Mobile Ad Attribution: How App Tracking Works

Without app tracking, you have no visibility into user actions on your app. But by accurately capturing attribution events—app installs, account sign-ups, and in-app purchases—you gain insights into your app that can change how you optimize your user experience. This approach to tracking allows organizations to pinpoint which ad campaigns are driving the most engagement and conversions, enabling them to make informed decisions about where to allocate resources.

This targeted approach helps in identifying successful campaigns and also helps you tailor messaging for different user segments. By understanding user behaviors, you can craft bespoke marketing strategies that resonate more deeply with your audience.

Ultimately, effective app tracking maximizes ROI by optimizing your ad strategies. App tracking is essential for driving growth and ensuring you stay ahead of the curve, so let's learn more about how it works and how you can implement app tracking.

What is Mobile Ad Attribution?

First, let’s take a closer look at what mobile ad attribution means: It refers to the process of tracking and analyzing how app users interact with advertisements and, further, how those interactions lead to engagement, like app installs or purchases. Mobile app advertising uses a mobile device ID to track users within an app and Software Development Kits (SDKs) to help with attribution.

Mobile ad attribution goes beyond mere clicks, as it delves into understanding the entire user journey, from the initial ad exposure to the final conversion. Using a variety of attribution approaches allows advertisers to understand if it was the first impression, last impression, or something in between that drove the conversion. It’s recognized as a more complex form of tracking, as tracking a user’s journey across multiple devices and channels is more difficult.

It's challenging to accurately attribute app installs these days, with privacy regulations and technological changes impacting data collection. As users become more conscious of their data privacy, comprehensive attribution practices become vital for maintaining trust and transparency. This empowers marketers to create more personalized experiences, ultimately leading to higher engagement.

Mobile app attribution vs. pixel-based attribution

Mobile app attribution differs from pixel-based attribution based on a number of qualities, such as the data sources, tracking methods, and attribution models. Pixel-based attribution tracks the interactions website users have with ads by embedding tracking pixels into the coding of the website. The pixels are activated when the user engages, sending the data from the interaction back to the server. While helpful for online browsers and websites, the use of pixels is limited in mobile devices due to the fact that pixels can’t be easily added to mobile apps in the same way they can be slipped into website coding. 

Instead, mobile attribution uses SDKs to track user behavior. Rather than relying on pixels, mobile attribution looks exclusively at models tailored to app based behavior, such as click through and view through attribution, which pick up on the mobile nuances traditional attribution can’t.

When someone installs an app, that's just the first step. After that, it's important to see which ads led to actions within the app, like making a purchase or signing up for an account. This way, businesses can understand how effective their marketing is at every stage of the user journey, not just when the app is installed. Mobile ad attribution gives a clearer picture of user behavior in apps, which is something pixel-based attribution can’t provide.

The Importance of Mobile Attribution

Role in measuring marketing effectiveness

Mobile ad attribution allows marketing campaigns to operate at the highest level of functionality possible. Additionally, it helps measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by comprehensively tracking users’ journeys from initial ad exposure to potential conversion, also noting markers along the way. Future strategies are informed by A/B testing and cross-channel insights, allowing marketers to make data-driven decisions that promote growth.

Enhances user acquisition strategies

App tracking provides valuable data that allows for targeting based on user demographics, behaviors, and preferences, ensuring that the ads reach the right audience for the product. Mobile ad attribution factors in the importance of initial touchpoints that attract engagement and create a loyal customer base. By analyzing which touchpoints are most effective, mobile attribution helps to refine acquisition efforts to foster long-term engagement.

Optimizing ad spend

By tracking which channels and campaigns create the most conversions, businesses can allocate resources effectively to optimize ad spend. Mobile ad attribution helps evaluate the cost-effectiveness of campaigns by analyzing essential metrics such as customer acquisition cost and return on ad spend. Advertisers can alter their campaigns by making these improvements to focus on the most profitable channels, ensuring optimal budget use.

Understanding user behavior

Mobile ad attribution provides in-depth insights into how users interact with mobile ads and apps. Tracking user journeys through mobile interfaces reveals the choices made and engagement patterns along the way, allowing for a better understanding of the process from the initial touchpoint to customer conversion. Mobile attribution supports segmenting users into smaller, more personalized groups, allowing strategies to be targeted specifically to individuals with specific behavior characteristics.

How Mobile Attribution Works with MMPs

Since we’ve covered that mobile app attribution can’t work like pixel-based attribution, how do you track in-app events without a pixel? SDKs and mobile measurement partners (MMPs) make up for being unable to place the pixel like you would on a website.

For the top of the funnel, you’d want to track app installs from an app store. MMPs are key for tracking installs because they help you more clearly attribute them across complex user journeys — some users travel from browsers or other apps to the app store, which complicates attribution.

MMPs are also instrumental in tracking in-app engagement in lieu of the pixel-tracking we expect on websites. They can track critical events like app opens, registrations, add-to-cart actions, and purchases. This lets you gather detailed engagement insights to optimize campaigns and boost growth.

The Attribution Process: Step by Step

1. User clicks on an ad

This is the starting point for the whole process, as the user starts their journey by encountering a mobile ad. Once they click on it, the tracking process is initiated, and their data becomes viable.

2. Tracking links and SDK integration

The clicked-on ad contains a unique tracking link that redirects the user to the app or the app store if they haven’t yet downloaded it. The link includes data points that help identify the ad source, campaign, and other relevant information. Developers integrate a Software Development Kit, also known as an SDK, to accurately track the user journey after installation. The SDK continues to track user behavior within the app, such as purchases, registrations, or any other predetermined events. The data provided allows advertisers to understand how users interact with the apps post-download and how this information can help refine their campaign.

3. Reporting and analysis

The attribution provider collects data on installs and user interactions, allowing marketers to get a deeper look at the effectiveness of different ads and campaigns. Metrics like conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, and user engagement levels can help detail the effectiveness of certain advertising efforts, such as evaluating the performance of different channels and optimizing their marketing strategy from there.

What Mobile Attribution Can Teach You

User journey tracking

Mobile ad attribution provides a window into users’ app behaviors that traditional attribution marketing can’t. By tracking the browser’s online activity step by step, advertisers can access the most comprehensive information available. Tools like retention tables and tracking simplify the analysis of returning users, highlighting user engagement over time and helping to identify friction points where users are more likely to end their journey.

Similarly, navigation patterns and feature adoptions helps to monitor whether users are getting the most out of your app. Tracking their journey and utilization of certain features allows developers to better understand what the public find helpful. Data points illustrating the user journey enable advertisers to design more effective campaigns and optimize their budgets by gaining insights into what works best.

Multi-touch attribution

Implementing a multi-touch attribution strategy provides the most comprehensive look into app-based marketing and can demonstrate which touchpoints most influence consumer behavior. Looking at a diverse range of data points rather than just the first or last provides deeper insight into consumer activity. Analyzing the conversion success of different ad campaigns can help highlight what areas to focus on.

Unlocking the Full Potential of Mobile Ad Attribution

With more action happening in the app space, organizations and advertising campaigns must keep up with the times. Effectively measuring app success can be crucial in navigating digital ads, making it essential to select an ad platform that enables mobile attribution. This empowers you with the insights needed to optimize campaigns, improve user acquisition strategies, and drive sustained growth. For more information on AdRoll’s attribution capabilities, contact us.

Last updated on October 21st, 2024.