ABOUT ROCKETSHIP HQ: Website | LinkedIn  | Twitter | YouTube

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

📊 No purchase data for some apps.

🚫 No breakdowns between redownloads and new users.

❌ No clear metrics at ad group and creative level

🌪️ Reporting is still a mess

✔️Install optimization is working relatively well.

🚧Non iOS 14 campaigns(targeting IDFA users) are still working.

🔄Persona and interest based creative pairing is making progress.

🔢Blended numbers still provide strong guidance.

FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

It’s been just under a month since Apple pulled the trigger on iOS 14.5. ATT adoption is still not close to 100% – and in this episode we wanted to highlight 4 challenges and 4 opportunities that we see.

Let’s start with the challenges:

1. No purchase data for some apps.

For apps with low payer %(with purchaser based schema), we see no or few purchases reported for purchase optimized campaigns. This is likely due to Apple’s privacy thresholds – because if there are very few purchases coming from a campaign, the conversion values for these events get obfuscated by Apple’s privacy threshold. At this point there isnt a lot of consensus on *what* the privacy thresholds are, which makes it frustrating.

2. No breakdowns between redownloads and new users.

SKAdNetwork postbacks have a flag for ‘redownloads’ – so technically with postbacks, you should be able to see which users are ‘redownloading’ an app if you have postbacks available. 

BUT you dont have postbacks available – because Facebook doesnt share them with advertisers or MMPs. It still boggles my mind as to why Apple should want to send postbacks to ad networks but not advertisers.

Anyway, what this means is that we wont know how many users are new and how many are returning. In a sense, all campaigns become AAA campaigns now.

3. No clear metrics at ad group and creative level

While your campaign level data is clear and can be confirmed as being from SKAdNetwork, your ad group and creative level data is ‘modeled’ or ‘estimated’. While these creative and ad group level metrics still add up to campaign level metrics, these are modeled and imprecise. 

Additionally, these metrics arent in an easily readable format in columns like non iOS 14 campaigns – which makes it hard to identify which ad groups and creatives are doing well.

4. Reporting is still a mess.

Most MMP reporting is not in a form that can be easily used, which is frustrating. Right now we use Facebook reported metrics as the source of truth – also just because the metrics are presented with more clarity there than the MMPs.

What’s also true is that because of Apple’s system of timers, most data comes in with a 24-48 hour lag, so we typically have to exclude the most recent 3 days while evaluating campaign performance

—

With all that said, there are strategies and things we are doing to combat the above – and while these arent perfect solutions, these are helping us move forward. Here are the opportunities that we see:

1. Install optimization shows some promise.

For multiple apps, we see install optimized campaigns have strong downstream CPAs – this of course is a sharp contrast with pre-iOS 14 campaigns where install optimized campaigns gave very poor downstream performance. We are leaning into this more and more.

2. Non iOS 14 campaigns(targeting IDFA users) are still working.

Non iOS 14 campaigns are still functional, likely because iOS 14.5 adoption is still relatively low. We typically run a mix of non iOS 14 and iOS 14 campaigns on many accounts – because we want to get deterministic ROAS for as long as possible. While this may not be around for too long, it is available right now.

3. Persona and interest based creative pairing is making progress.

We are starting to see success with targeting creatives based on user personas, demographics and interests. While in the pre-iOS 14 world, Facebook’s algorithm would basically pick creatives – and pair them to audiences. Now we’re starting to see some progress with manually pairing creatives – say, creatives tailored to parents, or blue collar job seekers, or women aged 18-24 looking to save money.

4. Blended numbers still provide strong guidance.

While overall SKAdNetwork reporting is a mess at this point, we’re still using the guardrails of blended CPAs and ROAS numbers right now – and in multiple instances we are seeing performance closer to bull case expectations than bear case expectations. More importantly we and the other stakeholders have confidence that we’re able to trust the numbers and make decisions off them.

Overall, of course, it is still early days – and many problems do need to be addressed – but I hope this episode gives you an idea of the early lay of the land with Facebook ads, and the path forward.

**

A REQUEST BEFORE YOU GO

I have a very important favor to ask, which as those of you who know me know I don’t do often. If you get any pleasure or inspiration from this episode, could you PLEASE leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform – be it iTunes, Overcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast fix. This podcast is very much a labor of love – and each episode takes many many hours to put together. When you write a review, it will not only be a great deal of encouragement to us, but it will also support getting the word out about the Mobile User Acquisition Show.

Constructive criticism and suggestions for improvement are welcome, whether on podcasting platforms – or by email to shamanth at rocketshiphq.com. We read all reviews & I want to make this podcast better.

Thank you – and I look forward to seeing you with the next episode!