Struggling to determine which of your ads are driving conversions? Mobile attribution can be the magic wand—provided you’re able to make the best use of it. Sounds interesting, right? Here’s what you need to know about mobile advertising attribution and how it can boost your affiliate revenue and overall marketing efforts!
Mobile Attribution Definition
For businesses and affiliate marketers looking to optimize their mobile marketing strategies, we must stress the importance of understanding mobile ad attribution meaning and steps of operation. Otherwise, you would be guessing which campaigns are effective. Is there anything wrong with guessing? Of course, yes! Guesswork often leads to wrong decisions, wasted budgets, and missed opportunities. Frankly speaking, this is not a position you want to be in!
So, what is mobile attribution? It’s a term that refers to the process of identifying which marketing channels, campaigns, or ads led users to take specific actions, such as installing an app, making a purchase, depositing money at a casino, playing a game, or signing up for a service. Simply put, mobile attribution uses dedicated platforms or tools to connect user interactions with the marketing sources that influenced them.
Here are some examples of the best mobile attribution platforms: AppsFlyer, Google Analytics, Trackier, Ruler Analytics, HubSpot Marketing Hub, LeadRx, and Singular. These mobile attribution tools are really essential for you as a marketer because they help you understand how effective your advertising efforts are. They provide valuable insights into user behavior by tracking important data like click-through rates, user acquisition costs, and the return on investment (ROI) from different channels.
Many of these mobile attribution tools also offer features like cohort analysis, which lets you see how different groups of users interact with your app or mobile platform over time. This kind of information is super useful for optimizing your retention strategies and increasing user engagement.
Types of Mobile Attribution Models
When it comes to mobile attribution, selecting the right model can significantly impact your insights and strategies. So, to make a good choice, here are some popular attribution models to consider:
🔸 Last Click Attribution: This model gives full credit to the last ad the user clicked before converting. It’s straightforward but may overlook earlier interactions that played a role in the user’s decision.
For instance, suppose a user clicks on an ad for a new slot game on Facebook right before signing up and making their first deposit. In this scenario, the Facebook ad would receive 100% of the credit for that conversion.
🔸 First Click Attribution: This assigns credit to the first ad interaction a user had with your brand. It’s useful for understanding how users first engage with your offerings.
For example, if a user first learns about your online casino brand through a promotional banner on a gaming blog and later clicks through a Google ad to make a deposit, the banner on the gaming blog receives all the credit. This helps you identify effective channels for creating initial awareness.
🔸 Multi-Touch Attribution: This approach distributes credit across multiple touchpoints in the user journey, giving a more holistic view of how different interactions contribute to conversions.
Imagine a user sees an ad for a poker tournament on Instagram, then receives an email newsletter about the tournament, and finally clicks a Google ad to sign up. In a multi-touch attribution model, each of these interactions would receive a portion of the credit for the eventual conversion, helping you identify which channels work best together.
🔸 View-Through Attribution: This counts impressions from ads that users saw but didn’t click on, which later led to conversions. It helps in understanding the impact of brand visibility even when users don’t take immediate action.
For instance, if a user sees a display ad for your online casino while browsing another site but doesn’t click it, and later visits your casino website directly to sign up, the display ad would still receive credit for influencing that user’s decision. This shows how important brand exposure can be for conversions, even without immediate interaction.
How Does Mobile Attribution Work in Affiliate Marketing?
For affiliate marketers who want to learn and understand how mobile attribution operates, here is a detailed breakdown of the process:
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Step 1. Affiliate Link Generation
The journey of mobile attribution begins with affiliates creating unique tracking links. Each link includes specific identifiers that are unique to the affiliate and the particular campaign they are promoting. These identifiers are important for tracking user interactions across different platforms and ensuring accurate commission allocation to the affiliates.
Therefore, by embedding these unique links in your content—such as blog posts, social media updates, or promotional emails—you establish a clear avenue for monitoring the performance of your affiliate marketing efforts.
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Step 2. User Action and Data Collection
When a potential user, or player in the context of online gambling, engages with a mobile advertisement—be it through a targeted social media post, a visually appealing banner, or an engaging email—this interaction generates a unique identifier that is linked to the user’s device. If the user decides to click on the ad, they are directed to complete an action, such as downloading an app or signing up at a casino.
At this stage, the mobile attribution platform records the interaction and the associated unique identifier. It ensures that every user action can be tracked back to the original ad. This step is pivotal as it sets the stage for the tracking of user journeys and their subsequent actions.
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Step 3. Matching Process
Once the user has performed the intended action, the attribution platform initiates a matching process. Here, it takes the unique identifier generated during the user’s ad interaction and links it to the specific action taken. This matching is essential for accurately attributing conversions to the correct advertising campaign, providing insights into which strategies are most effective at driving user engagement.
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Step 4. Attribution Models
Following the matching process, the last step involves selecting an attribution model to determine how credit for conversions is distributed. As we’ve shown you in the previous section, various models exist, each offering different perspectives on the user journey.
Always remember that “last click” attribution assigns all credit to the last ad the user interacted with before converting, while “multi-touch attribution” gives credit to multiple touchpoints throughout the user’s journey. The other models are also noteworthy, nonetheless.
Now, choosing the appropriate model is very important. This is because it can significantly influence the insights gained and the marketing strategies adopted.
At P4P Partners, we’ve designed and implemented a transparent system for tracking affiliate commissions. This ensures fair payouts for every successful referral, including those made under our Spades Queen casino affiliate program.
Notable Mobile Attrition Challenges
From all that we’ve been discussing, there’s no doubt that mobile attribution is incredibly valuable in affiliate marketing. However, it’s not without its share of challenges. We will highlight two critical ones.
Firstly, regulations, especially regarding privacy, have tightened. And this is making it harder to access unique device identifiers, like the identifying IDs of Apple (IDFA) and Google (GAID) for advertisers. Marketers now need to adapt to these changes and utilize more sophisticated tracking methods.
Secondly, the fragmented nature of user journeys across devices can complicate tracking efforts. As users switch between apps and platforms, ensuring accurate attribution requires advanced strategies and technologies.
Final Words
Mobile attribution is a vital tool for every marketer seeking to optimize their advertising strategies. It enables you to accurately track which channels and campaigns drive user actions so that you can make data-driven decisions that not only enhance engagement but also boost conversions.
Although challenges like privacy regulations and cross-device tracking exist, leveraging the right mobile attribution platforms with reliable support from the likes of our top-notch P4P Partners program can help you navigate these obstacles effectively.
Lastly, we encourage you to contact us for more insights and support on implementing mobile attribution in your campaigns.
