Great, another complicated Advertising Acronym… IDFA

Let us break it down for you, IDFA is just a new phrase used for tracking online user activity, only this time, without collecting any Personal Identifiable Information, or PII; which is what got the digital advertising industry in trouble. 

IDFA is Apple’s iOS identifier for Advertisers. Google has one too – GPS ADID which stands for Google Play Services ID for Android [‘ooohhhh’ ; yea, that was our initial reaction too]. Apple is able to track users and resell that data to advertisers while maintaining compliancy with the GDPR and the CCPA by assigning a random identifier to a user’s device and completely ignoring any PII that comes along with the user. With cookies crumbling all around us, we need IDFAs and GPS ADIDs in order to track prospects and deliver customized advertising experiences so that they can become customers. 

Just like with cookie tracking, users can opt-out of IDFA – all they have to do is go into their settings and opt-out under Ad Preferences. Apps that can be accessed via the Apple App Store will need to deliver a clear message to users upon download that will also make it easy for users to opt-out. Bad for business, good for user privacy protection and legal compliance. Apps with logins will not be impacted as the users consent to data collection and sharing when they register with the App. To date, it is estimated that about 20% of iOS users have opted out. 

One way that we will work with our clients to prepare them for a cookie-less future is by ensuring proper collection and retention of their own first party data. Our team can help you identify the missing pieces of your MarTech Stack and provide recommendations. Having proper access of your own data and the ability to leverage it for advertising purposes is going to be vital to brand survival in the coming years. As for attracting new customers, well, we’ll need to go back to basics – brand building tactics such as Contextual Targeting, TV, Radio, and OOH are going to experience a much-deserved comeback.