Mobile measurement provider Branch is expanding its offering with the acquisition of a first-party data platform. On Wednesday, Branch bought AdLibertas, a data platform that helps developers gather and analyze their first-party data in one place.
The middle of the mediation market is disappearing quickly, leaving mobile app developers with tough decisions to make, writes InMobi’s Kunal Nagpal. Control, neutrality, and transparency – the most important aspects for publishers – are being ceded without recourse. What does this all mean for mobile app developers?
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. SPAC Attack Mobile gaming monetization and ad tech provider IronSource began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with the goal of raising $2 billion in capital at an $11 billion valuation. The IPO comes […]
AppLovin is hoping to get some lovin’ from a white hot public market that’s been rewarding technology stocks with massive valuations. The company announced its IPO on Thursday, offering 22.5 million shares at $80 a pop. Trading will begin on the Nasdaq under the ticker APP. (Update: Shares opened at $70, below the target, and […]
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Brian Bowman, CEO and founder of Consumer Acquisition. Apple’s new IDFA policy will have a profound impact, including killing the way in which most mobile app companies A/B test creative […]
The developer community welcomed Apple’s recent move to delay the rollout of its IDFA changes in iOS 14 until “early next year.” But that delay only adds a few months onto the deadline. Early next year is sooner than it sounds. And there’s still a lot of prep work that developers and their partners need […]
Like all companies invested in the mobile ecosystem, Google is getting ready for iOS 14. But the company is playing its cards close to the vest. As opposed to Facebook, which yodeled from the rooftops about the negative impact Apple’s IDFA changes will have on publisher monetization through Audience Network, Google quietly updated its AdMob […]
Facebook’s strategy for dealing with the changes coming in iOS 14 is to simply stop collecting the IDFA. But there’s nothing simple about it. Facebook’s ad partners have a lot of steps they have to take to prepare themselves for Apple’s update if they still want to run app install campaigns through Facebook. On Wednesday, […]
After announcing via two blog posts on Wednesday that it will no longer collect the IDFA for iOS 14 devices, Facebook sent a follow-up message to its ad partners with more detail about what that will mean in practice. Here’s the full text: ******************** Today (August 26, 2020), we are providing details about our approach […]
Facebook said Friday that it’s suspending “tens of thousands” of apps from its platform for data usage violations. The suspended apps are associated with around 400 developers. The purge is part of Facebook’s continuing investigation into how third-party app developers use Facebook data, sparked by the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. So far, the […]
Fake installs on Android are costing mobile app marketers beaucoup bucks and messing with their data sets. On Wednesday, mobile marketing analytics company Singular released a tool that deterministically validates whether an Android install is real or bogus before the install gets attributed. There are other tools on the market that aim to do the […]
It’s hard enough to develop features that work well for one app or site – let alone more than 100. But that’s the task at hand for Kara Chiles, senior director of product development at USA Today Network, a national news service that shares content and resources between USA Today and Gannett-owned local properties across the […]
For many app publishers, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was an opportunity to examine each of their many SDK integrations and ask, “Does it spark joy?” The answer, in many cases, was no: It sparks the potential for data leakage and compliance headaches. In 2018, the number of unused SDKs – those that a publisher […]
What does a 13-year-old have in common with a retired woman and a middle-aged man? They all play mobile games. “There’s a misconception that the gaming audience is just kids,” said Brian Ames, president of Activision Blizzard Media (ABM), an advertising division housed within game publishing giant King. “The reality is, though, that gamers are […]
Tapping into international markets, particularly the US, is lucrative but far from easy for a mid-size game developer from Indonesia, especially one trying to replicate a viral hit. Jakarta-based game studio Alegrium saw immediate success with a series of trivia apps that have collectively racked up tens of millions of downloads since the first title, […]
AppLovin is one of the most well-funded indie ad platforms out there – and it’s growing like a weed. The mobile ad network last year received $841 million in debt financing from Chinese private equity firm Orient Hontai Capital. In 2014, AppLovin raised just $4 million in seed funding. Originally, Orient Hontai had intended to acquire a majority […]
