The inability to share data is forcing advertisers to come up with new ruses. One is to bypass rules banning data transfers between ad-tech companies by consolidating. In February AppLovin, a mobile-software firm, acquired Adjust, which provides mobile-ad attribution, reportedly for $1bn. Another is to ask users to “sign in”, which lets an app monitor their behaviour with no need for IDFAS. And instead of targeting individuals, marketers can target broader interest groups—coffee lovers, Daily Mail readers, and so on—much as they did in the pre-internet age. It’s “back to the future”, says Mr Wieser.
由于無法共享數據，廣告商不得不另謀出路。一種途徑是廣告科技公司通過合并來避開禁止公司之間互通數據的規定。今年2月，移動軟件公司AppLovin收購了提供移動廣告歸因的Adjust，據傳收購價格為10億美元。另一種途徑是要求用戶“登錄”，應用程序就可以在無需獲取廣告商識別碼權限的情況下監控用戶行為。營銷商還可以像前互聯網時代所做的那樣，將廣告投放瞄準更廣泛的興趣群體，如咖啡愛好者、每日郵報讀者等，而非針對個人。維瑟表示，這是“回到未來”之舉。
Stripped of accurate ways of measuring their impact, “direct-response ads” that require consumers to take an action (like clicking) lose their appeal. Advertisers will again have to gauge ads’ effectiveness by looking for a rise in sales in a region where an ad ran but not elsewhere. Because campaigns that promote general awareness of a brand never benefited as much from tracking, platforms which mostly attract brand advertising will not feel much difference. Snap, whose social network, popular with teenagers, belongs to that group, posted a year-on-year rise in revenues of 66% in the first quarter.
由于被剝奪了準確衡量成效的方法，要求消費者采取行動（如點擊）的“直接反應廣告”也失去了吸引力。廣告商將不得不通過觀測廣告投放特定地區（而非其他地方）的銷量增長，來再次衡量廣告效果。因為提升品牌知名度的廣告活動從來沒有很大受益于數據跟蹤，因此主要吸引品牌廣告的平臺也不會受到太大波及。深受青少年歡迎的社交網絡Snap便屬于這類平臺，其今年第一季度收入同比增長66%。
The less advertisers know about their audience, the costlier advertising will become. Facebook has argued this will hurt small businesses. It is probably right, thinks William Merchan of Pathmatics, a data company. Digital ads promise to cut waste in media buys, he says. Now that advertisers are again in the dark about which half of their budget is wasted, they are “going to have to just spend more”.
廣告商對他們的消費者了解越少，廣告成本就會越高。Facebook辯稱，蘋果新規將損害小型企業。數據公司Pathmatics的威廉·梅爾科認為，Facebook的說法可能是對的。他說，數字廣告可保證減少廣告經費的浪費。如今，廣告商們又再次一無所知，不知道哪一半的預算被浪費了的他們“將不得不花更多的錢”。
