The Ledger #20: Play Compliance and a Q4 Earnings Preview
By UA Ledger staff — Archive date: 2 min read
This Q4 earnings preview covers Google's Play compliance rollout, Privacy Sandbox retirement follow-up and the ad platform results due next week.
Three items for this fortnight's roundup, plus a Q4 earnings preview of what falls due over the fortnight ahead, each with what it means for a buyer working a live account.
This fortnight's Play compliance news and Q4 earnings preview
Google is reportedly beginning the next phase of its US Play Store compliance changes, moving past alternative billing into rival app store catalogue access, as covered this week in Google Play's Rival App Stores Start Rolling Out in the US. What it means for buyers: nothing changes in your campaigns yet. Do ask your MMP now, though, whether its attribution setup has a defined path for a rival-store install, before any store confirms real US volume.
Google is formally retiring Privacy Sandbox following the UK CMA's release of its commitments, a story this column unpacked in Privacy Sandbox Retirement: What Buyers Actually Lose. What it means for buyers: this mostly closes a door that April's cookie reversal already shut, but check any web shop measurement pilot that quietly depended on a Privacy Sandbox API for reporting.
The Q4 earnings calendar for ad platforms opens in the coming week. Meta and Alphabet are both due to report toward the end of October; AppLovin and Unity follow in early November. What it means for buyers: this is the point in the quarter where guidance language from the largest ad platforms starts shaping expectations for CPM and demand through the holiday period. That happens well before any of it shows up in your own account performance.
That's a lighter fortnight for hard news than the one before it, mostly because both compliance stories run on Google's own slower internal timeline rather than a court-imposed one, so the earnings calendar is where this roundup expects the real signal; this platform roundup will carry a fuller read once Meta and Alphabet have reported and AppLovin and Unity have followed.
Related archive reading
These articles provide related context and remain subject to their stated review status.