Scott Howe
Acxiom Corp. CEO Scott Howe said late Tuesday that the Conway company sees signs Facebook will reconsider its decision to stop offering data provided by Acxiom and other third-party companies.
“We’ve seen some signs that Facebook is reconsidering the initial policy they issued last week on data imports in light of advertiser concerns that will have an economic impact,” Howe said in a blog post published Tuesday. “There are many talented and smart people at Facebook. And if they take action on this feedback, it would be a smart move for them and good news for the industry.”
Acxiom’s stock price (Nasdaq: ACXM) plunged on Thursday following Facebook’s announcement that it would end its Facebook Partner Categories program, which offered data from companies including Acxiom, Epsilon and Experian to advertisers. Those advertisers used the information to create ads targeted at Facebook users, and companies like Acxiom received a share of the money spent with Facebook when data they provided was used to create the ads.
In a statement after Facebook’s announcement, Acxiom said Facebook’s decision would hit Acxiom revenue and profitability by as much as $25 million in fiscal 2019, which began this week.
Acxiom stock has rebounded a bit from Thursday’s 19 percent decline. On Tuesday, shares closed at $21.64, down $1.64 per share. Shares traded at around $23 by mid-morning Wednesday.
Howe’s blog post offered advice to advertisers in response to the “hundreds of emails and calls from clients, partners and members of the ecosystem at large” that Acxiom has received since Facebook’s announcement.
“Now more than ever, advertisers need to exert their voice. Money is powerful, and advertisers should remember that they are the real decision makers,” he said. “You vote with your marketing budgets every day, and your votes determine which policies change and which endure. Use your voice to demand support for data you can use everywhere and integrations that allow you to protect the data that’s in your care. And trust that common sense will ultimately prevail.”
Facebook’s decision to end the Partner Categories program followed the recent Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal in which the firm that helped get Donald Trump elected president obtained data on 50 million Facebook users without their permission.
The Associated Press reported that the partner program allowed marketers to use data from people’s lives outside of Facebook, such as whether they owned a home and their purchase history, to target Facebook users in the United States, Brazil, France, Germany, the U.K., Australia and Japan.
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