UMP GDPR Consent for AdMob - Present Personal, Non-Personal or Purchase Options

[Bastian Rössler]

Hello everybody,

I'm trying to implement UMP + AdMob into my iOS App. In the end I want the user to have three options:

1. Receive Personalized Ads
2.  Receive Non-Personalized Ads
3.  Buy "No-Ads" In-App-Purchase

Maybe I'm not seeing the obvious but it seems that it is impossible to do that using UMP even though I would think that it is a very common use case.

I can imagine that a comprehensive answer to this would help a lot of developers out there...

Any help will be highly appreciated! :-)

Cheers,

Bastian

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Bastian,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

To implement UMP, you can follow our guide in iOS or Android. For personalized ads, kindly note that the default behavior of the Google Mobile Ads SDK is to serve personalized ads. Then, for non personalized ads, if a user has consented to receive only non-personalized ads, you can configure an GADRequest object to specify that only non-personalized ads should be requested. For the no ads in app purchase, can you provide more details on this?

Regards,

Princess Pamela Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[Bastian Rössler]

Hello Princess,

thank you very much for your quick response.

I'd like to clarify the problem using two screenshots.

This shows the initial UMP Message a users sees. The user has three options:

1. Consent -> The user will see personalized ads.
2. Purchase No-Ads Bundle (I renamed the "Do not consent" Button) -> The user will have to pay a certain amount in order to be able to use the app without viewing ads.
3. Manage options. This is where it gets more complicated, therefore I attached another screenshot showing the "Manage options" Dialog.

In the "Manage options" Dialog the user has lots and lots of options to give consent to certain aspects that are coupled with presenting ads. Unfortunately the user has even the option to decline consent for the most basic things that are needed in order to present ads at all (be it personalized or non-personalized ads). One of those options is marked with an arrow in the screenshots.

So if I understand correctly, the user here has the option to just disable ads completely. As a consequence, my app would not be able to present ads and this means that it will not make any money. Therefore I'm asking for a way to only give the user the option to 1. accept ads to be shown OR 2. pay some money.

Unfortunately the UMP guide you pointed me to is very unspecific with that regard.

Is there any more information you can provide to me?

Thank you very much in advance,

Bastian

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Bastian,

I work along with Princess. Allow me to assist you in this.

With regard to your concern, please do note that is the UMP process flow. You must display the UMP GDPR form and get basic permissions from users before ever even being able to load and render ads. Here is the list of conditions that were needed.

1. provide consent to “store and/or access information on a device
2. Select basic ads
   1. provide consent to “select basic ads”
   2. provide legitimate interest to “select basic ads”.

If a user has managed their options in that initial UMP dialogue and did not consent to the condition#1 settings mentioned above, AdMob will serve non-personalized ads. Also, if your user has consent for condition#1, but lacks legal bases for Basic Ads. The Ad requests are dropped and unfilled (due to lack of non-personalized ad inventory). You can find more information here.

Regards,

Teejay Wennie Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

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[Bastian Rössler]

Hello Teejay,

legally speaking under the GDPR we are obligated to get consent for all these actions. But not one by one. We don't need to provide the user a choice for every single option.

From a developer's perspective your approach seems oddly complicated. The developer's aim is to monetise our apps. Therefore the most common use case will be to provide the user the choice to:

1. Consent to everything that is needed to present ads (and therefore let the user pay by viewing ads).
2. Do not consent, which leads to a situation where either the user is required to pay money (via In-App-Purchase) or go back and give consent that is needed to present ads.

Providing those two options only is very common among many major news outlet websites and apps for example.

As this seems to be such a basic functionality, my question is: How can this be achieved using UMP?

Regards,

Bastian Roessler

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Bastian,

I work with Teejay and will assist you. I raised with my team your request for a simple pay or consent to ads option and added your arguments and mockup of message you want to show. This request is subject to review. You may monitor our blog for updates. 

Regards,

Aryeh Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[MatJB]

Hi Bastian and Google Team!

@Bastian, have you been able to solve this issue?

I totally agree with you that the options available are not appropriate from a business standpoint and we are almost forced to use a custom solution without UMP.

I'm almost sure that the UMP SDK usage is very low, but it could be a great tool in the future if the Manage Options button was optional (as most apps are doing with custom solutions).

I've been researching and reading all I can find on the subject, and there seems to be no simple solution.

Even the GDPR geographic zone detection seems like a hassle without asking for special permissions.

@Google Team, are there any news on this issue?

Thanks!

Regards,

Mat

[Bastian Rössler]

Dear Mat,

unfortunately I was not able to make any progress in this matter and for the time being I have more or less given up on using ads inside my Apps.

I honestly don't understand why it is not in Google's best interest to create an easy to use "one stop shop" solution for offering ads inside Apps without developers having to perform a deep dive into the whole advertising/consent/mediation/legal/etc. "madness"...

If anybody knows of such a solution, please let me (and others reading this thread) know.

Or, if such thing does not exist, have you found a (custom) solution for your consent problem so far? It seems so incredibly basic to offer the choice between "paying by looking at apps" and "paying with money". After all that is the business model of most "free" Apps today, isn't it?

@Google Team: I'd like to ask again, if there is any progress on this topic. Or do you have an explanation on why this very basic functionality that probably the majority of developers would use is currently missing in UMP?

Thank you very much,

Bastian

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi Bastian,

Upon checking, there are no updates yet, but the team is still actively checking this request. I've also shared your questions to them. You may monitor our blog for updates.

Regards,

Princess Pamela Mobile Ads SDK Team

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[hiddeneyes02]

Wow, Google I have never seen such slow process from you! Two years has passed and no update on this serious matter?

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for contacting the Mobile Ads SDK Support team.

I will check with our team regarding your query and one of my team members will reach out to you once we have an update on this. Meanwhile, your patience is highly appreciated.
 

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Thanks,
 

Mobile Ads SDK Team

 

[Mobile Ads SDK Forum Advisor]

Hello there,

Thanks for reaching out.

The type(s) of ad(s) that will be served on your app are determined by the criteria as indicated in our Ad serving modes documentation.

For the features and workflows that we currently support, please refer to the UMP Get started guide and the Help Center article on how to create a European regulations message for apps.


Regards,
Joshua

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