M - Bigabid

Mobile App

A mobile application, also referred to as a mobile app or simply an app, is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch.

Mobile attribution is the process of identifying which marketing campaigns, media partners, and channels are responsible for driving specific app installs. It links app installations to the corresponding marketing efforts, enabling marketers to understand the effectiveness of their strategies.

Importance of Mobile Attribution for Marketers

Mobile attribution is crucial for marketers as it allows them to connect their marketing actions directly to outcomes. By leveraging attribution insights, mobile app marketers can measure and optimize their user acquisition campaigns and overall marketing performance. Additionally, understanding how in-app events, occurring post-installation, influence overall strategy is essential for refining marketing efforts and maximizing return on investment (ROI).

Attribution Insights and Marketing Budget Optimization

Attribution insights guide marketers on where to invest their marketing budget effectively. These insights are provided by attribution providers, which fall into two categories: biased and unbiased.

Biased Attribution Providers: These providers may have a conflict of interest because their business model includes activities like selling data or engaging in the buying and selling of mobile ad media. This arrangement can potentially affect their impartiality and business practices.
Unbiased Attribution Providers: These providers concentrate solely on attribution, ensuring their impartiality and independence. They are regarded as trustworthy third parties that can accurately measure and report on campaign performance. Unbiased providers play a crucial role in resolving reporting discrepancies between buyers and sellers in mobile advertising.

The Role of Trust

The relationship between an attribution provider and its clients is heavily reliant on trust. This foundation of trust is vital for the provider’s data and services to be considered reliable. If this trust is compromised, it becomes exceedingly difficult for the provider to regain its credibility and reliability in the market.

Technological Foundations of Mobile Attribution

Mobile attribution relies on a variety of technologies to accurately track and attribute app installs and in-app activities to the right marketing sources. These include:

Unique Identifier Matching: Utilizes device-specific IDs like IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers on iOS) or Google Advertising ID (on Android) to track user interactions with marketing materials and app installations.
Fingerprinting: A method used to identify devices based on certain attributes when unique identifiers are not available. This technique is less precise but provides coverage in environments where direct ID matching cannot be applied.
Deep Linking: Deep links direct users to specific content within an app, rather than launching the app’s homepage. This technology is crucial for tracking conversions from marketing campaigns directly to specific actions within the app, enhancing user experience and improving attribution accuracy for in-app events.

Challenges and Limitations of Mobile Attribution

While mobile attribution is a powerful tool for marketers, it faces several challenges:

Privacy Regulations and Device Restrictions: With increasing privacy concerns and regulations (such as GDPR in Europe and CCPA in California), along with changes in device-level permissions (e.g., Apple’s App Tracking Transparency framework), the ability to track and attribute user actions is becoming more complex. These changes necessitate ongoing adaptation and innovation in attribution methods.
Attribution Fraud: Fraudulent activities, such as fake clicks (click spamming) or fake app installations (install farming), can skew attribution data. Identifying and mitigating attribution fraud is a significant challenge, requiring sophisticated detection techniques and continuous monitoring.

Future of Mobile Attribution

The future of mobile attribution lies in the development of more sophisticated and privacy-conscious tracking methods. Marketers and attribution providers will need to balance the demand for detailed, actionable insights with the need to respect user privacy. Emerging technologies, such as machine learning algorithms, can help in identifying patterns and improving the accuracy of attribution models in a privacy-centric world.

Integration with Marketing Strategies

Effective mobile attribution is not just about tracking; it’s about integrating these insights into broader marketing strategies. This involves:

Real-time Data Analysis: Leveraging attribution data in real-time allows marketers to make immediate adjustments to campaigns, optimizing for performance and efficiency.
Cross-Platform Attribution: As users engage with brands across multiple platforms, understanding the user journey across mobile, desktop, and other devices is crucial for a holistic marketing strategy.
Personalization: Using attribution data to personalize marketing efforts can significantly enhance user engagement and conversion rates. By understanding which channels and campaigns a user responds to, marketers can tailor content and messaging to match user preferences.

Mobile Interstitials

Mobile interstitials are full-screen advertisements that appear at certain points within a user’s interaction on a website, app, or game. These ads emerge at natural pauses, such as transitioning between game levels or while navigating between articles on a news site.

What are Mobile Interstitials?

Mobile interstitials are immersive, full-page ads that integrate into the user experience. Users can either engage with these ads by clicking through to their destination or dismiss them to continue with their current activity. These ads can be static images or dynamic media, like videos.

Mobile Website Interstitials

In the context of mobile websites, interstitials appear as full-page ads that display between page views. They provide a significant revenue stream for publishers by allowing effective monetization of web pages.

