Author: Saadi Muslu

As you may have heard, on Friday, December 10th, the world became aware of a critical vulnerability in Log4j, a widely used logging Java library.

Dubbed “Log4Shell” when exploited successfully, this software flaw allows attackers to take control of vulnerable systems remotely and among others, steal sensitive data.

At Singular, we immediately responded by taking the following measures:

• We mapped all of our services to find out which ones use the vulnerable version of the Log4j library, and within those, mapped any potential paths attackers could exploit.
• We ran scans to detect if anyone has managed to attack our servers. We did not find evidence for any such attacks.
• We patched one internal component that was running a vulnerable version of Log4j to further ensure there’s no way we’ll get attacked in the future. We have also concluded that this component cannot have been accessed from the public web and has not been compromised.
• We continue to monitor our systems as well as public information about the vulnerability and associated attacks. At this point, we are confident in Singular being fully patched against “Log4Shell.”

As a customer, no action is needed on your part.

If you have any questions, please reach out to your Singular Customer Success Manager or email us at support@singular.net.

Today Facebook’s Advanced Mobile Measurement program is officially over. That means that the granular device-level data you used to receive on Android app installs is going away in favor of more privacy-safe aggregated reporting. (Yes, AMM covered iOS too, but that data has been gone since iOS 14.5.)

Privacy: win.

Marketing measurement: loss.

But there’s good news for marketers as well as users here: you can still get device-level data for your Android app installs. And, little secret: it’s actually a net positive in a number of different ways. At least if you use an MMP that supports Facebook’s new Google Play​​ Install Referrer solution out of the box right now.

(Yes, Singular does.)

Here’s what’s happening

Instead of providing device-level data in the AMM program, Facebook has decided to introduce a Google Play Install Referrer measurement solution.

That works pretty much like an HTTP referrer would on the web:

• A user clicks an ad
• They go to the Play Store and install the app
• Once they open the app, Singular can see the click metadata and assign it to a Facebook campaign
• The result is that you get independent device-level performance data on your campaigns

As Singular CEO Gadi Eliashiv mentioned a week ago, there’s significant upside here:

The first obvious win is that advertisers can get back much of the Facebook attribution data that was available to them via the AMM program … this means that a lot of disruption to BI/internal analytics systems can be avoided …

This also opens the door for longer cohorts.

Facebook device-level attributions must be deleted after 180 days …. Google does not provide any clear retention requirements for Install Referrer data, which means we’ll be able to offer longer cohorts (e.g. 365-day) for app users.

What that means for you essentially is more granular data on campaign performance for longer periods, providing improved insight for marketing optimization. Existing user-level postbacks and ETL destinations will automatically contain this data once you configure it in your Singular dashboard, and we’ll maintain the Facebook self-attributing integration so it’s available to compare and contrast.

Plus, don’t forget, you still have access to insights from your on-platform Facebook data.

As an MMP, Singular still has access to device-level parameters for app install campaigns. Per Facebook policy, the device-level data cannot be shared, but Singular can still process and combine it with your other data sets, at which point we can share these aggregate insights. As an example, we could run something like user-level LTV predictions, then share aggregated insights back to you at the campaign level.

This is ready now for Singular clients

We know it’s important for mobile marketers to keep on top of campaign performance every single day. That’s why we’ve ensured that we’re ready for Facebook’s change now.

If you’re a Singular customer, check your email for instructions on how to enable the new Google Play Install Referrer measurement solution. Enable it as soon as possible so you don’t lose any data.

If you’re not a Singular customer … maybe it’s a good time to chat with us about why you might want to consider changing that.

Using Google Play Install Referrer is a good, privacy-safe path

As a mobile measurement partner, we’re pretty positive about the change. Moving this direction is actually good for both user privacy and marketing measurement.

The measurement part we’ve already talked about. The privacy part is that referrers, like on the web, only exist based on explicit action. That means view-through — as useful as that can be — isn’t supported, and that means no personal or device data gets transmitted just as a result of someone just randomly loading a screen in an app or viewing a page.

(Which, let’s be honest, can be a little bit creepy.)

You can still get aggregated — not device-level — insights on view-through attribution through Singular’s MMP integration with Facebook. That gets you marketing performance insights without violating privacy.

And for actual clicks on campaigns, using the Google Play Install Referrer means that only specific action with a specific ad produces marketing data … and even then it is simply connecting an eventual app install with a particular advertising campaign.

