In general, time spent on social media starts increasing in early October and reaches its peak around New Year’s Eve. Q4 is upon us and marketers are challenged to deliver a strong close to fuel the 2018 momentum engine.

Facebook’s ad revenue during the Q4 of 2017 jumped 48% for a total of $12.8 billion while mobile ad revenue increased by 57% to $11.4 billion, the company revealed in a conference call with analysts to discuss the latest earnings report. The average price per ad climbed 43% during the same period while the number of ad impressions served increased just 4%. These results were driven primarily by feed ads on Facebook and Instagram.

In my opinion, Facebook is the most consistent and predictable social platform to advertise on. We can expect similar behaviour this year as well.  

Social advertising in Q4 is expensive. Higher intent to purchase among holiday shoppers means that CPMs and CPCs skyrocket because advertisers are all vying for those valuable consumer impressions. In social advertising, you will feel these effects even if you’re not a holiday-based business, because good consumers will fall into audience targeting pools for all types of products and services.

In this article, I will share 5 pitfalls you should watch out for in the upcoming holiday season.

1) Reengagement? Pfff, we don’t need that

Your early planning will pay off now, and you are in great shape for targeting your customer base. If you haven’t done so already, identify key audience segments and the best way to connect with them cross-channel. You may need to set up separate campaigns for high lifetime value customers who are familiar with your brand, and potential customers who have shown interest in your products or services.

Segmenting your audience will allow you to better tailor ads, emails or creative; which in turn creates an incentive for a person to engage with your brand or game. Learn from data and get to know your audience. The more you know, the easier it is to tailor campaigns for your audience. Not only will you be able to acquire new users, but also re-engage lapsed players because of the various events, like Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year’s Day, that are happening in Q4. As CPM, CPI and CPC rise, this is actually the best time to look at your re-engagement strategy. If you can’t do it by yourself on Facebook, there are companies who can help! Take a look at some of them below in the retargeting power ranking included as part of the 2018 AppsFlyer Performance Index.

Source: The 2018 AppsFlyer Performance Index, Edition VII

The North American and European winter holiday seasons occur across a period of about three months, meaning marketers need to find a balance between re-engagement and user acquisition. For this reason, start reaching your audience in late October with Halloween events and special offers. This game plan offers plenty of lead time before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, while December is still reserved for Christmas sales and events. 

Fun fact: Women start their holiday shopping earlier. Keep that in mind while thinking about special offers in your app or game! 

2) Not Focusing on LTV 

The lifetime value of users is one of the most important success metrics for measuring your app’s performance and profitability. LTV is the measure of the revenue a customer will bring during their lifetime of using the app. Knowing the LTV of your users is critical in determining where and how much to invest in acquiring the users, and in improving the app. 

A lack of knowledge of your LTV can have direct impact on the profit. If you do not see increased intent or LTV from customers acquired in Q4, then it does not make sense to pay premium prices during the holidays.

3) Focusing on Holiday App Store Optimization

Have you heard the holiday season rules of ASO? Every time Q4 starts, developers tend to change their App Store profile to Halloween or Christmas visuals. But is this something that actually works? In my experience, this can potentially result in low engagement and uninstalls. Invest time in understanding what works for you during the holiday season on each platform and customize your app to each platform accordingly. Do not follow “the holiday rules” blindly, simply trust your data! 

4) Holiday Creatives FTW!

There’s nothing worse than an ad getting old. An ad that starts off as something unfamiliar and interesting can quickly become well-known… and then irritating.

Overestimate your creative ammunition needs. If you think you need three versions of your ad, plan for five or six. Play it safe. Also prepare holiday creatives in advance and test them properly against your evergreen concepts.

Not only will you have the ads ready at hand to switch out at a moment’s notice, but you’ll also have backup ad creatives in the event a particular version isn’t performing well.

5) Ignoring Q1 2019

If Q4 is your biggest quarter, you’ll need to put all your resources, creativity, and analytical prowess on your social advertising efforts. Most importantly, know when it does not make sense for your brand to compete in Q4. Instead, spend the time planning for Q1 and out-strategizing competitors.

PLAN FOR 2019! 

While you and your team might be focusing on finishing the year on a high, don’t neglect planning for 2019 – especially Q1 and Q2. Your marketing resources and money need to be headed in the right direction to start the year off on the right foot. We saw huge uplift in ROAS right after Christmas last year. Be prepared and take advantage of this early!

Do you have any other tips or pitfalls of Q4 to share with us? Please share!

The post How to Conquer These 5 Mobile Holiday Season Pitfalls appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Data is only powerful when it tells a meaningful story. Without the storytelling, the science to uncovering hidden patterns, unknown correlations and trends, data remains nothing but a bunch of numbers. In this digital age, where data becomes increasingly ubiquitous, companies recognize the value of crunching their own data to unlock their unique stories, stand out from the crowd and make decisions faster. Data analytics are going beyond the reach of data scientists alone, and into the hands of just about every marketer.

Where to begin?

Your data may hold tremendous amounts of potential value, but not an ounce of it can be delivered without uninterrupted, consistent access to quality data in its purest form — raw data.

At AppsFlyer, we believe that every company has the right to use their data any way they want to. That’s why we offer various solutions to easily export and ingest raw data to get a look at what’s powering your dashboard. Our raw data reports are ready to be fed into your own BI platforms and available for download, via API or via email, 24/7. Ideal for doing your own offline analysis, performance-based payments to ad networks, identifying potential fraud or even testing a hypothesis that just came to mind. It’s your data. Use it any way you want to.

Pull and Push APIs: Real-Time Raw Data Ingestion

AppsFlyer’s API solutions enable companies to sync AppsFlyer attribution and marketing analytics data with their internal BI systems in real-time. These APIs are called Push and Pull APIs. 

The Push API is ideal for large advertisers who rely on their own BI systems for timely reporting and rapid optimization. This powerful API sends HTTP requests in real-time for every successful installation, in-app event or retargeting event, whether organic or not. As there are often different servers storing different types of data, AppsFlyer lets advertisers determine which data should be pushed to which endpoint. For example, advertisers can define a specific endpoint for organic data and another for non-organic data; one for in-app events and another for retargeting. Configuring multiple endpoints provides advertisers with the ability to organize their data the way they want to while controlling inbound data more efficiently.

For data teams that prefer to receive data in bulk, the Pull API provides the same depth of reporting without the need for real-time infrastructure. This API provides on-demand access to AppsFlyer’s robust data pipeline by using specific URLs containing query parameters. The pulled reports — comma separated values (CSV) files — can either be in aggregated or raw data forms.

Data Locker

If you wish to avoid the hassle of setting up and maintaining real-time API syncs or face challenges with scalability and production, Data Locker is the tool for you. Data Locker stores every single data point sent to AppsFlyer; including organic data, full attribution and engagement data, session data, click data and more. This secured storage locker is hosted on Amazon S3 and is fully configured to feed your BI tools with massive amount of raw, user-level data. 

Ideal for Tableau, Looker, Power BI and other business intelligence softwares

With Data Locker, your data is securely backed up on the cloud, and accessible 24/7 for your own analysis and restoration purposes. 

Putting Raw Data Reports To Work

While the opportunities of raw data ingestion and analysis are endless, it can get overwhelming if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. To help you navigate the mountains of data, here are just a few of the many ways you can utilize it to optimize your marketing performance:

• use raw data reports as a basis for performance-based billing
• use click and session data to apply your own fractional attribution logic
• leverage user-level (non-aggregated) click and session data for marketing and product funnel analyses
• create highly-targeted retargeting campaigns
• use geolocation and device-type data to create specific user segmentation
• identify potential fraud
• optimize and build better targeted messages
• and more!

Raw data reports contain a treasure trove of information. They can provide insights many marketers never even thought possible — making them one of the most popular components of the AppsFlyer platform.

Want to learn more? Talk to your Success Manager or schedule your AppsFlyer Demo today.

The post All Your Raw Data at Your Fingertips appeared first on AppsFlyer.

The holiday season is upon us and with it the promise of major revenue and user acquisition. In fact, according to a recent report by eMarketer, mobile commerce in the US is predicted to surge by 32% this year. No doubt, it’s going to be huge.

App marketers know that with the right preparation and momentum, Halloween, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas, and New Year’s, among other occasions worldwide, can be leveraged to ride massive traffic and revenue waves into the new quarter. It is the most wonderful time of the year, after all.

To make it wonderful for app marketers as well, they must first be aware of and armed ready for the challenges of heavy competition and much faster dynamics ahead. One of the most critical of these is inevitable media cost fluctuation, which can make or break an app’s profitability if not navigated with intention and foresight.

We recently looked back at the CPI rates in Q4 2017 for five countries: Germany, Brazil, Russia, UK, and the US. Across both iOS and Android in two verticals, shopping and gaming, our findings showed that they were consistently and particularly influenced by some holidays more than others. Let’s take a closer look at some of the most important findings that will help marketers better plan this Q4.

Data pulled varies by country depending scale and ability to achieve statistical validity.

1. Shopping CPIs take the bulk of holiday effects

Explore the data using the interactive charts: hover to see data from specific days, or click on the legend to filter lines:

We can see that customers are busy seeking the best deals in the shopping frenzy of Black Friday, and so are ad networks, it seems. In 2017, all five countries experienced varying distinct increases in CPI influenced by Black Friday, which landed last year on November 24.

• Starting around the second week of October, the US experienced the beginning of a sharp 44% increase before its highest seasonal peak on 20/10, ahead of the heat of Halloween, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday. Rates decreased gradually after that before again peaking one or two weeks before Christmas to catch last minute shoppers.
• All countries except the US found themselves influenced by Black Friday’s consumerist nature, with the day after bringing higher rates than the holiday itself. Overall, Brazil led the pack with a nearly 2x climb from the day before peaking the day after, while Germany’s rates shot up 3x from Black Friday to the day after Cyber Monday. The UK was not as severely affected, but still felt a 46% increase from Black Friday to peak the day after Cyber Monday along with Germany.
• The end of November held extreme, rapid monthly increases overall – especially with Germany jumping over 3.3x between 20/11 and 30/11 and the UK by 2x – but, surprisingly, December showed far less activity around major holidays, with the exception of the UK’s 34% rise from Christmas to 28/12.

2. US CPIs peak shortly before Christmas on iOS, and are nearly double those on Android

Shopping fluctuations by platform showed significant differences.

