It’s been almost a month since iOS10 was released, with its more stringent privacy settings – where users can opt out of the ID for Advertisers (IDFA). When the Limit Ad Tracking setting is enabled, the IDFA is blank.

If people were more interested in reducing the number of retargeted ads, and if they were aware of the effects of the Limit Ad Tracking settings, we would expect a steadily rising trend throughout the last month as adoption of iOS 10 rises and people become aware of the changes. So far, there’s no evidence of an upward trend – the global rates are stagnant, at around 18 %.

So what’s happened, globally?

After the jump, you’ll find all of the rates, by country.

In North America, US LAT rates rise to 20 %

The US is one of the few places where the Limit Ad Tracking rates have consistently risen throughout the month. Around the launch of iOS 10, different measurements implied that circa 16 - 18 % of iOS users in the United States had opted out of ad tracking. As of October 4th, the day this dataset was retrieved, that number had steadily risen to 20 %.

Germans and Scandinavians top the list among Europeans

In Europe, the rates are frequently above the global average, especially in Eastern Europe.

The countries leading the list are typically in Northern Europe, such as Germany (19 %) or the Netherlands (22 %). Writing this out of Berlin, this is not entirely surprising. The Germans have high standards for privacy protection (Datenschutz), and an above-average awareness of the types of data that is being collected - in addition to some of the world’s most stringent privacy protection laws. As adjust’s platform is engineered and hosted in Germany, we’re keenly familiar with the type of protections these laws require.

Particularly low are the rates in Turkey.

The Middle East, Israel and the Arab subcontinent

Users in Asia more open to ad tracking?

It’s among Asian countries that we find some of the world’s lowest rates of opt-outs, almost tied with Latin America. The lowest rates across the board are found among users in Indonesia and the Philippines.

South America on the lower end of the scale

African countries represent the highest level of iOS Limit Ad Tracking

What does this mean for you?

Limit Ad Tracking means that users don’t want to be retargeted and profiled for advertising purposes.

As we can see, it’s not evenly distributed across countries, and it’s additionally not evenly distributed among target audiences. Audiences that are more tech-savvy typically know about these settings to a greater degree, and are also more allergic to advertising in general. Some audiences will also have a high proportion of adblockers, which is complementary to Limit Ad Tracking.

It looks like the rates are higher in countries where more people are concerned about their privacy online - for example in the German-speaking area - but not necessarily in countries where smartphone penetration is higher, like in Sweden.

As a marketer, audiences that are very likely to enable Limit Ad Tracking can still be valuable. But you need to reach them in ways that are additionally aware of their privacy preferences.

Understand the “dark percentage” of Limit Ad Tracking

Just last week, we released Privacy Insights, including a new KPI into the adjust dashboard: the proportion of users that have enabled Limit Ad Tracking.

In our aggregated data, we measure the number of anonymous users in each segment. With this information, you’re able to understand more clearly - for your app - which audiences are more likely to opt out of ad tracking.

Maybe some campaigns or some publishers reach this audience to a higher degree? There’s no point scheduling retargeting campaigns toward a segment where a large proportion of the users have opted out.

If certain high-performing audiences are more likely to opt out of tracking, you can know which types of publishers can reach them - and which don’t.

The metrics are available to everyone using adjust.

Not using adjust yet, but still curious how to find out which of your audiences are most engaged, and which ones are more likely to enable LAT? Get in touch today for a demo.