SKAdNetwork (SKAN) is Apple's framework for measuring App installs in your campaign(s). With SKAN, you can get a wide view into the performance of your iOS App ads and can track metrics like impressions, clicks and app installs at an aggregated level. Effective measurement around your iOS App campaign performance is crucial as it helps you gain a clear understanding of how you can optimise your campaign’s performance.
SKAN reporting
The SKAN report provides a customisable campaign-level view of your install and post-install in-app conversions and conversion values. View SKAN conversion values per day for your campaigns to better understand the events that happened within your app like installs, subscriptions or purchases.
Action and value based iOS App campaigns that calibrate to SKAN events do so by interpreting numerical conversion values provided by Apple. SKAN installs is the number of SKAN postbacks or tracked events that Apple has attributed to your app.
Accessing the SKAdNetwork conversions custom report
If you’re measuring installs or in-app events with SKAN, you'll be able to view reporting data by accessing the 'SKAdNetwork conversions' custom report in Google Ads.
Instructions
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- Click the Reports icon
at the top of the page.
- Click Goals and conversions.
- Click SKAN conversions.
- The 'SKAdNetwork conversions' custom report will load.
.
at the top of the page.SKAN reporting limitations and 'unavailable' conversions
SKAN reporting is built on data shared by Apple. Apple’s privacy measures can result in limitations around how conversion value data is shared. For example, in SKAN reporting, conversion values can have only 64 possible values, and observed values are taken from an activity window defined by Apple that varies between the SKAN versions.
Actual conversion values may not return when postback data has not passed the necessary privacy tier threshold, and these limitations may result in 'unavailable' conversion value fields, which can impact your ability to measure campaigns in totality.
Google Ads now uses available SKAdNetwork data to redistribute unobserved or unavailable conversion values into new reporting columns so that you can gain a more comprehensive understanding of your campaign performance.
How does Google Ads redistribute 'unavailable' SKAN conversion values? We predict the conversion values to replace Null values using an inferred value distribution, which is given by a machine learning model, continuously trained on recent SKAN postback data.
Tip: Follow the instructions below to add the 'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment' to view redistributed conversions in your specific reporting columns and get a more comprehensive view of your conversion values.
Gain more insight into your campaign performance
How to Proceed: Assess the new column called 'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment'. This new column will appear beside your 'SKAdNetwork installs' column. You’ll need to add both the installs and new segment columns to see the split of the installs per conversion values if it isn’t added by default to your view. This column is representative of observed and redistributed conversion values from SKAdNetwork.
Note: Now, in the default view of your Google Ads SKAN report, the new 'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment' will replace the original 'SKAdNetwork conv. value segment', but you can still access and utilise the 'SKAdNetwork conv. value segment' if you desire to view raw conversion values. If comparing SKAdNetwork conversion value results in both Google and third-party SKAdNetwork reports, discrepancies in conversion value reporting may exist if you’re viewing the 'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment' in Google and raw values elsewhere. If you want to avoid SKAN conversion value reporting discrepancies, we recommend using the original 'SKAdNetwork conv. value segment' to minimise this occurrence.
This segment acts similarly to 'SKAdNetwork conv. value segment'. When added to the report, the report will show the sum of redistributed and observed counts for each of your conversion values.
Key terms in your SKAN report
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'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment': By adding this segment, the report will show the total number of observed and redistributed conversion values for each of the conversion types that you’ve assigned in your SKAN schema set up.
- 'Unavailable': Even after redistribution occurs, some 'unavailable' conversions may be left. These values could not be redistributed based on available data.
- 'SKAdNetwork conv. value segment': By adding this segment, the report will show the total number of observed conversion values for each of the conversion types that you’ve assigned in your SKAN schema set up.
Note: We recommend that you replace this segment with the above 'SKAdNetwork redistributed fine conv. value segment' so you get a more comprehensive view of your conversion values.
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'SKAdNetwork installs': SKAdNetwork is Apple's framework for measuring App installs in your campaigns. SKadNetwork installs is the number of SKAdNetwork postbacks or tracked events that Apple has attributed to this app where the postback sequence equals 0. Learn about the Best practices to drive better performance and measurement for iOS App campaigns.
