The social media platform claims the iPhone maker will hurt small businesses relying on targeted ads.
Facebook recently ran social media ads in addition to publishing a new website in an outcry against Apple’s privacy changes. It claims that those changes will “[threaten] the personalized ads that millions of small businesses rely on to find and reach customers.”
The social network also ran print ads with the same message in major American Newspapers.
In addition to the website and social media ads, Facebook ran print ads in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. Those ads all contained the message that: “We’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere.”
The change that Facebook is opposing has to do with the opt-in IDFA ad identifier Apple is requiring in iOS 14.
“Without personalized ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend,” continues the advertisement. “While limiting how personalized ads can be used does impact larger companies like us, these changes will be devastating to small businesses, adding to the many challenges they face right now.”
The print and social media ad links viewers to a website on Facebook for Business.
The website includes explanations of what will happen as a result of Apple’s change, as well as a video with interviews from business owners who are speaking out against it. The site also provides a “toolkit” and encourages people to post on social media using the #SpeakUpForSmall hashtag when talking about Apple’s change.
Though it has delayed the change in order to provide companies more time to prepare for it, Apple will be following through with this sizeable change to its iPhone privacy user settings. This will have an enormous impact on the mobile advertising experience on those devices. It will also involve moving a privacy option that users used to have to dig for to find, and will place it right in front of users when they open an app.
Facebook and many others in mobile marketing expect this change to have a substantial impact on the capacity for advertisers to target consumers through social media ads and 
other forms of mobile advertising, since it is unlikely that people will opt in to see them if they don’t have to.
