# Mobile Apps: The Road to First-Party Analytics

- Link: https://phiture.com/mobilegrowthstack/mobile-apps-the-road-to-first-party-analytics/
- Published: 2020-06-25T08:56:23+01:00
- Author: Kevin Bravo

⌊first party attribution-min⌉⌊first party attribution-min⌉What happens when you **
need** or **want** to keep your attribution data (install sources & user data) in-
house?

Historically, attribution has always been a struggle. Being able to understand where
your users are from and what the most engaged cohorts are is a key factor in improving
your overall marketing efforts.

⌊attribution providers⌉⌊attribution providers⌉Some attribution tools that can help

There are solutions, and they’re great. Adjust, Appsflyer, Branch or [Kochava](https://kochava.com/)
are providing not only great attribution dashboards and accurate representations
of the user’s distribution, but also the power to run advanced optimization strategies
based on funnel conversion rather than simple acquisition numbers.

But what happens when you can’t –– or don’t want to –– use these tools; when you
want to keep all identification, attribution and engagement data about your users
within your grasp  and in your own database?

I’ll go through the reasons why you may need to track everything as a first party;
then I’ll explain why you may be limited in doing so when optimizing your campaigns.
Finally, I’ll share some opportunities for each channel to keep optimizing your 
ad’s for performance.

#### **1) Legal compliance with the app stores**

A couple of months ago, Apple published an update on its guidelines:

⌊complying with applicable privacy laws⌉⌊complying with applicable privacy laws⌉
The latest apple guidelines on third-party tools & kids’ apps

In short: if you have a kid’s app or any app that tracks minor users’ behavior, 
you’re not allowed to send any identification data (device ID, IDFA, email, etc.)
to third-party tools.

**Update 23/06: **During WWDC, Apple expressed its intent in[ bringing more privacy rules and more clarity on how each data point is being used for all users](https://mobiledevmemo.com/apocalypse-now-per-wwdc-the-idfa-is-dead/).

⌊data linked to you and data used to track you⌉⌊data linked to you and data used
to track you⌉Even if the way these new privacy rules will impact app store guidelines
is not specified yet, we can agree that it will lean towards users’ control, therefore
reducing what you can do with third-party tools.

#### **2) COPPA and GDPR compliance**

Similar to Apple’s guidelines, COPPA imposes_ “certain requirements on operators
of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age”. _

Collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age is illegal,
creating further complexity when it comes to attribution and engagement analysis.

There’s no need to present the GDPR anymore, which is also impacting the way you’re
allowed to manipulate and transfer such personal data.

#### **3) No dedicated budget to attribution tools**

As I said, attribution tools are great; but they are not always aligned with every
company’s budgeting plans — especially when you’re only running ads on specific 
networks (Facebook/Google and Apple Search Ads), making it hard to justify such 
budgets as they’re based on monthly install numbers.

#### **4) Willingness to keep everything in-house**

This is actually a strong reason. Some companies just want to avoid sending any 
type of data.

Reasons as to why: 

 * Internal guidelines on data processing and third-party tools usage 
 * Company’s philosophy/mindset on offering their users better privacy
 * Data analysis strategy: the company being more comfortable conducting their own
   analysis & optimization strategies and leveraging their own set of dashboards
   and tools

#### **5) How long can we actually keep working with the IDFA/AAID?**

The IDFA(for iOS)/AAID (for Android) is the advertising ID that is used to track
users across apps and networks. It’s attached to a specific device and doesn’t change.

Some experts are predicting that it may disappear in the near future, and its usage
has been[ heavily criticized in the industry](https://mobiledevmemo.com/apocalypse-soon-what-happens-when-the-idfa-is-deprecated/).

Attribution tools will have to figure out another way to keep their attributions
as accurate as possible, but it may take some time before they can adapt. 

### **UPDATE 23/06: IDFA is taking the next exit**

In the latest Apple WWDC, they announced new privacy rules regarding users’ data
tracking. One of these announcements is the following:

⌊pal about pop up notification⌉⌊pal about pop up notification⌉It’s now required 
to ask for permission to deliver personalized ads. In other terms, it means you 
need to ask users to allow IDFA tracking. 

It’s not hard to guess the percentage of users who will end up denying this prompt––
from 30 to 50%, probably –– giving attribution providers a hard time and making 
your capacity for optimizing advertising campaigns more complex as well. 

### **Attribution: App Installs vs Conversions**

The main reason why we use attribution tools is that we want to better understand
our advertising campaigns. There are two ways to do this:

 * **Install optimization: **trying to optimize campaigns based on how many installs
   each keyword/creative is bringing and the avg. CPI (average cost per install)
 * **Conversion optimization:** improving budget allocation and identifying best
   keyword/creative/adgroup/etc. for each type of conversion, ranging from sign 
   up to purchase, allowing a better understanding of your (ROAS) return on ad spend

Where install optimization will be limited in improving the number of new users,
conversion optimization allows you to understand the true ROAS of each of your campaigns,
helping you acquire more valuable users.

⌊install, sign up and purchase⌉⌊install, sign up and purchase⌉That’s where attribution
tools come into play: they allow you to track conversion events and match them with
attribution data.

But, as we said, you need to integrate their SDK (software development kit) and**
send them data, **as attribution tools **rely** **on the IDFA/AAID (and other identification
data).**

### **Go First Party, One Channel at a Time**

I’d like to share some thoughts on what companies can do if they can’t –– or don’t
want to –– use attribution providers to ensure they’re still able to optimize their
marketing efforts towards conversion & engaged users  ( at least at the channel’s
level).