• In particular, on Android, the US maintained a fairly level rate through November and December with some peaks ahead of Halloween.
• There is little  change around Christmas, which has a significant impact on iOS.

On the other hand, iOS saw a few extreme fluctuations, concentrated, first, in the lead up to Christmas, and then again between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

• The star of the US’ holiday show was the CPI activity before Christmas. Surprisingly, the towering peak a day or two before Christmas Day was the second highest for its iOS 2017 holiday season, at $5.90 on 23/12.
• In the lead up to Christmas Day rates leaped by 64% from 7/12 to 23/12, peaking twice before an end-of-the-year decline. The increase is especially driven between 18/12 and 23/12, rising by a whopping 56%.
• Rates in the US on iOS were not just high; they were more than 2.5x the amount as on Android, with an average of $4.20 compared to $1.60. In addition, the standard deviation for iOS was more than double in fluctuation as well as price.
• Lastly, between each of the three months themselves, there was noticeable difference in the average monthly CPIs. With averages falling at $4.65 in October, $3.86 in November, and $4.46 in December.

3. Gaming CPIs peak in October as rates remain consistent between Android and iOS

Gaming costs were far quieter than shopping in both November and December, even on and after Christmas.

• The CPI peak for all countries we looked at occurred on and around Halloween, but built momentum from the beginning of the month. The difference between the monthly October average compared to November and December combined was significant – 118% in Russia; 74% in Germany; 48% in Brazil; 47% in the UK; and 31% in the US.
• As November started, all four countries shifted quickly to stagnant rates and experienced only slight decreases, if at all, until the new year. Most significantly, rates in the US dropped sharply within the last 10 days of the year, remaining more or less on the decline even on Christmas.
• Though fluctuations follow nearly the same pattern from October to December in gaming, prices were 25% higher, on average, in iOS. As with both platforms combined, October experienced the busiest period of fluctuation overall before dropping sharply at the beginning of November and remaining stagnant until New Year.

Key Takeaways:

If you’re a shopping app marketer, be well prepared and strategize for the holiday season. While both gaming and shopping, as well as Android and iOS, are affected, the most drastic fluctuations in CPIs occur in shopping apps. This is likely due to the consumerist nature of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, above all other holidays studied, which drive in-app and in-store sales… and CPI increases due to heightened demand. Be sure to include data from previous years when creating a cost-effective and flexible user acquisition strategy for your app if you fall under this vertical.

Start targeting users EARLY. Our data shows that it may be beneficial to start your advertising efforts as early as mid-October, accounting for the Halloween, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday waves. Reaching target audiences before those extreme spikes in CPI rates occur gives you plenty of time to understand your users and their preferences, which you can later use for more effective re-engagement campaigns on the major holidays themselves.

This is particularly important for shopping apps and the US, whose CPIs will rise drastically and dramatically throughout mid-October and mid-November before most holidays. On the other hand, since rates proved to be distinctly lower the day or two before each holiday, this may also be a good opportunity to launch powerful, data-driven campaigns at budget-friendly prices.

Pay close attention to your revenue. Ultimately, CPIs are just one side of the overall ROAS coin. While high costs can negatively impact your app if left unbalanced, it is also important to understand if that high cost is matched by a high overall LTV. High CPIs may not necessarily be a downfall – your app may still reap the benefits of high profitability if your holiday season advertising efforts bring high-value users.

Christmas does not have as much weight as may be expected. While the UK stood out as having the most distinct increases and peaks on and around the holiday, all other countries showed little extreme activity on that day itself, surprisingly maintaining fairly consistent rates throughout the period. When planning your budget for the holidays, remember that the true cost of Christmas does not happen on the day itself (in all countries except the UK), but instead a couple of weeks ahead of time.

Take advantage of surprising US trends. In both shopping and gaming, the US pulled out some surprises at various points in the holiday season. Given the sharper increases well before Black Friday and again one or two weeks before Christmas, one good strategy for shopping app marketers looking to crack the US may be to aggressively engage users as early as a month and a half before Black Friday and two weeks before Christmas. This creates an opportunity to run more efficient re-engagement or retargeting campaigns on the holiday itself.

For gaming marketers, dispel the myth of sky-high, post-Christmas CPI rates and consider running both UA and re-engagement campaigns in the last 5-10 days of the year for high, cost-effective New Year impact.

Watch out for Brazil spikes at end of November. In shopping, Brazil peaked sharply in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday time range. While the rest of the year was much quieter, the end of November in Brazil stands out as consistently spiking hard when the sales come out. As a marketer in this country you can expect your CPIs to soar. Account for this when strategizing your user acquisition budget.

To sum up, the end-of-year holidays are not to be underestimated when it comes to fluctuating CPI rates, though some are more extreme in influence than others. When harnessed well, the holidays can be major boosts for ad traffic, user acquisition, revenue and profitability. Just remember that the mobile ad space will be shifting along with your strategy and user expectations; if you don’t adapt, you will be risking more than a lump of coal in your stocking.

Here’s to a prosperous holiday season!

The post Winning the CPI Holiday Race: Data Learnings from Q4 2017 appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Following the recent release of the 2018 AppsFlyer Performance Index Edition VII ranking the best media sources in mobile advertising, we spoke to three user acquisition experts from leading global apps in our Performance Index webinar. AppsFlyer’s Head of Content & Mobile Insights, Shani Rosenfelder, joined Taylor Gobar from Hopper, Yury Bolotkin from Wooga, and Etienne De Guébriant from Etermax to talk Index evolution and methodology, 2018 media landscape insights, and media buying best practices in a hyper-competitive space. 

Find the highlights of the webinar below, as well as the full recording further down. Enjoy!

The post Marketers Talk Performance Index [Webinar Recording] appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Here at AppsFlyer, we value data. It’s our bread and butter, the very core of our existence. As we strive to provide the best insights, groundbreaking tools and infallible customer support, we constantly keep ourselves in check. Just as our customers use data to build, tweak and optimize their campaigns, we rely on external data to make sure that we’re on the right path. And what better way to do this than to look at unbiased, independent third-party data about ourselves and the competitive landscape?

Several independent firms monitor and report on trends and data in the mobile industry, providing insight into the exponentially-growing world of mobile technology.

And we are proud that AppsFlyer has been and continues to be the first choice in our industry, as more top brands, agencies and developers than ever trust AppsFlyer to make better marketing decisions, protect their ad spend from fraud, and fuel their own data-driven marketing innovations. It is a testament to our core belief that we can only measure our success by our clients’ success, which drives the products and services we deliver, our pace of innovation and company culture.

About the Data

Many companies provide intelligence about the mobile ecosystem, trends in technology and information about the stronger players and categories. These firms monitor everything from app installs and uninstalls to general insights about the companies behind them, providing a clear global market outlook.

The data was collected from four reliable and independent sources, all monitoring the mobile ecosystem as a part of their company’s offering for app publishers and developers. These sources include data and reports from  MightySignal, Apptopia,  MOBBO, and SafeDK.

Over 70% of Mobile Marketers Choose AppsFlyer

MightySignal’s data shows that over 75% of Android mobile apps currently utilizing an ad attribution SDK, are using AppsFlyer. MOBBO insights show that AppsFlyer is the #1 attribution SDK in iOS as well, with 59% of the market share.
What’s more, one-third of the global Top 200 Apps, which have millions of daily users around the world, use AppsFlyer. The biggest players in the mobile and app economy are overwhelmingly choosing AppsFlyer.

Data collected from AppTopia and SafeDK further confirms this, showing significant, continued growth for AppsFlyer in the mobile ecosystem around the world.

AppsFlyer Market Share, Regional Breakdown

No Regrets

Our customers are not only selecting us, they’re choosing to stay with us. MightySignal churn data that examines the rate of installed SDKs vs. uninstalled SDKs, shows that AppsFlyer has the lowest churn rate in the industry. Over 97% of our customers enjoy our unparalleled customer support, making AppsFlyer a trusted extension of their marketing and BI teams.

WIth the industry average retention rate at around 89%, AppsFlyer’s customers are much less likely to have a change of heart.

Product Development at the Forefront

We don’t take it for granted that we’re the #1 choice for mobile attribution; we strive to continue to deliver cutting-edge, innovative products backed by unwavering quality. In order to meet these sky-high standards, AppsFlyer employs the strongest, brightest and biggest R&D team in the industry. Our solutions team outweighs our sales team 5:1, reflecting the company’s values and product-forward approach.

Reaching New Heights

Driven by our outstanding team and our growing base of loyal customers, AppsFlyer is reaching new milestones. In Q3 of this year, AppsFlyer surpassed $100 million in Annual Recurring Revenue (VentureBeat article), experiencing a growth rate of 100% every 12 months. Our technology is now found on nearly 7 billion mobile devices worldwide, up from 5 billion devices at this time last year.

We don’t take any of this remarkable news for granted; AppsFlyer is fueled by its incredible customers and staff who believe in its groundbreaking technology. We will always strive to bring best-in-class technology to the industry, without ever compromising on quality or support.

The post AppsFlyer Continues to Spearhead the Mobile Attribution Economy, Say 4 Independent Sources appeared first on AppsFlyer.

With the 2018 festive season approaching in India, now is the time to reflect on the past to prepare for the future. That’s why we’re sharing our 2018 India festive season guide, made in partnership with InMobi, complete with a review of key 2017 trends and relevant 2018 predictions. With one in three purchases in India being made on mobile and 80% of the population preferring mobile apps for shopping, mobile marketers will want to start getting ready now to maximize their app’s profitability.

Check out the complete infographic below. Enjoy! 

The post 2018 India Festive Season Predictions – Learnings from 2017 [Infographic] appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Mary Meeker’s latest Internet Trends Report highlights a fact many of us are familiar with: consumers are shifting their time to mobile faster than ad spend is following, which essentially leaves a $7 billion mobile ad opportunity on the table.

Of this time consumers spend in mobile, roughly 85% is spent in app. It’s therefore no surprise that more focus of advertisers and monetization platforms is being shifted to mobile apps. In-app header bidding is the latest monetization technique the market has been abuzz about.

With various platforms claiming they have a unified auction or an in-app header bidding solution, it’s time to differentiate between truth and fiction when it comes to new mobile monetization strategies.