#WheresZuck? Posting a mea culpa on Facebook after nearly five days of conspicuous silence. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which broke over the weekend, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook to explain what happened and to outline fixes. He promised Facebook would investigate all apps that had “access to large amounts […]
Creative often gets neglected by app publishers gunning for installs – but it’s one of the most important aspects of any app-install campaign, said Artur Grigorjan, head of growth marketing at Russian game studio Playrix. “By this point, most advertisers have enough expertise when it comes to buying,” Grigorjan said. “Now they’re transitioning to the next […]
Episode, a choose-your-own-adventure storytelling app, is choosing a road to revenue centered on the user experience first. Monetization is delicately balanced with the demands of UX for the interactive app, which allows users to immerse themselves in fictional narratives. “But there is a lot of revenue to be made if we can get people engaged,” […]
The best-laid plans of app developers are often belied by the actions of actual users. When Guy Tal, CEO of Bel Media Group, an Israeli app publisher with around 100 gaming, social and utility applications, soft-launched Tinder-like Android dating app WeMeet, he and his team assumed users would be easily attracted to the service because […]
Mobile-first? Passé, says Google. The future is being driven by artificial intelligence. “Mobile made us reimagine every product we were working on,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai said Wednesday at Google’s I/O developer conference in Mountain View, Calif. “Similarly, in an AI-first world, we are rethinking all our products and applying machine learning and AI to […]
More than 4,000 app developers will descend on San Jose, Calif., on April 18 and 19 for Facebook’s F8 conference, where, if you believe the rumor mill, Mark Zuckerberg will regale them with splashy announcements about group chatbots for Messenger and possible hardware offerings from his secretive Building 8 Lab. But at its core, F8 […]
Dash Labs lets users transform their regular car into a smart car. The app interfaces with a dongle, sold separately, that plugs into a port beneath the steering wheel and connects via Bluetooth. But driver data isn’t something marketers commonly use, so company CEO and co-founder Jamyn Edis is on a mission to prove that […]
User retention, good user experience and monetization can coexist, they just require a deft touch. But for devs that monetize mainly through ads, there’s an inherent tension between their retention and re-engagement efforts and the bottom line. They make the bulk of their money through a means that could easily turn off the users they’re […]
Whereas Facebook seems to have outgrown its app developer platform, Parse, Twitter more likely shut down its dev toolkit Fabric in a bid to slim down and focus on its future survival. In January, Twitter sold Fabric to Google and Facebook officially pulled its support of Parse one year after announcing its intention to do […]
At long last, AOL is really starting to make use of its 2015 Millennial Media acquisition. On Tuesday, Verizon-owned AOL rolled out self-serve functionality for its mobile supply-side platform, One by AOL: Mobile. It’s basically AOL’s answer to Google’s AdMob or Twitter’s MoPub. AOL beta tested the capability for several months before launch with several partners, […]
App publishers expect their inventory to fetch a pretty penny during the holiday season as marketers furiously funnel their remaining budget into hardcore user-acquisition efforts. “There’s an enormous amount of volatility during Q4, more than anything because of a desire to get up the charts,” said James Peng, head of mobile and social acquisition at […]
When it comes to doling out rewards, app developers like Hothead Games walk a fine monetization line. “You want to give meaningful rewards without hurting your economy,” said Kenneth Wong, senior monetization manager at Hothead, which makes a number of sports-themed and first-person shooter games for mobile. While advertising is part of Hothead’s monetization mix, […]
If you’re a developer looking to monetize and attribute spend across devices, Facebook and Google might soon become the only shows in town. “Bummer,” called out an audience member at Grow.co’s MAU event in New York City on Tuesday. As programmatic buying grows on mobile, so does the need for an analytics infrastructure that traces […]
App publisher Betternet is eschewing banners in favor of native because the results are better and the experience is less annoying for the user – but getting enough quality demand can be a challenge. “This year I observed that the fill rate for most of the ad networks we work with is sometimes even less […]
