Shopify offers advertising tool in response to Apple's privacy rules

The new tool aims to help retailers navigate the challenges posed by Apple’s privacy rules, which require mobile developers to obtain consent to track users between apps and websites. The new Audiences tool enables retailers to gather up their customer data and upload it to Meta and Google’s advertising platforms. 

That data can then be used by marketers to find customers that are more likely to buy their products because they previously purchased something similar from other retailers. The tool can help decrease conversion costs with enhanced top-of-funnel targeting, and it also offers a transparent performance reporting system. Moreover, according to Shopify, the tool’s algorithm improves over time in order to provide fresh, high-intent audiences. 

As far as privacy is concerned, Audience lists are encrypted and transmitted securely when exporting to ad platforms. Furthermore, lists cannot be downloaded from ad platforms, and users can manage their customers’ opt-out preferences from an admin panel. 

Aside from its practical uses, the advertising tool also aims to help Shopify compete with Amazon, which permits third-party merchants to promote their products on its marketplace. 

According to the Financial Times, Apple’s new policy benefits Amazon because its ad-targeting system uses first-party data, which is information that an advertiser holds about its own customers. Apple allows targeting based on first-party data but restricts targeting based on third-party data, which represents data gathered from other companies’ sites.

Apple’s new privacy rules 

In July 2022, termsfeed.com explained how Apple's iOS 14 required developers to request opt-in consent before tracking users with Apple's ID for Advertisers (IDFA). Failing to abide by the new rules is considered a violation of Apple's App Store Review Guidelines and can lead to the removal of apps. 

Apple's two main rules that concern user privacy dictate that apps must seek opt-in consent before ‘tracking’ users and that app developers must submit detailed information about how their app processes user data.  

Apple defines tracking as linking user or device data collected from an app with user or device data collected from other companies' apps, websites, or offline properties for targeted advertising or advertising measurement purposes. Sharing user or device data with data brokers is also seen as tracking by Apple. 

Following the implementation of the new requirements, many iPhone users have refused to opt-in, which means that many marketers have lost access to the data they needed to target ads.