Authors: OPTS IM Planning Team
In their Worldwide Developers Conference in June 2020, Apple announced the next updates to their OS across their product range. A key takeaway for many developers was an update to iOS14 which requires app developers to seek consent from iOS device users in order for third-parties - like advertisers - to access users' data.
This essentially makes targeting and tracking through IDFA an opt-in feature.
Given these options, Business Insider predicts that many users will opt out of sharing their data, resulting in a significant drop in the supply of trackable inventory on iOS devices. At a glance, the impact this will have on the industry appears to be detrimental, as it limits the premiums that app developers can charge advertisers for placements, and will likely reduce mobile ad spending across the board. For context, when Apple imposed tracking limitations on its Safari browser, prices for ads targeting Safari users fell 60% in the two years since the update, according to The Rubicon Project.
However, the update should also motivate advertisers and developers to justify why users should allow data collection, highlighting the possible benefts to users' experiences.