Apple Ad Tracking Transparency

My roles: Lead UX Designer, Researcher

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

How might I increase the player opt-in rate to mitigate the potentially disastrous impact this requirement will have on our marketing and customer service experience?

What if the game showed a popup image (“interstitial”) before the Apple dialog that:

1. Includes something significant from the player’s experience in the game

2. Clearly points to the button we want the player to tap

3. Obscures any element that unnecessarily increases cognitive load

4. Is deeply themed and feels a part of the game?

Design Procedure

Design Hypothesis

Increase explicit ATT opt-ins by 1% over baseline (approx 190,000 users) by utilizing an interstitial that matches our games' themes and translates well into our supported languages.

1. Use familiar characters or game traits to deliver a message about ATT

2. Let that message be fair, true, and legal, while injecting any narrative flavor or charm applicable

3. Clearly demonstrate to the player the very next action you want them to perform by:

   1. positioning a pointer above and into the “Allow” button,

   2. maintaining the general look-and-feel (and scale) of the ATT dialog,

   3. drawing attention to the “Allow” button using style and scale, and

   4. placing the “Next” button below

User Study

Objective

Understand the impact including a message prior to the ATT tracking prompt has on a player’s willingness to allow tracking

Methodology

Chalkmark (first-click) study consisting of 3 experience flows: ​

1. Gnome Pre-Message: Players will see a message prior to the ATT prompt that includes the Gnomes​

2. Beauty Pre-Message: Players will see a message prior to the ATT prompt that includes Sleeping Beauty​

3. No Message (Control): Players will not see a message prior to the the ATT prompt​

Total Sample

n=1,168 EverMerge players ​
 

• Gnome: n=394​


• Beauty: n=377​


• No Message: n=397​

Study Flow

As part of this study, the IDFA process was simulated in EverMerge. Players then provided clarity on their behavior via survey questions. ​

Impact

Impact of Popup Interstitial on Intent

Players who saw the IDFA Pre-Message were significantly more likely to say they would Allow Tracking than players who saw no pre-message. ​

• 30% est: 300,000 DAU

• 27% est: 270,000 DAU

• Baseline est: 190,000 DAU

Impact of Popup Interstitial on Behavior

Players with an IDFA Pre-Message tapped on Allow Tacking more and were able to perform the task faster.

While fewer “yes” players tapped allow, the time spent on the task was increased, suggesting our language better informed players what they were about to see.

Company-Wide Impact

From a portfolio of ±40 games, 35 adopted the recommendations and saw between a 10 and 20% increase in opt-ins over not being shown a pre-popup.

For EverMerge, the actual average DAU opt-in was:

19% of users opted in per day on average. As exposure to the prompt was seen by more of our user base, opt-ins necessarily slowed. Brand new users are opting in at around 8.3% per day.

With the goal of a 1% opt-in rate over baseline, EverMerge achieved a 19% increase in opt-ins on the first day of Apple’s required ATT pop-up.

Prototype