Remember your Math teacher saying you must stop using calculators because you won’t always have one in your pocket?
Well, mobile attribution platforms are like calculators but for marketing campaigns. They aggregate an immense amount of data regarding your customer journey from the first stage of your sales funnel to buying decisions and even retargeting.
That means you can focus on what’s important: optimizing your campaign to drive more results.
But you need the right platform for that.
Choosing mobile attribution tools is not as easy as it sounds, mainly because of potential fraud issues. And not all these platforms are created equal. They differ in terms of analytics, data points, and how they measure the entire user journey.
From the perspective of a full-service mobile app marketing agency, we’ll help you get started below.
TL;DR
- Mobile attribution platforms are like calculators for marketing campaigns, aggregating data to optimize campaigns effectively.
- Mobile attribution tools explain user behavior better than Google Analytics, aiding in making informed business decisions.
- Choose platforms based on accuracy, features, integrations, reports, speed, security, and pricing.
- AppsFlyer is notable for versatile attribution, Branch works better for e-commerce, Adjust for security, Singular for large companies, Kochava for indie teams, Airbridge for growth, and Funnel for user-friendliness.
- Consider company size and goals when selecting a platform.
What Is Mobile Attribution?
Mobile app attribution helps marketers understand the customer journey. Based on hard cold data, mobile attribution connects the dots between customer behavior and the results.
This helps you determine:
- The initial click
- How that click connects to the install
Mobile attribution tools are more effective for marketing campaigns than Google Analytics because they explain why mobile users behave in a certain way. Besides, they allow you to notify partners of installs and events.
These insights about your customers’ user experience assist your overall mobile app marketing efforts because:
- You know which advertising channels worked.
- You understand how to adjust your marketing budget because you know where the fake clicks and installs are.
- You can determine high-value customers.
Basically, you will make better business decisions.
How to Choose a Mobile Attribution Platform for Your Campaign
Let’s see the essential features reputable mobile app advertising agencies consider when choosing the right mobile measurement partner:
Data Accuracy
Having an accurate interpretation of your data is essential for mobile marketers. The major attribution platforms on the market luckily respect this principle.
Here’s how you can tell:
There is no major difference between the data on your UA and attribution platforms. So if Google Ads shows 30% more app installs from organic traffic than your mobile attribution partner, something is fishy.
Remember: When looking at big numbers, even a $0.1 difference in CPIs can make a huge difference.
Continuing like this affects your campaign because you won’t be able to choose the right solution. Your relationship with your clients will also likely be affected because of your inaccurate reporting.
Features and Integrations
You may want your attribution platform packed with fancy features and many integrations that make your life easier. But you also have to ensure these features are useful for your needs.
Here are two examples:
- Multi-touch attribution determines which channel/ ad campaign brought people to your app. But knowing where your conversions come from may require additional features, such as cohort data tracking or time-zone-based analysis.
- Mobile attribution can be awesome, and most platforms have it. But what if your audience prefers desktops? In this case, you need desktop attribution data to measure your marketing campaign.
Report Quality
A high report quality means being able to optimize your mobile app ad creatives and advertising campaigns in real-time, thus getting more results to your clients. And that leads to your business flourishing.
Of course, you need those reports to be based on your goals.
That means your attribution partner must allow you to pick the right KPIs for your app marketing objectives.
Attribution Speed
Attribution speed is essential because:
- In-depth industry insights will help you make the right marketing decisions, but only if you are on time.
- Slow attribution platforms can lead to fake reports.
For example, you may not see the correct number of app installs in real time if the platform doesn’t have time to assess all the data. Therefore, you might see a lower CPI than in reality.
Usually, expect attributions to last between one and seven days.
Security Features
Your information is registered on that platform when you use a mobile attribution tool. That’s why you need:
- Top-notch security (e.g., Security, Orchestration, Automation, and Response)
- Fraud detection capabilities
- Fraud prevention features
Price
If you are an indie app developer and have never used a mobile attribution provider before, we recommend choosing a free tool.
But if you have a large company that can afford to up your app marketing spend, choose a tool that offers comprehensive business plans.
