When you’re growing your app, it’s important to make sure your user acquisition spend is going to the sources that are delivering value. Enter attribution providers. There are several large players in the space and Branch has been growing from strength to strength.
We hear a lot of positive things from our clients about Branch, and as a Certified Partner, we thought now was the right time to dive deeper!
We caught up with Branch’s CRO, Eric Stein, who filled us in on where Branch came from, and why its offerings are so important to the growth of mobile apps.
Why did Branch enter the mobile space in the first place?
That’s a great question and the source of much of our differentiation from the other legacy attribution providers. Branch was actually a photo book app. The founders learned firsthand the challenges of a fragmented mobile ecosystem and built the Branch technology as a tool to help them deliver better user experiences and gain more comprehensive attribution. They soon realized that many other apps needed those same capabilities and sold off the photobook app and focused just on the Branch linking platform. Branch soon became the industry standard for deep linking.
How big is the Branch team, and how would you describe them?
Branch is over 500 employees in 15 offices worldwide. I’ve been in the Internet marketing business since the early days of DoubleClick and have never seen such a dedicated, hard-working and fun group. It’s fun to come to work every day.
Services
What services does your company provide to the industry?
From those early beginnings, Branch has always been focused on the full customer experience and attribution. Those two things are so intricately linked at Branch, we can’t see approaching it any other way. Why would you want to just count beans when you can actually increase the number of beans while measuring them with no extra effort? Branch is deeply integrated across the marketing technology ecosystem – from Ad Networks and Ad platforms to ESPs, CDPs and Analytics solutions. No one has the breadth of integrations that Branch has. Clients are then able to use our links across channels to drive better performance from their marketing activities and gain more accurate attribution.
Having a focus on the full customer experience has also led to wide adoption of Branch across web as well as app. It has taken us years to build that. Our footprint across those two platforms has enabled us to build a Persona Graph that links web and device IDs together in a secure and privacy-compliant way. In turn, that Persona Graph allows us to deliver attribution in a manner that is methodologically different from legacy attribution providers that use fingerprinting with all of its inherent flaws.
Are there any revenue or growth figures you’d feel comfortable sharing?
The statistic we are most proud of is that the average client on the Branch platform over the past year more than doubled their MAUs over that same period. That shows the benefit of improving the customer experience.
How do your services make life easier for those looking to leverage the power of mobile?
Leveraging the power of mobile means using the power of the platform to engage consumers and grow your business in ways that meet those consumers’ expectations.
That is not always easy to do comprehensively, but as seen in the below, and testified to by many clients, Branch makes that easy.
In addition, while you are growing your business with Branch, our Persona graph (see above) provides the insight and accuracy you need to make the right marketing investment decisions.
Why is it important for brands and apps to utilize services such as yours?
Branch occupies a very important position in the mobile ecosystem. We are able to help clients improve the performance and see the impact of all their marketing activity, providing clear attribution among all the potential touchpoints where they are engaging users. It is important for brands and apps to utilize Branch because without it you are just counting beans, not growing your business.
What is the number one example of your tools/services enabling partner success?
There are many examples of Branch enabling partner success and many case studies on our site testifying to this success. The most gratifying examples, however, are the many unsolicited endorsements we receive from clients and their descriptions of the numerous ways we have powered their success. Perhaps the most well-known is the Burger King Whopper Detour campaign, which delivered incredible results for the brand, and was written up by the Global CMO of Burger King and describes the technology (including Branch) used to deliver this success. There are also a number of videos describing Burger King’s success.
How has integrating TUNE’s Attribution Analytics business improved how Branch’s offering for its clients?
The best thing that integrating Tune’s Attribution Analytics business did for Branch was to bring us a host of new employees and clients that have been among the leaders in mobile ads attribution since the beginning. Tune was the pioneer of app attribution and the expertise of the employees that came to Branch has helped us leapfrog Tune’s legacy attribution competitors and rapidly incorporate all that Tune did into the Branch platform. Together with those employees, the clients that came to Branch from Tune have pushed us to continue building the features and capabilities they need to measure their success and Branch has been able to help them identify ways in which the broader platform can help in ways they had not previously considered from an attribution provider.
The Industry
Where do you see mobile heading in the short term (2-3 years) and long term (5 years and longer)?
I think the mobile attribution space is beginning to diversify. You see some companies developing different solutions that will lead them in different directions. If you look at the web, there are no independent attribution companies. Branch is the most well-funded of any independent attribution company today and here for the long term. We’re investing to grow our platform and build new exciting features for our clients.
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 Branch’s services?
Mobile phones are a terrific way to integrate offline and digital experiences. We’ve seen clients integrate TV, desktop and other traditional forms of communication with mobile and use Branch links as the tissue to connect them in ways that makes the customer experience seamless and provides insight where they had none before. Consider the pamphlet below. The QR code has a Branch link behind it and delivers a seamless user experience connecting retail with mobile.
We’ve seen clients provide users the ability to text themselves a link from desktop and do similar things with TV that deliver the same user benefits and marketing insight, but it is just the beginning for innovations like these and Branch continues to build the functionality that will simplify the execution of these experiences.
What industry trend or development are you most excited about in the near-term, and why?
We’ve seen the number of companies and amount of money being spent on digital transformation projects grow rapidly in the past 18 months. The statistics are staggering:
Mobile is, of course, central to these digital transformation projects. What differentiates Branch with our cross-channel and customer experience focus, is core to what clients focusing on digital transformation need. It is not just about mobile ads attribution; they need a full mobile solution and it is great to see the match between those needs and our capabilities.
Do you have any fun photos of the group that you’d be willing to share? Follow Branch on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook and you’ll get all the fun photos you would ever want (plus a lot of more helpful information as well)!
Keeping up with Branch
Branch has an official Twitter at @BranchMetrics, regularly publishes deep dives and interesting thought leadership on their blog, as well as research and white papers, on top of some great case studies!
Join the Conversation
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