During its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2020 conference, Apple began laying the ground work that may render the mobile ad ID or IDFA useless. Starting this fall with the iOS 14 release, Apple will require app developers to ask user permission before collecting ad IDs used to track users across apps and websites. The move is intended to add more transparency and control to the data being collected on users.
For example, users will begin seeing in-app notifications asking permission to allow or not allow tracking across other apps and websites:
Given the language of the notification and the implications this could have on the mobile industry, we wanted to find out how iOS users felt about the new changes. So on June 29th, 2020 we ran a simple poll to 1,200 verified iOS mobile users asking them how likely they were to select “Allow Tracking” from an app they use and enjoy on a regular basis.
| Full disclosure, I work at TapResearch.
The poll asked was sent to iOS users, ages 18-64, that live in the US. Respondents were shown the in-app notification above and asked:
“If an app you use and enjoy on a regular basis presented this screen to you, how likely are you to select “Allow Tracking”?
1 — Extremely unlikely
2 — Unlikely
3 — Neutral
4 — Likely
5 — Extremely likely
Don’t know / no opinion
Full results of the poll are published here.
Further, when looking at responses by age group, there’s a stark trend among younger respondents which seem more open to allowing the tracking.
While we don’t know for certain what implications this change will have across the mobile ecosystem, it is clear that mobile users will be gaining more control and transparency their data.
[Update: July 17, 2020] A few weeks after this original post there’s been some iOS 14 beta testing and we noticed a new consent screen, color and CTA so we re-ran the survey using the same methodology.
Side by side results below:
The data suggests a slight improvement on users’ likliness to consent.
[Update: August 20, 2020] We’ve been seeing more iterations on the IDFA consent screen with user prompts before presenting the iOS 14 modal window. This seems like a common best practice for location tracking so we re-ran our IDFA survey to 1,200 respondents on iOS ages 18-64:
The new data from 8/20 suggests a noticeable improvement compared to the June 29th survey which also included the “Allow Tracking” CTA.
About the poll:
TapResearch conducted this survey across their network of random mobile devices. The polls were conducted on June 29th, July 16th and August 20th 2020 each with 1,200 respondents. Each respondent was a verified iOS user.
If you’re a mobile marketer or decision maker and would like to run a similar poll across the TapResearch mobile sample network please contact michael@tapresearch.com
