“The ad tech ecosystem and advertising, in general, was spoiled — it got too easy to get too distinctive in targeting strategies,” said Ben Holmes, general manager of DSP at Digital Turbine.

Fine-tuning and configuring campaigns to better match the nuances and audience opportunities of iOS versus Android unlocks a range of competitive advantages. Here, experts help unpack some of the ways iOS and Android overlap — all the while putting to rest the assumptions and myths about those audiences marketers tend to believe.

iOS and Android audiences are more similar than advertisers may realize

Before recent privacy features appeared in operating systems such as iOS 14.5 and iOS 15, the targeting available to marketers was working at pace. Opt-in rates were good, and there were plenty of ways for advertisers to reach their target audience, and marketers in the United States were perhaps leaning in Cupertino’s direction.

“In the U.S. market, iOS displayed a higher return on investment,” said Holmes. “Therefore, the attitude became that iOS users must be a more affluent audience, meaning they have more money to spend and are more willing to transact on a mobile device. That became the assumed understanding of the audience: ‘These are the higher income cohorts in America, and therefore you should invest more on iOS if you want a bigger bang for your buck,’ without any nuances tied to it.”

Beyond the privacy features that Apple then introduced that undermined that status quo, assumptions such as that have created other risks: Marketers stand to lose out on significant audiences if they neglect Android users in their targeting strategies.

“There are very expensive Android devices out there, some even more expensive than iPhones,” Holmes added. “In that tier-one category of Samsung Galaxys and even the new Google Pixel, they are not cheap devices, so it’s not logical. You can’t make these sweeping statements and then apply those to millions of users. They can’t be bucketed so easily. It’s always going to be more nuanced and more granular than you want it to be.”

Other demographics further alter marketers’ understanding of who’s on the two operating systems and what they represent.

Lens on demographics — minus assumptions

For the most part, the demographics between iOS and Android users in the U.S. are relatively the same — very nearly split between females and males. And the difference in users by age group is minimally different as well, with 58% of users ages 25–34 and 53% of 35–44 opting for iOS. Comparatively, 43% and 50%, respectively, choose Android, according to GWI. The one age group that demonstrates a more significant difference is the 18–24 group, …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron