SKAdNetwork is the framework Apple built for marketers to measure the value of in-app campaigns without the IDFA tracker. It is a form of probabilistic attribution, meaning it’s not as exact or deterministic as traditional attribution methods. Let’s get into what we mean by that.
How did SKAdNetwork start?
In April 2021, with the launch of iOS 14.5, Apple introduced AppTrackingTransparency - which effectively deprecated the IDFA. The IDFA, or identifier for advertisers, was the device ID tracker which advertisers used to target ads, optimize campaigns, and track in-game behavior. For example, using an IDFA, advertisers could see that a user with a certain IDFA clicked on a Facebook ad, downloaded the app, and then made an in-app purchase. The advertiser would then know that the Facebook ad was performing well.
However, Apple believed the IDFA impeded on users’ privacy. Until 2021, the IDFA was opt-out - meaning users had to go into their settings and turn it off. But AppTrackingTransparency made users opt-in to sharing their IDFA with marketers. Naturally, not many users choose to do that.
To help marketers measure campaign performance without the IDFA and still maintain user privacy, they built StoreKitAdNetwork, otherwise known as SKAdNetwork or SKAN.
Since then, Apple has released a few versions including SKAN 4.0 in 2022 and most recently AdAttributionKit in 2024.
How does Apple SKAdNetwork work?
There are three main entities in SKAdNetwork:
- The ad network which is required to “sign” each ad
- The publisher app, which shows the ad to the user
- The advertiser app, whose ad is being shown
For attribution to work properly within the SKAdNetwork, all three entities must do their part:
- The ad network needs to register and integrate with Apple and “sign” each ad appropriately - effectively verifying the ad. These parameters are later populated and used for SKAdNetwork attribution
- The publisher app indicates to Apple the relevant ad click, which passes the signature back to the OS
- The advertiser app indicates when an app was launched and grades the user’s quality based on their activity
Before setting up a campaign, advertisers choose 64 “conversion values”. Each one is a possible conversion metric for the campaign - for example, reaching a certain level, completing the onboarding process, or making an in-app purchase. This lets advertisers track which conversion values were completed and attribute campaign success.
To safeguard user privacy, Apple SKAdNetwork leverages a timer mechanism - once the timer runs out, advertisers can no longer attribute the ad. The timer begins when the SK function is called for the first time - usually when the app is first opened. After 24 hours, the timer expires and the conversion values are locked in.
The challenges with SKAdNetwork
Since Apple released SKAdNetwork, many game developers have found it difficult to use in their day-to-day user acquisition work. In fact, 26% of advertisers say they don’t use SKAdNetwork at all. Here are some of the most common challenges developers have with Apple SKAdNetwork:
- No user-level data: SKAdNetwork only reports on campaign-level performance not on device-level data. This means developers can't track individual user behavior or understand which specific users contribute to the success of their campaigns. Instead, they only receive aggregated data about the overall performance of their marketing.
- Limited data points: Apple SKAdNetwork only allows advertisers to track 64 post-install events (conversion values) - limiting their ability to understand and optimize the user journey post-install. That means advertisers have to prioritize which events to track - and if a user coming from a campaign completes a task not listed in the 64 conversion values, the advertiser would never know.
- No long-term ROAS: SKAdNetwork postbacks are time-limited and variable, meaning campaign performance reporting is delayed and no data is available for more than 1-3 days. This makes long-term ROAS optimization impossible - advertisers can't accurately measure the LTV of users acquired through their campaigns, leading to potential inefficiencies in ad spend and allocation of marketing resources.
- No retargeting: SKAdNetwork includes a “redownload” tag but doesn’t let advertisers target existing or past users’ devices - preventing them from running effective retargeting campaigns, which are crucial for re-engaging lapsed users or upselling current users.
What was the impact of ATT and SKAN?
Naturally, these challenges made it hard for game developers to adopt Apple SKAdNetwork and truly overcome losing the IDFA. Since 2021, the mobile gaming industry saw huge decreases across the board:
Decline in mobile revenue
In 2021, mobile revenue fell for the first time in 15 years, by -7% from 2021 to 2022, according to Sensor Tower. Since then, it’s continued to decrease year-of-year, declining 3% from 2022 to 2023. Though some attribute the decrease to COVID, after an artificial boost in 2020, it doesn’t quite explain why mobile (-7%) declined more than PC (-2%). Or why iOS declined more than Google Play. More likely, is the impact of losing IDFA and the complexities in using SKAN. User acquisition became less effective - and without quality players coming into the game and spending money, mobile revenue ultimately fell.
Decline in LTV
The two extremes - high LTV (casino, strategy, etc) and highly ad monetized (hyper-casual) games - got hit the hardest. In the chart below, you can see that revenue from casino games dropped -14% and revenue from strategy games dropped -13% from 2021 to 2022.
That’s because high LTV games tend to have a niche group of players - and to find these niche players requires pinpoint ad targeting. But of course, that was no longer possible once Apple deprecated the IDFA, and wasn’t much easier with Apple SKAdNetwork. Similarly, though high ad monetizing games like hyper-casual usually acquire users on mass, they also used the IDFA and hyper-targeting to hunt for the diamonds in the rough, ie the few users who were actually high value.
The game genres that fared better had more of a universal appeal that didn’t rely on hyper-targeting to find their users.
