What Happened
Earlier this week, Apple unveiled a major update to their “Limit Ad Tracking” setting in iOS 10, which will give users more control over their “Identifier for Advertising” (IDFA) and the data that is shared with advertisers. In current iOS versions, activating this feature sends developers and advertisers the user’s IDFA and a flag indicating that the user wishes not to be targeted based on their location or behavior. In the forthcoming iOS 10, however, developers and advertisers will receive a zeroed-out value instead of the IDFA, effectively anonymizing all activity from users with that setting enabled.
Why Brands Should Care
According to Fiksu, 14% of iOS users currently have the “Limit Ad Tracking” setting turned on, so this update will at least somewhat undermine the tracking and targeting capability of mobile ad networks that rely on IDFA to target iOS users. For brands seeking to reach mobile consumers, however, this presents a good opportunity to reconsider your mobile strategy and shift towards a social-heavy media mix for your mobile campaigns, as most ads on social networks are targeted by user profile and are therefore immune to this privacy setting update.
To learn more about how brands can deal with the consumer resistance against seeing ads, please check out the Ad Avoidance section of our Outlook 2016.
Source: Fiksu