A new report from Remerge and Fyber assesses the state of programmatic advertising after the rollout of the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework and looks at the trends that will influence app marketers in 2022. 

Data from Remerge’s post-IDFA dashboard shows that the impact of ATT is nearing its peak, with the global adoption rate for iOS 14.5+ now at over 80 percent. The number of iOS bid requests for ID users has dipped since the introduction of Apple’s privacy changes, but the volume of IDFA inventory still accounts for more than 50 percent of the programmatic market for iOS. This amount is higher than initially expected and is enough for app marketers to run effective advertising campaigns at scale.

In part three of the ID or No ID? series, Güven Soydan, VP Product at Remerge, and Yoni Markovizky, GM Marketplace at Fyber, provide their take on what’s happening in the programmatic advertising industry and share their thoughts on what app marketers should look out for in 2022.

Here are some key takeaways from the report.

Android is experiencing significant growth
Yoni Markovizky evaluates data trends from Fyber’s platforms since the ATT rollout and discusses the growth of Android:

“For the very first time, we see that Android apps are making more money than iOS apps on our platforms. iOS is holding in there, at almost fifty-fifty — but the growth trend is for Android. While iOS remains strong and has not suffered a significant drop, Android is seeing growth. Developers have also made tactical decisions to invest less in user acquisition (UA) on iOS and shift to Android — resulting in brands buying much more on Android. We are also seeing developers allocating resources to Android, including some developers investing more in games for Android, whereas before, they were more iOS-centric.”

Meaningful measurement structures to inspire change
Güven Soydan talks about what he expects to see as we enter 2022: 

“The move towards a privacy-first ecosystem, of course, will bring about a more delayed, fundamental, and everlasting change to the industry — a wind of change that is not driven by technological limitations but by the minds of the humans in the industry. I expect to see company strategies that push marketers to demand new and more meaningful measurement structures, along with more interest in deeper advertising metrics.

The role of Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) as the aggregators and consolidators of data will not remain intact for the long term. This situation will cause one of these two things: MMPs will become all-round value and production optimization platforms, or they will come up with innovative ways to represent the combined impact of both marketing and product operations.”

Privacy is a bigger priority than ever before
“The industry is strong and mobile advertising remains on the rise”, states Yoni Markovizky.

“The way we’ve dealt with the changes says a lot about the resilience of industry players, as well as their willingness to adapt to the new privacy era mobile users demanded. Privacy is a bigger priority than ever for consumers, and the direction is clear. Apple made a significant step and the industry is following. Google’s announcement of steps towards further restrictions of developer access to the Google Advertising ID (GAID), as well as additional privacy-aware policies likely to be rolled out in 2022, is yet another confirmation of this direction.”

It’s a level playing field
Advertisers and platforms continue to test and optimize their setups in a no-ID environment. As it stands, there is not a standardized approach to navigate this privacy-first ecosystem. There may be fewer IDs on iOS, but apps can still engage with their audiences; creatives and contextual data points, such as time of day and day of the week, are becoming even more important.

Pan Katsukis, Remerge CEO, states, “look out for opportunities in 2022. Platforms like Facebook are among those organizations most affected by what’s going on. They were exploiting ID traffic and attributing themselves. It’s now a more level playing field for everyone.”

More consolidation to come in 2022
“I expect privacy changes to drive even more consolidation in our market, among other causes. Companies that understand the importance of cross-promotion, where attribution is still possible, will be in the new privacy reality and will strive to consolidate with other parts of the value chain. They understand how this works and will look to scale up these campaigns under their umbrella.” Yoni Markovizky

Additional insights from Remerge and Fyber
Access the full analysis by downloading the third edition of the ID or No ID? series.