Introducing SK360: Supercharging SKAdNetwork with predictive analytics and fraud protection

By Barak Witkowski

We’ve spent the last 9 months developing solutions to empower customers to grow in a post-iOS 14 future. An important piece of this solution is innovation for SKAdNetwork, one of the critical tools for iOS ad campaign attribution.

Today, we’re happy to share AppsFlyer’s integrated suite for SKAdNetwork – SK360.

SK360 gives advertisers full coverage for every aspect of SKAdNetwork attribution, from integrating with partners, to campaign optimization, fraud protection and even predictive analytics.

The next generation of SKAdNetwork innovation

Over the last few months, we’ve introduced some of our solutions for SKAdNetwork.

Today, we’re excited to introduce two more key functionalities for SKAdNetwork, empowering advertisers to take their iOS campaigns to the next level.

Predict

One of the biggest challenges advertisers face with SKAdNetwork is the timer mechanism. Measurement is limited to specific activity occurring in the first 24-72 hours of activity. How can advertisers make critical campaign decisions based on such limited data?

AppsFlyer’s first-to-market PredictSK solves this very problem.

PredictSK enables advertisers to leverage early signals of engagement and predict long-term campaign performance to make timely optimization decisions.

With PredictSK, advertisers can continue measuring unlimited in-app events to predict the expected LTV of each user. Advertisers can dedicate the 6 bits of their conversion value to LTV prediction, instead of “wasting” their precious conversion value bits on static events (that may or may not provide a good proxy to campaign ROI).

There is no guesswork or crystal ball in this technology; it is all built upon big data, machine learning, and our deep analysis capabilities of each app’s unique usage patterns. The result is an exceptionally accurate prediction model, based on each app’s specific insights. This model not only ensures accurate prediction per each app, but also data compartmentalization: each model is siloed and built only upon the data from that specific app.

PredictSK is a brand new product, and will be released as a premium feature to AppsFlyer customers this Spring. We’re excited to share in this journey, and invite customers to sign up and stay up to date on the progress of PredictSK.

Protect

Apple has introduced some postback cryptographic verification processes for SKAdNetwork, designed to prevent postback manipulations only. These mechanisms do not address the authenticity of the end user’s interaction (impression or click), and leave the gates wide open for ad fraud like click flooding and device farms.

Malicious SKAdNetwork activity is easy to miss, and is hardly ever visible to the naked eye. Behavioral anomalies are even harder to detect with limited available data.

AppsFlyer’s Protect360 suite detects malicious ad activity, thanks to the massive scale of data measured on a daily basis. The multiple attribution models AppsFlyer uses for measurement, make it possible to identify anomalies and fraud indicators can be identified even in an aggregated data reality. The combination of different detection methods coupled with continuous anti-fraud innovation, means that advertisers’ marketing dollars are still safe – even in the new iOS reality.

These two exciting capabilities are part of the 5 building blocks of our SK360 suite, three of which we’ve released and continue to evolve.

Connect

We’ve always prided ourselves in being the centralizing force that connects advertisers with the ecosystem. We have worked hard to uphold this position, enabling our customers to choose, connect and integrate seamlessly with their partners.

Our growing list of SKAdNetwork integrated partners includes key industry players, such as Facebook, Twitter, Snap and ironSource; we’re actively working on integrating many others.

All partners deliver postbacks directly to us, allowing advertisers to focus on what’s truly important – their own success.

Optimize

We’ve taken conversion value mapping and made it accessible, easy and intuitive. It can all be done right in the self-serve configuration menu. You can tinker and experiment with it as much as you need, segmenting and splitting user attributes to achieve the optimal schema.

Analyze

Our SKAdNetwork dashboards and APIs provide a comprehensive visual drill-down of critical performance KPIs, including CVR, ROI, CPI, ARPU, ROAS, eCPA.

The data updates in real-time as postbacks are delivered, providing full-funnel insights based on media source and campaign.

Facing the future with SK360

We’re excited to be leading this first-of-its-kind solution to one of SKAdNetwork’s biggest pain points.

With the full SK360 package and PredictSK included, the ability to get LTV measurement is no longer in question. Advertisers can reap the full benefits of SKAdNetwork’s deterministic attribution, without suffering the inherent disadvantages in its design.