What spin. "This will hurt small businesses in TV and Radio." Really!? That's the best argument they can come up with?
This is definitely a true statement. The vast majority of small businesses who advertise on FB will be hurt by this change. The best estimate to date is a 20-30% drop in marketing efficiency due to worse targeting capabilities. Some of these small businesses will inevitably go out of business due to this change (for better or worse).
I worked at a small hardware store as a kid and we got all our business from word of mouth. IDK what the best argument here is, so I suppose I'm just admitting my feelings with this comment.
I think the honest answer is, yes if facebook protects their profit margins then it will impact small business as they pay more to get the same results. OR Facebook could reduce their margins since Apple's change will reduce their product effectiveness.
Once we frame it that way it is clear what the battle is about. Facebook is fighting apple to protect their own profitability and is using a sympathetic actor (small business) as a shield.
I don't think I've ever seen a source for this. Could you post one, ideally one which is not subject to conflicts of interest (e.g. funded by the advertising industry)?
That is, Facebook is a behemoth in advertising because of its capabilities to predict which users will convert from an ad unit. By predicting conversion rate accurately, FB empower small businesses to get more conversions out of fewer ad impressions and spend.
FB's ability to predict conversion rate is driven by a ML algorithm that takes as inputs: all the user data it tracks via the Facebook Pixel, all the user data it collects through its own domains, and data sent via server API's from advertisers.
Apple's tracking change reduces the amount of available user data to its ML algo by a large percentage.
As a result, prediction power will decrease. And therefore, marketing efficiency.
The actual 20-30% estimate is just that, an estimate. But, directionally, there's no question efficiency will decrease.
In the long term, I think Facebook is the biggest loser in this scenario, not the small businesses.
And, I also agree that most businesses will be willing to pay less of a premium for FB ads after this change. But, even for the businesses that adapt their spend accordingly, their final marketing budget will be smaller, and therefore, their net income/profit from ads.