Going by an interesting recent survey, there are still two in five consumers of Apple who have admitted that they can allow apps to keep on tracking them in iOS 14. But with that being said, more than 60% have sided ways with not giving such permission to apps and that means the global ad personalization capability is expected to go down by 44% once Apple is done releasing the latest version of its mobile operating software.
By the way, can you guess who is most likely to allow tracking among all sorts of users?
Well, the middle-aged men!
Apple’s IDFA survey was conducted with the help of 600 smartphone owners at the start of February. The survey was done with the clear aim of knowing how the recent privacy changes by Apple in iOS 14 will impact the behaviors of iPhone owners.
Prior to the efforts done by Apple to protect the privacy of users, the app publishers and marketers were able to keep a detailed track of users with the help of Apple’s identifier for advertisers and the IDFA. Together the tools used to assist them a great deal in understanding the interest of people and also the kind of ads users were more into for years. However, as the process always included the risk of both ad tech platforms and all major social networks collecting large amounts of consumer data which could also be cross-referenced with offline and first-party data to give birth to a massive identity graph, Apple finally took action against this practice.
Looking at the results, it seems like that the company listened to what the majority of their users were looking for as 55% of male respondents said that they were already wishing to block the tracking capability of apps downloaded on their phones, whereas, 67% of women also had the similar opinion.
Diving into the stats further, teenagers turned out to be even more private as four in five clearly stated to not allow tracking at all.
The only age group that would allow tracking is between 35-44 year-olds.
The current practice of tracking undoubtedly delivers high levels of ad personalization, which then comes in handy for brands and ad networks to increase ad effectiveness. In fact, it was Facebook that first starting giving credit to ads personalization for creating 50% of the value that their advertising business that they have today.
As the personalization element includes free email (Gmail), free web search (Google/Bing), free social (Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat), and free news, this raises the all-important question again; will customers pay for such services if the platforms start operating without ads?
The answer to this is clearly given by nine in ten respondents who genuinely think that privacy is either extremely or important to some extent for them. Moreover, 73.2% also said that they would prefer to choose more privacy even if they have to pay money to the apps or likewise service providers.
Although all of this sounds like a nice thought, it would be actually more interesting to see whether consumers would exactly do what they are saying or not. And also what impact will they be able to create on big tech companies who are already making big money through advertising.
A good example of such a scenario is Facebook that makes around $164 every year per user in the U.S. and Canada. And in these regions, only 10% of respondents said that they may pay $50-100/year for services like Facebook or Google.
There was also another astonishing fact revealed through the survey according to which Apple despite making privacy an integral part of its marketing campaigns and product designs loses against Google when it comes to winning the trust of 600 participants of the survey over privacy matters. 43% trusted Google whereas only 38% voted for Apple. There was also Facebook in the results sitting at 23% with all the controversies and cases.
We have already seen ad-tech companies working on contextual targeting, and brands moving to approaches that revolve around the privacy-protecting ecosystem.
So if you are a company whose monetization revolves around ad-supported service merely, it’s about time that you make the shift happen!
Read next: In The US, Latest Version of Android Sees Excellent Adoption Rate, But Globally Still Struggling To Get A Reasonable Market Share
By the way, can you guess who is most likely to allow tracking among all sorts of users?
Well, the middle-aged men!
Apple’s IDFA survey was conducted with the help of 600 smartphone owners at the start of February. The survey was done with the clear aim of knowing how the recent privacy changes by Apple in iOS 14 will impact the behaviors of iPhone owners.
Prior to the efforts done by Apple to protect the privacy of users, the app publishers and marketers were able to keep a detailed track of users with the help of Apple’s identifier for advertisers and the IDFA. Together the tools used to assist them a great deal in understanding the interest of people and also the kind of ads users were more into for years. However, as the process always included the risk of both ad tech platforms and all major social networks collecting large amounts of consumer data which could also be cross-referenced with offline and first-party data to give birth to a massive identity graph, Apple finally took action against this practice.
Looking at the results, it seems like that the company listened to what the majority of their users were looking for as 55% of male respondents said that they were already wishing to block the tracking capability of apps downloaded on their phones, whereas, 67% of women also had the similar opinion.
Diving into the stats further, teenagers turned out to be even more private as four in five clearly stated to not allow tracking at all.
The only age group that would allow tracking is between 35-44 year-olds.
The current practice of tracking undoubtedly delivers high levels of ad personalization, which then comes in handy for brands and ad networks to increase ad effectiveness. In fact, it was Facebook that first starting giving credit to ads personalization for creating 50% of the value that their advertising business that they have today.
As the personalization element includes free email (Gmail), free web search (Google/Bing), free social (Facebook/Twitter/Snapchat), and free news, this raises the all-important question again; will customers pay for such services if the platforms start operating without ads?
The answer to this is clearly given by nine in ten respondents who genuinely think that privacy is either extremely or important to some extent for them. Moreover, 73.2% also said that they would prefer to choose more privacy even if they have to pay money to the apps or likewise service providers.
Although all of this sounds like a nice thought, it would be actually more interesting to see whether consumers would exactly do what they are saying or not. And also what impact will they be able to create on big tech companies who are already making big money through advertising.
A good example of such a scenario is Facebook that makes around $164 every year per user in the U.S. and Canada. And in these regions, only 10% of respondents said that they may pay $50-100/year for services like Facebook or Google.
There was also another astonishing fact revealed through the survey according to which Apple despite making privacy an integral part of its marketing campaigns and product designs loses against Google when it comes to winning the trust of 600 participants of the survey over privacy matters. 43% trusted Google whereas only 38% voted for Apple. There was also Facebook in the results sitting at 23% with all the controversies and cases.
So will iOS 14 really impact the ad industry?
As 62% of people now have plans to not allow ads tracking through iOS 14 and 32% already chose for it with Limit Ad Tracking in iOS 13, there is no doubt that free and ad-supported services will be hit badly.We have already seen ad-tech companies working on contextual targeting, and brands moving to approaches that revolve around the privacy-protecting ecosystem.
So if you are a company whose monetization revolves around ad-supported service merely, it’s about time that you make the shift happen!