Web interstitials are triggered by user-initiated navigation. However, they are less common on websites featuring continuous scrolling or single-page applications (SPAs), where page navigation is minimal.

Mobile App Interstitials

Similar to their web counterparts, mobile app interstitials are full-page ads displayed during transitions within an app. They are particularly effective for brand advertising due to their large size and engaging nature. These ads often appear at natural intervals, such as at the start of an app, during game level transitions, or before a video.

Effectiveness of Mobile Interstitials

Mobile interstitials are effective in countering issues like banner blindness in mobile environments. Their prominent placement ensures higher visibility, which can lead to increased user engagement and improved click-through rates (CTR). Recognized for their effectiveness, these ads are highly sought after by both brand and performance advertisers.

Best Practices for Mobile Interstitials

When implementing mobile interstitials, it’s crucial to consider their placement and frequency:

Ad Placement: The timing and location of your ad are critical. Employ A/B testing to identify optimal moments for ad placement, such as at the end of a level in a game or between articles on a news site.
Ad Frequency: The frequency of your ads is equally important. Ads should enhance, not detract from, the user experience. Ensure ads are served at a balanced pace and only after user interaction with your app or site.

Google’s Intrusive Interstitial Penalty

In 2017, Google introduced penalties for intrusive interstitials on mobile websites to regulate the user experience. Publishers and advertisers must comply with these guidelines to avoid penalties. Intrusive practices include:

Interstitials on loading or exiting pages
Frequent interstitials at every user break
Ads that obscure the main content or search intent
Mandatory interstitials before accessing main content

Google penalizes sites with intrusive ads, potentially lowering their search rankings. However, these rules exclude interstitials required for legal reasons, like age verification or cookie usage.

Key Takeaways Mobile interstitials are impactful advertising tools that fit naturally within a user’s journey on apps and websites. They are favored for their size and engagement potential. Proper placement and frequency are vital for effectiveness, and adherence to Google’s anti-intrusive advertising policies is essential. By following best practices, mobile interstitials can significantly enhance user engagement without compromising the user experience.

MTTI (Mean time to install)

The mean time between click and install.

MAU (Monthly active user)

A user who has opened the app at least once in a particular month. The total number of MAU shows you how many users use the app monthly.

What is Monthly Active Users (MAU)?

Monthly Active Users (MAU) is a metric used to measure the number of unique users who engage with a particular website, app, or platform within a month. It is an important indicator of user engagement and the growth of a business.

MAU is calculated by calculating the number of unique users who have interacted with a particular platform in a month. A unique user is someone who has logged in to the platform, performed an action, or interacted with other users within a specified time frame.

Why is MAU Important for Your Business?

Monthly Active Users (MAU) is a crucial metric for businesses as it helps in measuring user engagement and growth. It helps businesses determine their website or app’s popularity among users and identify user behavior patterns.

Additionally, MAU can provide insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, the impact of new features or updates, and the success of user acquisition strategies. It is also useful in identifying user retention rates, as it helps identify users returning to the platform and engaging with the business regularly.

How to Calculate Monthly Active Users (MAU)?

Calculating Monthly Active Users (MAU) is a simple process that involves identifying the unique users who interacted with your platform in a month. You can calculate MAU by counting the number of unique users who have engaged with your platform, such as logging in or performing an action, within a month.

MAU can also be calculated by dividing the total number of unique users who engaged with your platform in a month by the total number of days in that month and multiplying it by the number of days the platform was active.

MAU Calculation Formula:

MAU = Number of Unique Users who interacted with the particular website, app, or platform in a month

How to Increase Monthly Active Users (MAU)?

Increasing Monthly Active Users (MAU) is critical to growing your business. You need to focus on user engagement and retention strategies to increase MAU. Here are some effective ways to increase MAU:

Enhance User Experience: Improving user experience by providing a simple and intuitive interface can lead to higher user engagement and retention.

Provide Valuable Content: Users engage with platforms that provide them with valuable and relevant content. By creating content that addresses the needs of your target audience, you can increase user engagement.

Personalized User Experience: Providing personalized experiences by recommending content or products based on user behavior can increase user engagement.

Implement User Acquisition Strategies: Use various channels such as social media, email marketing, and search engine optimization to acquire new users.

Gamify User Experience: Gamification is an effective way to engage users and increase user retention. By adding gamification elements to your platform, you can create a fun and engaging user experience.

MAU Recap

Monthly Active Users (MAU) is a crucial metric for businesses as it helps in measuring user engagement and growth. It provides valuable insights into user behavior patterns and helps businesses to identify user retention rates. Businesses can increase MAU and grow their business by focusing on user engagement and retention strategies.

mDAU (Monetized daily active users)

Users who logged in or accessed an app on any given day that the app could show ads.

What is mDAU (monetized daily active users)?

