Facebook has been very critical of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature that went live with the iOS 14.5 feature. The company claimed earlier that the privacy feature would be devastating for small businesses. However, the company believes that App Tracking Transparency will have a “manageable” impact on its ads business.

During its Q1 2021 earnings call, Facebook’s CFO Dave Wehner said that the company expects “increased ad targeting headwinds in 2021 from regulatory and platform changes, notably the recently-launched iOS 14.5 update.” Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg also accepted that “there are challenges coming to personalized advertising.”

She noted that Facebook is doing a lot of work to prepare for iOS 14.5’s App Tracking Transparency feature. The company is rebuilding important elements of its ad platform and collaborating with W3C to ensure it can deliver personalized ads in a privacy-friendly manner.

It’s also on us to keep making the case that personalized advertising is good for people and businesses, and to better explain how it works so that businesses don’t have to understand the alphabet soup of acronyms they’ll need to comply with. But they do need to have confidence that they can still use our tools to reach the people who want to buy what they’re selling in a privacy-safe way. We’re confident they can and that they can continue to get great results as digital advertising evolves.

Sandberg added that the “impact on our own business we think will be manageable.” Facebook’s goal is to ensure that ad performance remains stable and, in the long run, even improves with less data.

If you are unclear what App Tracking Transparency is, read our explainer on what App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5 is and how it will protect your privacy.