The biggest lesson the mobile advertising industry has to learn right now is how important it is to track campaigns, says Ran Avrahamy, head of marketing for mobile analytics and attribution platform AppsFlyer.
“It’s taking the advertising industry time to move from desktop to mobile,” he says. “However, for those that are already advertising on mobile, they don’t necessarily understand how to track campaigns properly or that they need a deeplinking solution, since there are no links nor an industry standard on mobile.”
And the absence of deeplinking is one reason that consumers undergo a disruptive mobile experience with broken links, Ran adds.
AppsFlyer was created to help app marketers track which campaigns are resulting in installs. Here, Ran talks about how it works and why these analytics are so important in today’s digital marketplace. Read on:
Can you tell us the story behind AppsFlyer?
AppsFlyer entered the mobile space to fill an important void with ad analytics. Marketers were accustomed to the website model of measuring ad campaigns to see where conversions were coming from. However, the same model doesn’t work in mobile, so it was difficult to attribute conversions. The advantage of AppsFlyer is its ability to show marketers which campaigns are bringing the installs.
What products/services do you offer?
Appsflyer is a mobile advertising analytics and attribution platform for app marketers. The unbiased, real-time data allows for on-the-spot campaign optimization. The platform offers:
1. Retention reports
2. OneLink, our smart deeplinking solution
3. Retention reports and cohort analysis
4. Integration with over 900 media partners
5. A Facebook and Twitter Mobile Measurement Partner
6. Push and Pull APIs
7. Support for bundled app tracking on iOS
8. Manual in-app events
9. Server to Server for offline event tracking
10. Rich in-app events
Who should be using them?
Our SDK should be installed in every app that is actively acquiring and retaining users through a mobile campaign. It doesn’t matter if you’re working with a DSP, RTB or another type of ad network because we are integrated with over 900 media partners. In addition, we also have solutions for companies working with agencies. Any app vertical can benefit.
What are the biggest headlines or most interesting developments in the mobile advertising industry today?
The mobile industry is demanding that consumers be empowered to control data provided to advertisers. It will be interesting to see if it will gain momentum; and if it does, how the advertising industry will overcome it.
Why are analytics so important to brands entering the mobile advertising space?
Real-time and unbiased attribution is the name of the game here. AppsFlyer ensures that only one media source is given credit for an app install, allowing marketers to optimise their campaigns accordingly to get the maximum ROI.
What numbers/information should brands be paying closer attention to measure the success of their campaign?
– Brands should be reviewing the CPI or CPA (cost per action) from each media source to ensure they are getting quality users.
– Geography: This is sometimes an issue of quantity over quality. You can get a massive number of users from Indonesia, but are they as quality as American users?
– The lifetime value of customers to ensure they are getting the best ROI.
– Review numbers in cohort reports to measure users by the same benchmarks.
– Retention: Are your users opening the app more than once?
What seems to be the biggest determining factors in the success or failure of an app?
First, it’s important to build a good product, meaning the app is both useful and engaging. Users are becoming savvier and more demanding, and gimmicks don’t cut it. That’s why it’s important to invest in the app user interface and overall user experience. Users need to intuitively understand how the app works as soon as they open it. It’s also important to integrate a social component in an app to make it sticky and to help it go viral.
Once you have that down, ROI above all like any other business!
Advertisers cannot continue to pour money into campaigns without seeing results. That’s why mobile advertising analytics and attribution are so vital.
What numbers do you think brands often place too much emphasis on?
We moved from a CPC model to a CPI model for a reason, and there are still developers that believe it’s a valuable metric. More sophisticated operations are looking for Cost Per Event/Cost Per Action models. It’s no longer enough for someone to install an app; he or she needs to be active in the app. It’s a slow shift but one being made right now because it impacts the bottom line.
What digital innovation are you most excited about these days? Why do you think it might be a game changer?
The Apple Watch and the entire Internet of Things field is going to explode and change the way marketers reach out to consumers via ads. These devices have more sophisticated sensors than the usual mobile devices we’ve been accustomed to. It opens advertising up to a range of exciting possibilities.
In terms of the mobile advertising industry, IMO TV is going to be the new frontier for acquiring app users. Soon, developers will promote something on TV and will be able to track and attribute everything in their AppsFlyer dashboard. It’s the ultimate in having a holistic view of their campaigns. They will be able to see mobile, web, offline and TV events in one dashboard.
Connect with Ran on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check in with Glance about your next app project.
