Introducing the First-to-Market Solution for Measuring Ad Revenue ROAS with SKAdNetwork

App marketers can finally leverage real-time ad revenue data to optimize for higher-value users with SKAdNetwork-based campaigns.

You’ve heard (and most likely experienced first hand) the struggles of adapting to the biggest shift to hit mobile marketing probably ever: the deprecation of IDFA-based marketing attribution on iOS. While ad partners and MMPs have provided solutions to help marketers adapt their user acquisition (UA) strategies and measurement, one segment of app developers were arguably left in the dark; ad-revenue-based apps (apps whose monetization is either entirely or partially dependent on ad revenue from in-app advertising).

But that all stops now!

Singular is proud to introduce the first-to-market solution for measuring and optimizing ad revenue ROAS with SKAdNetwork, our Ad Revenue, and Combined Revenue conversion models.

The Post-IDFA Struggle of Ad Revenue-based Apps

Let’s dig into the challenges that ad-revenue based app marketers have been facing when looking to adapt to iOS privacy changes:

1. There were no conversion models suited for ad-revenue-based apps… until now. You’ve heard it repeatedly: defining the suitable conversion model for your app is critical for measuring, reporting, and optimizing against the KPIs that matter. Mobile measurement partners (MMPs) worked to provide marketers the ability to easily define the right conversion models, whether conversion models based on in-app purchases, engagements, key conversions like “completed registrations” or based on a sequence of events like Singular’s Funnel Conversion Model. But ad-revenue-based apps couldn’t define conversion models that help them optimize for ad revenue.
2. Getting real-time and reliable impression-level ad revenue data was a challenge.
   Accurate impression-level ad revenue data was simply not available, making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to understand your true return-on-ad-spend (ROAS). Not having that visibility means ad-revenue-based app marketers didn’t have the insights they need to deliver on growth goals by making timely, data-driven campaign optimizations.
3. Unable to combine cost, SKAN conversions, and impression-level ad revenue.
   Let’s say you did have the ability to get impression-level ad revenue data… you’d still need to be able to accurately combine said data with acquisition cost and SKAN conversion data to unlock insights required to optimize campaigns for your highest value users.

“So what?” you ask? The consequences of the above three challenges meant that if your monetization strategy primarily or even partially includes ad revenue, you were missing a massive piece of the reporting puzzle. Ad-revenue-based apps could not get a complete view of their campaign performance, leading to misinformed decision-making and missed growth opportunities.

Previously, advertisers had to suffice with merely in-app ad impressions for reporting, resulting in massive blind spots detrimental to performance. It assumes that all impressions are valued the same when we all know that’s not the case. Singular and our monetization mediation partners knew this wouldn’t cut it for any app that monetizes with in-app advertising.

Timely, Reliable ROAS Reporting for SKAN-Based Campaigns

At Singular, we’ve worked closely with all the top monetization mediation partners to solve this challenge for ad-revenue-based apps. We are excited to announce the general availability of Ad Revenue Conversion and Combined Revenue Conversion Models for SKAN. Combined Revenue Conversion Model provides the ability to account for BOTH in-app purchase revenue and ad revenue events in your SKAdNetwork reporting. In contrast, Ad Revenue Conversion Model ONLY accounts for (you guessed it) ad revenue from in-app advertising.

This first-to-market solution is built to power app marketers to optimize for actual return on ad spend so they can continue to drive outsized growth for their apps in a post-IDFA era.

Singular’s Ad Revenue Conversion Model and Combined Revenue Conversion Model supports all of the top mediation partners, including:

• ironSource
• MoPub
• AdMob
• Applovin MAX
• With more on the way…

How does our solution work? Until now, mediators sent Singular user-level data via their APIs. Now, we support receiving this data via our updated SDK, allowing Singular to receive ad revenue events from different mediation platforms with ad serving stats and then events from our SDK to build conversion models that account for impression-level ad revenue.

Additionally, advertisers previously struggled to estimate the real-time value of in-app ad impressions because revenue is not reported in real-time by the ad monetization networks. That’s why Singular worked closely with all the top mediation platforms since they can estimate ad revenue per ad impression based on the data you’ve used to configure your ad serving (targeting associated to a bid, i.e., for this app, for this country, I want to get a CPM bid of at least 20 dollars).

Singular not only gets the real-time ad revenue per impression from the mediator, but we’re also taking on the heavy lifting of combining that data with acquisition cost and SKAN conversion data to give you the most complete, timely performance reporting needed o to optimize for your highest value users.

The Most Complete Measurement Solution for Ad-Revenue Based Apps

Going beyond the release of our Ad Revenue and Combined Revenue Conversion Models for SKAN, we’ve added brand new functionalities to ensure that Singular provides the most comprehensive solution in-market for ad-revenue-based apps, whether for iOS or Android marketing efforts. New functionalities include real-time ad revenue postbacks to user acquisition ad networks and near-real-time reporting on true ROAS.

Real-Time Ad Revenue Postbacks
Singular supports real-time ad revenue postbacks to your ad networks. Real-time ad revenue postbacks are a game-changer because it empowers your ad networks to better optimize campaigns for your highest value users (those that bring in the most ad revenue).

Additionally, some networks will limit your access to specific publishers if they don’t have visibility into ad revenue via real-time postbacks. Singular can now post ad revenue events to your UA sources to better optimize ad serving on their end and provide advertisers with additional traffic sources.

Near Real-Time ROAS Reporting
Singular will also provide near real-time reporting, which is also good news for your Android-based campaigns. For current customers using the user-level APIs for their Android activity, switching to the latest SDKs will empower you to have up-to-date insights and reporting to react faster to shifts in performance or growth opportunities. And SDK events offer a real-time solution that will allow you to build ROAS reports, estimate LTV, and optimize for yesterday’s activity which wasn’t an option before the improvements to impression-level revenue data.

The bottom line is Singular now offers ad-revenue-based apps the most comprehensive understanding of ROAS! And this is just the beginning… we’re committed to continuing to innovate on top of the Singular platform to ensure you have everything you need to future-proof your growth.

Already a Singular customer? Contact your customer support manager to enable this feature! Not yet a customer and interested in gaining full access to your ROAS data with SKAdNetwork? Book some time with one of our product experts!