React Native Google Mobile Ads

European User Consent

Under the Google EU User Consent Policy, you must make certain disclosures to your users in the European Economic Area (EEA) and obtain their consent to use cookies or other local storage, where legally required, and to use personal data (such as AdID) to serve ads. This policy reflects the requirements of the EU ePrivacy Directive and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The React Native Google Mobile Ads module provides out of the box support for helping to manage your users consent within your application. The AdsConsent helper which comes with the module wraps the Google UMP SDK for both Android & iOS, and provides a single JavaScript interface for both platforms.

Understanding AdMob Ads#

Ads served by Google can be categorized as personalized or non-personalized, both requiring consent from users in the EEA. By default, ad requests to Google serve personalized ads, with ad selection based on the user's previously collected data. Users outside of the EEA do not require consent.

The AdsConsent helper only provides you with the tools for requesting consent, it is up to the developer to ensure the consent status is reflected throughout the app.

Handling consent#

To setup and configure ads consent collection, first of all:

  • Enable and configure GDPR and IDFA messaging in the Privacy & messaging section of AdMob's Web Console.

  • For Android, add the following rule into android/app/proguard-rules.pro:

    -keep class com.google.android.gms.internal.consent_sdk.** { *; }

  • For Expo users, add extraProguardRules property to app.json file following this guide Expo:

{
  "expo": {
    "plugins": [
      [
        "expo-build-properties",
        {
          "android": {
            "extraProguardRules": "-keep class com.google.android.gms.internal.consent_sdk.** { *; }"
          }
        }
      ]
    ]
  }
}

You'll need to generate a new development build before using it.

Delaying app measurement#

By default, the Google Mobile Ads SDK initializes app measurement and begins sending user-level event data to Google immediately when the app starts. If your app will be used by users within the EEA, it is important you prevent app measurement until your first ad has been requested (after consent).

Within your projects app.json file, set the delay_app_measurement_init to true to delay app measurement:

{
  "react-native-google-mobile-ads": {
    "android_app_id": "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxx~xxxxxxxx",
    "ios_app_id": "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxx~xxxxxxxx",
    "delay_app_measurement_init": true
  }
}

Once set, rebuild your application:

# For iOS
npx react-native run-ios

# For Android
npx react-native run-android

App Tracking Transparency#

If you configure an ATT message in your Google AdMob account, the UMP SDK will automatically handle the ATT alert. This will also show an IDFA explainer message. If you don't want to show an explainer message you can show the ATT alert manually. Also, within your projects app.json file, you have to use the user_tracking_usage_description to to describe your usage:

{
  "react-native-google-mobile-ads": {
    "android_app_id": "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxx~xxxxxxxx",
    "ios_app_id": "ca-app-pub-xxxxxxxx~xxxxxxxx",
    "user_tracking_usage_description": "This identifier will be used to deliver personalized ads to you."
  }
}

Once set, rebuild your application.

Requesting consent information#

It is recommended you request consent information each time your application starts to determine if the consent modal should be shown, e.g. due to provider changes.

The AdsConsent helper provides a promise based method to return the users consent status called requestInfoUpdate.

import { AdsConsent } from 'react-native-google-mobile-ads';

const consentInfo = await AdsConsent.requestInfoUpdate();

The method returns an AdsConsentInfo interface, which provides information about consent form availability and the users consent status:

  • status: The status can be one of 4 outcomes:
    • UNKNOWN: Unknown consent status.
    • REQUIRED: User consent required but not yet obtained.
    • NOT_REQUIRED: User consent not required.
    • OBTAINED: User consent already obtained.
  • isConsentFormAvailable: A boolean value. If true a consent form is available.

Note: The return status of this call is the status of form presentation and response collection, not the the actual user consent. It simply indicates if you now have a consent response to decode. (i.e. if user consent is required, the form has been presented, and user has denied the consent, the status returned by this method will be OBTAINED, and not REQUIRED as some may expect). To check the actual consent status see Inspecting consent choices below.

Gathering user consent#

You should request an update of the user's consent information at every app launch, using requestInfoUpdate. This determines whether your user needs to provide consent if they haven't done so already, or if their consent has expired.

After you have received the most up-to-date consent status, call loadAndShowConsentFormIfRequired to load a consent form. If the consent status is required, the SDK loads a form and immediately presents it. The completion handler is called after the form is dismissed. If consent is not required, the completion handler is called immediately.

