As ad biz takes hit, Meta builds more paid features across its apps

Hurt by falling revenue in its ad business after Apple iOS privacy changes on App Store, Meta is setting up a new team to identify and build more paid features for Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

According to The Verge, the new division is Meta's "first serious foray into building paid features across its main social apps".

The group 'New Monetisation Experiences' will be headed by Pratiti Raychoudhury, former Meta's head of research, the report said late on Wednesday.

The new monetisation drive is happening at Meta after the company reported loss in revenue in the June quarter for the first time since going public in 2007, predicting that growth in the third quarter could fall even more.

Facebook reported a 1 per cent drop in revenue to $28.8 billion, a 1 per cent decrease from $29.07 billion in the second quarter of 2021.

Overall, Meta's profit fell 36 per cent to $6.7 billion in the quarter.

Apple iOS privacy changes are going to cost Meta a whopping $10 billion in 2022, the company has forecast, accusing Apple of favouring Google over app-based platforms like Facebook with its privacy policies.

Apple's iOS 14.5 update, released in April 2021, came with an App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature that has affected digital advertising for tech giants.

Sheryl Sandberg, former chief operating officer of Meta, had said that Apple created two challenges for their advertisers.

"One is that the accuracy of our ads targeting decreased, which increased the cost of driving outcomes. The other is that measuring those outcomes became more difficult," she had said.

--IANS

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