
Attributing success to mobile

Nicky Senyard, founder and chief executive of Income Access, explains how mobile attribution will inform the future of egaming marketing
Over the last few years online advertising has made significant headway in the area of channel attribution, finding new ways to use cookie-based tracking that enables you to set up integrated campaigns and determine acquisition channel source such as offline, online, and PPC.
In the case of mobile, however, there exists a technology gap precluding this channel from being evaluated to the same extent.
There are a number of reasons why attribution is, and will increasingly become, important. Chief among these reasons is that all advertising channels currently have the potential to lead to mobile conversions, whether that is an app install, app launch, level completion or in-app purchase.
However, the proliferation of mobile and tablet purchasing power has highlighted a gap in the already complex domain of attribution modeling such as last-click, first-click and linear.
There are cookie-based tracking solutions, but the issue remains that segmenting data and finding out where mobile interaction fits into a conversion pathway is a separate challenge for any company incorporating online, offline and mobile strategies into their marketing mix.
Operators and affiliates have not been as proactive in building a dialogue around the potential of mobile but this doesnât mean that they are unable to. Both are responsible for driving conversations that establish the need to invest in the appropriate solutions. Partners like Income Access can also play an important role as intermediaries.
An example of this is operators can send and report on data relating to the referring source and device. When this information is supplied, it can be transposed into reporting and analytics that clearly indicate the source responsible for a registration or completed action.
Fortunately, egaming companies have a better chance of early attribution success if they are able to assess their strongest channels in advance as well as which multi-channel attribution framework they want to employ.
Even if early assessments are not quite right it establishes a proactive thought-process. Identifying a solution that is proven to give the most detailed feedback on acquisition pathways allows operators to leverage their most lucrative channels and helps guide affiliates in their activities.