Without UDID, developers stand to lose 24 percent in ad revenue

Application developers may start to lose up to 24 percent of advertising revenue as Apple turns away applications using UDID, or unique device identifier, data.

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“The move away from UDIDs threatens advertising revenue that many publishers depend on in order to support their content creation and businesses,” said Jim Payne, co-founder of MoPub, in a statement. “It’s clear that Apple needs to address this issue with an appropriate alternative, because the damage to a publisher’s bottom line will likely be material if UDID data actually disappears.”

Advertisers look at UDID data to determine the level of success a campaign may have in a certain app. It can tell you the types of users that will see the ad, and it delivers conversion data on each user (for instance, if an advertisement has led to a person downloading a new app). It measures “an ad’s effectiveness and value,” MoPub explained.

Advertisers pay by impression, or who sees the application. Without that data, advertisers are taking a greater risk deploying campaigns. They are unable to tell whether that impression is really valuable, and are thus are less likely to pay big amounts for those impressions. According to MoPub, an eCPM, or cost per thousand impressions, with UDID data could fetch .76 cents, whereas one without the data would only bring in .58 cents.

That adds up and for apps that rely on advertising revenue, this can take a big chunk out of their livelihood.

Apple decided to turn away applications using UDID because of privacy concerns. Individuals did not want their unique identifier being shared with advertisers. And with debacles like Path and other major apps using the address book to gain new users without permission, mobile privacy is in the spotlight. Developers are going to need to find a new way to prove their user quality or risk losing out.

Image via Tom Cheredar