Before requesting ads in your app, check if you have obtained consent from the user using canRequestAds. If an error occurs during the consent gathering process, you should still attempt to request ads. The UMP SDK uses the consent status from the previous session.

import mobileAds, { AdsConsent, AdsConsentStatus } from 'react-native-google-mobile-ads';

let isMobileAdsStartCalled = false;

// Request an update for the consent information.
AdsConsent.requestInfoUpdate().then(() => {

  AdsConsent.loadAndShowConsentFormIfRequired().then(adsConsentInfo => {

    // Consent has been gathered.
    if (adsConsentInfo.canRequestAds) {
      startGoogleMobileAdsSDK()
    }
  })
})

// Check if you can initialize the Google Mobile Ads SDK in parallel
// while checking for new consent information. Consent obtained in
// the previous session can be used to request ads.
// So you can start loading ads as soon as possible after your app launches.
const {canRequestAds} = await AdsConsent.getConsentInfo()
if (canRequestAds) {
  startGoogleMobileAdsSDK()
}

async function startGoogleMobileAdsSDK() {
  if (isMobileAdsStartCalled) return;

  isMobileAdsStartCalled = true;

  // (Optional, iOS) Handle Apple's App Tracking Transparency manually.
  const gdprApplies = await AdsConsent.getGdprApplies();
  const hasConsentForPurposeOne = gdprApplies && (await AdsConsent.getPurposeConsents()).startsWith("1");
  if (!gdprApplies || hasConsentForPurposeOne) {
    // Request ATT...
  }

  // Initialize the Google Mobile Ads SDK.
  await mobileAds().initialize()

  // Request an ad...
}

Do not persist the status. You could however store this locally in application state (e.g. React Context) and update the status on every app launch as it may change.

Inspecting consent choices#

The AdsConsentStatus tells you if you should show the modal to a user or not. Often times you want to run logic based on the user's choices though. Especially since the Google Mobile Ads SDK won't show any ads if the user didn't give consent to store and/or access information on the device. This library exports a method that returns some of the most relevant consent flags to handle common use cases.

import { AdsConsent } from 'react-native-google-mobile-ads';

const {
  activelyScanDeviceCharacteristicsForIdentification,
  applyMarketResearchToGenerateAudienceInsights,
  createAPersonalisedAdsProfile,
  createAPersonalisedContentProfile,
  developAndImproveProducts,
  measureAdPerformance,
  measureContentPerformance,
  selectBasicAds,
  selectPersonalisedAds,
  selectPersonalisedContent,
  storeAndAccessInformationOnDevice,
  usePreciseGeolocationData,
} = await AdsConsent.getUserChoices();

if (storeAndAccessInformationOnDevice === false) {
  /**
   * The user declined consent for purpose 1,
   * the Google Mobile Ads SDK won't serve ads.
   */
}

Note: Don't try to use this functionality to enforce user consent on iOS, this will likely result in failed app review upon submission to Apple Store, based on review guideline 3.2.2.vi:

...Apps should not require users to rate the app, review the app, watch videos, download other apps, tap on advertisements, enable tracking...

Testing#

When developing the consent flow, the behavior of the AdsConsent responses may not be reliable due to the environment (e.g. using an emulator vs real device). It is possible to set a debug location to test the various responses from the UMP SDK.

If using a real device, ensure you add it to the list of allowed devices by passing the device ID, which can be obtained from native logs or using a library such as react-native-device-info, to testDeviceIdentifiers.

Emulators are automatically whitelisted.

To set a debug location, use the debugGeography key. It accepts 3 values:

  • DISABLED: Removes any previous debug locations.
  • EEA: Set the test device to be within the EEA.
  • NOT_EEA: Set the test device to be outside of the EEA.

For example:

import { AdsConsent, AdsConsentDebugGeography } from 'react-native-google-mobile-ads';

const consentInfo = await AdsConsent.requestInfoUpdate({
  debugGeography: AdsConsentDebugGeography.EEA,
  testDeviceIdentifiers: ['TEST-DEVICE-HASHED-ID'],
});

It is possible to reset the UMP state for test devices. To reset the ATT state you have to delete and reinstall your app though.

import { AdsConsent } from 'react-native-google-mobile-ads';

AdsConsent.reset();

Troubleshooting#

In case of troubles, double-check the original documentation for underlying UMP SDK for Android / iOS.