browsing if it’s turned on under a user’s device settings.

Link tracking protection could have some major impacts. Some websites add extra information to their URLs in order to track users across other websites. Now this information will be removed from the links users share in Messages and mail. This information will also be removed from links in Safari private browsing.

Digging Deeper

Advertisers and analytics firms employ a method of tracking user activity across websites by adding tracking parameters to links. Instead of relying on third-party cookies, they append a tracking identifier to the end of the page URL. This approach evades Safari’s intelligent tracking prevention features that block cross-site cookies and other forms of session storage.

When a user visits such a URL, the analytics or advertising service at the destination can access the URL and extract the unique parameters. These parameters are then associated with the service’s backend user profile, enabling the delivery of personalized ads.

To address this practice, Apple is taking measures to curtail it across its operating systems this year. Safari will automatically identify the identifying components of the URL and remove only those parts, leaving the remaining URL intact so that users can still reach their intended web page.

This process occurs during browser navigation in Safari’s private browsing mode, as well as when clicking on links in the Mail and Messages apps.

As a partial solution, Apple has introduced an alternative method for advertisers to measure the success of their campaigns. Private Click Measurement, available in Safari’s private browsing mode, allows advertisers to track conversion metrics without disclosing individual user activity.

Implications of iOS 17

What are the implications? Well, iOS 17 won’t hit until likely September 2023, so no one knows for sure yet. But based on what we know, the new feature could disrupt the audience creation process on platforms such as Meta, Google, and Microsoft due to the parameters being stripped, but aggregated metric data will likely be OK. Apple will not be able to kill those nor the little redirects as they’re necessary for the marketplace and part of the auditing process.

But iOS could disrupt email marketing. In email marketing, links to websites often contain personalized identifiers that track user activity. Apple is taking steps to eliminate this personalized information from links clicked within the Apple mail client. This change may have implications not only for attribution but also for other integrations that rely on such information, such as how websites apply promotions. If you are currently building audiences or affinity models based on user click-through from emails, it is expected that these audiences will see a significant decrease as users adopt this feature.

In terms of marketing, it is important to anticipate how reporting will function in the future. As I noted, with regards to attribution, Apple has been advocating for the use of Private Click Measurement. This tool allows advertisers to track ad campaign conversion metrics without revealing individual user activity, striking a balance between advertising needs and user privacy. As attribution becomes increasingly challenging due to technical policies and regulations, it may be the right moment to embrace attribution methods that prioritize user privacy.

The complete impact of this update remains uncertain for numerous companies, posing challenges for those currently relying on query parameters for on-site personalization or deep linking. While there are potential workarounds, they are not without difficulties, and the overall user experience may be less than satisfactory for some individuals.

Contact True Interactive

At True Interactive, we’re following all latest updates to consumer privacy and adapting our own tools accordingly. We have our clients covered. Contact us to learn how we can help you.

Why Google Delayed Its Cookie-Killing Effort to 2024

Why Google Delayed Its Cookie-Killing Effort to 2024

by Tim Colucci Google

To no one’s surprise, Google announced that the company is postponing its plans to kill third-party cookies on Google Chrome. The deadline, originally scheduled for 2022, will now be late 2024. If this news seems familiar to you, you are not alone. In 2021, Google announced a delay to 2023, but now 2023 no longer is feasible.

Why?

The problem for Google comes down to the reality that the company raked in more than $209 billion in advertising revenue in 2021.

Google Ad Revenues

As a result, Google needs to proceed very carefully in its phasing out of third-party cookies, which advertisers use to serve up targeted ads to people by tracking their browsing habits across the web. The fact that Google announced the delay after it disclosed subpar quarterly earnings shows just how wary Google is of rocking the boat. To protect its advertising business, Google must:

  • Come up with an alternative to third-party cookies that will satisfy advertisers. If Google fails to do that, Google will lose business to competitors such as Amazon Ads. Amazon Ads deliver targeted ads based on their own data beyond the reach of Google’s privacy controls. And Amazon Ads isn’t the only one, as I blogged recently.
  • Mollify regulators. Because Google is the largest online ad platform in the world, Google must convince regulators that its consumer privacy changes won’t give Google an unfair advantage. As we blogged in 2021, U.K. regulators have already slowed down Google’s efforts. Regulators are concerned that the demise of third-party cookies could give Google too much power because Google can rely on first-party data on sites such as YouTube (which Google owns) to support its ad business.

