SKAdNetwork (SKAN)

SKAdNetwork is Apple's framework for attributing app installs on iOS to the ad campaign that drove them, without exposing device- or user-level identifiers to the advertiser or ad network. It reports attribution as aggregated postbacks tied to a campaign, rather than as an install-to-click match on an individual device.

Instead of linking a specific click to a specific install, SKAdNetwork sends the ad network a postback containing the campaign identifier and a limited "conversion value," a small integer that can encode coarse in-app activity (such as whether a user reached a certain event) within a set time window, with randomized delay and thresholds applied specifically to prevent the data from being used to reconstruct individual user behavior. This is a fundamentally different model from device-level install attribution used elsewhere, which is why a mobile measurement partner is typically needed to reconcile SKAdNetwork postbacks with other measurement sources into a usable report.

SKAdNetwork matters because it became central to iOS advertising measurement after Apple restricted the device identifiers previously used for cross-app tracking, forcing advertisers to work with aggregated, delayed, and privacy-constrained data instead of granular, real-time attribution. The main pitfalls are the coarse attribution windows and single conversion value limiting how much post-install behavior can be measured, and the postback delay making same-day optimization difficult compared with device-level attribution.