Spotlight
Apple finally releases the Privacy Impacting SDK list…probably?
WWDC 2023 seems like an age ago, and while privacy wasn't a headline topic this year, Apple ended the event owing the mobile community a number of IOUs on upcoming privacy changes.
They've been slowly knocking those down ever since, but one was still outstanding: a list of 'privacy-impacting SDKs', inclusion of which in an iOS app would trigger new requirements for a Privacy Manifest file and a code signature.
This Thursday, Apple finally published a list of SDKs. But it's quite different from what most observers were expending, so if this is closing the loop on what was promised after WWDC, it raises more questions than it answers:
- Apple doesn't call this the 'privacy-impacting SDK list', which is a term they've used repeatedly up until now. Why not? A lot of these SDKs probably don't even collect data.
- What is the criteria for inclusion? Apple says these are 'commonly used in apps on the App Store', but there are 86 SDKs on this list. That's not exactly an obvious number, and only makes sense if the cutoff is based on something like total app downloads (not popularity rank).
- Where are all the adtech SDKs?
- If this isn't the privacy-impacting list, then what is it? Something additional, meaning another list of SDKs is still pending?
As usual with Apple, we'll just have to wait and see. Maybe there is something else coming, or maybe this is it and the inconsistencies will only shake out once App Store Review starts to provide enforcement precedent next spring.
That said, all this should end up being little more than a small logistical item for most mobile marketers. So long as you've been setting your team up for the future of measurement (instead of chasing workarounds), and working with reputable vendors (who will be implementing Privacy Manifests and code signatures voluntarily anyway), you should be able to wake up in a few months and not even notice the change.
Interesting Reads
A look at Apple’s new Transformer-powered predictive text model
'AI' has been dominating tech news headlines all year…except the ones that include Apple.
So far as I could tell, Apple studiously avoided mentioning AI even a single time at WWDC this summer. But they're clearly working on similar tech; it'll be just on-device, and probably described for a very long time using terms like 'machine learning' instead of 'artificial intelligence' (case in point: this framework released on GitHub last week by Apple's machine learning research group).
For an example of what that looks like (it's faaaar from the chatbot experience most of us probably associate with the current generation of AI), this article breaks down one of Apple's own ML-powered features: the new predictive 'type-ahead' functionality in iOS 17.
Stocketa
Some apps are just so drop-dead gorgeous that I look for excuses to use them on a daily basis, purely for the joy of admiring the UI.
This blog post describes the three-year development of one such app, and why it was ultimately never released.
Industry Buzz
66% of iOS marketers now working on SKAN 4; 5.4% say SKAN 3 is ‘going great’
Singular recently hosted a multi-day 'SKANATHON' event, and they're now sharing some neat survey insights based on what they learned from the almost 2000 iOS mobile marketers who signed up.
To me, a particularly interesting stat from this: nearly half of people responded to the question 'How did you feel when ATT was enforced?' with panicked or ignored it.
TikTok, Snap, and other apps call for new mobile measurement standards
Why is this initiative getting started now? Here's the short version: today, a user can click or view an ad, but there is a growing push for new types of touchpoint. For example, the concept of an engaged view for video ads that the user chooses not to skip right away.
More transparency into ad engagement is objectively a good thing, and a binary choice between click/view IS too simplistic. The complication is that adding more types of touchpoint also brings new ways to game the system: if the attribution waterfall is expanded so that an 'engaged' view of an ad always overrides any normal view, that's a massive incentive for everyone involved to make sure their views count as the engaged variety.
That means there are three big reasons why standardization is suddenly in everyone's best interest:
- So far, the biggest proponents of creating an 'engaged view' touchpoint type have been really big, walled garden networks.
- Normal views from other networks are going to lose attribution credit against these new engaged views.
- While advertisers might reluctantly trust big walled garden networks not to bend the rules on what counts as an engaged view (these are typically the 'self-attributing' networks, after all), they're unlikely to trust every other publisher the same way.
Common standards will help solve these issues, particularly the last one. For more details on the consortium's proposal, check out this blog post from AppsFlyer.
