Apple's IDFA changes are confusing everyone in the mobile app industry.
Apple announced at this year's WWDC event that they have completely removed IDFA in iOS 14. They published a post explaining the details of User Privacy and Data Use in iOS 14. In light of these developments, it is important to run through the app marketing process for the App Store after IDFA.
We will go over how to prepare for IDFA Deprecation for your App in three steps.
- What is IDFA
- IDFA Changes and the Effects
- Preparation for Post-IDFA
What is IDFA?
IDFA is an Identifier at its simplest. It allows apps to keep track of the behavior of their users. With IDFA, an app you download can track your behavior on other apps, websites and offline. Your measured behavior for these three cases is used by app developers to personalize ads and improve the user experience of the product. All of these are very similar to the use of cookies, which are now used on almost all websites.
IDFA does the analysis, which cookies does on websites, on apps. With IDFA, your behaviors such as in-app-purchases and clicks can be analyzed deeply. Do not be scared, IDFA cannot analyze any of your personal information under confidentiality. Therefore, we can say that IDFA makes well-intentioned analyses for customer experience and ad personalization.
IDFA Changes and Effects
The most important change is related to the way IDFA approval is presented and informed to users. Previously, IDFA was able to track the behavior of the user when user reviews the permissions and downloads it during app download. Users now need to give approval after downloading the app so their behaviors can be tracked.
Of course, previously the user had the right to cancel IDFA, but for this s/he had to go into the settings and change his or her preferences. Although this change of IDFA may not seem like a significant difference, you may experience that this offer generally backfires in your individual experiences. Therefore, there will be a significant decrease in the number of users followed.
For this moment, with IDFA, it is predicted that the number of users who allow their behavior to be analyzed will decrease by at least 20%. Apps can follow different methods such as approval request notifications from time to time, gamifying the approval request, and giving confidence. Apps that can establish good relations with their users will get better results in ad spending and will be able to develop their apps with strong insights, as they get approval more easily than their competitors. Competition is getting more intense!
Important Effects
- High Cost Targeting: As it becomes harder to track users, personalized high efficiency ad content will decrease. More ad impressions will be required to be able to recycle individuals from general ads.
- Challenge of Measurement and Assessment: Getting users' behaviors directly is now more difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to gather more experience to make short-term measurements and evaluate them with detailed data.
- Impact of User Experience: Users' initiative is now more prominent to give approval. Establishing good relationships and building trust is now more important than ever to increase the number of users you receive approval from.
Preparation for Post-IDFA
First of all, Apple Search Ads and ASO are much more important compared to past. Because Apple Search Ads is not affected by this change of IDFA. Users, just the same, can turn off tracking of their behavior from the settings for Search Ads, as well. In this case, the importance of organic growth and ASO is clear.
With continuous analysis and an up-to-date ASO strategy, you can ensure that your app is positively affected after these changes. It would be beneficial to create a joint growth strategy with ASO by taking advantage of the effect of Apple Search Ads.
Measure few-option and several content in your ad impressions, as it's harder to get insights from your users. In this way, it is easy to decide which one of small and different content is productive.
