SKAdNetwork Updates: What’s New and What Marketers Need to Know

As mobile app marketing continues to evolve, Apple’s SKAdNetwork (SKAN) has become a critical tool for marketers. With privacy as a core focus, SKAN enables effective ad attribution while sticking to Apple’s uncompromising user data protections.

As of 2025, Apple’s SKAdNetwork has introduced several important updates to enhance app marketers’ capabilities.

In this article, we’ll explore the latest changes and how they can help you optimize your strategies.

What Is SKAdNetwork?

Introduced by Apple in 2018, SKAd (SKAN) is a framework for preserving privacy in mobile app install attribution. It purports to measure conversion rates of app install campaigns without compromising users’ identities. Moreover, it also gives marketers an aggregate view of both ATT (App Tracking Transparency) consenting and non-consenting users.

In recent years, SKAdNetwork has undergone significant updates to meet the evolving needs of app marketers. As of 2025, Apple has introduced several new features and enhancements to the framework, making it even more powerful and marketer-friendly.

How Does It Work?

Back in 2018, Apple developed SKAN to ensure that while marketers receive details about the outcomes of their mobile user acquisition initiatives, any device-level or personally identifying information data is completely permissioned.

As of 2025, here’s how SKAdNetwork functions as a privacy-first attribution framework:

Install Attribution Without User Data
When a user clicks on an ad and installs the app, SKAdNetwork tracks the event without revealing any personal data. The attribution process is aggregated and anonymized, ensuring users’ privacy is maintained.
Postbacks for Campaign Performance
SKAdNetwork generates a postback—a data signal sent to the ad network—indicating whether an install was attributed to the campaign. The postback includes limited information, such as the campaign ID and conversion value, which advertisers can use to assess performance.
Conversion Values for User Engagement
Conversion values provide a way to track post-install events, such as in-app purchases or sign-ups. However, in earlier versions of SKAN, marketers could only work with a single conversion value, which limited the ability to measure ongoing user engagement.

SKAdNetwork: The Limitations and Certain Problems for Marketers

Despite the 2025 updates introducing crucial improvements, specific limitations still hinder marketers from fully optimizing their campaigns.

Delayed Data and Attribution Windows

One of the primary issues with SKAdNetwork is the delayed data processing, which can take up to 72 hours. Additionally, the limited attribution timer reduces the window for accurate insights, making it challenging to assess campaign performance promptly.

Retargeting Campaigns and Measurement Granularity

Marketers continue to face restrictions with retargeting campaigns, as well as a lack of detailed ad set/ad group and ad-level measurement capabilities. This limitation hampers the ability to fine-tune campaigns based on specific audience segments and creative variations.

Privacy Thresholds and In-App Event Data

Among the most pressing limitations are privacy thresholds, which prevent marketers from understanding which user acquisition efforts are most effective. These thresholds restrict in-app event data visibility, making it harder for app marketers to identify their most valuable users and optimize accordingly.

Understanding Privacy Thresholds

Although SKAdNetwork provides install data at the campaign level, it faces privacy thresholds when it comes to in-app events. These constraints can severely impact data-driven decision-making, so understanding these limits and applying workarounds will be crucial for marketers who want to extract the maximum value from their SKAdNetwork campaigns.

How Does It Affect In-App Events on SKAd?

Privacy rules now use postbacks with “null conversion values,” meaning some data is lost. The higher the null conversion value rate, the less data we have. For example, if a campaign (Campaign A) has a 50% null conversion rate, it means we can’t tell if half of the users who installed the app made a purchase or subscribed.

All in-app actions from these 50% of users will be seen as organic, meaning we can’t link them back to the campaign. On the other hand, if a campaign has a 0% null conversion rate, it gets full in-app event data within 72 hours of the install.

Since Apple hasn’t set clear limits on the number of installs per day, different platforms suggest their own numbers to get in-app events data from SKAN campaigns.

Facebook recommends 88 installs per day per campaign.
Snapchat suggests 75 installs.
TikTok asks for 120+ installs.

Even though TikTok requires the highest number of installs, we’ve noticed that Facebook tends to have the highest null conversion rate, meaning we lose more data there, even with more installs.

What Can You Do to Get Around Privacy Thresholds?

While SKAdNetwork’s privacy thresholds remain a challenge, especially with the 2025 updates, there are still ways to work around these limitations and optimize your campaigns. Here are a few strategies to consider:

1. Consolidate Your Campaigns—When It Makes Sense From a Targeting Perspective

To meet the privacy thresholds, many advertising platforms recommend consolidating campaigns and budgets into a single campaign. However, it’s important to note that this approach could reduce your ability to analyze granular data and scale effectively.

If your app’s decision-making process doesn’t rely heavily on granular data such as gender, age, or location, consolidating campaigns may be a viable option. This could help you hit the necessary thresholds and bypass privacy restrictions. However, for apps that need to identify high-value users or engage in detailed testing, it’s essential to test strategies one step at a time. Testing each campaign can help you understand what works and optimize accordingly.

2. Review SKAdNetwork Conversion Mapping

SKAdNetwork offers conversion mapping for campaigns, but there’s a 63-bit capacity for mapping in-app events (which may increase with SKAN 4.0). Since each variable (event, revenue, activity timer, and funnel) reduces mapping capacity, you need to strike the right balance.

For example, apps can focus on mapping high-priority in-app events that have a longer post-install activity window, or they can prioritize revenue and user activity. However, one major limitation with SKAdNetwork is that LTV (Lifetime Value) measurement is impossible because of the privacy model. Marketers will face difficulties tracking long-term user behavior, especially for apps with longer conversion journeys (such as free trials or recurring subscriptions). As a result, campaign performance tracking will be limited, and decisions must be based on shorter-term metrics.

Why It Matters in 2025

As user acquisition costs continue to rise and privacy regulations become stricter, tools like SKAdNetwork are more critical than ever. By balancing privacy with performance measurement, SKAN empowers marketers to refine their strategies, focus on high-value users, and drive sustainable growth.

The 2025 updates signal Apple’s commitment to supporting app marketers while staying true to its privacy-first principles. Whether you’re optimizing retention campaigns or experimenting with new creative strategies, the enhanced SKAdNetwork offers the tools you need to succeed in a privacy-centric world.

Do you want to level up your app marketing campaign successfully? Start by getting in touch with us.

Originally published on July 25, 2022. Updated on January 16, 2025.