What next? How to adapt to a world with SKAN
Despite the challenges, IDFA isn’t coming back, so developers must adapt to the new normal of a world with Apple SKAdNetwork. Here are a few strategies for doing just that:
1. Keep an eye on AdAttributionKit
Apple introduced AdAttributionKit at June’s WWDC 2024. It was originally intended to be the SKAdNetwork for alternative app stores as Apple’s way to comply with the Digital Markets Act. Now, however, it’s being expanded to include the iOS App Store, too. There doesn’t seem to be a huge difference between SKAN 4.0 and AdAttributionKit quite yet, but it does solve some of the challenges developers had with Apple SKAdNetwork. For example, AdAttributionKit supports both re-engagement campaigns and developer mode testing.
2. Bring back brand marketing
Since game developers can no longer only rely on highly targeted CPI performance campaigns today, creative brand-based marketing is getting more attention again - like premium TV spots and influencer campaigns. (Think of all the celebrity campaigns you’ve seen for mobile games lately, like this Drew Barrymore ad for Bingo Blitz and this star-studded ad for Squad Busters). But expanding into marketing types beyond CPI campaigns means last-click attribution doesn’t work anymore - which is also why the holistic marketing trend is rising hand in hand with media mix modeling. This way, your measurement and attribution can take the combined impact of every campaign into account.
3. Expand the top of funnel
Until now, mobile game design was built towards attribution-based infrastructure and systems - games were created for a small number of niche users, knowing that you could use the IDFA to find those users. Now that that’s no longer possible, successful games are building for the new world: by expanding their top of funnel marketing. Essentially, they’re acquiring a more diverse range of users while broadening their in-game monetization and game mechanics - this way, all kinds of users are able to retain and monetize. There are a few ways to do this:
- IP games: Scopely’s Monopoly Go is perhaps the best example - a huge IP like Monopoly doesn’t require hyper-targeted performance marketing campaigns to find players. The brand is big enough, it does it for them.
- Celebrities: Tap into celebrities’ large followings to promote your game.
- Mini-games: Add mini games that appeal to broad groups of people and use them in your marketing creatives. Once you’ve acquired them, you can slowly get them used to your core gameplay.
4. Leverage Custom Product Pages
Apple started offering Custom Product Pages in 2021 - a feature that lets developers create 35 unique app store pages per marketing campaign. Instead of tapping on a Facebook ad and landing on a generic app store page, players see one built specifically for users like them. That way, as an advertiser, you can more effectively target and optimize campaigns towards niche interests.
5. Probabilistic attribution
Since SKAN 4.0 proved to be too tricky to widely adopt, some advertisers choose to rely on “probabilistic” attribution methods, such as fingerprinting. Fingerprinting uses a combination of device specs like installed software, IP address, and WiFi address to create a unique anonymized identifier for a device. Using fingerprinting, an advertiser could see that a device with a certain WiFi address and IP address engaged with an ad and later a device with the same WiFi and IP installed an app. It’s “probable” then that those two devices were the same person, and you could attribute the install to that ad. Though some advertisers use it as a bandaid, fingerprinting is highly controversial. That’s because probabilistic attribution isn’t 100% accurate (it’s in the name), and Apple cracked down on advertisers using fingerprinting as a technique in 2023 - so it’s unlikely this attribution model will be viable for much longer.
6. Web campaigns
On the web, anything goes - it’s a much less restricted environment than in-app and it also puts you outside the confines of Apple SKAdNetwork. Some mobile game advertisers are starting to bring their marketing campaigns to the web - like with web conversion campaigns. Here, advertisers still run an ad through a traditional ad network, but instead of directing the user to the app store, they direct them to a web landing page first. Though this adds another step and a few extra seconds to the user journey, some advertisers find the benefits outweigh the cons - and the immediate results (no timers) and larger data sets are worth it, especially for testing creatives and scaling.
7. Web shops
Like we said, the web is a much more open and flexible environment than in-app. Beyond web campaigns, top grossing game studios are also building web shops to scale up without SKAdNetwork 4.0 and the IDFA. Here’s why:
- Higher revenue: The entire industry took a revenue hit after Apple deprecated the IDFA - making scaling new games extremely hard and growing at-scale games almost impossible. By building a web shop that sells items to players outside the Apple and Google on a game website that you own, you immediately grow revenue by about 25%. That’s because you don’t have to pay Apple a 30% cut on each in-app purchase. For example, though Playtika experienced a $65M decrease in app store revenue in 2022, their overall revenue increased from $2.58B to $2.62B. How? A 15% jump in web shop revenue offset the decline.
- More control: Apple deprecating the IDFA, and the decline in mobile revenue that followed, made it clear just how dependent game developers are on Apple and Google - and how vulnerable they are to new platform policies. Creating a channel that Apple and Google don’t have a say over, that’s completely owned by the developer, future proofs developers against any impending updates the platforms may make.
- First-party data: Because you own the web shop, you also own all the data you collect - including players’ email addresses. That email address is even better than an IDFA, since you can use it as an identifier between purchase behavior and game behavior. By getting access to your users’ email addresses, you can also retarget them, build lookalike audiences, and communicate directly.
Forget SKAdNetwork 4.0. Build a web shop
Get in touch to learn more about web shops and how it’s the best thing you can do to scale your game without the IDFA and SKAN today.