Responses to IDFA and SKAdNetwork, and Walmart Joins the TikTok Bidding War

Jess Ailion 31 August 2020

Responses to IDFA and SKAdNetwork, and Walmart Joins the TikTok Bidding War

iOS 14 Rocking The Boat: Facebook’s Response Warning

Facebook released a blog post last week (26/08/20) sharing how it plans to address Apple’s iOS 14 updates, most specifically the changes to the IDFA guidelines (requesting user permission). In its response, Facebook recognizes that the impact on its Audience Network (used by publishers’ to provide targeted ads) may be so detrimental that it threatens the future of Audience Network for iOS completely.

Essentially, the result of the IDFA updates will mean a weakened ability to deliver relevant ads to users, and therefore lower conversions and ROIs from these ads. In its testing, where it removed personalization from mobile app ad install campaigns, Facebook has seen more than a 50% decline in Audience Network publisher revenue.

Facebook declares its commitment to the 19,000+ developers and publishers that use Audience Network and promise that it’s working on monetization products and relationships with platforms beside Apple’s iOS 14.

Facebook’s stance in this blog post mirrors that of mobile advertisers and app developers in response to the IDFA changes: concerned. Unsurprising, really, when the changes could cause billions of dollars of losses in the industry.

Walmart Joins Forces With Microsoft For Bid On TikTok

Ahead of TikTok’s ban in the U.S. next month, the bidding war is in full force to see who will clinch the video-sharing app’s U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand factions from its current Chinese owners.

Walmart has teamed with Microsoft, who has been in the running for a while now, announced on 27th August. This collaboration could offer the retail giant an unparalleled opportunity to compete with online retailers such as Amazon in the e-commerce market and grow its advertising platform.

MMPs In Support Of Facebook’s SKAdNetwork To Maximize Performance Insights

With the death of IDFA due to iOS 14’s September 2020 release, Apple’s SKAdNetwork might be the best option for user attribution for iOS going forward. Kochava announced its support of the network on 27th August to ‘maximize the valuable insights that can be gleaned from’ it. Kochava recognized that marketers will still need to rely on MMPs to reach the full value of and interpret their SKAd campaigns and insights.

Kochava promises to allow IDFA based attribution to be used together with SKAdNetwork for extra performance insights and to integrate SKAd calls from the app into the Kochava SDK, among many other solutions. It’s committed to a holistic approach with Kochava specific features to help app advertisers along their journey.

In the same vein, Branch also announced its support of the SKAdNetwork on 20th August. It has promised to integrate it into the Branch dashboard so that advertisers can see their results clearly, and to continue its research into how best to navigate the changing environment. Branch predicts that more investment into ‘external predictive modeling attribution tools’ like theirs will be the way forward.

Apple’s SKAdNetwork also gets the opt-in from Adjust, who’s newest SDK supports iOS 14 frameworks such as the SKAdNetwork data and workflows. Adjust promises advertisers the ability to ‘update conversion values with SKAdNetwork directly from the Adjust dashboard’, as well as a personalized SKAdNetwork dashboard to allow advertisers to most effectively measure performance.

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Jess Ailion

Jess is Moburst's Content Marketing Manager who came to us all the way from the UK. After studying English Literature, she found herself writing about all things mobile marketing. When she's not spending her time writing, you can find her cooking for her friends or exploring new places.