Apple-Commissioned Report Says App Tracking Transparency Hasn't Significantly Benefitted Company

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Apple is unlikely to have seen a significant financial benefit from App Tracking Transparency since the privacy feature launched last year, according to Kinshuk Jerath, Professor of Business in the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School.

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In an Apple-commissioned report, Jerath said claims that billions of advertising dollars moved from companies like Meta to Apple due to the introduction of App Tracking Transparency are "speculative" and "lack supporting evidence."

Jerath provided three reasons for his opinion:

  • Apple's Search Ads business is a small part of the overall mobile advertising market
  • Growth in Apple's Search Ads business predated the introduction of App Tracking Transparency and is likely driven in part by other factors, such as continued overall growth of mobile ads and app install ads and the expansion of the Search Ads business to China in July 2021
  • Apple provides a prompt during the iOS setup process that enables users to turn off Personalized Ads on their device

In October 2021, the Financial Times reported that App Tracking Transparency had resulted in a "windfall" for Apple's advertising business. The report claimed that Apple's share of the mobile app advertising market tripled in the six months after the feature was introduced. Apple said the feature was designed to protect users and not to advantage the company.

Apple did not provide any internal figures to support the report's findings.

Tag: App Tracking Transparency

Top Rated Comments

HiVolt Avatar
HiVolt
15 months ago


Apple did not provide any internal figures to support the report's findings.
Hahaha, that's too funny. So here's a report, without any evidence.

Just like that other report about the success of third party apps on the App Store.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
turbineseaplane Avatar
turbineseaplane
15 months ago
"All this AD money doesn't actually benefit us!"
"Can you show us some data to support that?"
"No"

Super convincing Apple.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BootsWalking Avatar
BootsWalking
15 months ago
Regardless of the fact Apple commissioned the study and so the findings are hard to consider impartial, I would agree that Apple likely did not directly or unfairly benefit financially from their app transparency initiative. They however did benefit by engendering goodwill and trust from the initiative, thus earning them additional sales and customers. But that's how business is supposed to work - do good by your customers and they'll reward you in kind.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mousse Avatar
Mousse
15 months ago

Just like the Microsoft commissioned report said dual-monitors increase productivity 50%.
If you do a lot of spreadsheet, then a 2nd monitor increases productivity several folds. Honest to gawd, ever since I went dual monitor a few years ago, I've been able to handle complex spreadsheet quickly and without a lot of hunting and scrolling.
Dual monitor is also nice when you do simple spreadsheets, because you can use then 2nd monitor for important stuff like MR.?
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
GMShadow Avatar
GMShadow
15 months ago

The report claimed that Apple's share of the mobile app advertising market tripled in the six months after the feature was introduced
I mean, you can go from .01% to .03% and triple your share.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Skyscraperfan Avatar
Skyscraperfan
15 months ago
Apple makes money through ads? That is quite shocking news to me. If the start with this sh.., they might soon have to find a compromise between revenue and user privacy. They should not make a single Cent from ads.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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