Understanding SKAdNetwork: Privacy-Centric Attribution for iOS Advertising

Introduction: 

In today's digital landscape, I find mobile advertising to be an essential component in driving app installs and user engagement. However, as a user, I'm concerned about my privacy. That's where SKAdNetwork comes into play. In this article, I'll delve into what SKAdNetwork is, how it works, and why it's significant for both advertisers and user privacy. 

1.The Essence of SKAdNetwork: 

SKAdNetwork, short for StoreKit Ad Network, serves as an alternative to traditional attribution methods, such as the use of device identifiers like IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers). It provides a privacy-focused solution for measuring the effectiveness of ad campaigns without compromising individual user privacy. 

2.Protecting User Privacy: 

At its core, SKAdNetwork is designed to prioritize user privacy by limiting the amount of user data shared with advertisers and ad networks. With SKAdNetwork, advertisers receive aggregated campaign performance data from Apple without accessing specific user-level information. This approach ensures that users' personal data remains safeguarded. 

How SKAdNetwork works?

 

When a user installs an app from an ad, SKAdNetwork facilitates attribution in a privacy-centric manner. Instead of sharing user-specific details, the framework employs a series of cryptographic techniques to maintain anonymity. Here's a simplified overview of the process:

 

a. App Install: A user interacts with an ad and proceeds to install the advertised app from the App Store. 

b. Conversion Value: Advertisers assign a conversion value to indicate specific events or actions related to the ad campaign (e.g., in-app purchases or level completions). 

c. Postback: The App Store generates a signed signal called a postback, indicating the install and conversion value. This postback is sent to the ad network, but it contains no identifiable user information. 

d. Attribution: The ad network receives aggregated data from the App Store, allowing them to measure the performance of their ad campaigns while preserving user privacy. 

Benefits for Advertisers: 

SKAdNetwork offers several advantages for advertisers, including: 

a. Privacy Compliance: Advertisers can adhere to privacy regulations and best practices by adopting a privacy-centric attribution framework. 

b. Campaign Measurement: SKAdNetwork enables advertisers to gain insights into the performance of their ad campaigns, such as app installs and conversion events, without accessing individual user data. 

c. User Trust: By prioritizing user privacy, advertisers can build trust with their target audience, fostering positive brand perceptions. 

 

What is Ads.txt and how does it work? Why is it so important? -Complete guide

The IAB Tech Lab introduced the Ads.txt file back in 2017 to safeguard ad inventory and prevent programmatic ad fraud. Since then, it has played a pivotal role in fostering transparency in the digital advertising industry. Despite its effectiveness, many publishers remain apprehensive or unaware of the advantages of this initiative. This article provides a concise summary of Ads.txt, practical tips for implementing it on WordPress and Google AdSense, and how it benefits publishers and advertisers alike.

What is Ads.txt?

Ads.txt, which stands for Authorized Digital Sellers, is a text file created to tackle ad fraud, specifically domain theft and hijacking. It improves the transparency of a publisher's ad inventory by disclosing the origin of purchased and resold impressions.

 

Through ads.txt, publishers can publicly list the authorized sellers of their ad inventory and prevent fraudulent activities associated with unsanctioned inventory sales. Moreover, ad buyers can verify the sellers and steer clear of unauthorized traffic sales thanks to ads.txt.

 

Ads.txt serves the following purposes:

1. Identifying authorized entities to sell publishers' ad inventory.
2. Allowing buyers, ad exchanges, and others to crawl publishers' domains.
3. Matching seller account IDs in bid requests.
4. Shielding advertisers from phony ad inventory.

Here's how ads.txt operates:

 

Publishers insert the ads.txt file on their website, verifying domain ownership and listing partner accounts (like ad exchanges and SSPs) that can sell their ad inventory. As a result, advertisers can easily access a comprehensive list of all authorized publishers and their ad inventory online.

 

When a bid request from the publisher reaches the advertiser, they only have to match the publisher's account ID with the ads.txt file.

 

If the account ID matches, the advertiser can be confident that the publisher is legitimate. Conversely, if the buyer finds that the publisher's ID is unverified, they can choose not to bid on the publisher's ad inventory.