Get the most out of your user acquisition with our mobile app marketing agency in Paris!
7 Best Mobile Attribution Platforms
With all that in mind, let’s see what the best attribution providers in the market can offer:
1. AppsFlyer: Best Overall Tool
AppsFlyer is the best overall tool in this review thanks to its slew of attribution methods, including:
- Multi-touch attribution: Analyzes all the useful customer touchpoints, thus offering deep analytics
- Retargeting attribution: Helps you gauge the performance of your retargeting campaign. The AppsFlyer attribution model links events stemming from user engagement with:
- The channel/ source where the app install comes from
- The channel/ source that leads to the re-engagement
- Configurable attribution lookback: These lookback windows are an awesome asset because they enable you to personalize your attribution period for each media source. And that means you get more accurate time-related data.
Besides, AppsFlyer follows an impressive range of conversion metrics that cover the entire acquisition funnel, from impressions to in-app events. Other features include:
- Audience builder for people-based user acquisition campaigns
- Retention reports
- Cohort analysis
- SDK integration across multiple platforms (Android, iOS, Windows, and more)
- In-depth reports with granular insights
- Fraud protection
You can choose between three pricing plans:
- Zero (free): Best for startups
- Growth (7 cents/ conversion): Best for small to medium companies
- Enterprise (customized price): Best for large companies
2. Branch: Best for E-commerce Companies
Branch is best for e-commerce companies – and not just because it claims to be. But the platform boasts multiple features that help you get unique insights about your customer journey. For example, it’s one of the few platforms that allow you to see all marketing channels your active users interacted with.
Branch uses people-based attribution, which means:
- You get more access to more data on digital touchpoints throughout the entire customer journey.
- This data is very accurate, so you won’t get duplicate users.
Branch also has a cross-platform, cross-device, and cross-channel eagle-eye view of your attribution data. As a result, you understand user behavior better so that you can interact with your customers in meaningful ways.
Branch’s unique selling point is its deep-linking platform that complements the attribution tools offered.
Deep linking helps you eliminate broken links and help your prospects reach the right pages. Thus, you enhance the user app onboarding experience with:
- Personalized app invites for custom user onboarding
- Customized landing pages
- Content sharing
- Relevant app content
- Incentives
Branch has two pricing plans:
- Launch (free): Best for small companies
- Enterprise (custom price): Great for larger companies
3. Adjust: Best for Security
Adjust is one of the most secure platforms for app marketers because it has a private, monitored cloud infrastructure. Adjust’s anti-fraud capabilities have only gotten stronger after purchasing Unbotify a few years back, which is software preventing bot fraud. And having access to a private cloud infrastructure gives them access to more security certificates.
But that’s not the only reason we recommend Adjust. The platform is flexible and versatile, doubling as an app analytics and attribution platform. And it has plenty of useful features, such as:
- App analytics
- Store stats
- Campaign tracking
- Cohort analysis
- Multiple KPIs for apps
- Works for mobile and non-mobile channels
- Intuitive dashboard
- In-app events tracking
Adjust also purchased Acquired.io, which is a data aggregation platform. As such, you can see all your marketing campaigns in a single dashboard. Even better, you can set an automated workflow that streamlines your time and resources.
Insider tip: We recommend Adjust particularly for user acquisition (UA) testing if you don’t want an annual subscription.
Adjust’s pricing plans are:
- Base (free trial): Up to 1, 500 monthly attributions
- Core (customized plan): Up to 250, 000 monthly attributions
- Enterprise (customized plan): Over 250, 000 monthly attributions
4. Singular: Best for Large Companies
Singular is a solid tool, promising to give your mobile business a holistic view of your ROI. The platform uses precise attribution, analyzing data for your entire marketing funnel. And you can also count on its fraud prevention capabilities.
This full-service platform includes:
- Marketing analytics: Actionable insights across marketing platforms
- Creative analytics: Helps improve your storytelling
- Cost aggregation: Reports that give you a holistic view of your marketing spend
- Marketing ETL: Allows you to connect marketing data from everywhere
- Mobile attribution: You can monitor user journey to conversion on multiple marketing channels
- Ad monetization: Analyze ad revenue and acquisition costs
Besides, their integration partners are too many to count. That’s one of the reasons why Singular is better for larger companies likelier to need a slew of external integrations.
