The profound, unintended consequence of ATT: content fortresses
With its ATT privacy policy, Apple is diminishing the ability for advertising to be personalized by limiting the use of third-party data for that purpose. In doing this, Apple is imbuing first-party data with an incredible value premium. The products that command the most first-party data will operate as autonomous content ecosystems, subsuming all content interaction and user interaction into their own properties and utilizing their first-party data for deep personalization. Rather than creating a total dependency on Apple and the App Store for content distribution, Apple’s ATT may end up creating more walled gardens. This would be a profound unintended consequence.
In early February, Applovin, the mobile ad network, acquired Adjust, a mobile attribution company. Beyond financial engineering (given that Applovin is approaching an IPO), there’s no strategic justification for this acquisition other than that Applovin is building a self-sufficient advertising ecosystem to connect its first-party properties. Apple is fairly explicit about the fact that “tracking” requires data to be shared between companies. If Applovin’s first-party games sit atop the combined, wholly-owned Applovin / Adjust infrastructure, Applovin essentially becomes a walled garden with multiple access points.
Meanwhile, Zynga, in its Q4 earnings call last week, mentioned two new initiatives that signal its desire to construct walls around its first-party properties in an attempt to build an autonomous ecosystem: cross-platform play, and building an advertising network.
