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Mobile Monday: Study Shows IDFA Opt-In Rates Could Be Up to 70%, Two-thirds of Mobile Gamers are Playing More Than Before

Posted Aug 30, 2020

Back in June, Apple rocked the ad industry by announcing it would be implementing a new opt-in system for tracking users’ IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). After updating to iOS14, users will be prompted with a pop-up to allow personal tracking for advertising purposes. In the past few months, industry experts have been predicting opt-in rates with many saying they expect it to be as low as 10% to 20%. A new study has shown that opt-rates could possibly be much higher than anticipated and maybe up to 70%. Meanwhile, new survey results say that mobile gamers are playing more often and longer than before the pandemic. We have all the details on these studies in this week’s Mobile Monday!

IDFA Opt-in Rates May Be Much Higher Than Expected

App re-engagement platform, Adikteev teamed up with a hypercasual gaming publisher to conduct a study on how many users would opt-in to ad tracking. The experiment was performed in one of the publisher’s games and reached several thousand global users with most of them based in the United States. The study created three scenarios that simulated different ways Apple’s ad tracking pop-up could be experienced. The first group of users saw only a mock-up of the Apple pop-up and nothing else. This shows what would happen if a publisher chose not to create a custom pop-up. Adikteev found that a surprising 73% of users clicked “ok” on the pop-up, a rate much higher than the expected 10-20% that is often talked about among experts. 

The second group of users was first shown a custom interstitial or mid-page unit (MPU) asking that they opt-in to help sustain the company and allow the company to continue providing free games and then were shown the Apple pop-up sometime later. Both ad units received similar results which ultimately resulted in 39% of users opting in to ad tracking for the interstitial and 36% for the MPU. Although this is higher than the predicted opt-in rate, it is much lower than the 73% rate that resulted from just showing the Apple pop-up.

The third scenario in the experiment was to not show any opt-in messages to users in order to analyze the retention rate with or without pop-ups. Adtikteev deduced that even if users answer “no” to the message, viewing pop-ups doesn’t seem to impact their retention rate. On the other hand, their data showed that users who opt-in are more engaged in the app and have a better retention rate. The report also points out that these rates could be completely different in another app category or even another game. With Adikteev’s positive study results, publishers should be willing to look into various strategies before completely writing off IDFAs. 

Mobile Gamers Are Playing More Often and Longer

Google Play recently conducted an extensive gamer survey to analyze how mobile gaming behavior has changed since COVID-19. Globally, 70% of mobile gamers said they were playing more than before the pandemic. Out of ten countries surveyed, gamers from China were the most likely to be playing more while, Japanese gamers were the least likely but still had 52% of respondents saying they were playing more. Additionally, 65% of respondents said their gaming sessions were longer than before. The high level of engagement in mobile games could continue even after COVID-19. 42% of global gamers said they were very or extremely likely to continue spending more time mobile gaming after the pandemic. 

The gamer survey also revealed that many of them have been playing new titles since the start of COVID-19. Gamers from India, the U.S., and Brazil were found to be playing new games the most. A number of mobile gamers (28% in the U.S.) are also playing games they have re-downloaded since lockdown. Most gamers cite nostalgia as the reason they re-bought or re-installed a game. Updates to the game were the second most-used reason to revisit an old game.  Developers should recognize this opportunity to re-engage past users by promoting older games and advertising content updates.

About AdColony Mobile Mondays
Mobile Monday examines the latest news, trends, and developments in mobile apps, tech, and advertising. Do you have a story to share for the next Mobile Monday?   

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