No one can argue the value header bidding introduced to the web ecosystem—publishers have reported upwards of 40% higher CPMs. While header bidding is technically harder to execute in the in-app environment, the expectation is that mobile app publishers will reap similar rewards. That said, the in-app environment is inherently different, and requires a different approach to achieve a “true state of header bidding” in this “header-less” space. Here are a few thoughts that can help shed light on some of the solutions out there.

If it looks like a waterfall, and works like a waterfall, then it’s probably a waterfall

In many ways, the fact that the in-app environment is behind when it comes to header bidding is a golden opportunity to build a holistic, “auction-minded” monetization solution rather than a hack that inserts an auction on top of a waterfall. The aforementioned waterfall is the leading method today for publishers to rank their demand sources from highest expected eCPM to lowest. Unfortunately, not all those who claim to deliver in-app header bidding solutions follow this route, or in other words, true in-app header bidding solutions don’t replicate the web header bidding approach. This is because:

1. Waterfalls hinder the value of header bidding. Calling a waterfall after the auction takes place means that not all demand has equal access to the publisher’s inventory, which is what header bidding is all about. As long as there’s a waterfall, there will be manual work involved in optimizing it, losing one of the main advantages of moving to an auction environment.
2. As long as there’s a waterfall, latency (and the poor user experience that comes with it) is going to be an issue.

Waterfall-based platforms are often black boxes susceptible to manipulation, and impossible to audit. Publishers need tools to help them better understand and maneuver away from waterfall techniques which prevent demand sources from participating simultaneously, essentially eliminating the possibility of a truly unified auction.

Some companies offer hybrid solutions that have an auction, but they still rely heavily on a waterfall. Other companies glorify the unified auction, but forget to mention that the auction is then followed by a…waterfall.

These types of companies are likely trying to preserve the advantage that the waterfall enables them to have for their own demand. They aren’t thinking about what’s best for the publisher, and not giving a truly equal and fair shot to all demand sources.

Scenarios certainly do exist in which it makes sense for a publisher to prioritize a specific demand partner over the unified auction (similar to programmatic direct deal). But this should be the result of a sound and tangible business reason—for example, a direct deal with an advertiser that has price and impression volume commitments, or a private marketplace (PMP) in which the publisher negotiated a smaller auction with a select group of buyers for a premium price.

Transparency and control as more than just slogans

But more is needed than an auction—unified as it may be—to realize the full potential of header bidding. Here are four critical elements publishers must keep in mind when searching for a true in-app header bidding solution:

1. Granular and transparent reporting that provides visibility to all demand partners in one place and includes auction-related parameters, in order to produce actionable insights and unlock new growth opportunities.
2. Tools to manage demand partners and optimize traffic allocation at the placement level, in order to turn insights into action.
3. Audience segmentation tools that enable publishers to understand the true market value of their inventory, optimizing their pricing in real time.
4. The ability to reach out to demand partners directly in order to easily set up direct deals and PMPs for premium inventory.

Learn from others

The luxury of learning from past header bidding mistakes and success stories should not be taken for granted. Making the necessary adaptations for mobile in-app should go beyond solving for the technical challenges of the in-app unified auction, seizing the opportunity to provide publishers with a primary monetization platform that includes all the tools needed to grow their business. Those companies that are building their in-app header bidding solutions based on the lessons learned will be best equipped to support publishers in their journey away from the shortcomings of waterfall-based monetization.

For more information, we share everything you need to know about in-app header bidding and unified auctions in our beginner’s guide, From In-App Header Bidding to Unified Auctions. Check it out.

The post True In-App Header Bidding: Separating Fact From Fiction appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Singles’ Day, one of the biggest days in Chinese, and Southeast Asian, mobile app retail is back… and bigger than ever. Take a look at our findings from last year’s holiday in the infographic below and prepare yourself for upcoming shopping madness! 

Enjoy! 

The post Ready for Singles’ Day? Data Learnings from 2017 [Infographic] appeared first on AppsFlyer.

We all know that fast access to the right data is key to mobile app marketing success. Faster time to insights enables you to improve agility, focus on what matters, and create a culture where data-driven decisions lead to better outcomes. To be truly insights-driven, every team member across the organization needs to have access to relevant data so that they can constantly measure and optimize their individual KPIs, while discovering new developments and trends as they happen in real-time. UA managers, for example, require granular insights into their new-user growth, engagement and revenue, while product managers tend to focus on user value (LTV, ARPU) and engagement data. In contrast, execs typically need a bird’s-eye view of their app health and monetization trends.

At AppsFlyer, our mission is to help businesses unlock the full potential of their mobile marketing and engagement data by exploring, driving insights and visualizing complex data outside or within the AppsFlyer Dashboard using Cohort Analysis, Pivot Tables and one of AppsFlyer’s most popular features — Custom Dashboards.

Getting Insights isn’t Only Fast, it’s Fun

AppsFlyer’s Custom Dashboards allow every member in your organization—from the CEO down to the most junior product or marketing manager—to explore their key metrics at a glance and tailor the view to their own needs.

This flexible, fully configurable dashboard allows you to group, sort, slice and dice your data, select and preview the visualization at a click of a button and tailor the dashboard view with an intuitive—and fun!—drag-and-drop interface.

With this simple drag-and-drop editing, one step cloning, easy customization and export to PDF capabilities, AppsFlyer’s custom dashboards are ideal for unlocking the power of your mobile performance data across your organization:

• Interactive reporting on a single app or across multiple apps
• Easy setup of geo-specific dashboards for your regional teams
• Easy comparison between iOS and Android
• Media source-specific dashboard
• In-app engagement dashboard
• Business performance dashboard and app health dashboard
• Overall marketing performance overview and funnel analysis
• And more!

Bringing Data to Life

To get inspired, here are a few examples of how our clients’ teams use our Custom Dashboards:

Cecilia, Head of UA
Cecilia, a UA executive, configured the custom dashboard below to show cross-app, top level performance of her mobile marketing team. At the top of the dashboard are the high-level metrics she checks daily. Then, she added her Android funnel, as this is an area the team is working to improve. Beside the Android funnel, she tracks her campaign performance in both Tier 1 and Tier 2 regions – monitoring both new installs and sign-ups (using in-app events). This is followed by a multi-app Aggregated Performance table, where she monitors her preferred metrics per-app. At the bottom, she set up two dedicated rows: one for install performance data and the other for revenue performance data.

Overall, this dashboard represents the key areas she manages on a regular basis, allowing her to keep her finger on the pulse of her team’s performance without needing to dive into multiple dashboards.

Isn’t data beautiful? Click to zoom in.

Nate, Campaign Manager

Nate, the campaign manager built a very different type of dashboard, focussing entirely on performance numbers rather than charts or trends. The left-hand side of this dashboard breaks down installs by paid and organic channels, paid performance by OS and total installs. He then built columns listing performance by geo, conversion to his preferred in-app events by geo, overall installs by media source and media spend per media source. As their top paid media source, he also carefully monitored Facebook installs by country and OS in separate breakout charts.

While this format may not work for everyone, this format works very well for this campaign manager’s specific needs, saving him a great deal of time and effort when optimizing his media spend and building his performance reports.

These were just a couple of examples. With this degree of flexibility at your fingertips, the possibilities are really endless.

Want to learn more about Custom Dashboards and how your team can use them to build customized, interactive dashboards for their unique business needs? Talk to your Success Manager or schedule your AppsFlyer Demo today.

The post Custom Dashboards: Bring Your Data to Life appeared first on AppsFlyer.

In part I of our Incrementality Deep-Dive blog series, we explored the concept of what it means for a campaign to deliver incremental value, and analyzed the impact a retargeting campaign had on acquired users. We did this by looking at the time between an app install and the exposure to retargeting, and found that, in most cases, retargeting proved its incremental value (full post here).

This time around, we focused on the behavior of dormant (inactive) users of a global shopping app. Specifically, our scope explored the time between a user’s last engagement with the app and exposure to a retargeting campaign.

Our first step was to isolate existing users who did not engage with the app during various time frames (between 14 and 90 days of inactivity). We then divided this group into two sub-groups: those who were exposed to a retargeting campaign and a control group of users who were not. The difference represented the incremental lift (positive or negative) of the retargeting campaign, only measured when a user performed an in-app event beyond the initial retargeting-driven app open.

Here’s what we found.

As far as reactivating dormant users was concerned, the retargeting campaign delivered clear incremental value, which only grew over time. In fact, among users who were active more than 90 days before being exposed to the retargeting campaign, but not in the last 90 days prior to the campaign, the re-engagement activity reactivated no less than 13% of users compared to only 2.6% of non-exposed users — a 5x difference!

Clearly, retargeting dormant users was most beneficial later rather than sooner in relation to the previous engagement. This is probably because recently active users resemble organic users who are more likely to engage with an app without help from a marketing activity. This also explains why the percentage of re-activated users in both groups declines the longer the dormant period.

If you are seeing similar results, it may be worthwhile to re-engage users through owned channels like email or push not long after they’ve turned dormant, and running paid retargeting more strategically after a longer period of inactivity.

We can see that, when exploring revenue, incremental value was only demonstrated from 60 days since the last activity and onward, while shorter term re-activations actually delivered a negative impact.

This was likely the result of misalignment between the campaign and the audience of short-term, inactive users, perhaps because the content/creative itself failed to engage this audience. There may also have been a gap between the content/creative and the immediate in-app experience that did not effectively engage this group.

It is therefore important to take into account that the duration of inactivity could very well be a significant audience differentiator. That means each group should be dealt with as a separate segment that has different needs, demands, content, CTAs, in-app experience upon reactivation, etc.

Retargeting also proved incremental for increasing the number of loyal users (defined as active users who were retargeted) and reducing churn. We found that the percentage of users who remained loyal was 20% higher among those exposed to a retargeting campaign.

Make sure that, when re-targeting active users, your campaigns offer real value else you risk annoying this key user base that is already engaged with your app (which we all know is no small feat).

As we’ve seen above, retargeting is not always incremental. A campaign can be successful for goal X, and unsuccessful for goal Y. It all depends on which goal is more important.

In this case, we can see that the revenue goal was not achieved — the average revenue of loyal users who were exposed to the retargeting campaign dropped. Loyal users were less engaged over time and therefore generated less revenue — hence the negative baseline. In this case, the retargeting campaign failed to mitigate this drop, and had a negative effect on revenue.

