For many mobile user acquisition marketers, the initial response to IDFA deprecation was to stop spending on iOS and concentrate their efforts elsewhere. They focused on app store optimization (ASO) to continue acquiring Apple users and put most of their marketing spend behind Android campaigns. That’s the story we’ve all heard over the past few years — but that strategy was never sustainable. It’s taken time for app marketers to get comfortable with SKAdNetwork (SKAN), but today, combining SKAN and mobile measurement partner (MMP) data leads to healthier, more successful iOS campaigns.

Despite fears that SKAN could disrupt the MMP business, I’ve found successful MMP integration — to validate and display data — has been key to getting clients comfortable. The key word is “successful” because integrating MMP and SKAN data has been difficult for some. In fact, we had a partner who struggled to integrate with SKAN correctly, and the client wanted to move on immediately. Experience tells us this is a mistake — when done correctly, integrating these two data sets can add value.

SKAN and MMP integration success stories

Like many apps, one of our food delivery clients shut down iOS spending in 2021, but we eventually convinced them that testing SKAN — and comparing it with their MMP data was the best way to proceed. This particular client uses Singular, and so when the partner receives the SKAdNetwork postback from Apple, it forwards the postback to Singular. Once the MMP receives the SKAdNetwork postback, it will decode the conversion value and display the data as decoded events in the Singular dashboard. Instead of showing a numerical value, we see the event names, such as signup or first order.

The number of clients tip-toeing back into the iOS campaign waters continues to grow. Recently, one of our fintech clients began a push to throw more budget and resources behind SKAN. We have used the client’s first-party data to validate events — which means we avoid view-through attribution (VTA) — and the results have outperformed many of our other clients’ iOS campaigns.

If you still need more convincing, check out this article about how Adjust and TikTok grew conversions by 220% with SKAN.

Are you integrated to send SKAN data to MMPs?

The results speak for themselves, and it’s time for mobile performance marketers to start embracing SKAN — but that isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Each MMP is unique; depending on which one you work with, you will need to know some things.

One of the key takeaways I hope every app marketer takes away from this is that by integrating SKAN data with your MMP, the data becomes more usable. The main hurdle to success is ensuring your partners are properly integrated with the MMP.

Explore information from your MMP to learn more about their integrated partners — and if you don’t see what you’re looking for, be sure to reach out to your rep and get it added (and if you’re a supply partner who doesn’t see your name on any of these lists, it’s time to change that):

Adjust

AppsFlyer

Branch

Kochava

Singular