Monetized Daily Active Users (mDAU) refers to the number of unique users who access and interact with an app in a given day. The definition of an active interaction varies depending on the industry and the app, but it often includes actions like account log-in, transferring, adding items to a cart, or software usage. The active user is identified through unique identifiers such as email, user ID, cookies, or a combination of these. DAU is a crucial metric for businesses as a high number of daily active users suggests that the app is sticky and successful.

Why is Measuring mDAU Important?

Measuring mDAU is crucial as it serves as a barometer of success. The higher the level of user engagement with an app, the more frequently they will access it. Engaged users are more valuable compared to unengaged ones, and therefore, measuring DAU helps app developers assess the earning potential of their app.

How to Calculate mDAU?

Calculating Monetized Daily Active Users (mDAUs) may appear straightforward, but it can be intricate based on the definition of active user engagement. Here’s a technical overview of the process:

Define the criteria for an active user, such as a button click, swipe, or scroll.
Specify the frequency of engagement you want to measure, i.e., DAU.
Utilize your preferred analytics tool to gather data and calculate the number of unique users who meet the active user criteria for the selected day.

Example:

Active user criteria: button click, swipe, or scroll.
Frequency of engagement: mDAU.
On day X, the following user engagements are recorded:

User 1 clicked a button and then closed the app.
User 2 logged into the app but remained idle.
User 3 logged into the app, scrolled, swiped, or clicked a button.
User 1 logged back into the app and clicked another button.

Result: The DAU count is 2 (User 1 and User 3 are considered active users).

Note that the definition of an active user heavily depends on the company’s long-term growth objectives and business model. Different business goals result in different active user criteria.

How to increase mDAU?

To increase mDAU, you need a multi-channel engagement strategy that includes email, push notifications, in-app notifications, and re-engagement campaigns. Here’s how to use each channel effectively:

Push Notifications: Push notifications can be a great way to engage your users, but if used too frequently or inappropriately, they can also lead to uninstalls. To make sure your push notifications are effective, focus on delivering personalized and relevant content that provides value to your users, instead of just sending a large volume of notifications. Monitor your push notification statistics to see what works and what doesn’t.
In-app Messages: Personalized in-app messages that align with your users’ needs and preferences can increase user retention rates by 61% to 74% within 28 days. To make your in-app messages relevant, segment your audience based on factors such as region, preferences, usage, or history, and use real-time updates and personalized links.
Email/SMS: Sending emails or SMS to your users is a good way to keep them engaged with your app and maintain high DAU rates. For example, you can send emails to users who were active but have been inactive for a while, or to users who have not fully utilized your app’s potential. Proper audience segmentation can help you reach the right users with the right message.
Deep Linking: Deep linking is an important aspect of a cross-channel engagement strategy. It helps to create a consistent and seamless user experience by linking your channels together and removing obstacles along the user journey. This can help build a strong relationship with your users and give you a competitive edge.

Mobile measurement partner (MMP)

Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP): Enhancing App Campaign Performance Metrics

A mobile measurement partner, often referred to as an MMP, plays a pivotal role in the world of app marketing. This entity is instrumental in helping apps gauge the effectiveness of their campaigns across various advertising marketing channels, media sources, and ad networks. This article delves into the significance of MMPs, their operational mechanisms, the advantages of partnering with them, and the recent developments in the realm of privacy that affect their functioning.

What is an MMP?

A mobile measurement partner can be thought of as a platform provider that spe8cializes in attributing, collecting, and organizing data related to mobile apps. Its primary function is to deliver a standardized assessment of campaign performance metrics. To draw an analogy from the world of sports, an MMP serves as an unbiased referee, arbitrating on attribution matters.

Within the tech stack of mobile marketers, an MMP holds a mission-critical position. It stands alone as the entity capable of providing an impartial view of the entire consumer journey. Consequently, MMPs empower marketers to discern which media sources truly deserve recognition for driving conversions. This, in turn, facilitates informed decisions regarding budget allocation. In essence, an MMP emerges as a trusted ally for marketers, aiding them in their quest for campaign success.

How Does the MMP Work?

In its most fundamental form, an MMP aligns campaign engagements with app installations and post-install in-app actions. This is achieved through a combination of methods, including device IDs for user-level attribution, probabilistic modeling, and SKAdNetwork in iOS 14 for deterministic aggregated-level attribution. Employing a software development kit (SDK), a piece of code designed to collect measurement and attribution data, the app collaborates with the MMP to connect ad engagements with app installs and in-app events. These events may include progressing through game levels, completing registrations in a FinTech app, making purchases, and more.