Google’s approach to satisfy advertisers consists of the Privacy Sandbox, where Google experiments with alternatives to third-party cookies that enable targeting with stricter privacy controls in place. Those alternatives include:

  • Fledge, for remarketing new ads.
  • Attribution reports, for telling advertisers which ads work without compromising consumer privacy.

But it is taking some time for Google to devise solutions as noted above, and not without some considerable trial and effort. For the record, here is Google’s rationale for the delay this time:

The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new Privacy Sandbox technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome. This feedback aligns with our commitment to the [U.K. Competition and Markets Authority] to ensure that the Privacy Sandbox provides effective, privacy-preserving technologies and the industry has sufficient time to adopt these new solutions. This deliberate approach to transitioning from third-party cookies ensures that the web can continue to thrive, without relying on cross-site tracking identifiers or covert techniques like fingerprinting.

That rationale underlines both the impact of regulators and the difficulty in developing an answer to third-party cookies.

This latest delay has annoyed advertisers who had been taking measures to adapt to a cookie-less world and now find themselves delaying their plans. Others simply do not like the uncertainty of living in an extended transitional period while Apple enacts privacy control measures of its own. We suggest that for now, advertisers:

  • Accept the reality that as third-party cookies crumble and technology companies enact privacy controls, your ads will be less targeted than they were – at least until the industry adapts to alternative tools being developed. This does not mean you should stop advertising online. Online advertising remains the most efficient and cost-effective way to reach your audience.
  • Try alternatives beyond Google’s Privacy Sandbox. These include alternative IDs, contextual targeting, and seller-defined audiences.
  • Work with your advertising agency to understand what’s happening and how you may be affected. That’s exactly what our clients are doing with True Interactive. That’s what we’re here for.
  • Don’t abandon ship with ads that rely on web tracking. As you can see with Google’s announcement, things may not proceed the way Google plans.
  • Do invest in ways to leverage your own (first-party) customer data to create personalized ads. We can help you do that.
  • Consider ad platforms such as Amazon Advertising and Walmart Connect, which give businesses entrée to a vast base of customers who search and shop on Amazon and Walmart. True Interactive offers services on both platforms in addition to our longstanding work on Google, Bing, and other platforms. Learn more about our services with Amazon Ads here and Walmart here.

One other important consideration: remember, Google is not the only company doing away with third-party cookie tracking. Apple did so with Safari in 2020, and Mozilla with Firefox. The writing is on the wall: it’s time to adapt to a world without third-party cookies. True Interactive can help you do that.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Lead image source: https://unsplash.com/@laurenedvalson

For Further Reading

Google Introduces New Privacy Controls – Here Is What They Mean

Google Introduces New Privacy Controls – Here Is What They Mean

by Mark Smith Google

Google is upping the ante for privacy once again. At its annual developer conference (known as Google I/O), Google announced a number of chan ges aimed at enhancing user privacy. They include two new tools that give users even more control over their data:

  • Results about the user in Search. With a new tool to accompany updated removal policies, people can more easily request the removal of Google Search results containing their contact details — such as phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses.
  • My Ad Center. Toward the end of 2022, Google will launch more controls for users’ ads privacy settings: a way of choosing which brands to see more or less of, and an easier way to choose whether to personalize a user’s ads. My Ad Center gives users more control over the ads they see on YouTube, Search, and their Discover feed, while still being able to block and report ads. Users will be able to choose the types of ads they want to see — such as fitness, vacation rentals or skincare — and learn more about the information Googles use to show them to users.

Google elaborated on the release of the new search privacy tool as follows:

When you’re searching on Google and find results about you that contain your phone number, home address, or email address, you’ll be able to quickly request their removal from Google Search — right as you find them. With this new tool, you can request removal of your contact details from Search with a few clicks, and you’ll also be able to easily monitor the status of these removal requests.

Google said the search privacy feature will be available in the coming months in the Google App, and users can also access it by clicking the three dots next to individual Google Search results.