As mentioned, negative lift can occur when a retargeting campaign either annoys the user (often caused by increased frequency); when the content itself is not useful and misses its purpose; and/or the audience targeted is not aligned with a campaign or the in-app experience the user encounters as soon as the app is opened.

It is another reminder to make sure all elements of the user experience — from frequency, to creative and messaging, through in-app experience — are seamless and interconnected.

Coming Up Next

After we’ve explored the prospects of retargeting incrementality, and have demonstrated that it is important a) to measure it, and b) to understand in which scenarios it delivers positive lift and which not, the next step would be to actually do it. In the next chapter of this series, we’ll review how to measure incrementality. Stay tuned.

The post INCREMENTALITY & APP RETARGETING: DORMANT USER RE-ACTIVATION appeared first on AppsFlyer.

At AppsFlyer, we get asked often about data security and privacy. Customers and prospects want to know what measures we’ve put into place to ensure the integrity of their data, and they are 100% right to be raising these questions.

As a company that processes over 1 trillion (you read that right) datapoints per year for thousands of customers, it’s only natural that you’d want to know what we’re doing to make sure your data is secure and private. To answer all of these questions and more, we thought it best to get all of the answers firsthand from none other than AppsFlyer’s own CISO and DPO, Guy Flechter.

In late 2017, we welcomed Guy Flechter on board the AppsFlyer rocketship as our CISO and DPO. Guy brings 17 years of rich professional experience in security and privacy to the table.

What is AppsFlyer’s general approach to privacy and security? What is your guiding force as leader of these efforts?

I see privacy as a fundamental human right. I know that sounds kind of dramatic, but I mean it in all sincerity. I have been working in the industry for over 15 years to protect and improve the available measures out there. At AppsFlyer, we meet (and even exceed) the requirements needed to be officially certified by internationally-recognized organizations for both security and privacy.

We’re always on high alert. Always. Checking and rechecking our activity and seeking the most advanced technology out there to protect our systems. We don’t just check boxes, we are constantly thinking of how we can expand and go beyond.

What makes AppsFlyer stand out when it comes to security and privacy?

The privacy and security team isn’t a standalone, siloed unit; we work as part of the solutions, IT, DevOps and development teams in AppsFlyer. We consider ourselves an extension of the other teams.

On the development side, security is an inherent part of the product, rather than something that is tacked on at the end. My team is involved from the very early stages of new feature and product development to ensure that security and privacy are part of the structure of the product and not an afterthought. The result is a security-first culture within R&D, which is how I believe every company should be.

It doesn’t just end there. Every team at AppsFlyer is involved in our efforts on some level, on a daily basis. And, of course, we are backed by management 100% for any needs and concerns we may have about security or privacy.

Where would you say that AppsFlyer fits into the industry landscape?

I wouldn’t say that we “fit in”, so much, as lead the way. We see no limits as to what we can develop and improve; we constantly strive to go beyond.
We’ve spearheaded groundbreaking privacy and security initiatives that aren’t paralleled in our competitive space at all. One such initiative is OpenGDPR, a universal, secure, and common framework for compliance with GDPR-mandated data subject rights. Developed with a handful of our partners, the OpenGDPR framework presents a public API specification along with a recommended set of best practices for implementing and maintaining a connected and compliant stack.

“AppsFlyer, mParticle, Braze, and Amplitude have banded together to form the industry version of the Justice League. Calling itself OpenGDPR, the consortium aims to streamline the process for marketers in making sure their data practices are up to speed.”

Can you give us the low-down on the certifications AppsFlyer has for security and privacy?

On the security front, AppsFlyer has been SSAE16 SOC2 certified since 2016. This certification is awarded to organizations that meet a set of very strict controls for security, processing integrity, confidentiality and system privacy (read more here). Only one other mobile attribution company is SOC2 certified and we truly appreciate the significance of meeting its requirements.

AppsFlyer has certified adherence to the principles of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union to the United States (read more here).

In addition, AppsFlyer meets all the privacy requirements established by TRUSTe and/or applicable regulatory bodies using a combination of technical and manual methodologies and company self-attestations. Our continued TRUSTe certification demonstrates our utmost commitment to transparency. We work with TRUSTe to verify our data privacy policies and practices. TRUSTe reviews our website and its subdomains, software development kit (SDK), and APIs (read more here).

This isn’t all; we have a few more certifications in the works, including ISO27001 and ePrivacy, to name a few.

What are the biggest challenges/concerns in the AdTech market and mobile ecosystem?

Mobile technology is one of the fastest growing markets on the planet. Unsurprisingly, the risks and technologies for breaching mobile security are also evolving at a crazy fast rate. Staying ahead of the risks is the most important goal any CISO can set for himself (or herself), but this is even more so the case for a mobile tech company.

Protecting our clients’ data is our utmost priority. Tackling the challenges of protecting the data of both our clients and their end-users–is an ongoing, non-stop effort.

The team’s motto is to never assume that the work is done or that we know everything. We’re constantly learning, growing, improving. It’s imperative in this field to keep an open mind and sleep with one eye open.

Many companies work with an external service or consultancy for privacy. Why is it important to have an in-house DPO?

An in-house DPO has an inherent advantage: he’s there. He’s part of the team, familiar with day-to-day activity, knows everyone and everything that’s going on. The privacy measures taken are part of the product’s development and not an afterthought. An external provider can’t be as involved and is more likely to miss crucial details along the way.

What’s the team vision, where is the team going?

Our team continues to grow, mirroring the company’s growth. We continue to work tirelessly to always stay one step ahead of the industry when it comes to understanding the risk landscape and the changing climate. Our work is never done.

This all sounds immensely stressful. How do you manage to sleep at night?

Usually on my stomach, but sometimes on my side.

The post AppsFlyer’s Approach to Security and Privacy – A Chat with Guy Flechter, CISO & DPO appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Building upon our Premier Partnership in Adobe’s Exchange Partner Program, we are proud to announce the release of the AppsFlyer extension for Adobe Experience Platform Launch. This first-to-market extension for Experience Platform Launch for mobile makes it easy for Adobe Experience Cloud customers to integrate the AppsFlyer SDK into their app with just a few clicks, enabling faster implementation of AppsFlyer technology.

Experience Platform Launch is the next generation, enterprise-ready website tag and mobile SDK management platform. It gives customers a simple way to set up and manage all of the analytics, marketing, and advertising integrations necessary to measure relevant metrics and experiences.

This comprehensive solution empowers customers of AppsFlyer and Adobe to better optimize mobile conversion by leveraging AppsFlyer’s universal deep linking solution, fraud blocking technology, and deeper mobile marketing analytics including real-time cost and return on investment (ROI) reports. The AppsFlyer extension for Adobe Experience Platform Launch makes it easy for existing customers to unlock all of these capabilities with just a few clicks:

*For full instructions on using AppsFlyer’s Mobile SDK Extension please see: https://aep-sdks.gitbook.io/docs/getting-started/create-a-mobile-property

From a technical standpoint, the integration provides AppsFlyer mobile acquisition and re-engagement campaign data to various components of Adobe Experience Cloud. This data is tied back to Adobe visitor IDs, providing a more holistic view of end-to-end customer journeys across mobile, desktop, TV and offline channels via the following key integrations:

	Unlock an Ecosystem with Faster & Easier SDK Setup The AppsFlyer Extension for Adobe Experience Platform Launch streamlines SDK setup to enable AppsFlyer technology in just a few minutes. AppsFlyer is integrated with Adobe Advertising Cloud as well as 4,000+ top media sources, so you’ll never need to add another media partner SDK.
	Optimize Cross-Device Targeting with Granular Segmentation Expand and refine Adobe Audience Manager segments by importing custom mobile audiences/segments from AppsFlyer – based on ad engagements, (un)installs, revenue, custom in-app event parameters, device type/version, app version, geo and more.
	Improve User Experience Across Platforms Integration with Adobe Campaign increases conversion and engagement with universal deep links that seamlessly detect every possible device, OS, channel and platform to send users to the optimal web or app page. No wasted clicks, just the best conversion path, every time.
	Unify and Augment Cross-Device Measurement Integration with Adobe Analytics provides additional mobile data, including real-time fraud protection, cost, ROI and sequential multi-touch and re-engagement attribution data, which can then be analyzed using the full power of Adobe Analytics.

“Our integration with Adobe empowers marketers with holistic multi-touch measurement, providing actionable insights to maximize ROI across the customer lifecycle,” said Vincent Low, head of marketing cloud partnerships at AppsFlyer.

By strengthening our relationship as a Premier Partner in the Adobe Exchange Partner Program, customers will also benefit from joint innovation and a superior level of service.

“The combination of Adobe Experience Cloud and AppsFlyer enables our joint customers to get more from their cross-channel marketing, analytics, advertising, and commerce deployments and provide more robust capabilities for mobile app marketing and analytics,” said Cody Crnkovich, head of platform partners and strategy at Adobe.

As we continue to gather feedback from Adobe and mutual customers, we look forward to hearing your feedback and developing improvements to the extension as well as our other integrations across the Adobe ecosystem.

To learn more about AppsFlyer and our work with Adobe, talk to your Success Manager or schedule your AppsFlyer Demo today.

The post AppsFlyer Releases First Mobile Attribution Extension for Adobe Experience Platform Launch appeared first on AppsFlyer.

With our current year ending soon, marketing professionals have already started preparing for the next year. Part of this preparation evolves around defining what investment makes the most sense to achieve the growth targets for the upcoming year. There are numerous approaches towards determining the marketing budget – in this blog post, we will be looking at the key considerations, approaches, and the process of determining the optimal UA budget amount.

Key Considerations

The ultimate question we need to answer when it comes to UA budgets is: how much we should invest into the growth of our products. Therefore, it is important to keep the following considerations in mind:

• Risk appetite. Each company must define strategically what level of risk they are willing to accept. This appetite will define how bullish one can be when making an upfront investment into the growth of its user base, without a 100% guarantee for return.

• Opportunity costs. When talking about investments, we must be aware of all the choices which could be pursued. By choosing to spend on UA, we are consequently giving up alternative options – e.g. developing a new product or a feature. Understanding the costs and benefits of each option will help decision makers choose the right option for reaching their goals.

• UA rationale. Upon focusing on UA investments specifically, the importance of UA rationale cannot be overlooked. There are certain spend levels which meet the two considerations above but do not support an effective UA operation. For instance, low spend volumes might make it impossible for UA managers to achieve high user quality levels (and drive positive ROAS) since the sample size of the data set is not enough for campaign optimization.

