AdBlock Detected!

Site not loading correctly? Ad is in our name, because it's what we do. This may cause issues if you're using ad blockers, and we don't serve any ads on our site.
Please pause or disable your ad blocker for our domain.

Blog

Blog

Partner Spotlight Adjust Header

Partner Spotlight: Adjust

Posted Mar 28, 2019

It should come as no surprise that measurement and accuracy are part of AdColony’s blood. Transparency is one of our core tenets and we like to surround ourselves with partners who think like we do. Adjust is one such partner. They’re called The Measurement Company for a reason.

With offices in Berlin, San Francisco, New York, Sao Paulo, Paris, London, Moscow, Istanbul, Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Tokyo, Mumbai, Singapore, and Tel Aviv (that list sounds familiar…) if you’re making apps, chances are they’ve got someone nearby! We asked the team at Adjust about what drives them and what makes Adjust the leading mobile attribution.

Partner Spotlight AdjustWhy did Adjust enter the mobile analytics and performance space in the first place?
Adjust was born out of frustration at the number of substandard mobile measurement solutions on the market at the time. In the stationary web, companies were able to track user behavior quite easily by using cookies. However, on mobile, this was not possible.

Due to the infrastructure, app developers lost track of their users once the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store came into the picture. Back then, mobile marketers had no idea where their users were coming from, how they discovered the app or how they were using it. Adjust’s founders – Christian Henschel, Paul H. Müller, and Manuel Kniep – knew they could solve the problem, and started Adjust (or, Adeven, as it was known then) to begin working on a solution.

What services does Adjust provide to mobile publishers and advertisers?
Adjust provides high-quality analytics, measurement and fraud prevention solutions for mobile app marketers worldwide, enabling them to make smarter, faster marketing decisions.

Marketers can, for example, tie each user to the ads they interact with, measure the performances of their campaigns, and boost retention rates. Most importantly, their decisions are based on data that is comprehensive, accurate and fraud-free.

Why is it important for advertisers to utilize services like Adjust?
Attribution data and in-app analytics are key to understanding user behavior and making the right mobile marketing decisions – but it’s also important this data is accurate in the first place. Fraud-filled datasets influence how marketers spend their budget, creating a negative feedback loop.

Getting the right attribution and fraud prevention solution will supercharge apps’ growth and make sure marketers are directing their budget towards the right networks.

Adjust Spotlight Graphic 2What is the number one example of your tools/services enabling mobile publisher and/or advertiser success?
Our tools and the depth of data we present to clients give them the insights they need to scale their business. One such example is with Monzo, a digital, mobile-only bank based in the United Kingdom, who started working with Adjust because of our deep integration with Facebook. Through the Adjust dashboard, they were able to see which Facebook campaigns resulted in the highest long-term user engagement. The team could immediately see which campaigns were performing well, and the ones that weren’t – allowing them to optimize ads’ creatives. As a result of constant evaluation, Monzo’s cost-per-acquisition (CPA) decreased by more than 50%.

Adjust is one of the big innovators in the space. What major innovations have become part of Adjust’s offering, and what might we expect in the future?
One of our biggest competitive advantages is our focus on ad fraud prevention. Ad fraud is the black mark on what is otherwise a very dynamic and successful ecosystem, and on average, we estimate fraud affects around 20% of an app’s paid user acquisition budget.

In 2015, Adjust launched the first fraud prevention filters in the market, spearheading the industry-wide movement against fraud. Since then, we’ve been committed to tackling the issue and creating a more honest and open ecosystem. This means constant development of our fraud prevention filters to stop the most common methods of fraud from reaching our clients’ budgets.

In 2017, we also launched the Coalition Against Ad Fraud – a group of industry leaders brought together to take a stand against fraud. The coalition is open to all partners and advertisers, and we work closely to further educate the market and develop new solutions to tackle the issue.

Where do you see mobile heading in the short term (2-3 years) and long-term (5 years and longer)?
Performance metrics are gradually changing, and we anticipate this will continue over the next couple of years. Mobile marketers’ focus is switching from how they can get as many installs as possible to how they can influence the deeper funnel and the user journey. They’re also interested in a lot more granularity of data – for example, which campaigns led to a click, and which to a conversion.

In the long term, automation is a trend that will continue to pick up momentum. Building the tools that can consolidate data is key to increasing efficiency, and this will be a big focus for Adjust in 2019. Marketing automation will mean that marketers no longer have to do the heavy lifting to see where they can optimize. With the data in the palm of their hand, teams can focus on solutions to the issues that data presents – whether that’s optimizing creatives or strategizing for new campaigns.

