When Steve Jobs released iPhone to the world in 2007, it unleashed a new world of delivering experiences to users. But it was a black box with red tape that allowed only limited publishers to create & develop apps. A year later Jobs took the stage again to announce ‘App Store’ – the greatest catalyst of innovation where third party providers could develop & deliver apps for iOS users. Fast forward through history, mobile marketing & advertising is a multi-billion dollar industry helping brands to reach their mobile apps to their target audience.

What Happens After 1st September?

Starting 1st September, the latest Apple operating system aka iOS 14 would require apps to seek user permission to share IDFA and allow advertisement tracking. IDFA or ID For Advertisers, is the uniquer identifier used by mobile marketers & advertisers to measure & personalize & optimize user experiences across the app & web world on iOS. It is hard to imagine user opt ins since the wording is extremely strong as you can find below :

Prediction : 6 Months to 1 year later Google would follow to become privacy-friendly & restrict GAIDs – the Android Device IDs across the Android network

Impact : Aggregated Attribution

Granular data is dead. With IDFA advertisers would be able to identify which campaigns, media & channels have lead to installs or purchases. After IDFA is removed, Apple has proposed SKAdNetwork – which does not provide view through or impressions attributions & provides aggregate level data about a campaigns performance. Multi touch attribution or impression drive attribution which requires huge investments to build, would no longer function.

All Ad Measurement data would now be last click only.

Predictions

Apple Marketing Cloud 2021: As I write, Apple might be working in the background to build its own marketing cloud ecosystem. To start with, Apple would allow more data available across its Apple Search Ads network for developers. Based on the adoption, it would allow more data to be available for mobile marketers to drive personalized experiences.

Hello Probabilistic Score : After IDFA is removed from the ecosystem, it would impossible to confirm if an ad click led to an app install or purchase. Historical trend information would be used to define a probability conversions score for each campaign.

Increase in Ad Fraud : With IDFA’s existence fraudulent devices or bots could be easily removed by ad networks. Without IDFA it would be impossible to filter out actual devices versus bots and marketers would be close to clueless when they see their campaign not performing according to expectations.

More Campaigns : Without a granular view of what factors drive a successful campaign, brands would have to create multiple variations of the campaign. Consumers might suddenly find ads that are not contextual or connected or make sense aka even more creepy.

Impact : Look-alike Audiences Are Gone

Many Ad Networks, MMPs, DSPs etc. maintained a database of IDFAs & GAIDs they are able to acquire with metadata. The same database is then used to find look – alike audiences for similar campaigns. For example, people who clicked on Lenovo Ad or visited lenovo.com might also be interested in McAfee AntiVirus or Nord VPNs. As IDFAs would not exist, such database or device graphs would not get updated with the latest IDFAs and be redundant over time.

Predictions

More Partnerships & Co-Branding : To acquire more users we should witness a lot of co-branding or partnerships between established players & new comers. Marketers would look at the entire user journey to assimilate participating brands to partner to push their apps. The retail concepts of piggy backing would now play in the digital world

Personalization & Advertising Fusion : Brands would leverage their existing digital real estate to mention about partners or similar brands along with personalized brand messages. Potentially creating new revenue streams to share this space with partners. It would be interesting to watch consumers asking – Is that a personalized banner or an ad?

Impact : Limited Retargeting & Personalization

When IDFA was available, in active users would re-targeted within the app towards conversion and their experience personalized based on the journey. Without IDFA , brands & app developers have to rely on user identifiers such as email address, phone number etc. It becomes very challenging to deliver personalized or relevant experiences when users are installing for the first time or using Instant Apps.

Predictions

Unlock App Features with Opt In : Today, if your app wants to access your location for a functionality , you would find the prompt to allow access to the app to your location. In a similar way app publishers especially with monetization goals would prompt users to opt in for tracking to unlock app features.

Customer Data Platforms : To drive relevant real time re targeting & personalization, enterprise would require to setup customer data platforms that ingest user interactions & behavior based on user identifiers like email & phone number. Using AI/ML the next best step has to be predicted & activated on the person based destinations.

Impact : MMPs

MMPs or Mobile Marketing Partners are the conversion record keepers of the mobile advertising universe. They are the assistants advertisers & marketers need they measure installs, drive multi-touch attribution, manage ad networks and more unique capabilities. After IDFA becomes opt in only, it becomes a level playing field as everyone gets access to the same generic aggregated data. The only differentiator might be availability & price.

Predictions

Media Mix Platforms : Existing MMPs would exist or consolidate with others to become media mix platforms. These would use the aggregated data from SKAdNetwork and share recommendations for ad spend using ML based media mix models. Just like Amazon or StitchFix in retail, their success would depend on how accurately the probablistic media spend recommendations helped achieve brand goals.