AppsFlyer just closed its second acquisition in less than one month.
On Tuesday, AppsFlyer acquired oolo, an AI-powered user acquisition and monetization platform that automatically analyzes live app data to forecast performance, identify growth areas and detect ad revenue anomalies.
Uncovering issues with campaign performance or a piece of creative – then drilling down to the root cause of the problem – is just as important as knowing what’s working well, said oolo CEO Yuval Brener.
And it’s very easy for issues (and opportunities) to slip through the cracks.
Monetization and growth teams are only human after all. They can’t analyze millions of data points themselves daily in real time, so they often end up relying too much on their gut, Brener said.
“There’s an inherent tension between quality and quantity, but AI breaks that equation,” he said. “It doesn’t replace UA managers; it equips them with tools so they don’t have to spend hours every day doing machine-like work and still end up with less accurate results.”
All of oolo’s 15 employees are joining AppsFlyer. Both companies declined to share a deal price.
Pals in Privacy Cloud
Although oolo will remain available as a standalone solution, AppsFlyer plans to also integrate the technology into its data clean room-style Privacy Cloud Marketplace, which has been in closed beta since October.
The purpose of the marketplace is to give developers API access to multiple ad networks, analytics, AI models and software services without having to copy, expose or share their user data.
The idea behind the oolo acquisition – similar to the rationale for AppsFlyer’s acquisition of app analytics provider devtodev in early November – is to populate the marketplace and create some momentum among customers.
Although CEO Oren Kaniel said he’ll keep his eyes open for potential acquisition targets in 2024, there are no plans to close another deal this year.
In the meantime, AppsFlyer is recruiting third-party partners to join the marketplace while also evangelizing the underlying concept, which is that the less data moves around, the more secure it is, Kaniel said.
Baking data minimization directly into the platform also eases the regulatory compliance burden for smaller software providers.
“Smaller companies struggle with data protection, but they need to provide that if they want to scale,” Kaniel said. “By minimizing the amount of data copying and sharing that has to happen, they can offer their services easily without having to involve a customer’s R&D.”
Doing vs. digging
Because, frankly, app marketers are busy enough.
They need to monitor every aspect of their campaigns, from media spend by day and customer behavior by geography to user acquisition costs, return on investment and lifetime value.
If something breaks or goes wrong – or if there’s a chance to spend more on something that’s performing well – they need to act fast or risk losing revenue.
But in order to do these things, there’s just a heck of a lot of data that has to be continuously analyzed, said Barak Witkowski, AppsFlyer’s chief product officer. And it’s not always clear from looking at a data visualization dashboard where the opportunities are, which issues need urgent attention or what a developer should do to take advantage or plug a hole.
“When you have a huge amount of data, there’s a lot of gold, but customers aren’t usually equipped to dig in and find it,” Witkowski said. “You need an AI that constantly scans the data and filters out the noise.”
One of the aspects of oolo’s offering that was most attractive to AppsFlyer is that it provides time-sensitive alerts so developers can make quick decisions and take action to improve performance or fix a problem.
That could be anything from a technical issue with an ad monetization platform to human error, like setting the floor price for a campaign and all of a sudden you’re spending 10 times more than you meant to.
Time is always money, and the more time goes by without noticing and handling a snafu, the more money gets wasted.
“If it takes two or three days or even longer to become aware of something and make a decision, then you’re losing money,” Kaniel said. “You need to know when something’s gone wrong, or you’ll continue making wrong decisions.”