#### **1) Don’t build everything in-house**

Building an in-house attribution system will require a lot of technical resources
for its development and maintenance.

If there are just a couple of well-known attribution tools, it’s because they are
resource heavy and extremely hard to build. Don’t expect to craft your own multi-
touch attribution system within months –– or even years. 

#### **2) Using channels’ dashboards**

This may be feasible for some channels that will not ask you to send them identification
data. 

The bigger ones will end up complying with these rules; some already are (if you’re
running Apple Search Ads campaigns, you’ll be OK).

But here is the catch: channels/networks often don’t offer the same level of reporting
that you could expect from an attribution provider, and there is no conversion tracking**(
or at least not without including the identification data we talked about)**.

### **Apple Search Ads Use Case**

If you’re looking into Apple Search Ads, you can’t track conversion or your return
on ad spend. This means that you’ll only be able to track app installs and optimize
your campaigns based on that.

⌊impressions, taps and installs⌉⌊impressions, taps and installs⌉This isn’t ideal
if you’ve allocated a decent budget to the channel, as you’ll probably have a hard
time reaching –– or even calculating –– a correct ROAS. 

There are tools like **Search Ads HQ **that allow you to send over conversion events,
so you can optimize your campaigns towards these events, instead of only looking
at app installs.

⌊super duper app⌉⌊super duper app⌉Unfortunately, Search Ads HQ relies on either 
attribution tools to send them events or server-side connections.

That’s why[ **2nd Potion**](https://2ndpotion.com/), in collaboration with[ **Phiture**](https://phiture.com/),
has crafted **Elixir –– **one of the first first-party attribution enablers.

⌊elixir⌉⌊elixir⌉The way it works: we’ll collect Apple Search Ads **attribution data,**
as well as **conversion events triggered by users, **and send it over to a specific
destination (Search Ads HQ or even a company’s internal warehouse).

Elixir doesn’t store any data as everything is sent from the user’s device, straight
to the destination, without including the IDFA. 

Elixir offers a way to get conversion and attribution data in the same place while
ensuring the respect of users’ data privacy. Even if it doesn’t replace it, it can
be used in addition to your analytics solution for campaign optimization.

⌊2nd potion apple search ads⌉⌊2nd potion apple search ads⌉A quick overview of the
way Elixir works with Apple Search Ads

In this setup, you can decide to send data from your app, directly to your database
using Elixir, without any third party receiving/storing any of it.

That means you own and control all your attribution data (in compliance with Apple).
It also means that the pricing won’t scale based on MAU (monthly active users), 
but only based on the storage size — going from 10k to 1m MAU won’t cost you more
than the server charge.

This doesn’t fix all the issues, but it gives a simple answer to a complex problem:
enabling a campaign’s optimization based on conversion for Apple Search Ads.

### **Google And Facebook**

Google provides its own attribution tool, which is accurate for google networks 
but less likely to be accurate for others

BUT, Google uses IDFA/AIDA to identify users, which means you can’t track installs
if you’re not using the IDFA or not ready to integrate the Firebase SDK.

Regarding Facebook, you’ll need to communicate your data in order to track installs.
_At present, there aren’t any known ways to implement Facebook install attributions
without integrating their SDK or a third-party SDK_. 

Both networks rely on you complying with the game’s rules: integrating their SDKs
and/or sending your users’ IDFA/AAID. 

#### **UPDATE 23/06: Ready to comply?**

As Apple is pushing towards more control on IDFA, we can surely expect Google and
Facebook to reply and offer new ways to track installs and conversion events without
IDFA/AAID or identification data. 

Maybe it will be through Apple’s SKAdNetwork (a framework built to allow privacy
in ad networks tracking).

#### **Snapchat/TikTok**

There are two ways to run campaigns on TikTok/Snapchat: either through their ad 
manager or with influencers campaigns (I’ll tackle this one later). 

At the moment, both Snapchat and TikTok rely on IDFA and third-party tracking tools
to optimize conversion events. 

This means that if you want to get accurate data on true app installs metrics and/
or conversions, you’ll need to work with the third-party and share your users’ IDFA.

Only time will tell if these platforms decide to move towards a tracking methodology
with better privacy.

#### **Other networks/Influencer’s tracking (Snapchat/TikTok/Instagram/Youtube)**

Without going into details, it’s fairly easy to rely on iOS or Android methods when
handling universal links to set up a custom domain on your server and get accurate
Influencer campaign metrics.

What may be harder is to track these users down the funnel by looking at their engagement
and monetization behavior.

With **Elixir**, we’re leveraging the same methodology we use for Apple Search Ads
in attributing installs and conversions, enabling true performance marketing with
your Influencer marketing.

And because some ad networks or other networks allow universal links in their ads,
you can also track these networks with the same strategy.

_If Facebook or Google changed their guidelines in universal link usage in their
ads, it would mean that we could already track, with accuracy, direct installs coming
from their ad networks._

### **So.. What’s Next?**

Apple’s latest conference has shown us that we can’t rely on the IDFA/AAID and traditional
third-party tracking approaches to keep optimizing our advertising campaigns.

Going first party is an option, and many initiatives like Elixir will continue to
emerge and offer ways to take the initiative. 

We may be far from the accuracy of attribution partners (at first) and many channels
may take some time to adapt, but we can already see how it can work with networks
like Apple Search Ads and Influencer campaigns, and we can see that it’s just a 
matter of months before Google, Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok will follow.

If you’re facing a similar challenge, we’d be happy to chat 😎

_Thanks to Alex Billaud, Moritz Daan and Nicholas Fraser_