AdMob interstellar ad dropped for 99%, but sessions numbers(usage) are the same?

Question

For few years I have one iOS app that is making around 0.5 - 1$ per day on average, from an interstellar ad that is shown only once (40 seconds after the app is started).

This app was developed in the middle of 2014, updated few times till middle of 2015 and never touched again.

App always had around 500 till 1000 sessions per day, even today.

In AdMob I have noticed that after 28.1.2018, impressions(number of ads shown to the user) have dropped for 99% percent. Literally in one week.

On average I had 200 impressions per day, now I do not have more than 5 per day.

I know this is not the programming question, but did not have any place elsewhere to ask?

Does somebody else also have this problem or some theory what happened ?

I do not care for 0.5$ per day I am curious what happened.

My assumption is that AdMob changed soemthing with an interstellar ad in iOS apps, but did not found anything by googling. Like some official release.

Answer 1

More than 90% of iOS users have now switched to iOS 10, including around 15% of users who have activated LAT. Therefore, it is expected that 1 out of 5 iOS users will be a LAT user soon.

The purpose of Apple’s Limit Ad Tracking (LAT) feature is to improve user privacy. This doesn't prevent the ads from placing, it prevents the ads from using specific data to target the user.

When it comes to adMob, there's different demand pipes:

1. One is for targeted ads. The advertisers buy against demographics they bid $5000 to advertise to 10000 women between 20-25 or something like that. This is the much higher revenue and form and the much more common way.

2. I don't care who I am advertising to, here is $20 show my ad to 10000 people. This untargeted ad type is much much cheaper but usually has shitty results for the advertisers so it is becoming rarer.

When a user limits ad tracking they get put into that second bucket which makes it pretty likely that they may not get ads at all and this can explain your problem.