What Advertisers Should Do

The new privacy controls in and of themselves could help advertisers. Why? Because conceivably, users who choose which types of ads they want to see will be more engaged and interested in the ones they do in fact see – which could increase purchase intent. That said, advertisers need to look at the big picture: these developments are another sign that Google is intensifying its commitment to a privacy-first world. And that starts with Google’s depreciation of third-party cookies on Chrome — which is one of the hottest stories in ad tech event though it has not happened yet.

Google will phase out tracking of third-party cookies on Chrome in 2023. And 2023 is coming sooner than you think. The Google Privacy Sandbox projects the following timeline for phasing out third-party cookies:

  • September/October 2022: Google will announce the transition timeline and the actual date when Chrome will retire third-party cookies.
  • November 2022-April 2023: Google will provide insights and guidance for businesses to adjust to the upcoming change; they will publish playbooks and other documentation.
  • May-August 2023: Google will officially retire cookies within Chrome.

It’s important to come up with a transition plan now to measure campaign performance in a world without third-party cookies on Chrome. Yes, Google’s original timeline was delayed – but the 2023 date seems to be holding firm. Contact your advertising partner to ask how they’re managing the transition (at True Interactive, we’re doing the heavy lifting for our clients).

Are you ready?

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Who Wants to Play in Google’s Privacy Sandbox?

Who Wants to Play in Google’s Privacy Sandbox?

by Mark Smith Google

On March 31, Google shared an update on a number of consumer privacy initiatives under way as part of its Sandbox initiative. And advertisers are not completely onboard.

What Google Announced

Before we get to Google’s March 31 announcement, let’s set the stage with a bit of context. Back in January 2020, Google upended the advertising world by saying that the company was planning to phase out support for third-party cookie tracking on Chrome. Cookies are online trackers that websites place on people’s web browsers when they visit sites. Without them,  businesses have a harder time serving targeted ads based on people’s interests, and it is more difficult to track the effectiveness of ads. But privacy advocates have long contested that cookie tracking increases the risk for people being tracked when they don’t want to be tracked. So, Google has been developing ways that make it possible for advertisers to create targeted ads without tracking people across the Web via cookies.

Google set a timetable for phasing out third-party cookies: at some point in 2023. This acts as a deadline for Google to provide advertisers an alternative to third-party cookie tracking. And Google is under a lot of pressure to do so given all the money the company makes from advertising.

Since then, Google has been slowly announcing the development of alternatives to cookie tracking, all being developed in the Privacy Sandbox. This is an initiative that aims to create technologies that both protect people’s privacy online and give companies and developers tools to build digital businesses. The Privacy Sandbox reduces cross-site and cross-app tracking while helping to keep online content and services free for all.

On March 31, Google said that it is making progress in rolling out some alternatives to the use of third-party cookies to serve up advertising on the Google Chrome browser. They include, most notably, the launch of tests for Topics.

What Is Topics?

Topics is a technology will track people on Chrome and assign them a set of advertising categories (such as travel or fitness) based on the sites they visit. When a person goes to a site with ads, Google will share three of those topics with advertisers on the site. This will allow the advertiser to show them to show a relevant ad.

That is the theory, at least. No one knows how the reality will pan out.

Topics sounds like cookie tracking, but it isn’t. It’s actually a software platform that publishers and ad tech providers will plug into in order to help target ads when people visit their sites through the Chrome browser. After Topics is enabled, the technology will track people on Chrome and assign them a set of advertising categories (such as travel or fitness) based on the sites they visit. When a person goes to a site with ads, Google will share three of those topics with advertisers on the site, which will allow the advertise to show them to show a relevant ad.

Topics are kept for only three weeks and old topics are deleted. Topics are selected entirely on a user’s device without involving any external servers, including Google servers.

In its March 31 announcement, Google said Chrome users will be able to opt out of the tests of Topics through their settings. In Europe, consumers have to opt in to enable the tests. As Google noted, participants “will be able to see and manage the interests associated with them, or turn off the trials altogether.”

So far, the ad tech industry has raised questions about how Google is proceeding with Topics. For instance:

  • There is worry that the need to opt into Topics in Europe will be a roadblock.
  • Others have complained that Google is attempting to use consumer privacy to exert its own influence over the ad tech industry.
  • There remains an open question as to whether Topics will even work.