Source: https://mercury.black/

Approaches

Once we are aware of the considerations which underpin sound budget planning, the possible avenues for budgeting can then be established. There are two main approaches for budgeting:

• Top-down approach. In this case, we start at the top of the hierarchical chain, where C-Level decision makers are approving the funds available for marketing investment. This sum will then be broken down into individual divisions, like UA. Beyond the fixed sum budgeting, there are a few companies which approach this specific planning via reinvestment ratio, where a certain percentage of the net revenue realized by the product is funnelled back to fuel its growth. Setting this ratio correspondingly becomes the management’s responsibility.

• Bottom-up approach. The process, however, can also be started from UA team itself. Through checking the markets, partners, and current campaign activities, one can make reasonable assumptions about the evolution of the external environment. In combination with the internal growth targets, the estimate for an efficient spend level could be developed.

Both options can yield an effective way towards determining the UA budget, while reminding marketers of the key considerations to have throughout this process.

Source: https://mercury.black/

Coming Up With a Budget

When opting for the bottom-up approach, we can utilise the expertise of the UA team to come up with a budget estimate which best reflects the current market opportunities. Following a simple process helps to make these estimations coherent, consistent, and comparable:

1. Determine the overarching company and product goals
2. Define the campaign parameters for reaching those goals (demographic attributes, technical specifications & geographic location)
3. Draft a preliminary budget
4. Validate the draft against the market conditions and media partner capabilities
5. Obtain buy-in for the proposed budget while keeping financial feasibility in mind

The budgets should always be drafted prudently and consider the actual performance of preceding plans to facilitate iterative optimization of the estimates for greater accuracy and validity.

Source: https://mercury.black/

Brief Tool Tip

To come up with a top line budget figure, you can find a simple template at the link below. It will help you determine how much total budget is needed to reach a growth goal, if the relevant UA rationale is considered.

https://mercury.black/uabudgeting/

User guide

1. Input the target unit cost (Cost Per Action – CPA) of the direct response action you are trying to achieve with your campaign – e.g. Day 1 retention.
2. Input the conversion rate from new user (install) to the direct response action you are aiming to trigger with your campaign – e.g. D1 retention rate of 40%
3. Input the number of days the campaign should last – e.g. 90 days.
4. Input the sampling rule, i.e. how many direct response actions you would like to achieve in a day. There are varying approaches towards reaching statistically relevant sample sizes for decision making – as a rule of thumb, this number should be a minimum of 100.
5. Input the campaign parameters, namely, how the expected campaign structure would look in terms of the partner, technical, and audience specifications. This budget estimator assumes even distribution of budgets across the individual campaign parameters, hence the higher the detail of the campaign specification, the greater the overall budget requirement will be.

Key Takeaways

In summary, when budgeting for UA activities, you should keep in mind the following:

• finding the right budgeting approach that best works for your organization and growth goals,
• coming up with good estimates which are based on prudence principle,
• validating your budget drafts rigorously against the market conditions.

Lastly, keep learning and iterating continuously on your budgeting practice to ensure sustainable, yet well-controlled growth of your company.

Source: https://mercury.black/

The post 2019 Effective Budgeting Practices For User Acquisition appeared first on AppsFlyer.

The most interesting thing I learned here at AppsFlyer is how a change in perspective and mindset can yield outstanding results, for both the company as a whole and mainly for individual team members.

Below is an email I sent the AppsFlyer team in early 2015, explaining what being All-In means to me. It has since become a core part of our company culture.

On a Personal Note

When we founded AppsFlyer, I was obsessed with our challenges, ideas, options, learning, imagining, analyzing, dreaming and executing relentlessly. That focus was the main thing that allowed me to grow professionally at a very rapid pace. I wasn’t distracted by recruiters trying to hire me, my title, office politics, ego or any other random distractions. As a founder, I had to make sure my mind was 100% focused on the company. While it was obviously great for AppsFlyer, the most interesting outcome was my own long-term professional growth. This All-In focus, allowed me to grow into the CEO I am today, and continue to serve the company I started all those years ago, as we near our next exciting milestone of 500 employees and celebrate reaching 100M USD ARR. 

This All-In focus, allowed me to grow into the CEO I am today, and continue to serve the company I started all those years ago.
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You don’t have to be a founder for this to apply to you

I always get asked if experiencing such incredible personal and professional growth as a result of being All-In is unique to founders. In fact, it’s not about being a founder, but rather about shifting your view, thinking and acting like a founder, and embracing All-In as a state of mind.

There are many AppsFlyer employees who during their time at AppsFlyer, soared to heights they couldn’t have imagined when they first started. The common thread between these individuals is that they all are All-In. Nothing makes me prouder than seeing them grow and excel every day. When a team member tells me that they’ve woken up with an amazing feature or business idea, I know that they are on the All-In highway, and en route to extreme personal and professional growth.

Is All-In all you need to be successful?

No. While it is crucial to go All-In in every position you fill, the macro conditions (your cards) are out of your and your company control and might limit your success. Such conditions include: market, product/market fit, company culture, etc.

At AppsFlyer, we are fortunate to have great macro conditions lined up: clients, partners, a mission-critical product, team, great investors, culture, and operating as a market leader in a fast-growing mobile and marketing cloud market. As a Customer Obsessed company, we must first be Employee Obsessed.  We need to make sure that we provide the team with the tools and resources they need to go All-In. In fact, we have a dedicated People Operations department with exactly that mission in mind. It’s also what propelled us to create some of the more unique AppsFlyer benefits, such as GeeP, our Global Employee Exchange Program.

As a Customer Obsessed company, we must first be Employee Obsessed. We need to make sure that we provide the team with the tools and resources they need to go All-In.
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Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

Being All-In helps in figuring out what’s next for you. By being All-In, you not only develop yourself to the max, you also have more information about the market you’re in, the people around you, the company you work for and yourself. It will allow you to optimize your long-term Career Lifetime Value (C-LTV) instead of focusing on short-term targets, such as your Linkedin title ‘SEO’. When you’re All-In, the only parameter is your abilities and how you choose to develop them.

For example, many people see managing a team as a short-term target. The way I see it, All-In individuals don’t require hierarchy to make an impact and lead others. In fact, in today’s workplace, managers can’t rely on their authority to manage a team. They must be good leaders and lead by example, regardless of their title and position. All team members should strive to develop their leadership skills to make an impact and be a positive influence on others around them regardless of hierarchy. Think back on your first few days at a new company. No one walked around with their titles pinned to their chests, yet you could immediately ‘sense’ the leaders in the room.

Think back on your first few days at a new company. No one walked around with their titles pinned to their chests, yet you could immediately 'sense' the leaders in the room.
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Do I have to sacrifice my personal life to be All-In?

Not really. At AppsFlyer, we believe that success is never accidental and comes from a lot of hard work. We also believe that harmony between the personal and the professional allows people to be at their best in all aspects of their life. This is one of the reasons we established our learning & development department to help employees learn, evolve, develop and find more things they love and are passionate about.

Bottom Line

All-In is about focus, always considering the company’s interests while thinking and acting as if you yourself are the founder. Thankfully, I still find the time to interview most of our new employees. In most cases, I meet people who don’t realize the power they could have in their current positions. They don’t really need the company to promote them, as they have everything they need to promote themselves by changing their mindset. It is the All-In attitude that will open the door for them, not changing the cards (job) every year. Whether you realize it or not, you can be All-In right now, the question is whether you decide to play your hand or not.

My number one career advice to anyone, is to make the most of the hand you’re dealt, but keep in mind you get to choose the cards yourself, to a certain extent. Do your research, focus on companies/industries that are a good fit for you, and go All-In. At the end of the day, the main benefit in working for any company is the experiences you gain from it. And it’s not the salary or the title, but rather being ALL-In which will allow you to get the most out of it. It costs nothing, and is 100% Tax-free. Good luck!

Whether you realize it or not, you can be All-In right now, the question is whether you decide to play your hand or not. It costs nothing, and is 100% Tax-free.
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The post How ‘All-In’ Shaped Our Story, and Could Define Your Career appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Mobile ads are the campaign element that advertisers have the most control over, in the sense that they create or approve the content their users see (while other elements, such as bidding, are, or should be, automated for optimal results.) Finding the right user at the right time and price means nothing, unless you show them the right creative. However, effectively leveraging creatives is also one of the campaign components marketers struggle with the most.

So how can app marketers leverage ads to drive incremental sales? What must they keep in mind for efficient and insightful A/B testing?

An ad is not an image.

Any display ad is not simply an image, it’s actually made up of several creative elements.

• Call to Action Button Color
• Colors
• Copy
• Design
• Font Size
• Font Style
• Images
• Logo

This means advertisers running dynamic creatives can (and should) treat each of these elements as an optimization variable.

How many different ad variations should you run at the same time/how many different ad variations should you test?

With programmatic (reliable) transparency, it is much easier to understand what ads are working and why. This is key. Why does a certain ad perform better than the other? An overload of variants, that is, testing too many variations at once, can make it hard to understand that.

Since each ad element is a data point, you don’t want to test too many different ads at the same time. We’ve found testing 3-5 different ad variations gives the most insights within a reasonable time frame. (Note: for apps with lower volume of active users, it’s advisable to test up to 3 variations).

Creative tests should have enough statistical significance to be actionable. Marketers testing too many ad variations at the same time may find the resulting data is not really conclusive for making informed decisions over time. If it didn’t affect the user experience, ad tests could run for longer periods of time and potentially test more variables at the same time. However, running the same ads for long periods of time results in ad fatigue (and most likely irritated users).

How long should creative tests run for?

We typically recommend running tests for 3-4 weeks. After that period, ad performance drops anyway. A 3-4 week period will give you sufficient time to gather data on the different ad elements without boring/tiring users by showing the same ads.

Source: Internal Jampp Data for a Food Vertical App [Aug-Sep 2018]

What metrics should marketers consider?

The great thing about programmatic campaigns is that you can track an ad’s performance from impression to the completion of the desired in-app event.

• Impressions – Impression level data can help you identify how statistically significant is the test scope/size for which you are calculating the CTR. It’s good to have this information so you understand the significance of % metrics.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR) – This is a key metric in measuring ad performance. How many of the users that saw the ad clicked on it?
• Event Conversion Rate (ECR) – This metric can help you understand how efficient clicks are in generating events.  
• Cost Per Action (CPA) – Evaluating CP per ad can offer further insights into what attracts your successfully retargeted users.

