Technology
Services
Resources
Due to advances in smartphone capabilities, we now spend more time on our mobile devices than ever before. Advertisers are aware of this shift and have refocused a majority of their efforts to cater to mobile advertising. However, with the ever-changing guidelines of pixels and cookies on mobile devices, advertisers are struggling to measure the effectiveness of these efforts. