Set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema

Multiple forms of measurement have emerged for iOS App campaigns, including conversion modeling and SKAdNetwork. SKAdNetwork helps app advertisers measure their ad activity, such as impressions, clicks, and app installs, on an aggregated level and

has become increasingly important to app advertisers in assessing their iOS campaign performance.

Setting up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema is especially important to measure in-app event performance and more effectively optimize campaigns for post-install actions or a target return on your ad spend. Your schema is a means to designate which in-app events or buckets of in-app revenue matter to your business.

This guide provides an overview of:

01 Best practices to set up your schema
02 Integrating your schema with Google Ads for optimization

Today, you can set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema for in-app event measurement through Google Analytics, a third-party App Attribution Partner, or the Google Ads API. It’s highly recommended that advertisers choose one place to set up their conversion value schema. Conversion value schemas set up through Google Analytics can be exported with the Admin API. After configuring your schema, it will then need to be integrated with your Google Ads account for campaign optimization, more on that below.

While Apple supports two versions of SKAN today, version 3 and 4, Google’s conversion modeling only uses the fine conversion values from each for measurement and campaign optimization. We currently do not support SKAN version 4’s coarse conversion values.

A fine conversion value in your schema refers to a numerical value of 0 to 63 which is sent to ad networks to represent specific user actions within a mobile app. Data for these values can only be sent if the highest privacy threshold is met. By assigning fine conversion values to different in-app events, you can gain more nuanced insights on user behavior and campaign performance. These insights can enable more effective optimization strategies within the privacy constraints of SKAN.

The conversion value (CV) fields you include in your schema will be highly specific to your business and app. You should ensure that these values represent the in-app events you plan on optimizing your App campaigns for and that these events are also present as biddable conversion events within your Google Ads conversion settings.

Watch the video below to get a walk through of an example schema design:

Watch the video

Link to Youtube Video

Considerations for ideating conversion values for your business

add remove

You should include the events that you want to optimize your App campaigns for in your schema. Every additional event you track should be for your own measurement purposes. For any event included in your schema, ensure that the event has more than 10 conversion events per day.

To start designing your schema, you may want to consider starting from the beginning of your user’s journey and listing all the in-app conversion events from upper funnel to lower funnel, also noting their conversion volume and rate. It’s essential to choose high volume events when determining which events to optimize your campaigns for. High volume events will help you avoid high null rates given the constraints of SKAN’s shorter conversion window timers and privacy thresholds.

Example in-app funnel

This diagram illustrates a sample conversion funnel for in-app events.

Aim to achieve around 50 installs per day and consider including high frequency, impactful events in your schema that you plan to bid on in your App campaigns. Below are some example events that you may want to consider:

• Gaming
  
  • Join group
  • Level up
  • Post score
  • Select content
  • Spend virtual currency
  • Tutorial begin
  • Tutorial complete
  • Unlock achievement
  • In-app purchase
• Finance
  
  • Sign up complete
  • Credit check submitted
  • Bank account linked
  • Verified checking or debit
  • First deposit
  • Trade ready
  • Stock purchase
• Retail
  
  • Generate lead
  • View item
  • View item list
  • View search results
  • Purchase refund
  • Add to wishlist
  • Add to cart
  • Begin checkout
  • Add payment info
  • E-commerce purchase
• Travel
  
  • Search
  • View search results
  • View item
  • View item list
  • Add to wishlist
  • Add to cart
  • Add payment info
  • Begin checkout
  • E-commerce purchase

After you’ve set up your SKAdNetwork conversion value schema, you’ll need to integrate your schema events with your Google Ads account in order to enhance the performance of tCPA and tROAS bidding. Currently, this event integration is available in beta. Reach out to your Account Manager to learn more.

Ensure that you have set your conversion value schema to the appropriate measurement mode specific to your App Attribution Partner.

Map your events with Google Ads

As mentioned, today in beta, we offer the ability to utilize your SKAdNetwork schema to improve the optimization of your CPA and ROAS App campaigns. If you are utilizing a third-party App Attribution Partner for SKAdNetwork conversion value schema setting, but bidding on Google Analytics in-app events, it will be critical that the in-app event names set up through your partner align with your Google Analytics in-app event names. As part of this beta, you’ll need to directly map your Google Analytics event names to their third-party event names within the Google Ads interface.

This mapping is important and Google requires it since your events may have different naming conventions. For example, you should ensure your “in_app_purchase” event in your third-party partner interface aligns to “purchase_one” in Google Analytics. Without mapping the events to each other, Google won’t be able to determine which SKAdNetwork conversion values tie to your partner events and Google Analytics events and we won’t be able to calibrate our models effectively.

If you aren’t in this beta, you can still prepare for this step by mapping your events in the Google Ads interface and making sure all your events, both in Google Analytics and your App Attribution Partner, have already been added as conversion events in Google Ads.