The Ad Tech Slugfest continues : Attribution

As the Apple financial for the quarter is released we notice that its advertising business has had a 3x growth in the last two quarters (April – Sep 2021). The growth coincides with the launch of the iOS14.5 update in April 2021. This update introduced the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) which requires apps to ask users if they want to be tracked, which has made it harder for advertisers to target their ads at the right audience and get information on how well their ads performed. This form of targeted advertising has become a norm among all digital advertising planners. The ad platforms outside of Apple would Check my earlier blog on this subject.

Apple Search Ads which offers sponsored links above the search results has benefited from this change. Similar or complimentary products are often advertised on these pages e.g. searching for “Twitch” displays a Instagram or TikTok link.

The mobile market is showing a healthy growth across the globe. In the US app installs have grown 31% along with significant increase in the app usage statistic in the first quarter of 2021. This trend is driven by the Fintech, Gaming and e-Commerce market, as per Adjust’s Mobile App Trends 2021 report.

Apple’s advertising solutions are now responsible for 58 per cent of all iPhone app downloads that result from clicking on an advert. A year ago, its share was 17 per cent, as per the Branch, which measures the effectiveness of mobile marketing.

As a result of these changes Apple, is likely to earn $5bn from its advertising business this fiscal year as per researchers at the investment advisory Evercore ISI.

The industry is reaction has been mixed,

The data make it look a very attractive preposition, also since April, only 16% of the US users are opting in to the App Tracking as per mobile app analytics provider Flurry.

Also the app tracking platforms point out that the data on how users were responding to ads, once real-time and granular, is now delayed by up to 72 hours and only available in platform level. By contrast, Apple offers detailed information to anyone signing up to its ads service, for its Apple Search advertisers.

Inspite of the benefits, advertisers are not happy with the lack of visibility as a result of the changes and are changing their mix of their mobile budget between Android & iOS from a 50:50 to a 70:30 in favour of Android, ensuring that the traffic from the non Apple platforms do not drop.

In the platform sides, Facebook's VP of Product Marketing in a recent blog mentions that advertisers are seeing a 15% drop in their advertising efficacy on the iOS devices. A similar effect is also seen on the other platforms as well.

Snap Inc was reported lower than expected performance for the quarter July - Sept 2021, attributing to the recent changes to Apple App Store privacy rules

Google moves from a last click to a data-driven attribution works

On the other end, Google has made its changes in its tracking model as well. It has updates it’s tracking and attribution model from a last click to a data driven model. The data driven model assesses signals throughout the entire customer journey — rather than the last touchpoint alone — and offers a more obfuscated view of user-level data, thereby offering improved privacy.

The new model has the potential to improve advertising effectiveness, since it analyses all “relevant data” about the interactions leading to a conversion. The new machine learning-powered model evaluates everything from the period of time lapsed between interaction and conversion to the ad format, says Google’s VP of Analytics and Measurement in her blog.

Our Take

As all the platforms wanting to keep their walled gardens protected they will keep on jostling to position the superiority of their platforms. The industry needs an attribution tech / tool which works through all the platforms / walled gardens. That is the only way in which the advertiser will get the true picture of the efficacy of his investment.