In mid-September 2020, Apple will release iOS14 which will have significant implications for ad tech and the ability for marketers to target iOS users.
Users will get control over sharing their IDFA (identifier for advertisers) in apps, and will be asked if they are willing to share their IDFA for ad serving every time an app is installed. Moving from an opt-out standard to opt-in will likely lead to a significant decrease in addressable consumers for marketers.
To help support app install campaigns, Apple prepared version 2.0 of SKAdNetwork, which is a framework that let’s the industry track conversions. However, other use cases such as frequency capping, fraud detection, non-install attribution will remain unaddressed by what Apple offers. You can read more in Apple’s documentation
OpenX is dedicated to supporting our clients and providing solutions that will help both publishers and buyers navigate these changes as seamlessly as possible.
In the short term, OpenX is adding support for Apple’s SKAdNetwork version 2.0 to help advertisers attribute conversions for app installation campaigns on iOS14+. OpenX is going to comply with a IAB Tech Lab solution supporting extensions for SKAdNetwork in bid response and bid requests. In addition, OpenX is committed to supporting advertisers in keeping the control over frequency capping and fraud detection. This will help publishers to enrich their requests and provide more valuable traffic to the buyers.
As a long term solution, OpenX is looking into integrating identity solutions like OpenAudience, LiveRamp’s ATS and other identity providers to enable email/hashed email targeting for in-app traffic.
For updates around how we are addressing BID REQUESTS, BID RESPONSES, and OTHER ADDITIONAL FIELDS, we have prepared detailed information in the documentation section of our site. You can access that here:
https://docs.openx.com/Content/demandpartners/ios14-and-skadnetwork-support.html
Finally, we have gotten many questions from our partners in recent weeks, so we thought it would be helpful to proactively address some of them that we have been hearing most frequently:
How will the behavior of various bid requests change when a user opts out of IDFA usage?
If OpenX does not receive any IDFA, or if the ID value for mobile traffic is set to null, OpenX will not pass that field further. If a DSP has a setting to filter out unmatched traffic in their traffic sets, there will be no bid requests sent within that traffic set.
If DSP currently filters out any unmatched traffic from the OpenX traffic set, will the IDFA opted-out traffic be sent forward?
No, OpenX will not send non-IDFA traffic if the unmatched traffic setting is active. However, we are considering adding a capability to allow targeting on non-IDFA inventory.
Are the bid response fields optional or required?
Most of the BidResponse.seatbid.bid.ext.skadn are required if the bid requests included the SKAdNetworkIDs.
Do you plan to enrich bid requests by providing more contextual data and/or device signals?
Not at this point. Our plan is to support the list of the fields mentioned above covering frequency capping and fraud detection.
Do you have estimations of user opt-out rate on iOS from sharing IDFA?
All estimations at this point are guesses, however, in our dialogue with both supply, and demand partners we expect the drop between 60-90%. We anticipate that many app install budgets will be redirected to mobile web.
Do OpenX plan to register for SKAdNetwork?
No. It is recommended that DSPs register as SKAdNetworks to take advantage of the ability to get the campaign ID in bid response and attribute the conversion.