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Apple has hired former Facebook ads product manager Antonio Garcia Martinez, a sign that the Cupertino tech giant is expanding its own advertising ambitions.
Garcia Martinez, who is also known for authoring the autobiography “Chaos Monkeys,” joined Apple in April as part of the company’s ad platforms product engineering team. He will be based in Cupertino, according to Business Insider.
Apple’s ad platforms team works on advertising technology within the App Store and in other locations across Apple’s ecosystem, including Apple News and the Stocks app.
Garcia Martinez worked at Facebook between 2011 and 2013, and became an influential figure on the company’s ad product team. He worked on ad targeting efforts and eventually became product manager of FBX, Facebook’s now defunct ad exchange.
The move is only the latest to suggest that Apple is working to expand its own advertising business. Apple recently added new ad slots to the App Store, and is working on allowing advertisers to promote their apps directly to users.
News of Apple’s advertising ambitions come shortly after the company launched a privacy feature in iOS 14.5 that requires all apps to ask for permission before tracking users. Facebook has been a vocal critic of the feature, and some advertising trade groups have lodged their own complaints about it.
Some industry watchers believe that the privacy feature could boost Apple’s own advertising business as advertisers look to other methods beyond traditional tracking. Bernstein analyst said in 2018 Apple’s App Store ads business could be a $2 billion endeavor by 2020.
Alongside Garcia Martinez, Apple also appears to be expanding the scope of its ads teams. As of Monday, May 10, Apple has about 50 open roles related to ad platforms. That includes one listing that suggests Apple is forming a new team focused on fighting fraudulent ad traffic.
It does appear that Apple is looking to be a different kind of advertising company than rivals like Facebook or Google. One job listing suggests that Apple is hiring engineers that could help it set standards for “effective advertising while protecting user privacy.”
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