Apple’s Ushering in a New Era of Mobile Ads (Here’s How It Affects Us)

While it may have slipped the attention of many consumers, online businesses around the world were rocked by Apple’s June 2020 decision to make the IDFA fully opt-in. What does that mean exactly?

Well, IDFA stands for Identifier for Advertisers, and it’s a protocol that creates an ID tag for every user device so that device activity can be tracked by advertisers for personalized marketing and ad offers.

While IDFA made it easy to track online behavior without actually knowing a user’s private info, the practice has come under some scrutiny as the importance of online privacy continues to increase.

While Apple still provides the IDFA, it’s now entirely based on direct permission granted by users. In other words, if an app wants to track what a device is doing through an IDFA, a big pop-up will show up that says, roughly, “This app wants to track what you’re doing on this device so it can send you ads. Do you want to allow that?” Users are broadly expected to answer no.

So, what does that mean for advertisers and for your personal user experience going forward? Continue reading to learn what it means for you.