It’s been over a year since Apple released iOS 14.5, the iOS version that changed everything. And it’s been several since the major mobile measurement partners (MMPs) shared a stage together. In the Incubation of MMPs panel at the App Growth Summit Berlin 2022, the largest mobile attribution companies had an unshut discussion well-nigh the incubation of measurement on iOS, what might be on the way for Android, and the role of the MMP in a privacy-centric world.
Here are seven key takeaways from that discussion.
1. The role of MMPs in a post-privacy world
When it comes to the future of mobile measurement, the primary role of an MMP will be the same as always. MMPs are an unbiased source of data. They partner with companies to measure mobile ad performance, prove ad investments are worthwhile, and optimize them for largest results.
In our post-privacy world, the partner part is increasingly significant than overly considering the rate of industry transpiration is so much greater now. By letting an MMP monitor the ecosystem changes on your behalf, you can shield your teams from unvarying disruption and uncertainty. It’s a full-time job. One that shouldn’t be handled alone.
2. Temporary workarounds like fingerprinting are not a good investment
Apple has made it well-spoken it intends to one-liner lanugo on “tracking” of any kind, including fingerprinting.
For individual advertisers, this ways engaging in workarounds can be risky. If you’re unprotected violating Apple’s policies, your app can get kicked out of the App Store until you fix it. But for MMPs, the risk is much greater. If Apple discovers an MMP violating the policy, Apple might ban every app using that MMP all at once! This has unfortunately happened in the past.
MMPs have taken variegated approaches to this risk. Some (like Branch) believe that knowingly exposing its customers to the possibility of enforcement whoopee by Apple is too unconfined a responsibility for any vendor to take. Others have elected to protract permitting workarounds, at least until Apple begins increasingly warlike policy enforcement. But every MMP agrees that investing in short-term workarounds is, in the end, a waste of time and effort. The weightier long-term strategy for advertisers is to embrace the new world of measurement.
“The weightier strategy for the future of measurement is to embrace the new world and not waste time and energy trying to squeeze out just a little bit increasingly device-level data through workarounds that Apple will inevitably one-liner lanugo on, whether this year or next.” — Alex Bauer, Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch
As a business, you shouldn’t have to worry well-nigh these nuances or need to pay sustentation to every little change.
Note: Branch’s SafeTrack
protocol is automatically enabled for all customers in structuring with our understanding of Apple’s policy. You never need to worry well-nigh our services putting your app at risk of privacy policy violations.
3. The state of Google Android Privacy Sandbox
Where Apple forthwith unsimilar the industry, Google is trying to strike a balance. Google appears to be considering what was going on in the ecosystem and what happened on iOS. Learnings over the last few years from the web version of Privacy Sandbox have resulted in proposals that could work for everyone. And it might unquestionably be a good replacement.
“First-party user identifiers, like third-party cookies and device IDs, were powering a lot of really important functionality, but they were moreover tracking vectors. It’s inevitable that these identifiers are sooner going away, so what you’re looking for now is: what’s the replacement and how do you make sure it protects user privacy without upending the unshortened industry? Google’s Privacy Sandbox is unquestionably a pretty good replacement, all things considered, compared to what it might have been.” — Alex Bauer, Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch
4. MMM is not a threat to MMPs
Media mix modeling (MMM) is not sufficient to replace everything an MMP provides. It’s not just an add-on.
“MMM is probably the future of measurement considering what we’re moving toward is a world with very tactical, channel-specific metrics which might help you optimize your Apple Search Ads campaigns and Google ad campaigns separately, but they won’t requite you what you need to compare those two wideness a level playing field. And that’s the premise of next-generation MMM…you can run [MMM] maybe plane every day and get this comparison of not just your ads but all of your paid and owned and earned channels.” — Alex Bauer, Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch
In other words, an increasingly important part of the conversation is how to use MMM as a diagnostic tool to understand how these increasingly tactical, channel-specific metrics compare.
5. Increasingly and more, marketers are going vastitude mobile
Marketing channels outside of mobile are gaining traction. This could be due, in part, to Apple’s privacy changes. Or it could be, in part, considering of waffly consumer behaviors. For instance, QR codes on linear TV are increasingly used to entice consumers into an app or offer. And nobody can ignore the rise of connected TVs (CTV) and the new razzmatazz channels they provide.
Now, the real need is for brands to get a good picture of what users are doing regardless of the screen. This ways marketers truly need to measure everything.
“CTV just happens to be flipside platform that is gaining traction. It’s not the first or the last. You need measurement on all of them. We make sure we support linking and measurement on every platform our customers use, whether it is mobile, desktop, CTV, etc.” — Alex Bauer, Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch
6. Incrementality testing is flipside useful tool to have in your toolbox
Advertisers sometimes wonder if incrementality testing is the replacement for traditional attribution. But they’re increasingly like complementary solutions. Traditional attribution doesn’t wordplay the question, “Would I still have had this conversion if I didn’t do something?” Incrementality can wordplay that. And it has an widow benefit. As the industry moves yonder from deterministic, device-level attribution systems, incrementality testing provides the information needed to tweak the variables in something like MMM to ensure it’s accurate.
7. MTA is the promised land that hasn’t arrived — and now isn’t going to
When it works, multi-touch attribution (MTA) is an incredible tool. But it’s not the way forward. MTA was unchangingly complicated to build. Now, with all the new privacy restrictions removing wangle to user-level identifiers, there’s no longer a feasible, technical way to do it on mobile.
“What you should be asking yourself is: what information were you trying to get from MTA? Usually, it’s trying to proceeds insight into how everything else unsalaried to a successful conversion, but solutions like next-generation MMM provide other — and largest — ways to do this.” — Alex Bauer, Head of Product and Market Strategy at Branch
Build your strategy
Ads have long been the inexpensive, low-hanging fruit for marketers. And while ads aren’t going anywhere, the marketing world is evolving. Now is the time to both build a strategy for other marketing channels and optimize the funnel instead of pouring increasingly unseemly traffic into the top. Considering of this need to diversify, most marketers are now growing other owned and earned channels. These have unchangingly provided unconfined value, but they are now getting the sustentation they unchangingly deserved.
As marketers expand focus into other channels, while still sticking to tried-and-true paid channels, measurement will not only be imperative but moreover get increasingly complicated. Changes like Google Privacy Sandbox and SKAdNetwork also midpoint that mobile measurement is starting to wilt commoditized. Since MMPs are all playing with the same tools, marketers should squint vastitude purely technical differentiation when choosing a measurement partner.
Don’t try to maneuver this increasingly complicated measurement landscape alone. Rely on an MMP to be your ally. MMPs withstand the brunt of industry changes, help navigate the many nuances, and optimize cross-platform campaigns. And don’t despair! Big shifts like this are why mobile is such a dynamic, incredibly heady space — and unchangingly will be.