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Do you need an MMP? AppsFlyer, Adjust and the state of SKAdNetwork (2026)

Why mobile measurement partners (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Branch…) remain mandatory for app advertisers buying Meta at scale, what the 2026 AppsFlyer consortium investment means for neutrality, and why SKAdNetwork/AdAttributionKit is not worth heavy investment.

Updated 2026-10-24·2 sources·measurementmmpappsflyeradjustskadnetworkadattributionkitattattribution

Do you need an MMP? (2026)

TL;DR

  • If Meta is a top-3 channel for app installs, you need an MMP. Meta only exposes install attribution to members of its partner programme (originally FMP, now the MMP programme). That rule is why MMPs are ubiquitous.
  • MMPs are also used as core analytics. Switching costs are high, so pick carefully; migrating is a large engineering distraction.
  • Incrementality vendors build on MMP data rather than replacing it. Haus requires every app client to have an MMP.
  • Neutrality. In June 2026 Meta, Google, Unity and Moloco jointly invested $1B in AppsFlyer as a minority, no-influence consortium. Adjust has been owned by AppLovin since Feb 2021.
  • SKAdNetwork / AdAttributionKit. Seufert: “dead”. Apple stopped shipping updates after advertisers spent millions adapting. Do the minimum compliance work, not a strategy built on it.

Details

Why everyone has an MMP. Eric Seufert calls the MMP market a “cottage industry” that Facebook created. To attribute Facebook app installs you had to go through an approved partner, with no exceptions. At Wooga his team built its own attribution for every channel except Facebook, and King also had in-house attribution.1 The tech could be built in-house, but programme access couldn’t. Seufert calls the result an “MMP tax”, priced above the service’s quality.2 Many companies now use the MMP for core analytics, which adds lock-in.2

Switching. Studios considered leaving Adjust after AppLovin bought it, but MMP switching costs are high. Fewer left over the acquisition than left AppLovin’s ecosystem when it launched its own game studio. Adjust lost ground mainly because AppsFlyer out-invested it on features.34 App advertisers are pragmatic: cutting AppLovin out of the mix just cuts off revenue.5

The AppsFlyer consortium (June 2026). Olivia Kory reads it as preserving an “independent arbiter of truth”: no single buyer can put its thumb on the scale. The open question is whether advertisers will perceive it as neutral; brands distrust platform-built tools such as Meta conversion lift or Google Meridian.6 Seufert’s speculation is that most of the money bought out 2017/2020 investors who wanted an exit. The alternative was a forced sale to a buyer who “you wouldn’t want controlling that critical infrastructure”.7

Measurement ≠ attribution anymore. Attribution stays table stakes and part of a toolkit, but “no one thinks of measurement as attribution anymore”.8 Thomas Petit is surprised how many app advertisers still run on the MMP alone.9

SKAdNetwork. Seufert (June 2026): Apple pushed companies into adopting SKAdNetwork wholesale, under threat of app removal. Single companies spent millions adapting, and five years later Apple no longer even publishes updates. He calls it “completely dysfunctional, incomplete” and “effectively useless”.1011 The platforms’ AppsFlyer investment signals they agree it won’t become meaningful.12

Practical guidance

Disagreements / caveats

  • The “SKAN is dead” verdict is Seufert’s opinion, voiced emphatically. Apple hasn’t formally deprecated it.
  • The view that the AppsFlyer money went mostly to existing investors is explicitly speculation (“I don’t have any inside information”).7

Footnotes

  1. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 16:40 — Eric Seufert ↩

  2. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 17:26 — Eric Seufert ↩ ↩2

  3. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 19:48 — Eric Seufert ↩

  4. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 20:40 — Eric Seufert ↩

  5. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 21:29 — Eric Seufert ↩

  6. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 06:28 — Olivia Kory ↩

  7. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 11:38 — Eric Seufert ↩ ↩2

  8. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 10:46 — Eric Seufert ↩

  9. S07, E30: MDM Mailbag #8 (with Thomas Petit) @ 08:15 — Thomas Petit ↩

  10. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 31:13 — Eric Seufert ↩

  11. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 33:44 — Eric Seufert ↩

  12. S07, E21: AppsFlyer and the new dynamics of mobile attribution (with Olivia Kory) @ 30:24 — Eric Seufert ↩