Benefits of Partnering with an MMP

Working with an MMP can yield a multitude of advantages for app marketers:

Improved App Performance, ROAS, and LTV: An MMP equips marketers with accurate and detailed data, enabling precise budget allocation and optimization of app performance, Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and Lifetime Value (LTV).
Scalability in Marketing Efforts: As marketers expand their campaigns across various ad networks, MMPs provide the necessary tools to seamlessly explore new networks.
Effective Budget Utilization: An impartial MMP connects the dots within campaigns, helping pinpoint where credit is truly due. This ensures optimal budget allocation to high-performing campaigns.
Time and Resource Savings: Leveraging a universal SDK simplifies the measurement and attribution process across multiple ad networks. This results in significant time savings and eliminates the need to analyze numerous dashboards and spreadsheets.
Single Dashboard View: MMPs consolidate both raw and aggregated data from paid media sources and organic activities into a single dashboard. This provides marketers with a comprehensive overview of their campaign performance.

Who Requires the Services of an MMP?

In short, any marketer with an app stands to benefit from partnering with an MMP. Mobile marketing is characterized by an abundance of data, making it a data-rich channel. However, evaluating campaign performance can be overwhelming due to the sheer volume of media data that requires analysis. Those who choose not to employ an MMP may find themselves expending significant resources and manpower attempting to decipher a multitude of dashboards and spreadsheets. Such manual analysis can lead to errors and missed opportunities for optimizing LTV and ROAS.

When entrusted to a reputable, unbiased provider, mobile attribution can precisely identify the value of specific channels, media sources, publishers, campaigns, and even creative elements. This allows continuous optimization of app performance and strategic growth.

Understanding Consumer Interaction with MMPs

Achieving a great Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) in a mobile campaign necessitates the thorough analysis and attribution of every consumer interaction. This is why the majority of marketers turn to MMPs to enhance their offerings to advertisers, maximize LTV, and gain clarity on where to allocate their budgets effectively.

SDKs: The Good, the Bad, and the Ultimate Solution

Mobile attribution hinges on Software Development Kits (SDKs). However, managing multiple SDKs can pose challenges for mobile marketers, particularly when dealing with numerous ad networks. As marketers scale their efforts, the time, cost, and manual labor associated with adding new SDKs for each network can drain technical resources and adversely affect app performance.

MMPs address this issue by offering a universal SDK. This cost-effective solution connects advertisers to a vast mobile ecosystem of thousands of ad networks, eliminating the need for expensive, time-consuming development efforts.

Selecting the Right MMP for You

When choosing a mission-critical solution like an MMP, there are four key factors to consider:

Security and Privacy: Ensure that your chosen MMP places paramount importance on security and privacy. Vigilant due diligence processes should be in place to protect your customers’ data. Confirm that your attribution partner remains independent and unbiased.
Fraud Prevention: Opt for an established MMP with a significant market share, capable of leveraging extensive market intelligence to combat fraud. Choose an MMP committed to maintaining a fraud-free ecosystem and partnering only with ad networks equally committed to fraud prevention.
Data Accuracy and Comprehensive Features: Deep granularity and multi-touch attribution are essential for accurate analysis. Advanced capabilities like deep-linking, real-time data, omni-channel LTV, and cross-channel attribution provide invaluable insights.
Experience: MMPs with a solid reputation, a loyal customer base, and the resources to support your growing needs are crucial. Mobile attribution technology is complex, and a seasoned, trustworthy MMP can make all the difference.

Privacy-Driven Developments Impacting MMPs

Privacy has taken center stage in mobile app marketing, particularly on iOS. The introduction of the AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) framework has altered attribution models and campaign optimization. This framework requires users to opt-in before third-party advertisers can collect their user-level data. However, existing capabilities still apply to the larger Android platform and to opted-in iOS users.

In response to privacy concerns, the industry has embraced innovative solutions like incrementality measurement, predictive modeling, and web-to-app flows. These measures ensure that accurate measurability remains a core component of mobile marketing.

Key Takeaways

In summary, here are the top five reasons for incorporating an MMP into your marketing strategy:

Data-Driven Decision-Making: MMPs provide authoritative data for informed decisions, enhancing performance, ROAS, and LTV.
Universal SDK: A universal SDK simplifies the process, saving time and resources by connecting all ad networks.
Cost Efficiency: Avoid paying double or triple for attribution by relying on an impartial MMP to attribute credit accurately.
Single Dashboard View: Consolidate data from various sources into a single dashboard for a holistic view of your user funnel.
Expertise and Support: The complex mobile landscape requires the resources and expertise of MMPs to meet your marketing insights needs.

In conclusion, partnering with a reliable, unbiased MMP with a secure and scalable attribution platform can streamline your operations, allowing you to focus on strategic marketing and building a stronger, higher LTV user base. Mobile measurement partners are indeed indispensable allies in the ever-evolving world of mobile app marketing.