What exactly is App Attribution? | Guide for Aspiring App Marketers

Okay, App Marketers, I'm going to start today's article with a quick question, "You have optimized your app really well (Well done for that), you have also set an excellent paid UA campaign in place, and now your app has started getting hundreds or even thousands of users every day.

What's happening next? Why are your users not staying with your app? Why have they stopped using it? What's going on in their mind?"

Lots of mindboggling questions right? This question, right here, alone is enough to keep you awake at nights.

How do we know what are the users thinking right before quitting our app? Well, do not worry, after reading today's article, you are sure going to be much more knowledgeable about the solution and ready to jump on the "App Attribution" train.

What exactly is App Attribution?

Mobile App Attribution is the process of creating various touch points and events in your app that can help you estimate the beahiour of your app users.

If you are an avid advertiser, App Attribution can help you differentiate the source of your users among multiple ad networks.

An average App Marketer like you might be running ads on several platforms and networks.

For example, if I am running ads on Facebook, Google, Apple Search Ads, and Mopub, then, without proper Attribution, it would be almost next to impossible to know which platform is actually responsible for sending the highest qualty traffic to my app.

Of course, you can get an idea of the overall installs using the basic analytics of each Ad Network, DSPs, and SSPs, but you won't be able to know which network sent you the most retaining users who converted into paying users after a while.

This helps you determine which of your campaigns worked best and how you should use the data to plan your future campaigns.

For example, for an iOS app, it may be estimated that Apple Search Ads will provide the best value as the search intent is the strongest there but there is a large number of apps that may perform better on Facebook, Google, and/or in-app advertising networks.

Let's learn App Attribution with an example:

Let's say you love playing games. On a sunny day, you decide to stay at home and play games on your smartphone.

Halfway in the game, you are out of energy to beat the boss and lack the points to upgrade your character. The game offers you to watch a rewarded ad to get enough points to upgrade the character. Well, there's nothing wrong with watching an ad to get power up right?

You start watching the ad, halway through the ad, you like the appealing gameplay and tap on the ad.

It redirects you to the App Store where you download the app and start playing the new game enthusiastically.

Now remember that this game has a proper attribution setup in place.

Now assume a second scenrio.

You watch an ad, taps on it, redirects to the App Store, downloads the game, but this time, the game does not have any attribution set in place.

So, in both scenarios, the game whose ad you saw would recieve installs containing your click and install data.

However, the former game--with attribution in place--would know how long did you play the game, what kind of in-app purchase did you make, at what point did you leave the app, and after how many days did you reinstall the app.

App Attribution vs No App Attribution:

So you see, on one hand, the former game is able to drive better conclusions about its advertising efforsts.

It gets more value for its money as it gets to know the behaviour, retention rate, and ROAS of its users.

The latter game, on the other hand, just received an install and never knew what the user did after launching the app. Did he stay? Did he delete the app right after downloading it? Did he share it with his friends? Nothing!

It simply will never know about it until and unless it sets a proper attribution SDK in place.

What is an App Attribution Window?

An Attibution windows activates after the first click or install. It informs you of how long did the user take to convert either into a paying user or subscriber of your in-app event.

May be, you do not want your users to pay and instead share your app with others? Or may be you just want the user to click and then install the app?

A window can be as little as seven days and as much as 28 days. Often, a user will get busy after watching your ad and forget to download the app.

In about 14 days, he might again watch your ad somewhere else and downloads it.

If your window is 14-28 days, you will know that the user first clicked your app two weeks prior to downloading it. This will help you make quite accurate projections about any Ad Network.

What App Attribution Tools are there?

Well, there are many to be honest. But out of all of them, here are the four that have the highest reputation.

• Apps Flyer

• Adjust

• Branch.io

• Kochava

I have personally used Apps Flyer and Branch,io. Apps Flyer gives you 12,000 conversions for free. Branch.io also gives you a free but limited usage.

Adjust and Kochava are both paid and may charge anywhere from $0.1 to custom rate per conversion.

It boils down to which attribution platforms suits your priorites. If you do not spend much, a free but limited option like Apps Flyer and Branch.io may serve you well.

But if you spend a lot on multiple AD Networks simultaneoulsy, then any of the four tools will serve you well. I would personally recommend Adjust and Apps Flyer.

Today's Conslusion:

So now you know all about how App Attribution can help you understand and design a better user jounrey, creative ads, and ad campaigns.

You can also contact any of the Attribution platforms directly and ask them for a demo. A demo will help you realize which tool's interface and utility works best for you.

In the next post, I will discuss about Deep Linking and how you can use it to create Universal Ad Campaigns.

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