Advertisers and technology firms raised objections when Google launched the predecessor to Topics, an open source program known as FLoC. FLoC was supposed to make it possible for businesses to group people based on their common browsing behavior instead of using third-party cookies. But FLoC caught plenty of flak from consumer privacy advocates who believed Google was overplaying its hand, as well as advertisers and agencies who accused Google of strong-arming them into playing by Google’s own rules. As one executive put it, FLoC was “a half baked idea.” It is an open question as to whether Topics will be an improvement.

What Advertisers Should Do

  • Work with your advertising agency to understand what’s happening and how you may be affected. That’s exactly what our clients are doing with True Interactive. That’s what we’re here for.
  • If you are succeeding with Google Ads, stay the course. Google is enduring an imperfect transition right now toward a privacy-world. But Google Ads? They’re not going away. Far from it – Google Ads are alive and well based on our experiences helping clients succeed with them.
  • Do invest in ways to leverage your own (first-party) customer data to create personalized ads as Google continues its assault on third-party cookies. We can help you do that.
  • Consider ad platforms such as Amazon Advertising and Walmart Connect, which, as noted above, give businesses entrée to a vast base of customers who search and shop on Amazon and Walmart. True Interactive offers services on both platforms in addition to our longstanding work on Google, Bing, and other platforms.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox: Advertiser Q&A

Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox: Advertiser Q&A

by Tim Colucci Google

Google recently announced that the company will enact a new consumer privacy measure that will affect users of Android devices. Let’s take a closer look at what Google announced and why the news matters to advertisers.

What did Google announce?

Google said the company will limit the sharing of data on smartphones running its Android software. According to a blog post, “Specifically, these solutions will limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID. We’re also exploring technologies that reduce the potential for covert data collection, including safer ways for apps to integrate with advertising SDKs.”

What does Google’s announcement mean?

The announcement means that Google will make it harder for advertisers to track user behavior as they use Android devices to browse different sites. Advertisers know whether users clicked on an ad or bought a product when they browse the web because of the Advertising ID tracking feature. Google will eliminate identifiers used in advertising on Android for everyone, and this includes Google, too. By the way, Google has already allowed users to opt out of personalized ads by removing the tracking identifier.

Didn’t Apple just launch something similar to what Google is doing?

Indeed, in 2021, Apple launched a privacy control known as Application Tracking Transparency (ATT). This requires apps to get the user’s permission before tracking their data across apps or websites owned by other companies for advertising, or sharing their data with data brokers. This move, done with little advance notice, curtailed the ability for advertisers and ad platforms such as Facebook to target digital ads across the web. Facebook in particular has struggled to figure out how to come up with an effective antidote to ATT. The company recently suffered a momentous drop in its market capitalization partly because of its difficulties adapting to life post-ATT.

Won’t Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox Hurt Google?

Not likely. Google has a huge advertising business to protect. The company is not going to simply remove ad targeting without coming up with another way to track user behavior. In fact, Google is developing alternative tools in its Privacy Sandbox to help businesses serve up targeted content in a more privacy-conscious way. They include:

  • Fledge, for remarketing new ads.
  • Attribution reports, for telling advertisers which ads work without compromising consumer privacy.

Google will probably have even more control over data than it ever has. And it will protect the first-party data it collects through Google Search, the Google Knowledge Panel, and YouTube.

When will the Android Privacy Sandbox Take Effect?

Not for at least two years. Google makes so much money from advertising that the company is going to work very closely and slowly with advertisers to introduce a privacy control without rocking the boat. Google told The New York Times, ​​“We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.” And just in case you didn’t get the point, Google’s post hyperlinked to an article about Application Tracking Transparency.

Why is Google even doing this at all? Why not keep things the way they are?

Google is getting out in front of regulators and responding to public sentiment. The Big Tech companies are under increased scrutiny for the amount of data they collect about people, and Google probably more so than others because of how popular Google Search is. Legislators around the world are leaning on Big Tech to become more privacy conscious. Google is making changes on its own terms before those changes are dictated to Google.

What should advertisers do?