Keep in mind: Any time you are considering events, understand that your scope/test sample is going to be smaller. Think of the app funnel; there are always less in-app events than there are clicks. It’s easier to get a significant amount of clicks to evaluate CTR. For some apps, it might be harder to get a significant amount of in-app events during the ad test period. Therefore, metrics such as ECR and CPA are better for apps with high DAU.

What ad elements have the most impact?

Having run multiple A/B tests across different campaigns on Jampp’s App Retargeting Platform, as well as specific experiments to determine the impact of each element, we’ve found images and colors are the ad components that have the most significant impact on CTR. Alternatively, elements such as font style and font size barely moved the needle.

It makes sense too, our brains can process images much faster than they can process text, so changing the photograph, background color, or button color can have a big impact.

How do you test different variations continuously within the brand guidelines?

One of the main challenges brands face when testing creatives is designing significantly different ads while respecting brand guidelines. However, this need not be an issue.

Advertisers reading this post may be thinking that images and colors may have the most impact, but that they are also the trickiest elements to update. Nobody is expecting you to use different brand colors; on the contrary, using brand colors has a positive impact, as users are more likely to quickly recognize your brand.

However, changing the way the colors are used in the ad can make a big difference. Same goes with images – sometimes it’s as easy as changing the way the image appears in the ad: circle, full blown image, etc.

A Few Examples

A Fashion/Shopping App may test the same design using a photo of an item versus a photo of somebody wearing a chic outfit.

A Food Delivery App might use the same design showing photos of different dishes.

A Travel App might leverage photography, using the same photo in slightly different layouts.

Key Takeaways

Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) tools can help you identify your best ads more quickly, leverage machine learning for ads and maximize the metrics you care about.

• Ads can make a difference, trust the data.  Ads play a key role in getting users back to the app and guiding them to complete specific in-app actions, such as purchases and orders and bookings. But the “prettiest” ad won’t necessarily be the best performing one. Test different variations and find out what resonates with your users.
• Steady does it. It’s better to test a few variations frequently than to test too many at the same time. Testing 3-4 variations for 3-4 weeks will allow you to gain performance insights quickly and updating ads regularly will go a long way towards engaging your users, and subsequently driving more sales.
• Diversify! Every ad (no matter how awesome) will see a CTR drop over time. It’s important to refresh your ads to avoid inflicting ad fatigue on your users. You may even find that after running designs with photos for a while, an ad with text only may perform better, simply because it is different and therefore grabs the users’ attention. Don’t stick to one winner. Keep testing and learning. Design, test, refresh.

Bonus: Holidays and Special Dates

Finally, leverage the holidays! Holidays and special dates are a great way of testing different elements. These ads typically run for a shorter period of time, but they tend to be more engaging, as users realize it’s “current” and relevant to what’s top of mind for them.  

The post The DCO Differentiator – How to Drive ROI with Retargeting Creatives appeared first on AppsFlyer.

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Every New Year is a great time to look back and reflect. 2018 was a tremendous year for AppsFlyer, it was probably our best year yet. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked:

• • We hired more than 200 amazing people across our 15 offices and hit our 500th employee milestone.
  • We continued to cement our position as market leaders globally across all verticals, regions, and enterprise customers.
  • We doubled our revenue to $100M ARR with positive cash flow, placing AppsFlyer at the top of the list of fastest growing SaaS companies in the world.
  • We doubled our measured ad-spend to $19 Billion annually, and our events measured to 50 Billion daily.
  • Our scale and visibility into the market allows us to provide the ultimate ad-fraud protection to our customers and solve the fraud prisoner dilemma paving the way to a fraud-free eco-system.
  • We released hundreds of product improvements and features this year alone based on our customer and partner feedback, making AppsFlyer the most feature rich and robust platform in the market.  

Security and Privacy

Industry security and privacy incidents served as a wakeup call for the market to strengthen its security and data privacy measures, as companies realize that vendors might be their security/privacy weak point. At AppsFlyer, our long-term investments in security and privacy compliance proved worthwhile across the board. We will continue to have our customers in mind in every decision we make and protect their most important asset – their data.

From a startup to an organization

In 2018 we continued our journey, emerging from an early stage startup into a growth stage organization trusted by its customers, partners, and the entire market. We fully acknowledge the responsibility that comes with our increasing market share and are committed to leading by example in every parameter.

As CEO, this change has been both exciting and challenging. Not too long ago, I was involved in almost every decision, from product, to marketing, to IT and operations. Throughout 2018, I kept thinking how I can empower each AppsFlyer team member to make the right decisions, without me being directly involved. This led us to create two very simple frameworks that all our employees, across all departments and regions, can use:

1. AppsFlyer is a Customer-Obsessed company. Meaning, our main goal is to make our customers happy and successful. A great AppsFlyer Experience is our best sales and marketing strategy.
2. “How proud are you to be a part of AppsFlyer?” as an internal AppsFlyer’s moral North Star. We uphold the highest business ethics in everything we do. It is a great way to identify where we can improve and to properly prioritize.

I was fortunate to find the time start writing about the AppsFlyer story, our beliefs, and our culture in one of my favorite posts: Organically Building a Customer Obsessed Culture.

Unbiased and Independent

One of the things that allow us to truly be a Customer-Obsessed company is our long-term commitment to remain unbiased and independent. As the market consolidates, our commitment received more validations this year. We will continue to stay independent and unbiased while supporting our partners to build the best products to our common customers.

Personal

This year I became a father of three. While all three kids are under the age of 4, I learned so much from these little creatures. They are born curious, constantly exploring, making mistakes and learning, yet over time, these learning instincts seem to fade for some reason. At AppsFlyer we want to create a culture that encourages curiosity, asking questions, not being embarrassed for not knowing, feeling confident to make mistakes, and to always be learning. In my last blog post, I shared some of my most important professional and personal learnings – ALL-IN, which became a core part of our company culture.

It is easy to get extremely busy at AppsFlyer. My resolution for this year is to do my best to be more available and approachable for the entire team. I’d like to have more ‘free’ time to support the people of AppsFlyer in any way I can, which is also my advice to my managers and the entire team.

Social responsibility

One of the things that excite me about AppsFlyer’s current stage is our position to give back to the community and make a lasting social impact. This is why we created AppsFlyer Cares to support important causes in the various countries we operate in. While there are many things in our world that need fixing, we had to prioritize here as well. During 2018 we supported holocaust survivors, children fighting cancer, and orphans in need. We also supported several other important causes throughout the year, and look forward to expanding this project further.

I am extremely proud to announce that we will continue to develop AppsFlyer Cares. Starting in 2019, we decided to dedicate 1% of our company resources to increase our social outreach and give back. As we are just 1% done, we believe that AppsFlyer will be able to make a significant impact on the market and our society as a whole.

The post How Do You Measure A Year? appeared first on AppsFlyer.

Nearly 3 billion people, or 39.4% of the world’s population, used a mobile phone to access the internet in 2018, according to eMarketer. To meet the explosive demand, mobile ad spend has scaled as well, growing by nearly 30% in 2018 to reach $184 billion. Further double digit growth is predicted through 2020 when it is expected to eclipse $263 billion.

An increasingly large piece of the mobile ad spend pie is app install ads. The rise of apps as the ultimate destination to foster brand loyalty and engagement has resulted in a significant rise in spend. According to AppsFlyer forecasts, app install advertising will total $38.9 billion in 2018 and no less than $64.1 billion in 2020 — a 65% leap.

However, this kind of growth will also lead to heightened competition in the market, making the path towards app marketing profitability harder to conquer. Clearly, only app marketers who will rely heavily on data will be successful. One key piece in the puzzle is to understand where the market headed in 2018, and where it will head in 2019.

Here are the Top 5 AppsFlyer data trends for 2018, and one more bonus stat about the growth in the share of apps measuring subscription revenue.

1) Growth of marketing-driven installs continues as organic further drops

Organic app discovery remained broken in 2018, leading more and more apps to increase their user acquisition budgets. There was an 11% rise in the share of non-organic installs (NOI) among apps with a marketing budget in 2017 and a further 12% in 2018 to reach 55% of installs. A platform breakdown has Android only slightly ahead of iOS.

Among all installs (without setting a marketing spend bar) the non-organic share reached 43% in 2018. Clearly, apps with a UA budget (not even a large one at 3k+ NOI a month) are increasingly reliant on non-organic installs to generate demand.

We can see that marketing growth is widespread with 57% of apps having more non-organic installs than organic.

Category breakdown

The largest rise in the share of non-organic installs was seen in Casual Games (+29%), and Health & Fitness (+24%), while News and Food & Drink recorded the largest drops (-19% and -7% respectively).

What’s in store for 2019? The overlying trends we’ve seen in recent years will continue, be it broken organic discovery, increased reliance on non-organic installs, and, in parallel, a higher level of data savviness and confidence to drive profitability of marketing investment.

Furthermore, as more dots will be connected across channels, the consumer journey will open up, shedding more light on the effects of marketing. As such, some installs whose source was unknown (and therefore labeled as organic), will become known. This will lead to a further increase in the share of installs attributed to marketing-driven activity on different channels.

2) Over the course of a year, ~20% of apps increased retargeting spend at the expense of UA

The use of retargeting in app marketing is on the rise across multiple verticals as the following data shows:

Overall, we can see that nearly 70% of apps have increased their retargeting activity, while 60% had more installs. However, the jump in retargeting was much higher than the relatively modest install increase. Considering the challenge in app retention (see full report here) and the smarter of use of data to effectively re-engage existing users, that is expected.

The leap in retargeting was largely driven by shopping and travel apps. These apps are laser-focused on generating long-term loyalty and a stronger relationship with existing users. They are therefore much more inclined towards using retargeting. This is particularly true for the top 50 shopping apps, 35% of which have increased retargeting activity at the expense of UA.

In gaming, we can see that almost 60% of apps decreased user acquisition activity after a year. This can be explained by the fact that the average game has a limited shelf life due to the nature of games and the intense competitive landscape. The average game may also experience an increase in effective media cost over time. As a result, the number of installs drops as interest wanes, leading to reduced spend.

