• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 29, 2022

PubMatic looked at the Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA) opt-in rates after Apple introduced it. The company noticed that rates have stabilized for the most part, but there are several app categories where the market continues to rapidly change.

iOS 14.5+ gets the majority of ad requests, at about 84%. Pre-14.5 gets about 16%, according to the data. Not surprisingly, users who opt in are more valuable to advertisers -- about 2.7 times more.

The latest OS users will opt in for more personalized ad experiences. The percentage of ad requests with IDFA varies based on the operating system. While opt-in rates have stabilized at roughly one-third of iOS 14.5+ devices, about 30%, remain below opt-in rates of pre-14.5 iOS devices, about 55%.

The eCPM rate by IDFA presence on iOS for 14.5+ is nearly three times that the rate when the IDFA is not present.

PubMatic’s yield and data analytics team analyzed approximately 1 trillion advertiser bids daily, using the company’s analytics capabilities. This data adds ad requests, impressions, revenue and eCPM data from reports to provide a higher level of analysis for key trends. Analysis is based on PubMatic-sourced data, except as noted

Partner IDs further boost revenues. When users opted-in and an ad partner ID is present, revenue rose by more than 50%. LiveRamp was used in a sample.

App categories with the highest IDFA presence in iOS 14.5+ include Food and Dining at 43%, Woman’s Interest at 43%, Automotive at 38%, Shopping at 36%, and Sports at 36%.

App categories with the lowest IDFA presence in iOS 14.5+ include Education at 20%, News at 20%, Home & Garden at 19%, Music at 18%, and Real Estate at 18%.

Skai also published data last week that found social advertisers are adjusting to IDFA. In 2021, Skai noticed sequential spending declines from April to May to June as the release of iOS 14.5 introduced changes to privacy controls and availability of data for both targeting and measurement.

With so many solutions and workarounds in place for disruptions in 2022, monthly spending in paid social media has been much more stable, paving the way for an acceleration of growth. 

“We see more direct evidence of how social media advertising has adapted and rebounded versus the second quarter last year, when the introduction of IDFA led to decreasing social budgets,” stated Chris Costello, senior director of marketing research at Skai. “This year, solutions to the loss of targeting and measurement signals have helped stabilize those spending levels, which has yielded stronger growth for social media spending than many expected.” 

Social continues to struggle without the identifier. Meta, for example, still deals with competitive pressures that have threatened its growth. The company said during its last earnings call that it missed earnings numbers and lost advertising revenue, in part, due to Apple's IDFA privacy change.