Update to Appodeal’s latest SDK version as it fully supports iOS10.
iOS 10 was released on Sept 7, bringing groundbreaking changes in privacy settings along with it.
Most notably, users may choose to “Limit Ad Tracking” and re-set the identifier (or IDFA) at will. Furthermore, Apple has introduced the "zeroing" of IDFAs for users who have opted out of ad tracking. When a user resets the advertising identifier, it is replaced with a string of zeros.
The IDFA lets advertisers track the specific iPhone user who has viewed an ad and can help make sure a user doesn’t see the same ad twice. Zeroing of IDFA could be a problem for mobile app developers as it will be more difficult to track ad clicks, installs, and conversions.
The percentage of users who have enabled their privacy settings wasn’t all that high with previous iOS versions (about 10%-12%). However, it’s worth mentioning that in previous versions, the limit ad tracking functionality worked quite differently. Once users updated their limit ad tracking setting to true, the OS would send a flag to developers, indicating that the use of “targeted advertising” was prohibited for this user.
The interpretation of “targeted advertising” varied and was most often associated with behavioral advertising. Companies were allowed to track the IDFA for the purposes of unique user estimation, frequency capping, conversion events, etc. With iOS 10, developers and ad networks will not be able to use IDFAs for such purposes.
Bottom line: As this update may affect your app data and analytics, we strongly recommend updating to the latest Appodeal SDK, which fully supports iOS 10.
