Definition
App Tracking Transparency (ATT) is an Apple framework, in force since iOS 14.5, that requires an app to obtain the user's explicit permission through a system prompt before it can access the device's advertising identifier (IDFA) or track the user across apps and websites owned by other companies. If the user declines - and most do - the IDFA is unavailable to that app, and deterministic cross-app attribution of installs and post-install events is no longer possible.
The practical consequence for mobile user acquisition is that iOS campaign measurement moved from precise, user-level attribution to Apple's aggregated, privacy-preserving SKAdNetwork and to modelled conversions. SKAdNetwork reports conversions in delayed, aggregated, low-detail postbacks with limited conversion-value granularity and privacy thresholds that suppress data below a certain volume, so an advertiser learns roughly how a campaign performed but not which specific users converted or exactly when.
In context
For iGaming user acquisition this means iOS reporting is noisier, delayed and partly probabilistic. Cost per first-time deposit on iOS is often modelled rather than measured directly; optimisation leans more heavily on on-site and in-app events that the operator controls; and buyers place relatively more weight on Android and web funnels, where the signal is fuller, when allocating budget.
Campaigns are planned around these measurement limits rather than fighting them - for example, using a small set of high-value SKAdNetwork conversion values mapped to deposit tiers.
ATT is one of several privacy changes reshaping performance marketing, alongside browser cookie deprecation and regional privacy law. The common thread is less deterministic identity and more aggregated, modelled and consented measurement.
Operators and affiliates adapt by strengthening first-party data collection (their own login, their own events), investing in incrementality testing to understand true campaign contribution, and accepting that iOS acquisition numbers carry a wider confidence interval than they did before 2021.
Worked example
After ATT, an operator finds it can attribute only about 30% of its iOS installs to a specific source with a usable identifier. It switches that segment to a modelled cost-per-FTD target based on SKAdNetwork conversion values mapped to deposit bands, and shifts a larger share of its mobile budget to Android, where deterministic attribution still works.
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