We think it’s a good solution that respects privacy while still giving marketers — who pay for all the free services we get online and in apps — the ability to optimize their marketing.

Next steps

If you’re a Singular customer, you’ll have an email with easy instructions about how to enable Facebook’s new Google Play Install Referrer solution. If you’re not … now’s a good time to do something about it.

TikTok is forwarding postbacks to Singular, ensuring advertisers easily get complete raw data access. TikTok is a brand-safe environment, as you can see in our 2021 Singular ROI Index. Still, postback forwarding is a nice confirmation for most ad networks and major platforms that indicates transparency and trust.

TikTok and Singular’s SKAdNetwork integration includes campaign data enrichment with campaign IDs, so you have data to optimize campaigns and conversion value decoding to assess the value of installs, and TikTok can optimize based on your advertising goals.

All you need, just like all of Singular’s other SKAdNetwork integrations, is the latest iOS SDK from Singular. That one SDK manages SKAdNetwork conversions based on the model you’ve defined in the Singular dashboard. 

Our TikTok integration is just one of our latest SKAdNetwork developments. We’ve already shared details on our integrations with Twitter, Snap, Facebook, AdColony, Fyber, Liftoff, Tapjoy, Vungle, and many more.

We’ve also released information about working with Google, which has said it does not plan to surface the ATT prompt. Google will be modeling some conversions, and I’m sure more details will be coming shortly.

It’s clear from the first week of iOS 14.5 that not everything is going smoothly. Getting app updates passed is challenging for many right now, and there’s a fair amount of confusion over what “tracking” means and who needs to ask users for permission to track via the App Tracking Transparency prompt. We’ve seen some of the most prominent players in tech run into issues, and it may be the case that some App Store reviewers have differing opinions on what requires ATT and what does not.

As that all gets sorted out, however, it’s good to know that the major partners you count on to drive growth and new users are SKAdNetwork enabled.

It’s also good to know that Singular SKAN has marketers covered with the most advanced SKAdNetwork suite available from a mobile measurement partner. Singular SKAN includes:

• Clear role definitions for all mobile marketing parties
• Unification of all your SKAdNetwork postbacks from each ad network
• Mapping of SKAdNetwork campaign IDs to readable formats
• Support for more real-time configurable conversion models
• Validation of post-install conversions
• Clean technical separation from classical mobile attribution, ensuring full privacy compliance
• Reporting, include ROI and cohorts, that powers easy analysis, optimization, and better decision making

Learn more about our SKAdNetwork solution here.

Or, if you’d like to talk to a Singular representative about how to make SKAdNetwork work for you, simply book some time.

We’re now only a few days away from the iOS 14.5 release, and the ecosystem is providing its final guidance to marketers around preparing for post-IDFA advertising. Since the IDFA deprecation news dropped last June, Facebook and Singular have worked closely together to solve attribution and conversion management on iOS 14. Along the way, we’ve made enhancements to our partnered SKAdnetwork solution to minimize any disruption for advertisers.

One of the more recent updates to Singular’s Facebook SKAdnetwork integration is support for value optimization campaigns. With that update, Singular’s SKAdNetwork solution is among the first to support all three Facebook campaign types: Mobile App Install (MAI), App Event Optimization (AEO), and value optimization (VO).

What are Facebook’s Value Optimization Campaigns

Value optimization for Facebook App Campaigns uses a prediction of how much return on ad spend (ROAS) you’re driving to optimize campaigns for high-value audiences. While the other two optimization options are tailored for installs or a given event, VO campaigns help maximize your return on investment.

Singular’s Facebook Value Optimization Support

The added support for Facebook’s value optimization campaigns provides three main benefits:

1. Enable SKAdNetwork optimization and reporting for all Facebook campaigns
   With the addition of value optimization, Singular gives advertisers support for all Facebook campaign types so they can hit the ground running post-IDFA. This support enables Facebook to optimize your campaigns for the highest return possible while providing you reporting transparency in the Singular dashboard or via our API and ETL alongside reporting from all your other ad partners.
2. Import Singular’s SKAdNetwork conversion models into Facebook Event Manager to launch any campaign type
   Facebook has recognized early on the importance of supporting iOS 14 measurement and analytics via an MMP SDK, and interoperability with MMP SKAdNetwork solutions. Defining your conversion model once with an MMP and leveraging that same model for campaigns across partners is both more streamlined and critical to having normalized reporting and cross-channel insights.
3. Ensure reporting standardization across ad partners
   Standardization is a big deal for SKAdNetwork Analytics. Being able to use the same Singular-based conversion model across all ad networks ensures compatibility for measurement and reporting. This is a critical role that MMPs take as it ensures that all your media partners are aligned on the same conversion values, and allows you to get apples-to-apples reporting across your entire media mix. MMPs don’t just collect and standardize SKAdNetwork data; we also provide a translation layer for conversion values to ad partners like Facebook. This is critical for being able to optimize campaigns, as well as for extracting back meaningful insights. Without the MMP, advertisers are at risk of incompatible data, disrupted cross-platform measurement, and conversion methodology collisions between media partners.

