Case By Case Scenarios – How to read those SKAd postbacks

Mobile advertising is up to be all about granting performance while embracing a more comprehensive approach to users’ privacy. By limiting the information send through SKAd postbacks, Apple is opening a new chapter in digital advertising. Surely, Google will follow the same direction and limit tracking Android apps not much later this same year.

SKAdNetwork will leave marketers with little room for maneuver when compared to the current status quo of deterministic IDFA attribution and probabilistic fingerprinting. Moving forward, the only scenario where IDFA will still be available is when the user provides consent to both the publisher app and the advertiser’s app. Without a doubt, it’ll greatly reduce its availability.  

We still don’t know how users will react or what percentage will opt-in for tracking. Some have ventured only 5%, others up to 60%. Most probably will be on the lower end, but we’ll need to wait and see.

SKAd postbacks: Where IDFA will and will not be available

All these changes have left the industry wondering how targeting and optimization are going to look like. With fewer signals available to take into account and in-app event notifications also delayed by 24hrs+, LTV and ROAS reporting will be more difficult to calculate. How is the industry going to navigate this new scenario?

Let’s change the point of view and focus on the variables that we will still be able to control, contextual! For example: what combination of creative, exchange, and publisher bundle grants the best performance? Leaving device_id out of the equation, most advertisers wouldn’t know the answer. Figuring it out, later on, will mean testing each and every combination possible.

On SKAd postbacks, you’ll only get 100 campaign_ids to do it. All in all, only 100 combinations out of thousands at a time. Getting this information will take longer and be less cost-efficient.

How to navigate this new scenario

Advertisers know they will need to readjust their strategies and essentially their whole approach to mobile performance marketing. Still, one thing keeps us up all night: when ATT is fully implemented, current benchmarks may not be useful anymore. We’ll need to adapt our points of reference to the new landscape.

There’s one shortcut: testing SKAd traffic right now. If you start testing before ATT is fully implemented, you will get a bigger picture. Before ATT, you will be receiving both SKAN and regular MMP postbacks. Thanks to these two sources of information, you might be able to fill in some gaps that will guide you later on.

The deeper the learnings you gain now, the more prepared we will be when ATT comes fully into place. 

Smadex is one of the few DSPs and networks successfully integrated with all major MMPs for SKAd, and we are ready to help you start your testing campaigns. Shoot us a message to start running on SKAd with a clear framework.