Mobile marketing and monetization in a non-personalized future have been a hot (if not the hottest) topic for months. Apple’s announcement of deprecating the IDFA left the industry in a frenzied state of “now what”? However, the mobile app industry has been making strides in adapting to this new era by introducing innovation, privacy-aware solutions, and new testing methods to dissect and prepare for what Q1 2021 and onwards will look like.

The Digital Fyber Focus panel, co-hosted with INCRMNTAL, included a diverse panel of brand and performance experts weighing in on how the changes of SKAdNetwork, IDFA/GAID-related will impact programmatic UA and the mobile-app ecosystem. 

The panel was led by Maor Sadra, CEO, and Co-Founder of INCRMNTAL, who was joined by:
Offer Yehudai, President at Fyber
Viktor Romanov, Growth Marketing Expert
Ryan Kendall, Programmatic Strategy Lead at Red Ventures 

WATCH HERE

Key takeaways 

Marketers, broaden and diversify your media mix 

The news of the IDFA deprecation created a shift in the industry and strong ripple effects were felt on the programmatic side. It was crystal clear that user acquisition, retargeting, attribution, and overall monetization strategies will be impacted. But given the flexibility, scale, and transparency that programmatic provides buyers, targeting in a privacy-aware manner will still be possible (for more details on how, watch on-demand here). 

Our experts said that an IDFA-less world is challenging the status quo of mobile marketing. It’s pushing marketers to rethink their media mix by exploring new channels and platforms to success, for example, the rising trend of influencer marketing and user-generated content. These channels are creating a steady and engaging resonance with niches and target audiences - converting into high performing ads. 

 Adjust your mindset to think like a performance marketer 

In the world of mobile advertising, brand vs. performance are generally perceived as polar opposites that function independently. But the lines are starting to blur. As the entire mobile landscape transitions to less personalized advertising top of the funnel and bottom of the funnel marketing activities are beginning to converge.

Performance marketing has traditionally focused on driving metrics and results down the funnel - think app installs, in-app purchases, app engagement etc. At the same time, brands are are adopting more concrete engagement KPIs for their awareness campaigns. These metrics, along with contextual targeting parameters, will become more important in a reality with very limited availability of personalized data. While some KPIs between performance and brand campaigns might still differ, both face the shared goals of adding value and increasing “eyeballs”.

 Get creative! Creative optimization will take center stage 

Attribution, SKAdNetwork post-back events (plus the data they contain), and measuring ROAS will become limited. Marketers need to shift their focus to what they can control - the creatives. 

This is the time for advertisers to define what their UA and campaign optimization methodology will look like. Even with the limitation of Apple’s new attribution infrastructure, adopting a data-based testing approach to creative optimization will help identify elements that indicate stronger alignment between creative and target audience. Basic metrics such as CTR or  completion rate will become more relevant optimization levers at the creative level.

Challenging and conquering the new normal, post-IDFA

There are still many unknowns as IDFA deprecation nears, but we are in a position to challenge and rewrite the rule book of mobile marketing moving forward - for brand or performance marketing. 

The experts in this roundtable shed light on targeting alternatives available for marketers post-IDFA, the significant role of the creative, and how these alternatives impact ROAS and media mix decisions 

Watch the full session to learn more!