Liftoff: Advertising on Android will flourish due to Apple’s IDFA policy, but not for long

• According to marketers, in 2021, advertising on Android can expect a real boom. The launch of Apple‘s new IDFA policy will force about a third of mobile marketers to spend more on the Android platform this year.
• But this situation will not last long. It’s all about how advertising works on both platforms.
• Android provides apps with much larger downloads, while iOS generates more revenue. Liftoff explains this by the fact that Apple technology is usually used by residents of rich countries, but Android smartphones are more popular in developing regions.
• Such a contrast in the standard of living of users also affects the cost of advertising itself. For example, in 2020, the CPA (price per action) for traditional banner ads on iOS was $36.77. Whereas on Android it was 3.5 times lower — $10.28.

“In the short term, publishers who are monetized through advertising on iOS may suffer. This will happen due to the fact that marketers will not immediately understand how to evaluate traffic without an identifier. This will lead to a decrease in CPM,” said Mark Ellis, head of Liftoff. “But then, most likely, CPM will return to the current level. In the end, the demand for iOS users is not going anywhere. iOS users are too profitable an audience to abandon it completely in favor of Android.”

• Liftoff also believes that changes in relation to IDFA will seriously undermine some companies and strengthen the positions of others. Those who are engaged in retargeting will face the greatest difficulties.
• Advertisers using DSP with not very high-quality infrastructure will have no less problems. The solution may be the development of technologies capable of recognizing non-personalized signals that are associated with behavior in the application. If the marketer correctly evaluates such signals (for example, the time of day or the format of the ad), the ad will increase the conversion of downloads.