SKAN coarse vs fine conversion values: stop defaulting to fine

SKAN coarse vs fine conversion values: stop defaulting to fine

Apple gives you fine-grained (0-63) or coarse (low/medium/high) conversion values. Teams reflexively pick fine for 'more data' and lose more than they gain.

Fine value
✓ 64 buckets to encode revenue tiers and funnel events
✗ Requires high install volume per campaign to clear Apple's privacy threshold — below it, you get nulls

Coarse value
✓ Survives low-volume campaigns where fine values get suppressed
✓ Higher postback fill rate, more usable signal on small spend
✗ Only three buckets — crude for revenue modeling

Rule of thumb: campaigns under ~15 daily installs almost always do better on coarse. Fine-grained data you never receive is worse than coarse data you actually get.

Verdict: use fine only on high-volume campaigns; default small campaigns to coarse.
Best for: iOS UA managers fighting null postbacks on long-tail campaigns.