 This is how it works, 

Image source- IAB

Why marketers should focus on 4As and 4Ps combination in their Marketing Mix- By Sarang Kinjavdekar

 4Ps of marketing- many of the marketers are familiar with this term -they are - Product, Price, Place and Promotion. today, we will discuss why it is important to have 4As along with 4Ps when you think about developing an Integrated Marketing mix

According to Philip Kotler, ‘marketing mix is the mixture of controllable marketing variable that the firm uses to pursue the sought level of sales in the target market. Therefore, the marketing mix indicates the appropriate combination of four P’s—product, price, promotion, and place—for achieving marketing objectives. The components are also known as marketing mix variables or controllable variables as they can be used according to business requirements. 

More details below

                                          Source

• Product includes options, quality, design, features,  packaging and other related services.
• Price includes list price, marked price, discounts, shipping costs and competitors’ prices.
• Place includes distribution channels, platforms, websites and other online presences, physical locations, inventory, and delivery.
• Promotion includes branding, content marketing, advertising, search, influence relations, social media, PR  and sales.

But the problem that Marketers face with 4Ps is, it only gives the seller side of view and completely ignores the buyers side of view.

What exactly are 4As of Marketing?

The 4A framework derives from a customer-value perspective based on the four distinct roles that customers play in the market: seekers, selectors, payers and users. For a marketing campaign to succeed, it must achieve high marks on all four A’s, using a blend of marketing and non-marketing resources

Source

To get the buyers view and then get the sellers view, it is imperative for Marketers to understand and incorporate  4As before applying the 4Ps to the strategic marketing mix.

Lets first take a closer look at 4Ps and see how they align with 4As

Once we have this alignment, we can see a more customer centeres framework. 

• Acceptability-  the extent to which the product exceed customers expectations.
• Affordability- the extent to which the customers are willing and able to pay for the product
• Accessibility- the extent to which the customer readily acquire the product
• Awareness-the extent to which the customers are informed about the product, features, specifications, differentiation etc

Or simply put:

• Product designs influences adaptability
• Prices affects affordability
• Places affects accessibility
• Promotion influences awareness

Thus, I highly recommend that one should consider 4As before thinking about the 4Ps.

Thanks for reading

Sarang Kinjavdekar

Performance Target- An underrated feature of Google Ads which Advertisers can use to improve performance drastically- Guide by Sarang Kinjavdekar

Performance marketing professionals are getting lot of questions everyday related to the health and performance of the campaigns. Some typical questions are (i) How is the campaign performing? (ii) Will we be able to hit the monthly target? (iii) Is the campaign over-pacing or under-pacing? (iv) Are we within the budget limits?

To answer all these question, Performance Marketers and advertisers can make use of Performance Targets. 

Performance Targets definition

Performance targets allow you to monitor and forecast the overall performance of campaigns so that you’ll know if you’re on track to meet your goals. This can be tracked through Google Ads new feature- Campaign Groups and Performance Targets.

Campaign Groups definition

Before we move forward with the Performance Targets set up and usage, lets understand what Campaign Groups are. A campaign group is a set of campaigns that share a key performance indicator. Campaign groups are helpful for tracking the overall performance of multiple campaigns with similar goals. Setting optional performance targets lets you designate specific, numerical goals for your campaign group, keeping you up-to-date on performance progress.

Example of Campaign Groups?

E.g.:- If You want to launch some campaigns for Back to school campaign, you can launch video, search, display campaign etc and then club them under one campaign group, let’s say “Back_to_School”.

How to create Campaign Groups?

How to set up Performance Targets

After creating the campaign groups, follow the steps below

Lets see this in action, Click on +

Click on Choose a different metric to Target, once you select a metric then Click ADD A TARGET

Once done , the below will open

Performance target settings

A performance target has three settings:

1. A group of metrics you want to track
2. The date range for tracking metrics
3. (Optional) Specific values you want to achieve for the metrics during each date range

How will you measure the performance? -Select 1 from the dropdown

What time frame are you measuring performance for?

Below are the performance targets for the ,measurements

Performance target Example

Lets take an example,we are looking for conversion value on a monthly basis and we want to make sure that:

1. Spend should not exceed 50,000
2. Total number of conversions (should be minimum 5000)
3. Average ROAS 500% (greater than or equal to)

Below is how we do the set up

Click apply to set this up, we can track the Target Vs Actual   Spend, Conversions and ROAS and make sure that the campaign is delivering the results and KPIs that we actually have thought of.