What’s Next

This is just the beginning of our work with ad partners like Facebook to provide advertisers the solutions they need to continue growth on iOS 14.5 and beyond. There are incredible opportunities to innovate on this foundation, including some exciting new tools Singular is working on for predictive analytics. We’re confident that with iteration and close collaboration, we can continue to evolve for a more privacy-conscious yet still effective form of advertising.

If you’re not already a Singular client, get in touch with us now to get a SKAdNetwork walk-through, demo, and access to testing code and our SDK.

The revenue-generating power of ad monetization isn’t anything new for mobile publishers. On Monday, Apple shared that $45B was generated by in-app advertising just last year. And with people spending more time in apps, particularly gaming apps, ad monetization remains resilient to the impacts of COVID.

Granular ad revenue is critical to informed user acquisition

But as with anything, executing a lucrative ad monetization strategy isn’t a walk in the park. Historically, user acquisition teams struggled to get the granular data needed to calculate their campaigns’ “True ROI” — return on investment calculation that accounts for both in-app purchase revenue and ad revenue. This hindered marketers from being able to make informed decisions about the actual performance of their campaigns as ROI could look completely different once you factor ad revenue into the calculation.

“Granularity is critical in mobile ad monetization,” says Singular COO and Co-founder Susan Kuo. “Understanding the relative ad revenue generated per user helps mobile publishers optimize their apps for maximum results. It also helps them improve user experience by making decisions that can minimize irrelevant and wasted ads.”

MAX unlocks device-level revenue data

Singular has been providing ad monetization reporting for a few years with support for a variety of partners, including ironSource, MoPub, Soomla, and AdMob.

Now, AppLovin is providing revenue data to mobile app publishers for every single user through MAX. This is extremely powerful!

With this data, you can understand the ad-based life-time value of your users. That’s increasingly important because just 2% of mobile app users are converting to paying customers via in-app purchases.

Haven’t thought about testing MAX yet? Here are just a few reasons you should:

• In-app bidding at scale enables advertisers to bid simultaneously in an unbiased and competitive auction for every impression driving higher an LTV for publishers.
• Visibility into user ad revenue for each impression to optimize towards true ROI.
• A/B testing in a few clicks powered by real-time analytics to drive continuous revenue lifts for each app.
• Cohort analysis lets you view the lifecycle of your users. Monitor LTV, ROI, and engagement by cohort.

Singular + MAX = Better Together

We are excited to announce our new granular ad revenue integration with MAX by AppLovin. The combination of MAX’s device-level ad revenue data with Singular’s proficiency to connect that ad revenue to in-app purchase data and acquisition cost unlocks the most accurate and complete view of your true ROI yet.

This is a game-changer for User Acquisition and Monetization teams alike:

• User Acquisition teams can finally account for Ad Revenue in their ROI formula.
• With the ability to see the true ROI figures – User Acquisition Managers will be able to make better decisions about the actual performance of their campaigns and channels and scale their marketing efforts efficiently and more intelligently. Channels and campaigns that you thought had a specific ROI could look completely different once we factor Ad Revenue into the ROI calculation.
• A centralized snapshot of all your Ad Revenue enables better insights and scaling app ad revenue down to the placement level.
• Streamline work with finance, and have a true end-to-end view of your marketing profit and loss.

The result: better data precision, more accurate and complete LTV models, superior user acquisition and monetization strategies, and ultimately, the potential to earn more revenue – all of it, of course, right inside your Singular dashboard.

Granular ad revenue data from MAX is now supported in our User Acquisition ROI reports and is easily accessible through our ETL product directly to your warehouse. Want to run and measure multiple mediation partners simultaneously? No worries! We support all of them, so measure away. 😊

Ready to level up your ad monetization strategy?

Schedule a quick chat with one of our experts.