Starting with iOS 14.5+, Apple devices will be following ATT and requesting user permission to share their IDFAs. The rate of user opt-in to use IDFA may be quite low depending on the specific app and the way the pop-up window is implemented.

IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) is a unique identifier for iOS devices that is used for targeting and measuring the effectiveness of ads on the user level across mobile devices.

App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is a new privacy protection framework by Apple that prevents app publishers from accessing IDFAs without obtaining explicit consent from users.

From iOS 14.5+ on, using ATT in apps will be mandatory for working with IDFAs. Advertisers will also have to comply with updated user privacy and data use policies.

A post-prompt is the final notice presented to the user regarding the sharing of IDFAs.



However, Apple enables apps to show another notice, a pre-prompt, before the final ATT permission prompt has been displayed.

A pre-prompt is a notice explaining why an app is going to request permission to share user data. In pre-prompts, advertisers can customize the image, text, translations and branding.

If you have chosen to ask your users for permission to use their IDFAs, the first thing you need to do is implement an ATT pop-up dialog. For that, you will need to share Apple’s ATT documentation with your developers.

Then make sure that your app shares the consent dialog outcome with any SDK or technology it can impact, including MMPs such as myTracker.

To integrate ATT into myTracker, it is important that you update our SDK to 2.1.2 or higher for iOS or 2.0.3 or higher for Unity as these have special functions required to support IDFAs and SKAdNetwork.

SKAdNetwork is a new solution by Apple to measure the marketing metrics of an app without ATT. Whenever SKAdNetwork is used, Apple will handle attribution on their end and share only some of the data with an ad network. This is a way for Apple to limit the amount of user data shared with third parties.

Attribution

myTracker has always maintained a strong focus on user privacy, so if a user consents to sharing IDFAs, attribution measurement accuracy will not change, even for iOS 14.5+ devices.

If a user has not consented to sharing IDFAs, you can still get the fullest picture of how effective your campaigns are by using and combining myTracker capabilities. We will be collecting reports based on data returning from ad platforms via the API and also using the SKAdNetwork framework.

Working with partners

At myTracker, we are committed to providing flexible solutions that secure both user privacy and correct attribution. For this reason, we screen all our advertising partners to make sure they comply with Apple’s updated privacy policy.

It will not affect registered users: even if the ID of their device changes, events will still be tracked by myTracker based on the user’s ID in the app.

New users and those who remove or reinstall the app will have to consent to sharing their IDFAs.

The myTracker SDK (version 2.1.2 and up for iOS or 2.0.3 and up for Unity) will automatically accept IDFAs if the user has consented to sharing them.

Until more effective solutions are available, myTracker will be using IDFV (Identifier for Vendors) to track installs and measure user activity within an app.

IDFV means non-deterministic attribution, so whenever IDFA sharing has been blocked, we recommend using SKAdNetwork.

We recommend making sure that your apps use the latest version of the myTracker SDK (2.1.2 or higher for iOS and 2.0.3 or higher for Unity) that supports Apple iOS 14.5+ and SKAdNetwork. All configuration is already taken care of.

Please note that SKAdNetwork is still a new system, so many partners are still working to integrate it. If you are not sure whether your partner supports SKAdNetwork, we advise contacting them and sharing the myTracker integration documentation to speed things up.

Reports on attribution via IDFA and data provided by their ad networks via the API will remain unchanged. Soon we will be adding conversion metrics for data from API and SKAdNetwork postbacks. The data will be available in the Report Constructor and RAW API.

You will be able to merge SKAdNetwork data with ad network statistics to calculate the ROI of your campaigns and get other information to help you in making decisions.

Apple is against tracking users of mobile apps based on email, Touch ID or any other identifier other than IDFA. myTracker follows the best practices of user data security and does not allow for tracking or collecting IDFAs without user consent, which is fully aligned with the policies of platforms, including Apple iOS.

To use IDFAs without breaching Apple’s privacy policy, you need to get user consent to track their data in an app.