Is Branch's SAN Deferred Deep Linking product impacted?

We want to share a quick update on the impact of iOS 14’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) changes on Branch's SAN Deferred Deep Linking functionality.

In short, SAN Deferred Deep Linking will only work for users who have opted in, and it will be delayed until they opt in. This feature relies on having IDFA on install in order to call out to Self-Attributing Networks (SANs) like Facebook, Google and Snap. Because IDFA will never be present on install, we cannot call out to SANs to retrieve ad information. Thus we have no information to return to the client app. Then, after the user opts in to tracking, we will be able to call out to SANs and retrieve any ad data. At that point we will return it to the app for deep linking.

Additionally, SAN networks have not (yet) built any functionality to support deferred deep linking in campaigns measured via SKAdNetwork.

Android is not impacted. Deep linking on Android is not impacted. Additionally, deep linking for non-paid use cases, such as email, Journeys and user-to-user referrals are not impacted. Direct deep linking -- deep links that are clicked with the app already installed -- are not impacted. In all of these cases, deep linking will continue functioning unchanged.

What Branch is doing about it. We have proactively made a change on our backend. We can no longer call out to SANs on the install event, which won’t have an IDFA. Instead, we will call out on the first request we get with an IDFA. We will return SAN data, if available, at that time.

Impact. Many users will never opt in to tracking. SANs will no longer be able to provide ad data for those users. This means we will no longer be able to provide the SAN Deferred Deep Linking product for those same users. We anticipate that a minority of users will opt in to tracking. We will continue to deliver SAN data for that minority of customers, after they have opted in.

Guidance to you. There is no action for you to take. Due to how the iOS advertising ecosystem is changing, the SAN Deferred Deep Linking product is changing. It will now only work for users who opt in to tracking. There is no available mechanism for this to work for other users.