How User Acquisition is More Essential Than Ever in Post-Idfa Era

Before iOS changed its privacy policy, advertisers were free to track your mobile habits and accurately target you with offers that could generate significant revenue for advertisers, whether they were mobile gaming companies or travel app makers. With the new version of iOS, every app must ask you up front if you can share your data with third parties. If you opt out, then advertisers will not have access to IDFA data and will not be able to track you when you download games or make in-app purchases.

Data Ambiguity Reintroduces Speculation to UA

Apple's privacy changes from iOS 14 changed the nature of attribution and user access. For iOS users who are not prompted to share their IDFA through the AppTracking Transparency (ATT) framework, UA marketers face the problem of missing user-level data. They know less about the behavior of these users relative to their campaigns, they cannot see the exact ROI or ROAS for each channel, and they face significant disruptions to what was previously an increasingly automated UA workflow.

The result of the IDFA change was simple. Go to YouTube and log in to your account. When you watch a video, you'll see a bunch of related videos. Recommendations would be great because Google-owned YouTube has honed how it reads your intent and found the best way to keep you engaged and clicking on more videos.

But you can go to the settings to turn off key privacy-related features. If you turn off the ability to "customize the video view based on my history," the relevance will change. If you do this, YouTube will not be able to use your past data to provide you with recommendations. You'll start seeing random videos that are just complete guesses about your interests. You'll get spam, not videos you'll like.

Remember, for users who have opted in to ATT, UA marketing looks the same as before because you can still use IDFA. this is why maximizing user opt-in is critical to gaining a competitive advantage on iOS. In addition, for Android users, who are the majority in many markets, UA looks the same (for now).

To learn more about post-idfa and revenue, you can check "The Post-IDFA Era, What Does It Means for Mobile Marketers and How to Ensure the Realization of Revenue?" of our previous articles.


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SKAdNetwork and aggregated data

For iOS users who have not agreed to share IDFAs, SKAdNetwork is the only Apple-approved way to obtain deterministic attribution data for installations, and it introduces complexity for UA teams in a number of ways.

SKAdNetwork Process

• Ads are displayed in the publishing app. Once the ad is displayed, the publishing application starts a 3-second timer and notifies SKAdNetwork that it has been launched.
• If the ad is displayed for at least 3 seconds, the publishing application notifies SKAdNetwork that the 3-second timer has been reached and the campaign is recorded as successfully viewed. If the user interacts with the ad, the publisher will present the ad app StoreKit. 
• After the display, SKAdNetwork will register that StoreKit has been successfully presented. Hopefully the next step is for the user to download the advertised application. 
• If StoreKit has been presented, the user can download the application immediately. If the user installs the application and launches it within the SKAdNetwork attribution window, the installation is attributed to the ad network and the device sends the installation back to the ad network and the advertiser.
• For SKAdNetwork, the attribution window between clicks and installs can be up to 30 days, depending on the ad type. Unlike standard sendbacks, SKAdNetwork sendbacks are not sent to the ad network immediately when the app is first launched. 
• SKAdNetwork sendbacks are built on a timer mechanism that sends sendbacks only when the timer runs out. This timer delays the sendback for at least 24 hours. Once the timer runs out, the ad network will receive the sendback. 

It is important to note that the sendback does not contain any device or user data and, along with the timer delay, ensures that user data remains private by disabling the ability to single out specific users.

New challenges of SKAdNetwork for advertisers

• No true ROI/LTV - SKAdNetwork primarily measures installs, conversion value and post-installation data, but in a very limited and time-constrained way
• Granularity - Data is limited to campaign level and limited to 100 campaigns
• Latency - Latency of at least 24 hours in transmission, limiting immediate campaign optimization
• Ad fraud risk - data can be easily manipulated in transit
• No re-engagement attribution support

First, UA managers needed to understand how the aggregated, delayed SKADNetwork data points they received connected to the rest of their data and BI stack, manually calculate the data differences between sources, and redesign all processes for leveraging IDFA. In many cases, core tasks such as user segmentation and behavior modeling became more difficult, if not impossible. The impact of such changes can vary so much at the organizational level that understanding them becomes an important skill in itself.

