App Tracking Transparency

App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is a framework Apple introduced with iOS 14.5 in April 2021. Since then, apps on iPhone and iPad must ask users for permission in a pop-up before tracking their activity across other companies' apps and websites. Without permission, the app gets no access to the device's advertising ID (IDFA).

What ATT changed for advertisers

Before ATT, ad platforms could fairly reliably connect a click in an app with a later purchase on a website. Since then, for every user who taps ‘Ask App Not to Track’:

• Fewer measured conversions: The platform only sees part of the results directly.
• More modeling: Platforms estimate missing conversions statistically.
• Shorter attribution windows: Meta shortened its default attribution after ATT, and the 28-day click window was dropped.
• Weaker audiences: Retargeting and lookalike audiences get fewer signals.

Example

A coaching business has mostly iPhone users in its audience. Its CRM shows 120 new leads from Meta ads per month, while Ads Manager reports only 80. Much of the gap consists of conversions Meta can't attribute directly because tracking permission is missing.

App Tracking Transparency in lead generation

No technology should override a user's choice – and that's not the goal. What matters is that you don't take your own numbers from the ad account alone. If you capture leads on your own website and connect them with deals in your CRM, you get a second, independent view of actual results.

LeadMetrics captures leads with a script on your website, attributes them to the traffic source and connects them with deals and revenue through the CRM integration. Learn more about the impact on Meta campaigns in Meta Andromeda update.

ATT vs. cookie consent

ATT is an Apple rule for apps on Apple devices. The cookie banner on your website is part of your consent management and follows laws like the GDPR. Both limit tracking, but they are independent of each other.