What led Branch to change position in January 2021 on the use of the App Tracking Transparency framework?

Branch’s original stance was based on the understanding that brands would still be allowed to establish direct relationships with their own end users, based on user agreements and their terms of service that were in compliance with local laws and regulatory guidelines. These relationships would legitimately grant an advertiser consent to track via methods other than the IDFA.

The updated guidance from Apple in January, 2021 is counter to our previous expectations that companies would be able to acquire consent via any legally acceptable mechanism, including, but not limited to, Apple’s ATT framework. Apple has now made it explicit: apps that do not comply with the letter of their rules will be ejected from the App Store. That is a risk we are not willing to expose our customers to.

We recognized there was an outside chance of this potential outcome as Apple continued to iterate on messaging, and built product functionality that fully supports compliance with the new Apple requirements. This will enable continued support of our customers with ad attribution via our SKAN dashboard, and enhanced device-level matching for paid media only after a user has specifically consented via the ATT prompt.