Similarly, you can select the other 3 and set up the Performance Target as per your tracking and campaign requirements

Performance Targets Status

We have 4 different status once the set up is done-

1. On Track- Based on recent performance, you are likely to meet your performance target. The chance of meeting each target is available on your performance target’s summary card. 
2. Needs attention- Based on recent performance, you are not likely to meet your performance target. The chance of meeting each target is available on your performance target’s summary card. Consider changing your campaigns’ settings and checking your status again in a few days to see if you’re on track. 
3. Target met- The performance target’s date range has passed, and you've met your target. 
4. Target not met- A performance target’s statistics are calculated using day-to-day historical membership, meaning that the performance target only calculates statistics from a campaign during the time period that it's inside a campaign group. This means making any changes to a campaign group’s current membership will not affect the status of its past performance targets.

So, now if you boss asks you a  question (in mid of a campaign) related to you Campaign health and performance, dont say you can probably achieve the target, set up this Performance Target and share the exact status

Thanks for reading!

Sarang Kinjavdekar

Optimization Score - Easy guide for Advertisers to improve Ad performance -By Sarang Kinjavdekar

Optimization Score - Easy Guide by Sarang Kinjavdekar

One of the key challenges faced by Advertisers/their Paid Media team is optimization. Campaign creation is just the tip of the iceberg, actual challenge starts when the campaign does not perform to the pre-aligned KPIs like ROI, ROAS, CPL etc. Google has introduced (long time back) this feature called Optimization Score. We will briefly talk about the optimization score in this article.

What is it?

Optimization scores gives you an idea of how your account is performing, this is usually from 0% to 100% (the higher the better). Lets say your Optimziation score is 80%, there is a further room of improvement by 20%.

Please note that Optimization score is not used by Quality score or Ad rank and it is completely different thing altogether. 

How can it help Advertisers?

Whether you’re looking to bring in new website visitors, grow online sales, or get the phones ringing, optimization score can help you deliver results for your business. It is made up of 50 recommendations and help you make your advertising more efficient, reach new audiences, and spend smarter.

It looks across key aspects of your campaigns to identify opportunities for improvement. Apply these recommendations to get the best results for your advertising budget.

Where can I see it?

This is introduced as a new metric in your dashboard. Its real time and you can see the performance of your Account and campaigns immediately on real time basis without any lags or latency. If you look below, the current Optimization Score is 76%, you can improve it to 100% by accepting the recommendations.

What does it show?

Google will give you recommendations to improve your Account performance, its up to you to accept your reject the recommendations.  Recommendations are ordered based on performance uplift, with the most impactful suggestions at the top. I

How does Google calculate it?

Optimization score is calculated in real-time, based on the statistics, settings, and the status of your account and campaigns, the relevant impact of available recommendations, and recent recommendations history.

1. Some of the key facors Google takes into account to calculate Optimization Scores are below
2. Statistics, settings, and the status of your account and campaigns
3. Relevant impact of available recommendations
4. Recent recommendations history
5. Trends in the ads ecosystem

As per Google

A combination of statistical models, simulations, and machine learning is used to assign points to each recommendation, based on the likelihood that it will enhance your account’s performance. If a recommendation can have more impact, it’s weighted more heavily toward your overall score.

How to check your quality score?

Step by Step

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.
2. From the page menu on the left, click Recommendations.
   Note: In the page that appears, you’ll see your account’s score and available recommendations in these sections: “All recommendations”, “Bidding & Budgets”, “Ads & Extensions”, “Keywords & Targeting”, and “Repairs.”
3. To filter recommendations of a specific category, click the category name.
4. To apply a recommendation, click View recommendation under it, then click Apply.
   Note: Each recommendation shows a score uplift, which indicates the possible score improvement from following the recommendation.
5. To apply all recommendations of a specific type, click Apply all in the recommendation card.
   Example:When you apply all of a recommendation type that has a score uplift of 7%, your account’s optimization score will go up by 7% and the recommendation will be marked as completed.
6. To dismiss a recommendation, hover over the top right corner of a suggestion, then click X to dismiss.
7. To dismiss all recommendations of a specific type, click the 3-dot icon in the recommendation card, then click Dismiss all.

Source- Google support 

Thanks for reading!

Sarang Kinjavdekar