  • Do your homework. Stay on top of developments by following Google’s public blog posts.
  • Work with your advertising agency to understand what’s happening and how you may be affected. That’s exactly what our clients are doing with True Interactive. That’s what we’re here for.
  • If you are succeeding with Google Ads, stay the course. Google is enduring an imperfect transition right now toward a privacy-world, but as noted, Google is going to protect its turf.
  • Do invest in ways to leverage your own (first-party) customer data to create personalized ads. That’s because it’s clear that between Apple and Google, third-party data tracking is going to become less effective. We can help you do that.
  • Consider ad platforms such as Amazon Advertising and Walmart Connect, which give businesses entrée to a vast base of customers who search and shop on Amazon and Walmart. True Interactive offers services on both platforms in addition to our longstanding work on Google, Bing, and other platforms.

Contact True Interactive

To succeed with online advertising, contact True Interactive. Read about some of our client work here.

Photo by Kai Wenzel on Unsplash

Meta Misses the Mark; How Should Advertisers React?

Meta Misses the Mark; How Should Advertisers React?

by Beth Bauch Facebook Meta

Over the years, Facebook has been a Teflon brand. No matter how many controversies and setbacks the company has faced, it has seen its stock price and market capitalization soar. But all that changed on February 2 when Facebook’s parent company Meta announced earnings for the fourth quarter 2021. The company:

  • Missed its earnings estimates.
  • Reported that Facebook’s global daily active users declined from the previous quarter to 1.929 billion from 1.930 billion. Although Facebook has experienced drops in the United States before, this was the first time the world’s most popular social platform had experienced a decline in its user base.
  • Forecast weaker-than-expected revenue growth for the next quarter.
  • Said that the company would suffer a $10 billion revenue hit in 2022 because of the impact of Apple’s iPhone privacy controls launched in 2021.

Investors were stunned. The next day, Meta suffered a 26 percent drop in its stock price – the largest single-day drop in history. Not just for Meta. For any company.

Companies can have a bad quarter. But why did Meta suffer a historic drop in its stock price? There is no single, clear-cut answer. But a few factors no doubt played a role:

  • The drop in users, although not massive, stoked concerns that Facebook is finally beginning to feel the impact of its ongoing brand safety controversies and indifference from the growing Gen Z population. Losing members can be a red flag for advertisers, and Facebook needs advertising revenue to succeed.
  • Meta surprised investors by saying it still has not recovered from the impact of Apple’s consumer privacy controls. In 2021, Apple altered its operating system to require apps to get a person’s permission before tracking their data across apps or websites owned by other companies for advertising, or sharing their data with data brokers. This move curtailed the ability for advertisers and ad platforms such as Facebook to target digital ads across the web. Ad platforms such as Snapchat and Twitter said that the restrictions were either not hurting them or that they had figured out satisfactory ways to keep creating effective ads despite the existence of the privacy controls. It was alarming to hear that Meta had not figured out a solution yet.
  • Meta’s big bet on the next generation of the internet, the metaverse, is costing the company – a lot. Meta said that the company spent $10 billion in 2021 on various products that form the building blocks of the metaverse. That spend hurt profits. And the metaverse is still many years away, which has made investors ask: just how much is the metaverse going to cost Meta?

Even still, Facebook achieved $33.67 billion in ad revenue for the quarter, which was better than expected. Should Facebook’s advertisers be concerned? As an agency that helps many businesses build their brands and convert customers through Facebook advertising, we believe that if you advertise on Facebook, you should:

  • Keep advertising on Facebook if you are satisfied with your results so far. Based on our client work, Facebook continues to drive conversions even though the cost per conversion has increased and conversion rates are lower. Facebook remains an efficient and cost-effective alternative to competing platforms.
  • Adapt to the new reality of Facebook advertising. One of the challenges with Facebook advertising under Apple’s privacy controls is having access to less user data for targeting various audience segments with ads. We’ve been working with Facebook to develop workarounds such grouping our clients’ target audiences together to give the Facebook algorithm more data to work with a (as opposed to breaking up audiences into separate groups). We’ve also removed audience exclusions from campaigns. After we aggregated audience data and removed exclusions, we gradually began to see an improvement in ad conversions following a drop resulting from the privacy controls.
  • Keep an eye on the decline in users. Understand where they’re going when they leave Facebook. In particular, Facebook said that TikTok has emerged as a much stronger competitor. TikTok is especially red hot with the Gen Z generation. In addition, monitor sentiment among your audiences, foremost your customers. In light of Facebook’s ongoing controversies over privacy and the publication of harmful content, are your customers expressing concern? Is your brand safety at risk? (This may or may not be the case. As we’ve blogged before, social media will always be a messy place to live, and many brand have learned to live alongside that reality.