Adjust Split 1

How do you see the shift from traditional forms of entertainment and utility (TV and desktop usage) to a more mobile-focused world impacting companies that use your services?
For many companies, we’re seeing mobile being prioritized or replacing out-of-home advertising, direct mail, and even email as the key touchpoint that most effectively reaches customers. With so much to gain from becoming mobile-first, it’s the companies that capitalize on this direct line of communication with users who will reap the rewards.

What industry trend or development are you most excited about in the near-term, and why?
We’re most excited to see how marketing automation will change and enhance how marketers work. At the moment, juggling so many tools, dashboards and data sources takes up a huge amount of time. Automation will simplify marketers’ workflow and help them regain the time lost to repetitive – and easily automated – tasks.

What sparked the idea for the creation of the Coalition Against Ad Fraud? What’s been the biggest victory in preventing widespread fraud for CAAF so far?
As a global leader in mobile measurement, ad fraud fundamentally undermines our mission to provide clients with the most accurate data possible and power their success. That’s why we decided to take a stand against fraud with the introduction of the Coalition Against Ad Fraud.

The alliance brings together industry leaders who share a common goal: to finally move from reactive reporting and mitigation to proactive fraud prevention.

One of our biggest milestones has been the publication of our standardization document, the CAAF Guide to Fraud, which provides a technical overview of the various types of ad fraud present in the ecosystem. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there when it comes to ad fraud. By bringing greater transparency and education to the industry, we are building more trust within the mobile marketing economy and aim to disincentivize ad fraud for good.

Fraud can still be a struggle for mobile publishers and advertisers. What are some simple top-level steps mobile advertisers and publishers can take to safeguard themselves?
The easiest way to tackle fraud is to work with a reliable fraud prevention product. Prevention is the key word here, rather than detection: marketers need a tool that proactively rejects fraud before it takes place.

Alongside this, we always recommend marketers to open up the conversation with their networks. A trustworthy network will share where traffic is coming from and be able to explain the full journey from impression to click. If advertisers keep buying from networks that only deliver measurement for events further down the user conversion funnel, shady sources will keep thriving.

Click Validation BookHow does the recently announced Click Validation Through Proof of Impression standard protect advertisers from fraud and how does it benefit monetizing publishers?
Adjust’s new standard for Click Validation Through Proof of Impression encourages ad networks to send impression data with a unique identifier that corresponds with resulting clicks from users. By requesting an impression before the click, it will make it possible to check if there was a matching engagement made by the same device – leading to more accurate attribution and less budget wasted on ad fraud.

The validation requirement dramatically increases the workload for fraudsters looking to steal brands’ and advertisers’ ad budgets, particularly through the most prevalent methods of ad fraud in the market today: Click Injection and Click Spamming.

For publishers who adopt the standard, the biggest benefit is being able to prove the validity of their traffic. With ad fraud now front of mind for many marketers, Click Validation acts as an “insurance” that their ads were seen by real users.

How big is the Adjust team, and how would you describe them?
Adjust has over 350 employees from 45 nationalities across 15 offices around the world – and we’re growing every month.

Adjust Split 2

Keeping up with Adjust
Adjust keeps everyone informed on their Twitter @adjustcom and Instagram and makes them the best places to keep up with all the news, thought leadership and events run by Adjust!

About the Coalition Against Ad Fraud
CAAF is a group of industry leaders who have pledged to tackle mobile ad fraud head-on. We are working closely together to develop modern solutions that benefit advertisers who are affected by fraudulent traffic, with the goal of disincentivizing mobile ad fraud even further. CAAF aims to educate the industry about the problems of ad fraud and create alignment around the types of measures that are needed to fight it.

CAAF has also produced a document providing advertisers, supply-side networks, third-party vendors and other industry participants with a technical overview of the current state of mobile performance ad fraud.

For more information on the Coalition Against Ad Fraud, you can visit Adjust’s page covering all the bases.

Join the Conversation
Ready to join the playables mobile revolution with CrossInstall and AdColony?  Tweet us at @AdColony. For the latest AdColony mobile news and updates, follow @AdColony on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or connect on Linkedin.

Jonathan

Latest at AdColony

AdColony is now part of Digital Turbine. We're powering the mobile economy.Join Us