Boost your profitability with a single source of truth 

Have you ever tried to follow multiple conversations at the same time? Not easy, is it? 

Yet that’s exactly what UA managers are forced to do, day in, day out, as they attempt to decipher fractured data sources. 

Since the iOS 14 updates that ushered in Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework and SKAdNetwork (SKAN) measurement system, app marketers have been grappling with multiple data streams, siloes, and a loss of data signals, causing huge headaches for attribution. 

All the noise means data duplications are common — in some cases, we found they represent up to 62% of SKAN installs — and it’s difficult to have confidence in your decisions. 

Fortunately, there is a solution. It involves consolidating your siloed data into a single source of truth, so you can see the true value of your marketing efforts and take action to make your budget work harder. 

From SOS to SSOT 

A single source of truth (SSOT) cuts through the noise, helping marketers get the trusted performance view they so desperately need to piece together multiple measurement frameworks. 

By deduplicating your data, you can ensure each user is only attributed once, giving you a much clearer picture of campaign performance. And, once you’re clear on what works and what doesn’t, you can be much more strategic in how you allocate your marketing budget — ultimately boosting your bottom line. 

That’s exactly what happened at Goodgame Studios, where the marketing team were struggling to interpret data from parallel platforms and inadvertently counting installs twice. Using AppsFlyer’s SSOT tool has given them far more confidence in their projections, budgeting, and campaign optimization decisions. 

To see how you could start reaping the multiple rewards an SSOT offers, let’s explore the gap between what you’re doing now and what you could be doing.

The difference between your current bidding strategy and SSOT

When it comes to online advertising, being able to tweak your bidding strategy and adjust your budget allocation accordingly gives your business a clear competitive edge. But how do you know you’re making the right decisions?

In most cases, existing strategies focus on optimizing towards a certain KPI, be it tCPI, tCPA, or tROAS (with t standing for target). Put these performance metrics into the SSOT prism, however, and your numbers behave differently, showing better results than expected. Let’s find out why. 

Pre-iOS 14, MMPs used to offer (almost exclusively) last-touch attribution models within their attribution window. But nowadays, attribution that relies on user-level data is limited and offers very little certainty. How do you combine these methods with Apple’s deterministic SKAdNetwork? 

You guessed it — SSOT. 

If you were aiming for a certain CPI and an SSOT showed you a lower number than expected, that means a measurement gap has been preventing you from creating a competitive advantage.

Here are some of the ways an SSOT could benefit your business: 

• More high-value users, for no extra cost. 
• More accurate eCPI, based on the true number of installs — so you can see where to spend and which campaigns to shut down.
• Better ROAS, because you can now attribute all installs to the correct ad network.

Check out our earlier blog to learn more about how an SSOT actually works.

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What could this mean for your business? 

In a nutshell: You can develop more accurate bidding strategies, justifying higher spend in the right places. 

Let’s say network A yielded 100,000 installs that cost you $100,000. That gives you a CPI of $1. 

After deduping the numbers through an SSOT sifter, you discover that, in fact: 

• 200,000 installs came in from network A 
• eCPI is really $0.5 
• ROAS is higher than you thought it would be 

This means you can now dial up the bid to $2, increase paid installs, and boost profitability, while keeping SSOT eCPI under $1.

Why is tCPI so important? Using SSOT, your spend remains the same at $1, while your eCPI goes down to 50c per user (eCPI = spend / SSOT input). With a new tCPI in place, you can now approach network A and ask them to “crank up the volume” to keep the productive stream of installs coming. 

How to implement a new bidding strategy for SSOT

With SSOT as the new sheriff in town, you can set a new CPI or tCPI based on the ratio of current CPI divided by SSOT eCPI. You can then apply this to each channel, campaign, and even creative.

Calculate your adjusted tCPI follows: 

Note that the spend pie will get bigger, alongside the budget distribution for each media channel:

To learn more about the potential impact an SSOT can have on your business – read here.

A word about budgets & the path ahead

Understandably, budgets are likely to flow towards the higher potential uplift. If, on the other hand, the SSOT eCPI isn’t significantly lower, there’s no need to change anything in your budget allocation.

Whatever happens, get ready to monitor your true CPI goal vs. your SSOT eCPI constantly, as the eCPI gap will naturally fluctuate from time to time. And because this is a new bidding strategy that will constantly change, be sure to not only keep a finger on its pulse, but also adjust it weekly. 

And as well as shaping better bidding strategies, an SSOT can help you get more from all your current measurement models. By deduping data from your aggregate models, you can make the most of full LTV data based on traditional attribution, as well as full deterministic data points from SKAN. 

Having certainty in the true results of your marketing efforts is mission-critical. And being able to funnel your performance stats through the prism of an SSOT ensures you can continuously optimize your ad spend and (finally) scale your business with much-needed confidence.

SSOT and AppsFlyer: regaining iOS visibility  

At AppsFlyer, we launched our Single Source of Truth solution in 2022 to help marketers thrive in the post-iOS 14 world. And we continue to enhance it with new features as the privacy and attribution landscape evolves.   

Clients choose AppsFlyer’s SSOT to overcome SKAN limitations, dedupe their data streams, and make smarter decisions faster. It gives you a 360° view of campaign performance based on data you can trust. Still have questions about SSOT? Watch our Ask us anything: Single Source of Truth webinar and let our experts bring you up to speed.

Key takeaways 

• A single source of truth (SSOT) solves the challenges of siloed marketing data in the post-iOS 14 world, balancing data accuracy with user privacy. It deduplicates your data for accurate attribution, enabling you to make informed decisions about campaign performance and spend. 
• In particular, an SSOT can give you a more accurate view of paid installs, eCPI, and ROAS. 
• An SSOT allows you to constantly tweak your bidding strategy as your eCPI fluctuates, giving you a competitive edge as you bid higher on the right channels.