Meta took the top spot in the SKAdNetwork (SKAN) Index this year, AppFlyer’s index of top media performers in mobile advertising.
The index, which covers the second half of 2021, was the first to fully measure performance following Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) enforcement, which significantly affected revenues for all iOS advertisers.
The index takes into account both volume – the total number of installs each media source was attributed for – and power – a normalised measure of installs, the number of apps running with each media source, and a weighted score to better measure post-install in-app activity.
Meta was able to drive a higher scale than all other media sources and its quality signals were best across in-app engagement for non-gaming apps and in-app purchases for both gaming and non-gaming.
TikTok ranked second and Google ranked sixth in the ranking, behind three additional gaming apps (AppLovin, ironSource, and Unity).
It’s an improvement for Meta, which previously ranked second in the SKAN Index behind TikTok – that had dominated iOS rankings prior to Apple’s policy change which took effect on 26 April 2021.
ATT has had a major effect on big tech’s ability to make revenue from advertisers – an investigation by The Financial Times in October revealed that Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube lost a combined $9.85bn in revenue following the change.
Over time, Meta has regained their ranking as the top dog on iOS, but their volumes (and others’) are still nowhere near their pre-ATT volumes according to the index.
A fluctuation analysis performed by AppsFlyer showed that the change was also found to have an effect on Android – 25% of total budgets shifted from iOS to Android following ATT.
The mobile gaming industry has also taken a substantial hit thanks to ATT on both iOS and Android; with a reliance on user level data analysis, gaming app marketers have struggled more than non-gaming marketers to adapt.
Media companies have also been affected, as their clients were using user level data-driven optimisation previously allowed on iOS, the transition to post-ATT advertising has been challenging.
