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Most iPhone Users Opt Out of App Tracking

iOS 14.5 was released just over three weeks ago, on 26 April 2021, bringing with it new app tracking restrictions. So far, the numbers don’t look great for advertisers…

  • iOS 14 was already installed on over 80% of Apple devices by December 2020, and this latest release looks set to be the most popular version.
  • Only 13% of iOS 14.5 users across the world have allowed apps to track them
  • In the USA, the proportion of users opted in is lower… averaging 4%
  • Around 5% of iOS users have chosen to even block apps from being able to ask them whether they wish to be tracked
  • Early reports have shown CPA rises of around 15% for advertisers who had not prepared for these changes
  • Facebook has rolled out shorter attribution windows, stricter ad optimisation settings, and disabled ad campaigns that were optimised for events that weren’t selected for aggregated event measurement
  • A few people (including IAB board members) have called out the discrepancy between the way Apple displays prompts for its own apps versus third-party apps, but this is unlikely to change the way the prompt is displayed for most apps and their advertisers:

iOS IDFA prompt hypocrisy

Sources: Facebook marketing communities, Techradar, iMore, Flurry Analytics