It’s not an experiment, it will work. It’s a iOS system level default that needs to be shut off for it to stop asking if you want to be tracked outside an app, including location tracking.
Google and Facebook made noises that they are going to institute the same IDFA killer as Apple. But they are also not so quietly working on machine learning alternatives, AKA “Federated Learning”, to persistent cookies. Chances are that the information they gather from all their sites and all their other external ad serving services and networks, plus all the searching info they gather from their premier services it will still be spooky, though not quite as spooky as they are now:
Nothing on earth has been able to target messages and offers as well as the Internet, nor is it likely to change at the moment. Addressable TV via cable and sattelite is very targetable per household, but it doesn’t compare to highly personal and precision based location based tracking in and out of home. It is impossible for physical newspapers or magazines to determine what you read and when and where you might be reading it, and for how long or whether or not you got close to the bottom of the page. Digital ads can be interactive or not; they can have motion or sound, or be static.
Print ads can’t tell what stories or even what sections you read, or what your read regularly. And the can’t tell whether or not you read anything in a particular issue at all or even if it was used to line a cat box. Even if a reader ripped out a coupon and made a purchase with it at a store, you can’t tell who the reader was. Most important to advertisers, individuals cannot be profiled, tracked and individually targeted on a personal basis, including location and time based targeting. Digital content can be personalized to the nth degree, including time and place, time spent, whether or not a purchase resulted, number of return visits, how price sensitive the individual is, etc.
An equally important consideration in media decision making is variable cost per thousand. You pay only for those you wish to reach, including the option of paying only for people who click on your ad. Or you can pay for anyone who sees it, anyone whose click resulted in a sale, a sign up, a paid or free subscription, a download, anyone who returned after x, y or z amount of time, a Like in Facebook, a registered email address, etc.
Cost per thousand is one of the big reasons why Apple spent a record breaking amount of money for 1984 to run be the first commercial in the pod preceding half time. It would efficiently yield the largest audience of men, women and kids. And it’s the reason why advertisers for female products don’t advertise in Sports Illustrated or on the Super Bowl broadcast. But if an advertiser wanted to reach women in a particular age, income or whatever highly specialized demographic group while they are watching the Super Bowl on a mobile device, they can target precisely at an extremely inexpensive CPM. Advertisers with very tiny budgets can build very successful campaigns reaching audiences of all sizes. Digital ads can assume an infinite number of shapes and sizes, can appear and disappear at will, feature motion, music or speech, or be static or silent, and maybe respond in various ways, including featuring interactive content. Most import, they allow advertisers to access actual results and to fine tune messages and timing by measuring results in real time.
Ideally, advertisers should do a mix of print, digital, broadcast or narrowcast and out of home. But how many smaller advertisers can afford this?