Walled Gardens
The Problem With Ad Platform Measurement – From Someone Who Knows
Honestly, I was so excited when I heard about ATT because it felt like, ‘Heck yeah, this is inherently going to kill stupid measurement and bad ad tech practices.’
When someone tosses an opening grenade like that into the room, how can you NOT want to read the rest of the article?
It's a good one, and probably worth your time. Personally, I agree with most of the points, particularly around SKAdNetwork ('it’s an ingenious setup […] but that’s not “good” measurement') and data clean rooms ('I have a lot of respect for the technology [but] they’re recreating a pre-privacy world')
Privacy & Security
Why Apple is working hard to break into its own iPhones
Fun story about Apple's secret lab in Paris, where 'laser-wielding hackers' try to break into iPhones.
Tools
Apple Search Ads now has an Ad Repository. Here's what to know.
Thanks to new regulations in the EU, it's now possible to search through all the Apple Search Ads campaigns running in Europe.
This joins similar tools from most major ad platforms, including Meta, Google, TikTok, Microsoft, and Pinterest.
Tips & Techniques
Media Mix Modeling: The key to unlocking measurement
Good overview of how to get started with MMM as a mobile marketer. I agree with most of it, and I feel we generally need to get more practiced at thinking about 'measurement' as a concept that exists on multiple levels:
- Single-source attribution. What marketers can get directly from ad network dashboards, but also applicable to any other source that attempts to measure itself.
- Single-channel attribution. An independent platform, or system-level framework that attempt to deduplicate across sources within the same channel. MMPs traditionally filled this niche for mobile ads, and SKAdNetwork (assuming it were fully adopted) would fit this definition for iOS advertising.
- Cross-channel attribution. Perhaps the holy grail, but controversial (for example, whether you want SEO traffic 'stealing credit' from ads depends a lot on your personal incentives).
The privacy era has made user-level, cross-channel effectively impossible, and that's where MMM could become a substitute.
UX
The invisible problem
Text editing on mobile is…fraught. Even after years of practice, I still find myself instinctively avoiding tasks that will require any significant text input until I'm at a real keyboard.
This is an interesting study into what actually makes this hard, and some relatively small UX changes that could make it much less irritating.
Data
The AppsFlyer Performance Index: Edition 16
The latest edition of AppsFlyer's annual cornerstone report on paid media sources is out. You'll have to hand over your email address for a copy…but it's the gold standard so you probably already did!
Mobile Marketing Benchmarks Hub
Speaking of benchmarks, if you have an appetite for for them, Taha Karsli compiled a pretty comprehensive list of 40+ sources from across the entire mobile ecosystem.
Podcast
When Marketing Meets Blockchain and Digital Security
VP of Marketing and Communications at Ledger: Ariel Wengroff
In her role at Ledger, Ariel leads global marketing and communications, focusing on educating and culturally integrating people into the world of digital asset security. In this episode, she shares thoughts on the intersection of blockchain, security, and marketing, including how Ledger revolutionizes the digital asset security landscape, strategies for digital success, and the future of blockchain technology.
This week, Apple published what is probably our long-awaited 'privacy-impacting SDK list'. We'll get to that next; please keep reading!
But first, a brief meta-update about the newsletter itself: if you're thinking it's been a long time since Mobile Growth News last showed up in your inbox… you are quite right, and I apologize. With six months of material to select from, this issue will unavoidably be more retrospective than usual.
To me, 'newsletter' implies something that comes a little more frequently than twice a year. So this is my final appearance behind the pen. In future, MGN will be ably curated by my friend and colleague, Adam Landis.
If you already know Adam, it's probably a toss-up whether the thing you remember best is his insightful mobile industry commentary…or his fabulous three-piece suits (he's the only person I know who still wears these on a daily basis). But I am confident his take on the newsletter will be worth your time. I certainly plan to read it.
Thank you for all your attention over the years. And if you've enjoyed any of the last 58 issues, I'd love to hear from you — I read every reply!
Alex Bauer