Advertisers have more choices than ever – emerging apps such as TikTok, retailer ad platforms such as Amazon Advertising, to name a few. The well-established ad platforms such as Google continue to launch new products. As always, we urge advertisers to stay on top of the evolving market. At True Interactive, we advocate for our clients by understanding how the ad industry is changing so that we can maximize clients’ return on ad spend. Contact us to learn how we can help you.

Photo by Dima Solomin on Unsplash

Google Firebase: A Workaround for Apple’s Privacy Controls

Google Firebase: A Workaround for Apple’s Privacy Controls

by Tim Colucci Apple Google Privacy

Apple’s Application Tracking Transparency (ATT) privacy control has caused understandable alarm among businesses that rely on mobile to create personalized advertising. But advertising agencies and their clients are figuring out workarounds. One of them is Firebase. Here’s a quick overview:

The Fallout of Apple ATT

Apple’s ATT is a consumer privacy control that Apple rolled out with an update to Apple’s operating system in 2021. ATT requires apps to get a user’s permission before tracking their data across apps owned by other companies for advertising, or sharing their data with data brokers. Apps can prompt users for permission, and in Apple Settings, users will be able to see which apps have requested permission to track so they can make changes to their choice at any time.

Advertisers have feared that ATT will trigger an uptick in users opting out to having their behavior tracked. Consequently, advertisers will have a harder time serving up targeted ads because they cannot track user behavior. This concern is well founded. As many as 96 percent of users in the United States are opting out of having their behavior tracked. A number of businesses are shifting their ad budgets to the Google Android operating system and away from Apple’s iOS.

Others are trying to find workarounds. And this is where Firebase comes into play.

How Firebase Works

Firebase is Google’s mobile, cloud-based platform that helps users quickly develop apps. People and businesses can use Firebase to accomplish a variety of tasks, such as accelerating app development and test the performance of apps, including A/B testing. Businesses can integrate Firebase with Google’s Android operating system, iOS, and the web. This Venture Beat article delves into more detail (probably more than an advertiser needs to know), and Google provides context as well.

Firebase becomes really interesting to advertisers for this reason: with Google Analytics for Firebase, a business can export its mobile app data (iOS and Android) to a Google-hosted data warehouse known as BigQuery. From there, a business can match behavior via Google User-ID, a feature that lets a user or business associate a persistent ID for a single user (with that user’s engagement data from one or more sessions initiated from one or more devices).

By contrast, before the era of ATT, an advertisers would have access to mobile device IDs for Android and iOS environments. The advertiser could download device IDs from Apple iOS. Then the advertiser could target different people directly with personalized ads – at scale. That’s because the advertiser would have access to those individual device IDs from app analytics accounts. But you cannot do that with Apple ATT anymore.

Firebase does not track mobile device IDs, per se. Rather, Firebase creates audiences inside Firebase based on user events, such as a person registering to use an app, installing it, or making a purchase on the app. With Firebase, the advertiser downloads that audience transaction data through the dashboard the advertiser uses to create Google ads. (For more detail, check out this article, which delves into the mechanics of managing data on Firebase to understand user behavior across apps.)

We have been using Firebase to support clients’ mobile ad campaigns, and we are seeing results. For one client, we’ve seen an increase in revenue by up to 7 percent over the past six months while cutting ad spend in half.

It’s important for True Interactive to continue delivering excellent results through online advertising. We’re actively monitoring our clients’ advertising performance results as we assess the impact of ATT. Yes, the world is changing. But as you can see from our client experiences with Firebase, an increased privacy control does not mean the end of effective advertising.

Contact True Interactive

To achieve results with online advertising, contact True Interactive. We’ve been helping our clients enjoy measurable results as these case studies show.  We’re happy to collaborate with you.