As marketers navigate a promising holiday season with more consumers shopping online, AppsFlyer’s survey shows how probabilistic data will take on greater meaning for the next era of mobile marketing. 

About 73% of the 171 marketers that participated in the survey expect a negative impact of Apple’s IDFA changes for iOS 14 on their campaigns and apps, losing about half of identifiers under Apple’s opt-in protocol. Targeting, measurement and attribution will be the most challenging. The survey was conducted in September 2020.

Many marketers are not at all familiar with the Apple’s plans. When asked how familiar they are with Apple’s IDFA and iOS 14 announcement, only 6% of marketers surveyed said they are extremely familiar. Some 57% said they are either somewhat familiar or very familiar, and 37% said they are either not very familiar or not familiar at all.

Fifty-four percent of respondents believe that at least half of all identifiers will be reduced due to the implementation of new IDFA usage policies.

Fifty-six percent of all respondents thought the impact would be negative, but among those who were already familiar with the new protocol, the response was even more pessimistic — 73% said it would have a strong negative impact.

Publishers will lose ad revenue and the ability to invest in content, according to many marketers. Some 74% of marketers agree publishers will suffer revenue losses, with 19% of advertisers likely to shift ad spending within mobile, and 33% likely to reduce mobile ad spend.

Only a third of marketers said they were somewhat to very likely to adopt SKAdNetwork, with 46% of marketers unsure whether they will adopt Apple’s solution. SKAdNetwork from Apple aims to help advertisers determine the efficacy of their ad campaigns, while preserving the privacy of Apple users.

Some marketers think deterministic solutions will be developed. About 21% of marketers express confidence about their ability to continue to use deterministic identifiers for measurement, either by using alternative identifiers like emails, or by finding new strategies to obtain permission to access the IDFA, such as by providing incentives. 

Some 80% of marketers find it somewhat to extremely likely that other mobile operating systems, such as Google’s Android, will enforce similar opt-in approaches when it comes to identifiers.