With the dusk of the IDFA arriving with iOS 14, the industry has recently been flooded with an avalanche of new tools, terminology and technical alternatives. From SKAdNetwork, to contextual or behavioral targeting, to new identifiers and coalitions, you can easily miss the forest for all the trees.
While Verve is working on its own solution to ensure continuous measurability and viewability (stay tuned to find out more), we have gathered a set of iOS 14 resources which should bring more light into the post-IDFA darkness.
How is mobile advertising affected?
In the programmatic environment, advertisers, publishers and exchanges are faced with challenges to ensure that ad viewability, tracking and targeting options remain up and running, even if a user does not opt-in for IDFA tracking. There are several steps that advertisers and publishers can take to ensure that they are ready once iOS 14 is launched.
Verve iOS 14 resources for advertisers
Advertisers should be aware of the alternatives to IDFA, as well as Apple’s own SKAdNetwork solution. Verve has already published a few pieces to point you in the right direction:
- Tackling IDFA Opt-out With Contextual and Behavioral Targeting
- iOS 14 and SKAdNetwork: Redefining User Acquisition As We Know It
If you are wondering which parameters can and will be included in a bid request, check out MoPub’s iOS 14 Support Proposal.
Verve iOS 14 resources for publishers and app developers
Publishers and app developers will have to ensure that authorized ad networks are listed in the info-plist file. What else is there to keep in mind? Take a look at our checklist in this Publisher Guide: Preparing your App for iOS 14 for an overview of all the steps publishers should take before iOS 14 is released.
How can app developers maximize opt-in rates for IDFA usage? Our User-Centric Guide to Improve Opt-In Rates in iOS 14 is taking you on an interactive user journey of what opt-in flows could look like in the future.
To get an idea of how your iOS 14 ad revenues will be affected in the first month after the Apple update, try out our IDFA Impact Assessment Calculator. Enter your KPIs including eCPM data and impression volumes and tweak controls like IDFA opt-in rates to receive an estimated value.
User acquisition
As users will have to consciously give consent to be tracked via IDFA, user acquisition measurability can be heavily affected by no opt-in. In case IDFA tracking is not activated, Apple has launched SKAdNetwork, a framework which will allow the advertiser to track installs and post-install events, with a few restrictions in terms of real-time data and campaign granularity. Find more about the impact of iOS 14 on user acquisition and measurability through SKAdNetwork here:
- Apple’s SKAdNetwork Documentation
- Adjust’s Guide to iOS 14
- Singular:
- SKAdNetwork 101
- How to test SKAdNetwork Step-by-step
- User acquisition in iOS 14: 24 questions answered
- SKAN, an open-source standard for implementing SKAdNetwork
Guides on how to prepare for iOS 14
Many of the industry players have created guides to prepare for the upcoming iOS 14 updates. While the industry agrees on some suggestions, others are highly disputable, such as shifting budgets to Android from iOS. It is reasonable to compare these and decide what is best for your needs. We created a list of the guides below:
- Adjust
- Kochava
- Liftoff
- Incipia
- Verve
- Singular
Coalitions and working groups
While Apple chooses to build another wall in the AdTech environment, other large players have come together to work on alternatives.
The Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media, consisting of the 4A’s, Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Interactive Advertising Bureau, IAB Tech Lab, Network Advertising Initiative, World Federation of Advertisers has agreed on some initial principles that will guide its work towards addressability standards.
Learn more about how mobile app industry leaders are preparing for iOS 14 in Mobile Growth Summit’s Deep Dives IDFA on September 10. If you like to join discussions with industry experts, take part in App Growth Summit’s IDFA Roundtables with industry experts. To join Singular’s discussion on Mobile Attribution Privacy (MAP) you can join their Slack Channel.
Forecasts
What will the AdTech world look like after the launch of iOS14? There have been first tests with unidentified traffic and prognosis on user behaviour. Adikteev released a report on post-IDFA opt-in rates. Meanwhile, Liftoff published the results of their test run in this prognosis of performance of non-personalized traffic.
It is also substantial to follow the reactions of the duopoly, Google and Facebook to the changes, especially as Facebook recently announced that the company will not support IDFA tracking on their own apps in iOS 14. The suggested effects of this have been discussed here. In a month’s time, we will be able to tell how foreseeable the effects of iOS 14 actually were.
If you are interested in how Verve is tackling the new chapter of ad tracking, stay tuned. We will update you on our blog regularly. If you need specific information, feel free to contact us.