Another is that Singular partners with Amazon Web Services, allowing you to extract directly into your AWS applications.
Singular boasts two pricing plans:
- Growth (offers a free trial): Best for growing businesses
- Enterprise: Best if you need a dedicated mobile CMS and in-depth attribution
5. Kochava: Best for Indie Teams
If you’re an indie developer, consider Kochava. Here’s why:
This platform offers a 360-degree view of all your metrics across devices and platforms to assist you from the beginning of your campaign to the optimization stage. From paid media to owned media, from mobile to desktop and gaming to outdoor, Kochava sees it all.
You can also integrate a wide range of third-party tools, meaning you can get tailored results for your analytic stack.
Best of all, you can get free access to all the full features and raw data if you share your data with them.
That’s why we recommend Kochava for indie teams and small companies with smaller marketing budgets.
You can improve user acquisition effectively using this platform thanks to features such as:
- Kochva Traffic Index for focusing on higher-quality app users
- Unified Audience Platform to set customer identity and segment your audience
- Push notifications to specific users
- A/B multivariate testing
- Marketers Operating System® (m/OS) to integrate omni-channel marketing solutions in one place
Kochava offers three price plans:
- Free ($0/month): Best for indie apps
- Foundation ($100/month): Best for small to medium companies
- Enterprise: Best for larger companies
6. Airbridge: Best for Growing Companies
Airbridge delivers stellar customer touchpoint analysis, which is probably why it’s become Meta’s official partner. Airbridge is an impartial analytics platform that includes:
- Last-touch attribution
- Multi-touch attribution
- Marketing mix modeling
Airbridge promises to help you maximize your mobile growth by discovering new sources for that growth.
For that, Airbridge boasts a single dashboard that delivers the full picture of your marketing performance. You can see these metrics for:
- Web
- App
- Android
- iOS
- SKAN
- Non-SKAN
Airbridge has another neat feature we recommend for small companies – budget optimization.
This feature helps you build your marketing budget based on cold data, thus maximizing your app growth. You will see key metrics like installs per month, eCPI, and eROAS.
That’s not all. Airbridge also offers solutions for:
- Deep linking
- Shopping and commerce
- Finance
- Gaming
Airbridge pricing plans are customized depending on your needs. However, you can start a free trial to see if they fit your needs.
7. Funnel: Easy-to-Use Platform
Funnel is one of the easiest platforms for mobile attribution, though it has the priciest annual contracts too. You only need a few clicks to get the job done, and you don’t need to be a coding expert to start. Funnel is very intuitive, rendering insightful reports that help optimize your budget allocation.
The omni-channel overview you get from Funnel is fast and accurate.
Funnel will also help you organize better because it imports all your marketing data across sources. And it will store this info very securely in a centralized hub. After analyzing this raw data, Funnel delivers insightful reports that you can share quickly across your teams.
Funnel offers three price plans:
- Essentials (€359): Best for small teams
- Plus (€899): Includes guided onboarding and premium customer support
- Enterprise (€1799): Best for large companies that want to scale their campaigns
Which Mobile Attribution Platform Will You Choose?
As you can see, the attribution platforms above have different capabilities and fit different needs. That’s why it’s important to look at your company size and marketing goals before anything.
Then, focus on data accuracy, speed, and security options.
All the platforms we included in this review tick these boxes, but here’s a quick rundown of what they’re best for so you can make an informed decision:
- AppsFlyer: Best overall tool
- Branch: Best for e-commerce companies
- Adjust: Best for security
- Singular: Best for large companies
- Kochava: Best for indie teams
- Airbridge: Best for growing companies
- Funnel: Easy-to-use platform
If you don’t know how to get started, inBeat can help. Set a free strategy call with us, and we’ll help you get started with personalized advice.
Want more examples of successful mobile app marketing campaigns? Check out case studies of our mobile app marketing agency in the UK!