What’s in store for 2019? There are several reasons leading to increased use of retargeting. Chief among them are the growing importance of brand and customer loyalty for eCommerce apps; the heightened value of IP among gaming apps; continued retention woes; and an enhanced use of data, informing sharper segmentation and the effectiveness of retargeting.

3) IAP monetization increasingly challenging for non-gaming apps

A view from above on in-app purchase (IAP) revenue trends shows that the average user generated less in 2018 than in 2017. Overall, the decrease is not substantial, but when we drill down into platform data, we can see that main cause of this drop can be attributed to Android users.

It is a well documented fact that gaming app marketers are much savvier than their non-gaming counterparts. In 2018, a significant gap still separates the two groups, and this is especially evident in the ARPU figures above.

This gap also explains why the percentage of non-organic installs in gaming apps is much higher than non-gaming apps (see insight #1 above). Thanks to their data-obsessed approach, gaming apps can invest more in marketing and reap the rewards of increased revenue from acquired users.

A country breakdown shows that China and Korea experienced the largest ARPU gains in 2018, while Brazil and India suffered the biggest losses. We can see that China’s explosive growth goes beyond volume, while Korea’s uplift is largely driven by gaming apps leveraging the massive popularity of games in this market.

Despite the surge in developing markets like India and Brazil, their growth is centered on volume. When it comes to monetization, there is sharp decline. Having said that, low media cost and a sizable audience can drive profitability for marketers in these regions.

What’s in store for 2019? The average revenue from in-app purchases is harder to predict. It all depends on whether non-gaming apps will dive deeper into revenue-driven optimization. On the one hand, many non-gaming marketers will realize they need to improve their data-driven marketing skills. On the other hand, as more and more traditional brands enter the performance-driven app market, it will take time before they hone in on these skills.

4) Ad monetization gaining ground, but only in gaming

Ad monetization is experiencing significant growth in the app space, but this revenue stream is still limited to gaming (85% of apps monetizing with ads in our database are games). Gaming app marketers are laser-focused on maximizing revenue from multiple streams: not only was their ARPU higher (see point #3 above), but an increasingly large number of gaming apps — 135% share increase to be exact — started measuring ad revenue in 2018.

The growth is driven by casual and hyper casual apps, as we’ve detailed in our recent State of Gaming App Marketing 2018 report. Hyper casual games, with their simple pick-up-and-play mechanics, have been the rising star in the gaming space this year with massive 3.5x growth in the share of gaming app installs. The share of IAA among midcore & strategy games remained consistent at around 30%.

What’s in store for 2019? The share of ad revenue will continue to rise, as will the number of apps leveraging the potential of this key revenue stream. Much of its growth will be fueled by the explosion of video ads, driven largely by demand for rewarded videos in casual games. In addition, the use of higher quality vertical video is on the rise, which could spark increased interest among non-gaming apps as well.

5) Massive bot attacks peaked in July and then subsided, but next wave is likely only a matter of time

In the past several years, we’ve seen app install fraud come in waves as part of a high stakes arms race between fraudsters and protection solutions.

After the rise of install hijacking and device farms, fraudsters began developing far more sophisticated bots that try to mimic user behavior to bypass protection. The height of this wave was in August when we saw millions of attacks on a daily basis. When we found a way to block these forms of bots, their numbers gradually decreased.

Instead, a new wave of next generation device farm attacks emerged, this time with the use of emulators rather than physical devices we’ve seen placed on racks in the thousands. However, the scale of their attacks were nowhere near the scale of bots we experienced during the summer, which explains the overall drop in recent months. Having said that, the global fraud rate is still alarmingly high, as nearly 1 in 4 installs is fraudulent.

The most targeted regions are APAC (and within them Southeast Asia and India) and LATAM, while North America is enjoying relatively low rates of attack, especially towards the end of the year. Clearly, high payout is not the leading factor that attracts fraudsters to target certain regions over others. Instead, it appears to be vulnerability to fraud, especially among non-gaming apps. 

Overall, there was a significant difference in the rate of fraud in gaming vs. non-gaming categories, with the latter suffering much higher rates. This is no surprise as gaming marketers are typically far more advanced than non-gaming marketers, and this advantage is also translated into far more effective fraud protection.

The distribution of the different types of fraud mostly follow similar patterns across regions and categories:

What’s in store for 2019? The game of cat and mouse will continue, and judging by past dynamics, it is likely that we’ll see a rise in attempted fraud — this time even more dangerous than previous forms — after the relative drop in H2 2018.

BONUS: Number of apps measuring subscription revenue jumped 5x in 2018
The rise of the app subscription economy started to gain ground when app stores offered developers 85% of the revenue after one year (instead of the standard 70%). It then took off thanks to the explosion of music and especially video streaming, which was made possible by the increasing global availability of 4G infrastructure; more powerful and affordable smartphones; and low cost data plans.

According to our data, more and more verticals are measuring subscription revenue beyond entertainment – mostly health & fitness, but also utility and education apps. It is also worth noting that there was a significant rise in the number of games measuring subscription revenue, particularly among the more advanced midcore & strategy categories. However, the overall share of gaming apps that measure subscription revenue remains relatively small.

What’s in Store for 2019? Further infrastructural improvements (5G) and the predicted spike in mobile video consumption will mean streaming services will continue their upward trajectory, leading more apps to seek a slice of the pie. In 2019, the industry will experience yet another shakeup when Disney introduces its own streaming service to rival Netflix, Amazon, and others.

Final Words

The mobile app install space is experiencing significant growth and will continue growing in the coming years with massive smartphone penetration across the globe. However, on a micro level, mobile app marketers are facing many challenges — namely retention, monetization and fraud.

Clearly, the use of data separates the successful from the unsuccessful. The best proof of this is the clear line that can be drawn between the average gaming app and the average non-gaming app. The former relies heavily on data and is laser focused on revenue-driven optimization, while experiencing much lower rates of fraud. The opposite can be said about the latter.

As a marketer, taking the data deep-dive means:

1. Measure everything.
2. Hire data analysts and scientists to crunch the data that you measure.
3. Brush up your own data-driven skills and learn SQL, Excel and even Python. You don’t need to be a developer or a data scientist but you should have enough technical understanding to work in synergy with them and challenge them.

Here’s to a successful 2019!

The post Top 5 AppsFlyer Data Trends of 2018 and What They Mean for 2019 appeared first on AppsFlyer.

With the mobile surge in full swing across the globe, marketers who have adopted a mobile-first approach are uniquely positioned to drive the most success for their brands. With an estimation by Zenith that mobile will claim over 30% of the worldwide advertising space by 2020, we can see why.

Within mobile, there is an increased focus on apps as the ultimate destination to drive user engagement and foster brand loyalty. In parallel, marketers are heavily investing in user acquisition through app install ads.

AppsFlyer is predicting that app install ad spend will rise by 70% by 2020, accumulating to a staggering $64.1 billion. Growth is expected across the globe — in North America, Europe, and Latin America where it will hit $12.9, $10.9, and $8.5 billion by 2020, respectively.

Global Rise in App Install Ad Spend Driven by APAC Growth

Given the exciting dynamics in the mobile space, it is especially important to keep an eye on one of the most lucrative regions for apps and mobile: Asia Pacific, home to the booming Indian and Chinese markets. A leader in both scale and growth rate, according to our findings, APAC shows significant potential for the next few years. Let’s take a closer look at what this means.

The Asian market as a whole is one to pay attention to, both in terms of investment in mobile marketing and, of course, the sheer scale of users in this region.

While on the quest for the highest value users, marketers can expect to make higher investments as the rewards of doing so also increase. From our data, this region is predicted to hold the largest quantity of ad spend and the second fastest growth rate, leaping 1.8x from 2018 to reach $30 billion in 2020. This rate is second only to Latin America, but occurs on a 3.5x higher scale, far ahead of most of the world.

Non-Organic Installs

In installs alone, APAC is expected to own 50% of the global total by 2020, which is 3x more than in any other region.

In addition to an overall commanding market share, APAC is also expected to see a 2.4x leap in the number of installs between 2017 and 2020. This rate very closely matches the Asian growth rate of mobile ad spend, which is also good news for marketers making high investments and expecting high rewards.

Why are app marketing budgets expected to grow in APAC?

There are a number of emerging trends which lend themselves to the boom in mobile ad spend and installs. We’ve highlighted the most prominent insights for 2019 below:

• China Explosion. Coming as no surprise then or now, China is the dominant leader in terms of both downloads and consumer spend. Always maintaining a strong international presence, China’s potential as an app market has jumped exponentially in the last year or two and is expected to hit 120 billion downloads and $62.4 billion in consumer spend by 2022, according to AppAnnie.

Despite the benefits to be reaped from this high-profile country, China comes with its own set of challenges, including an entirely separate ecosystem for Android with hundreds of app stores, and a media space dominated by local players. Marketers seeking to enter into this market must be well-prepared and armed with appropriate business, cultural, and social knowledge, as well as ready to deal with tough bureaucracy for gaming apps, in order to succeed. Learn everything you need to know about China in our guide here.

• India Rising. While many of the Asian Pacific markets are powerful, there are several key players among them, the most surprising of which may be India. Dominating as the fastest-growing app economy in the world, India has particularly seen an influx of mobile activity this year.

According to The Economic Times, the country experienced a 41% revenue growth between 2017 and 2018, as well as ranked number one in Q1 2018 for combined iOS and Google Play app downloads. Given its fast-paced take over in the mobile economy, this is the prime time to take advantage of the momentum and ride the Indian wave of this hungry consumer market.

While the average revenue per user (ARPU) in the country is significantly lower compared to others in both APAC and the world, the real strength of the Indian market comes from the volume of app downloads and user activity it generates. Although only 36% currently own smartphones, according to Statista, the number is expected to rise by around 30% over the next 2-3 years. Combined with a robust ad tech ecosystem, increasingly more data-driven marketers, and low CPIs, the opportunity in the Indian app market overall is significant.

• Southeast Asia joining the mobile game. Mobile device view time, according to Kantar, has become particularly more pronounced in this region. This is especially true for Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia, where 3.9, 3.7, and 3.4 hours are spent on these devices, respectively. Compare these view times to the Asia-Pacific average of 2.7 hours, despite higher downloads, in-app activity, and revenue from other markets, like China and India. In terms of app marketing, we can see significant activity in Indonesia among eCommerce apps, while Vietnam is experiencing massive growth in the gaming vertical.       
• Cheap, powerful devices. As mobile becomes more relevant to the global market, new devices, from companies like OnePlus, Xiaomi and Huawei, are being increasingly more released which offer similar capabilities as higher-end Android and Apple devices but with a much friendlier price tag.

