Home The Big Story The Big Story: Facebook’s Attribution Sinkhole

The Big Story: Facebook’s Attribution Sinkhole

SHARE:
The Big Story podcast

Attribution on Facebook ain’t what it used to be.

The Facebook that enabled hundreds of creative versions, targeting variations and near-instantaneous optimization – all fed by data – is changing.

Apple took a big bite out of Facebook’s attribution capabilities when its AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) required apps to collect a user opt-in to track their account for advertising.

On this week’s Big Story, we unpack how Facebook is responding to these changes.

The number of creative elements it can optimize in a campaign is going down. So is the granularity with which marketers can target audiences. Plus, it’s recommending that marketers optimize at a much slower pace, like waiting a full 72 hours for data to come in before adjusting a campaign.

Facebook is pushing geo-testing as an attribution model, since it doesn’t require user-level tracking. And it’s limiting the number of conversion events a marketer can have to eight, a move that’s surely causing a “Hunger Games” for large marketing teams with many campaigns running.

Also in this episode: We discuss the two key takeaways from LUMA’s digital market report and Advertiser Perceptions’ latest DSP report, including a slowdown on the M&A front and a rise in marketers using self-service over managed service DSPs.

 

Must Read

Scales and hands touching the bowls with index fingers from opposite sides. Arguments, evidence and tricks in trial. Concept of judging, trial and justice

The FTC Bars Kochava From Selling Sensitive Data Without Consent

It’s been nearly four years since the Federal Trade Commission first accused Kochava of selling highly sensitive location data. Now, the two have finally reached a settlement.

Comic: CTV Tracking

Upfronts Advertisers Say They Want Outcomes – And Amazon Licks Its Chops

Amazon has packaged a handful of upgrades to its ads measurement solutions, obviously catered to TV and streaming media advertisers.

AdExchanger Senior Editors Anthony Vargas and Alyssa Boyle.

POSSIBLE 2026: AdExchanger's Hot Takes

AdExchanger Senior Editors Alyssa Boyle and Anthony Vargas share their takeaways from three days chatting about agentic AI at POSSIBLE.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters

Reddit Reports A 75% Boost In Q1 Ad Revenue As It Reaches For 100 Million Daily US Users

Generative AI search has pushed traffic off a cliff across most of the internet, but not on social platforms. Reddit included.

POSSIBLE 2026: Can AI Help Agencies Finally Break Down Those Silos?

Domenic Venuto, indie agency Horizon Media’s chief product and data officer, sat down with AdExchanger during POSSIBLE at the Fontainebleau in Miami to unpack the role of AI in today’s media and advertising landscape.

Google Touts Its AI Ad Tech Adoption And New AI Max Features

Google announced new features and ad types for AI Max, its AI-based bidding product for search and shopping or sponsored product ads. The company also touted “hundreds of thousands” of advertisers using AI Max.