Second, maximizing the SKAdNetwork and keeping up with its changes will be key to UA performance. the UA team will need to have a deep understanding of the SKAdNetwork in order to optimize its post-installation attribution payload for converting value architecture. This will allow them to gain as much insight as possible into in-app usage in the first 24 hours, providing a stream of data from which they can learn and extrapolate usage patterns.

How should marketers prepare for SKAdNetwork?

Here are a few steps to ensure your business is ready for SKAdNetwork.

• Data Aggregation - Ensure that all SKAdNetwork information is collected from each ad network.
• Data validation - Ensure that all returns are signed by Apple and have not been manipulated in transit. Partnering with a trusted MMP can help make this easy for you.
• Data enrichment - Match SKAdNetwork information with other data points such as display counts, click counts, costs, natural traffic, etc. for complete ROI analysis.
• Data support - Facilitate SKAdNetwork data for easy use by advertisers through dedicated dashboards and APIs.
• Seamless Integration - Ensure that your mobile attribution solution offers full encapsulation, which requires almost zero effort from advertisers, especially when it comes to future changes to the SKAdNetwork protocol.
• Translate events - Ensure that server-side, dynamic and flexible in-app events are tracked. 

UA teams will also need to keep up with Apple's changes to SKAdNetwork, such as updating how SKAdNetwork sendbacks work in iOS 15. Understanding what SKAdNetwork means, optimizing the use of its features, and keeping up with its changes is an emerging area of its own that requires knowledgeable UA professionals who can keep up and think critically.

Using multiple strategies

Another result of a world without IDFAs is a renewed focus on other marketing channels. While ad buying and measurement remain at the heart of successful UA, more than ever, marketing teams will need to leverage every available channel to attract new users and retain existing ones. This will require close collaboration between UA managers, creatives and other marketers to develop and optimize strategies that have historically been less data-driven, such as

• Using App Clips as a way to encourage natural app discovery and then encouraging users who interact with App Clips to create an account. (App Clips are a small part of an App that allows you to quickly complete a task such as renting a bike, paying for parking or ordering food.) App Clips can be accessed in Safari, Maps and Messages, but also in reality with NFC tags, QR codes and app clip codes (These unique tags take you to specific app clips.)
• Send push notifications with personalized, targeted messages and use in-app messaging to reach and retain active users.
• Integrate email marketing to communicate and retarget with users who have installed the app and/or created an account.
• Use affiliate/invite programs and free trials/demos to attract new users.
• Explore the potential for cross-promotion for developers with multiple applications in their portfolio.

To learn more about iOS15 mobile marketing, you can check "How iOS 15 shift today's mobile marketing" of our previous articles.

Creative testing and optimization

The way to keep mobile app advertising profitable and survive and thrive in a post-IDFA world is through creative optimization. With the virtual death of IDFA - with both Facebook and Google moving to automated media buying - the last meaningful lever mobile app developers have is creativity.

Some see the future for UA managers as applying their quantitative rigor from media buying to testing and optimizing creatives. Of course, UA and creative are already coming together, and changes to iOS will only make this more important. iOS 15 introduces two important new features for UA marketers: Product Page Optimization (PPO) and Custom Product Pages, which allow marketers to test variations of App Store product page creative and link unique product pages to specific target audiences for paid campaigns.

Understanding Target Audiences

Many marketers are rethinking their media mix and seeking new channels to find and engage users, such as contextual advertising with relevant publishers and engaging audiences on social/UGC platforms through influencer marketing. This type of channel management is historically a core marketing function, but it requires some guesswork that performance marketing on mobile has begun to eschew.

In order to run high-performing campaigns across these channels, marketers need to know which platforms and communities their target audiences spend time on and what other apps they prefer to use, and craft creative that resonates with these audiences in their respective contexts.

UA marketers who have a deep understanding of the habits and values of their prospects will thrive. This connection with audiences is also a key factor in inspiring customer loyalty post-installation and collecting zero-side data that can help personalize the user experience to improve retention.

As the mobile advertising ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, UA managers who can scale and adapt to changing realities will continue to be important contributors to user growth. While their job may become more difficult in some ways, measurement and optimization remain key to app marketing success.