Set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema

As the industry moves away from individual identifiers, multiple forms of measurement have emerged for iOS App campaigns, including SKAdNetwork.

SKAdNetwork helps app advertisers measure their ad activity, such as impressions, clicks, and app installs, on an aggregated level and has become increasingly important to app advertisers in assessing their iOS campaign performance.

Particularly, to measure in-app event performance and more effectively optimize campaigns for post-install actions or a target return on your ad spend, we recommend app advertisers set up their SKAdNetwork conversion value schema. This schema is a means to designate which in-app events matter to your business.

Set up your schema for in-app event measurement

Today, you can set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema for in-app event measurement through Google Analytics 4, a Google-approved App Attribution Partner, or the Google Ads API. It’s highly recommended that advertisers choose one place to set up their conversion value schema. Conversion value schemas set up through Google Analytics 4 can be exported with the Admin API. After configuring your schema, it will then need to be integrated with your Google Ads account for campaign optimization, more on that below.

Your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema will be highly specific to your business and app. You should ensure that the conversion value (CV) fields you set in your schema represent the in-app events you plan on optimizing your App campaigns for and that these events are also present as biddable conversion events within your Google Ads conversion settings.

With version 4.0 updates to SKAdNetwork, while setting up your schema, you’ll have 3 different measurement windows including 0-2 days, 3-7 days, and 8-35 days after the initial install. This will result in 3 different postbacks:

• The first postback can be a fine or coarse-grain conversion value. Fine-grain conversion values are an anonymized number between 0-63.
• The second and third postbacks will be coarse-grain conversion values. A coarse-grain conversion value is a bucket of defined values labeled low, medium, or high. You’ll learn more about this below. If the postback doesn’t meet the privacy thresholds defined by Apple, you’ll receive a "NULL" value.

For these 3 postbacks, you’ll want to consider the volume and frequency of the most impactful events to your business and code them in your schema. Events with higher volume and frequency may result in more conversion data and less null values.

For apps with key in-app events that occur beyond the first 2 days, postback 2 and 3 are important updates. However, you should keep in mind that fine-grain conversion values aren’t available in postback 2 and postback 3. This means the most granular data you'll be able to receive in these 2 new windows will be a coarse-grain value.

SKAdNetwork version 4.0 updates also introduce a new concept, “lockWindow,” which gives app advertisers the ability to lock the conversion window for their postbacks. For example, you can lock the window of the second postback anywhere between day 3 and day 7 of the user's activity. So, if you know your most valuable users are found by day 5, you can add a “lock.” This means that your postback data will come on day 5 instead of waiting until day 7, and we’ll receive the data faster for that conversion. This is important for advertisers that want to optimize faster and feel that they don’t need further data past that lock day.

Integrate your schema with Google Ads for campaign optimization

After you’ve set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema, you’ll need to integrate it with your Google Ads account for campaign optimization. Currently, this schema integration ability is available in limited beta. Reach out to your Account Manager to learn more.

Ensure that you have set your conversion value schema to the appropriate measurement mode specific to your App Attribution Partner.

Map your events with Google Ads

As mentioned, today in limited beta, we offer the ability to utilize your SKAdNetwork schema to improve the optimization of your tCPA and tROAS App campaigns. If you are utilizing a third-party App Attribution Partner for SKAdNetwork conversion value schema setting, but bidding on Google Analytics 4 in-app events, it will be critical that the in-app event names set up through your partner align with your Google Analytics 4 in-app event names. As part of this beta, you’ll need to provide a mapping of both event names to your account management team.

This mapping is important and Google requires it since your events may have different naming conventions. For example, you should ensure your “in_app_purchase” event in your third-party partner interface aligns to “purchase_one” in Google Analytics 4. Without mapping the events to each other, Google won't be able to determine which SKAdNetwork conversion values tie to your partner events and Google Analytics 4 events and we won't be able to calibrate our models effectively.

If you aren’t in this beta, you can still prepare for this step by having your mapping ready and by making sure all your events, both in Google Analytics 4 and your App Attribution Partner, have already been added as conversion events in Google Ads. In the future, Google Ads will offer a way for you to communicate this mapping to us.

Related links

• Best practices guide: Drive better performance and measurement for iOS App campaigns
• FAQs about iOS 14 changes