Issue 23

Comment

Each time I think the IDFA Apocalypse must finally be almost spent, it manages to write another chapter for itself.

This week, along with fresh (but completely unsubstantiated, at this point) rumors of another ATT implementation delay, the new excitement comes courtesy of the China Advertising Association.

Here's the TL;DR: the China Advertising Association, a state-backed consortium representing most of the biggest names in Chinese tech, has been quietly testing a new standard called China Advertising ID (CAID). This would provide an identifier designed to essentially replace the IDFA, after Apple removes it in iOS 14.5.

While this seems like a clear no-go under Apple's App Tracking Transparency policy language, it would be very problematic for Apple to enforce a ban against many of the biggest apps in China en mass.

And that's where things get interesting

Spotlight

China’s tech giants test way around Apple’s new privacy rules

This story, originally reported by the Financial Times, was the exposé that set a good portion of the mobile landscape on fire.

Apple, CAID, and China: rock, meet hard place

If Apple wants the App Tracking Transparency policy to survive, it probably can't allow a China-specific carve-out for CAID — the most likely outcome of that would be a cascading failure for the entire policy, especially if western companies like Facebook smell blood in the water.

At the same time, the China Advertising Association is a state-backed entity, and Apple (unlike Google, which somewhat famously quit the entire Chinese market) already has some precedents in place for special exemptions related to China.

Apple Warns Against Unauthorized Tracking After China Workaround

After a couple days, Apple clearly decided to try the 'no special exemption for CAID' option, and went on record clarifying their intention to apply the App Tracking Transparency policy globally. In fact, they have already started sending out warning letters to Chinese app developers.

The open question now is whether this move should be bucketed as 'the beginning of ATT enforcement' or not. The ATT policy isn't officially in place until the release of iOS 14.5, but perhaps CAID was such an egregious development that Apple felt a separate, one-off crackdown was warranted.

Interesting Reads

Technology Changes How We Grocery Shop

Before COVID, grocery shopping was one of the weekly activities that hadn't really changed in decades — grocery delivery was available, but definitely hadn't crossed the early adopter chasm.

As we've seen in Branch platform traffic (and you have likely experienced personally during trips to the local store), that has changed. The world of groceries has evolved, and that's filtering down to everything from mobile app adoption to store layouts.

Industry Buzz

Apple's privacy change could increase the power of its App Store

Here, at least, is the iOS 14 article I've been waiting all year for someone in the mainstream news to write: finally asking the hard questions about what the iOS 14 privacy changes mean in context of Apple's broader market position.

Google will reduce Play Store cut to 15 percent for a developer’s first $1M in annual revenue

Google is responding to Apple's App Store Small Business Program, which reduces the App Store commission to 15% for select developers (with some fairly strict limits and caveats). However, Google is upping the ante in the process: their new Play Store program applies to the first $1 million in earnings for all developers.

This handily avoids the 'revenue cliff' problem some iOS developers face, where they suddenly find themselves out of the Small Business program and subject to a flat 30% fee for slightly exceeding the cutoff.

Both policies are obviously good news, but Google's seems simpler and less likely to lead to unpleasant surprises.

Tips & Techniques

The ideal vs reality of ConversionValue implementation in MMPs

This is an awesome, in-depth article on how the various MMPs are handling logic for SKAdNetwork's conversion-value parameter.

I definitely learned a few things from this piece, though I'm curious whether the '6-event-parallel-mapping' approach some MMPs are trying will result in so many random permutations that the values never pass Apple's secret privacy thresholds…

UX

Jon Lai on Twitter: "The best apps today are games in disguise"

Jon Lai is a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, and this thread is a big collection of gamification examples from both actual games and non-game apps.

Finding conversations on Clubhouse — A UX case study

Personally, I haven't jumped into the Clubhouse craze yet (it took me years to even 'figure out' Twitter), but it's one of the rare hockey-stick growth stories everyone dreams about.

However, even the best still have room for optimization and improvement! Here we have a case study showing some tweaks Clubhouse could make for an even better user experience.

Podcast

Co-Founder + Product @ Lenskart.com: Ramneek Khurana

Growing Physical Through Digital

Growth and product are a completely different beast when you sell physical products and not software. Despite those challenges, our next guest Ramneek Khurana has grown Lenskart to help India’s vision problem.

Ramneek went to Georgia Tech and expected to go to a major consulting firm, but he took some advice that led him into physical products as he started his career at Michelin Tires. Since Michelin was the top tire brand, Ramneek made very marginal improvements and eventually got bored and wanted to solve a bigger problem. That led him to co-found Lenskart, an optical eyewear chain that produces over 300,000 glasses a month. They saw the large gap in the Indian market for a convenient, stylish eyeglass brand that also helped tackle the millions of Indians who weren’t able to get glasses.

Unlike almost every other eyeglass manufacturer, Lenskart focused on mobile and digital from the very beginning, making it easier for customers and allowing them to scale quickly. Some of their best growth campaigns came out of COVID. They received tons of videos from customers to showcase they could still help people get eyeglasses even during lockdown and turned it into a massively successful TV campaign. Hear stories like this, how they won the award for Best Mobile Innovation at Branch’s 2020 Mobile Growth Awards, how Ramneek manages his time as the company grows and changes, and more on this episode of How I Grew This.

Who’s Hiring?

Bloomberg Connects | Performance/Lifecycle Marketing Manager — New York, NY
TodayTix Group | Growth Marketing Manager, Paid Social — NYC or London
Afterpay | Global Head of User Engagement and Retention — San Francisco

Do you have a mobile growth role you’d like to share with the community?
Just fill out this form — it’s free!

Issue 23 March 20th 2021