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The Big Story: Apple Vs. Facebook

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Once Apple’s IDFA becomes opt-in for consumers, its utility to advertisers will be greatly limited.

But what does this new policy mean for Facebook and its powerful, lucrative Audience Network? As one source told senior editor Allison Schiff, targeting on Audience Network is all but dead. But does that mean it’s the end?

In this week’s The Big Story, the team examines the implications for Facebook given IDFA’s new restrictions. But don’t weep for Facebook. Even if – worst case scenario – Audience Network bites the dust, Facebook will be totally fine.

But the mobile apps analytics companies are a different story. Many have come up with innovative solutions (Don’t you dare call them “workarounds”!) to deal with the upcoming limitations on IDFA. But will they work?

[See AdExchanger’s coverage on consumer opt-in rates; SKAdNetwork, Apple’s attribution concession and Beeswax CEO Ari Paparo’s take on the IDFA apocalypse.]

We’ll also talk about what happened when a site called XDA Developers found itself on Google’s bad side. Cut off from DV360’s buying power for reasons unknown, its revenue plummeted 30%.

What happened to XDA Developers, and how it extricated itself from the so-called shadow blocklist, is both a cautionary and instructive tale for small publishers without the resources to run sophisticated ad operations teams.

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