One of the biggest challenges facing any advertiser on mobile is getting data back from the campaigns. Metrics are notoriously difficult to gather over mobile, as many of the traditional on-line techniques simply don’t apply. Mobile advertiser Adfonic has released an App Install Tracking service, so that developers and publishers will be able to measure exactly how many installs are being driven by advertising, and more. I talked to Adfonic CTO and Co-Founder Wes Biggs about the service today.
Some background
Adfonic launched in July 2009, as a self-service network that can places display ads across a wide number of mobile platforms. To get Adfonic ads into your app, you just need to set up a dedicated ad slot for Adfonic, and it will automate the rest of the process. And not just apps – the slots work on mobile websites, iPhone-only sites and mobile applications. For ad publishers, it has campaign management and targeting features. The most recently launched feature is app tracking, which is what Wes and I talked about.
GoMo: What does the tracking software do?
Wes: It’s for iPhone advertisers or developers who are trying to push traffic to an application through advertising. They can install our tracking code either on the app itself, or on a server that is running the application. It closes the loop around accountability, and provides much better info on how their ad campaigns are being accessed on the Adfonic network.
The idea here is to let publishers and developers move towards a Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA) model, and really see how much it takes to get a new user for their application. We’re not selling the ad placement on a CPA basis, but we’re taking the important step of allowing the advertiser to work that cost out for themselves.
GoMo: Why is that important?
There’s an expectation among on-line advertisers that there’s a market on mobile – that mobile as a channel can match the levels of accountability that can be reached on on-line channels. And this expectation exists because mobile is a digital channel, and there’s a belief in the possibilty to do that. It’s only recently that the market has teached a stage where that can be achieved. This is a key part of acheiving that trend – where you can track not ONLY installation events, but proper tracking of how many users are being pushed towards those events through your advertising campaign.
GoMo: There are numerous companies trying to crack metrics for applications. Why choose Adfonic?
What we’re looking at here is a very specific area of analytics, based around campaign management. Advertisers who work with digital media are used to direct marketing and CPM, so a lot of advertising spend goes there. What we’re trying to do is close the loop, so you can really see what you’re doing. This will help advertisers who are use to on-line search marketing get the same kind of experience on mobile.
We power that with real time reporting, so as you make changes in the way you target your audience, you can see that affecting your campaign in real time. It’s also important that we want this service to be targeted at the developing community. We have launched a developer wiki with all the details on how to set this up. There are sample codes there that they can just copy and paste. developer.adfonics.com
GoMo: Does this work hand-in-hand with your advertising network?
It’s all about integration. For example, let’s say someone wants to use advertising to drive their app to 20,000 subscriptions. That’s where they’ll use our iPhone publisher network, where we’re experiencing incredible growth. But with the addition of the tracking feature, we’re looking at how your campaign really effects that boost.
