CMP is a must for app and game publishers. Which one is right for you? Feature-by-feature comparison

Data privacy is no longer a niche crusade led by a few organizations or governments. Regulators are introducing new rules — and enforcing them — all over the world. In fact, Gartner has predicted that 75% of the world’s population will be protected by data privacy regulation by the end of 2024.

This is the new reality, and app developers must adapt to it, or, better, embrace it. It’s time to take your users’ data privacy seriously.
The best way to respond? Implement a Consent Management Platform (CMP). A CMP will build trust by providing clear information and consent choices about tracking in your app. With the upcoming Google Consent Mode for mobile, app developers need a reliable and Google-certified CMP to ensure precise attribution and analytics.

But which CMP?

Many developers are looking at Google’s own solution, which is understandable. After 16 January 2024, Google stopped publishers that were not using a Google-certified CMP from serving personalized ads to users in the EU/EEA or UK.

Among those options was Google’s own CMP. It’s certainly an easy choice. But is it the right one?

At Usecentrics, we don’t think so. We are pioneering specialists in consent management, and we believe our SDK for mobile consent management is the best option. You get many more features than with Google’s CMP, all in one easy-to-integrate package.

In this article we will look closely at the essential features of a CMP and explore why the Usercentrics CMP is a compelling choice for developers.

It can be confusing to consider all the features of a typical CMP and compare them to your business needs. So let’s simplify the SDK components down to six key areas.

1. Supported regulations and frameworks: GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, etc; TCF 2.2, Google Consent Mode, Google Additional Consent for TCF
2. User experience core features: A/B Testing, Cross-device Consent Sharing, offline capabilities
3. Customization: logos, buttons, texts, background, etc
4. Analytics: Interaction Analytics, Granular Analytics, etc.
5. Technical benefits: quick setup, user-friendly templates, support for cross-platform frameworks, etc.
6. Commercial benefits: fast support response, free trial, etc.

The Usercentrics team has an extensive technical and legal expertise that we use to develop our own products, and to evaluate others on the market.

Let’s explore each of the six components and their specific characteristics in depth, comparing the Google and Usercentrics CMPs.

Regulation — by government agencies, and, increasingly, by large tech platforms — is the main factor influencing developers to embrace consent management. The product they choose must meet every compliance need, especially as companies grow and regulations evolve.

Global multi-regulatory support is essential. The CMP must enable compliance with privacy laws like the GDPR, CCPA, LGPD and many more. Ideally, it must enable compliance with multiple regulations for the same user base in jurisdictions where this is necessary.

Geolocation functionality enables this. Clear, transparent regulatory compliance not only builds trust, but also protects the app developer from violations and potential fines and other penalties.

Usercentrics’ SDK was built to ensure it recognizes all relevant privacy regulations. It supports auto-location and auto-language detection, which are essential tools for any mobile app publisher looking to expand globally.

The ability to adapt seamlessly to a user’s location and language preferences also enhances the user experience. It makes the app accessible to the widest audience and can increase user engagement, because it makes the app’s messaging culturally relevant, in addition to legally relevant.

When App Tracking Transparency (ATT) was first released at the end of April 2021, opt-in rates didn’t look promising. Even though they weren’t as low as the predicted 5%, in May 2021, they were at a pretty low level of 16% (Adjust). However, soon enough, the numbers started rising. By the end of 2021, the average opt-in rate climbed to 25% and continued to rise, reaching 29% in 2022. In 2023, they increased even further, averaging at 34% (Adjust).

Why did they improve so much? Customization.

Customizing your consent banner user interface, notification texts, and consent requests makes it easier for users to understand the process. What data do you collect, and for what purposes? Who has access to it, and other considerations. It gives you the chance to motivate users to opt in. You can address privacy concerns and highlight the user benefits of consent.

Now, with the entire industry facing new Google requirements, customizing your consent banners has become even more important. It is crucial to adopt best industry practices to increase your opt-in rates and continue to monetize.

Great user experience is an art, and once that needs to constantly evolve. You need to tweak your settings to provide the information and choices in the best way to maximize how many of your users choose to opt-in. The best CMPs enable you to customize extensively, and, just as importantly, analyze the results to see what works.

Here are three important configuration choices you can explore.

1. Accept and interaction rates. App publishers must strike a balance between user consent and data collection. By analyzing user responses and interactions with consent prompts, publishers can identify patterns, then optimize their design and content to boost acceptance rates. This helps ensure your compliance with data protection regulations while still gathering user data from your app.

2. Changes in user behavior after design changes. Monitoring user interactions after design changes will help you understand how your audience has responded to the new user interface and/or user experience. Higher acceptance rates may indicate the redesign is well received. Lower ones might signal potential issues that need further investigation or adjustment.

3. User Interactions based on region. Analyzing how users from specific countries interact with your CMP can help you tailor consent prompts to align with regional data protection and privacy laws.. This can build trust and help with the informed consent aspect of compliance.

When it comes to consent management, seamless UX really matters. Your UX must be tailored to the specific needs of mobile app and game users. A generic CMP will never be as good, and may be a detriment if it gets in users’ and gamers’ way.

Recent research by Gamebiz Consulting found the opt-in rates achieved with specialist CMP solutions surpassed those of Google’s CMP by nearly 10%, an average 82.6% versus 72.9% respectively.

You can improve your UX by continuously monitoring A/B test results and gathering user feedback. This will help you to make informed adjustments to maximize your engagement metrics. In addition, you can conduct preview simulations to get valuable insights into how users interact with the app or game interface, then make tweaks to improve usability and engagement.

White-labeling also helps. It enables you to customize the branding and aesthetics of the app or game to match your target audience’s preferences and expectations. By integrating white-labeling you can create an immersive user experience to builds brand recognition and loyalty.

How easy is it to install your CMP SDK? For a busy app developer, this is a critical question.

The best platforms work hard on this integration process. At Usercentrics, we make it as seamless as possible by providing tools such as the App Scanner. It will scan your app to find all the third-party technologies in use that need to be declared on your consent banner. It drastically reduces setup times.

With the App Scanner, we automate a major part of the App Consent Management setup. App Scanner identifies all third-party technologies and vendors and provides our customers with a consolidated report for effortless configuration.

Every developer will have questions when it comes to integrating a CMP. Usercentrics created a dedicated Customer Success team to handle all your questions. Get personalized support and guidance, resolve issues, optimize your app, maximize your resource allocation, and get you access to insights and updates.

It’s a partnership designed to help you quickly integrate the SDK, overcome challenges, and achieve your privacy compliance and data use goals with confidence.

The Usercentrics Consent Management SDK is powerful, feature rich, flexible, easy to install and enables global privacy compliance. It simplifies privacy compliance and consent management so you can focus on what’s most important: growing your app user base and revenues.

Here’s a quick recap of the key benefits:

• addresses the privacy requirements of the TCF 2.2 standard
• boost revenue with more consented users and optimized opt-in rates
• deliver a branded, privacy-first and trustworthy user experience with customized banners and screens
• improve your opt-ins over time with customizable consent screens, A/B testing and exportable analytics
• set up quickly and easily with a developer-friendly SDK that’s fast and intuitive to implement, thanks to features like App Scanner
• meet global data compliance needs with support for multiple regulations and languages, auto-location, and auto-language detection
• deliver a best-in-class user experience with consent choice persistence, which helps users who move between jurisdictions in a short period of time avoid repeated banner ads across geographies.

Companies using the Usercentrics SDK include Zynga, Homa Games, Bombit, and many others. Join them now and enjoy the same benefits.