The fact that high-quality access to the internet through mobile apps is more affordable means that a large number of new users have started, and will continue, to appear in the Asia Pacific’s developing countries. An already-large market opportunity is continuing to grow.

• Mobile-first market. In few other places around the world has mobile taken off the way it has in APAC. Many mobile users are highly engaged with their devices and its capabilities — including for payments — making it a “mobile-first” region, and even “mobile-only” in some key country markets.

According to data from Reuters, mobile use in three of the top Asian markets has reached or is approaching 60%. However, it is also important to note that this trend makes these users increasingly more difficult to engage with given their higher standards as a result of increasing tech savviness.

• The rise of stronger infrastructure. The last year has particularly seen a rise in stronger devices and affordable data packages, as well as the emergence of stronger cellular infrastructures like 4G and 5G. These systems can support heavier video and music streaming apps with greater flexibility and bandwidth, especially in India, as well as multiplayer online games.

The support of such emerging infrastructures, as well as cheaper data packages and the greater accessibility of smartphones and apps for developing populations, has meant an influx of heavy downloads and app activity predicted to continue into the future.

Key Takeaways

• App install ad spend keeps growing with huge momentum, specifically jumping 2.5x from 2017 until 2020 in the Asia-Pacific region.
• With time, install and ad spend growth alike will both remain robust but gradually decrease.
• Coming as no surprise, the competition in the mobile ecosystem will continue to bring the heat. For this reason, marketers should become much more data-reliant to get the competitive edge they need. Being prepared against the competition is especially relevant in the key market of China.
• The combination of stronger cellular infrastructure, the rise of cheap and powerful mobile devices, more apps, staggering mobile use in key markets, and more users makes the Asia-Pacific market particularly significant for boosting app volume and reaching wider audiences.
• While marketers continue to inform increasingly more thoughtful marketing strategies and see subsequent revenue growth, fraudsters also continue vying for a piece of the pie. This reinforces the necessity of effective and ongoing fraud protection.
• Those apps who serve as ad publishers besides their own functionality are well positioned to ride the momentum of the universal growing ad spend and generate greater in-app ad revenue.

Methodology

Given the complexity of these predictions, we used 5 different statistical models in order to arrive at the aforementioned insights. These models included Support Vector Machine (SVM) and K-Nearest Neighbor.

AppsFlyer’s own data was primarily used to generate the results – this data set included 35 billion installs, $10 billion in ad spend, and 70,000 apps. We also used other parameters, such as 3rd party mobile attribution market share data, CPI prediction per region, number of apps in the app stores, and the number of installs.

For the purposes of clarity, data was divided into the following two categories after initial processing: the attribution market share of non-organic installs (excluding Firebase and Facebook analytics for apps) and the non-attributed market (marketing-driven installs that were not measured through a mobile attribution provider). Note that this division is not shown in the report above, but was a factor in the overall methodology.

The post APAC to Fuel Growth of $64B Global App Install Ad Market appeared first on AppsFlyer.

With the rise of cord cutting behavior, connected TV (CTV) recently surpassed mobile in terms of total video ad impressions served.¹ Although traditional TV still reigns supreme, its market share has been declining in lieu of over the top (OTT) viewing.²

The advent of OTT has made TV advertising more accessible to mobile-first marketers who previously could not have afforded to fit TV into their performance advertising plan. Beyond the clear synergies between OTT and mobile for app advertising across screens, addressable buying methods have lowered minimum spend requirements while offering more sophisticated targeting than traditional TV.

However as a medium mixed between traditional and digital realms, it can be unclear where the management of OTT television media should fall within your organization. On the one hand, OTT is an upper funnel tactic and there may be advantages of buying OTT within traditional TV packages from a pricing perspective. On the other hand, the tactical planning and/or execution of OTT may be better suited for digital performance teams for a few reasons:

• OTT can be accessed through the same partners as digital (i.e. programmatic or publisher direct)
• Working with a programmatic partner to buy OTT, desktop and mobile inventory in a package lends lower CPMs and minimum spends, in addition to facilitating sequential messaging strategies (i.e. OTT TV → digital)
• Advanced OTT targeting and measurement options should be considered in parallel with digital performance forecasting, planning and optimization

That being said, OTT is still a grey area for many – with superfluous TV terminology, fragmented options for media buying, and unclear expectations for performance and measurement, it can be tricky to know where to start. If you’re new to OTT or want to convince your team that testing OTT is worthwhile, we’re here to help. As an attribution authority offering integrated measurement of mobile and OTT, we’ll give you the 411 on the OTT television landscape with a new content series:

1. Introduction: This first post will provide an introduction to OTT television with key trends that illustrate the value of the OTT audience, viewing behaviors, as well as how OTT is growing by usage, spend and market share.
2. Measurement: We’ll not only cover the technical details of how OTT measurement works with AppsFlyer, but we’ll also explain other industry solutions that will help you plan out your cross-device measurement strategy.
3. Media Buying: Jumpstart your OTT test strategy with expert advice on media sources by category, targeting options, performance expectations and more.
4. Amazon Fire TV: Coming out of beta testing with Fire TV in Q4, we’ll shed more light on how the integration works as well as Fire TV media options.

Introducing OTT Measurement with AppsFlyer

As part of our ongoing effort to provide 360° measurement of the digital ecosystem, AppsFlyer is proud to support the following OTT platform integrations:

*Android TV includes Nvidia, Philips, Sharp, TCL, Toshiba and Skyworth TV brands.

This list is just the beginning, as we’ll continue to develop new and more advanced measurement integrations in the coming months. More details to come on this in our next post!

Defining Advanced TV Terminology

Advanced TV terminology can be complicated and often inconsistent depending who you ask,³ so let’s take a moment to clarify a few definitions. To begin with, advanced TV is an umbrella term for non-traditional TV buying. Within advanced TV, the most common method for buying OTT ads is addressable TV – although confusingly, you’ll often find DSPs and digital trade desks refer to this as programmatic buying in line with the digital definition of programmatic. Regardless of who you buy from, asking about their methodology is key to understanding what you’ll get out of it. Lastly when considering your OTT/CTV buying strategy, there are important distinctions to consider in terms of how TV formats are labeled as well as the type of content delivered for targeting purposes.

Key Trends to Watch

From a volume perspective, it’s true that OTT still represents a small chunk of the U.S. market – about $2B in advertising compared to $63B for traditional TV in 2018. However there is significant potential for investing in OTT now, given its strong YoY growth rates in ad spend (+40% vs. +1% for traditional TV)2 and user behavior (+17% U.S. homes using OTT / +28% total time spent streaming OTT).⁴

Trend #1: CTV is outpacing linear TV

Overall, 80% of U.S. WiFi households have at least one OTT device, of which 47% own a streaming box/stick, 37% own a smart TV and 34% are cordless (non-subscribers of pay-TV).⁴ CTV access is growing while set-top box ownership is declining. In fact, smart TVs represented almost 9 in 10 TVs sold in the US during Q1.⁵

Source: comScore Connected Home, U.S., April 2018

Trend #2: TV streamers are more engaged, but attention is limited

Overall, OTT viewers are a highly engaged audience – especially on TV, the preferred screen for 75% of OTT streamers.⁶ Consequently, OTT app owners often find that those who watch on CTV are stickier than those who watch only on mobile.

CTV viewers are also more engaged with ads than their desktop/mobile counterparts (2x longer ad engagement time + 25% higher completion rate). This trend is magnified on OTT over linear TV, as OTT viewers are more likely to say their second-screen activity is completely or mostly related to the program or ads.⁶ This may have something to do with the ad format of OTT apps, which are non-skippable (no DVR) and tend to have fewer commercials with less ad time than linear TV.

The high engagement of OTT/CTV viewers bodes well for advertisers looking to promote awareness. However, competition is fierce for most OTT/TVE app owners, as viewership is dominated by the “big 4” OTT apps. Together, Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Video and HULU comprise 75% of total OTT time spent.⁴

Source: comScore Connected Home, U.S., April 2018

Trend #3: A few CTV players dominate the market

Similar to the concentration seen among the big 4 OTT apps, CTV platform share is dominated by a few major players. Let’s zoom in on the top two categories – streaming boxes/sticks (36% of OTT devices for TV) and smart TVs (20%).⁴

• Streaming Boxes/Sticks: Together, Roku and Fire TV comprise over 60% of the U.S. installed base for streaming media players.⁷ Roku has been the dominant player since OTT’s origins a few years ago, but Amazon has been quickly catching up and recently announced figures that seem to beat Roku for the first time. As CNET reported last week, Fire TV now has over 30 million active users, whereas Roku reported 27 million active users in Q4 2018.⁸

Source: Parks Associates, U.S., Q1 2018

• Smart TV Brands: Likewise among smart TV brands, two players comprise 57% of the OEM market share with Samsung leading over VIZIO.³
  

  Source: comScore Connected Home, U.S., April 2018

These trends are important to consider for OTT advertising, as marketers will want to focus their attention on the highest reaching players. We’ll dive deeper into how to navigate this from a measurement and buying perspective on our next few posts.

In the meantime, schedule a free consultation with one of our measurement experts to gain more insight on AppsFlyer’s OTT and mobile attribution solutions.

Research Sources
¹ Extreme Reach, “Q2 2018 Video Benchmarks”, U.S., Q2 2018
² MAGNA via Marketing Dive, “OTT ad spending will leap 40% to $2B in 2018, Magna Finds”, U.S., Sept. 2018
³ WYWY, eMarketer, Altitude Digital, LinkedIn, Wikipedia
⁴ comScore Connected Home, “State of OTT: An in-depth look at today’s over-the-top content consumption and device usage”, U.S., April 2018
⁵ Adobe Digital Insights, “Digital Dollar Report”, U.S., Q1 2018
⁶ Nielsen, Maru/Matchbox and Brightline via Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), “Linear TV and OTT: Living Together in Harmony”, U.S., Nov. 2018  
⁷ Parks Associates, U.S., Q1 2018
⁸ CNET, “Amazon Fire TV tops 30 million active users, seeming to beat Roku”, Jan. 10, 2018

The post Introduction to Advanced TV: Key Trends in the OTT Market appeared first on AppsFlyer.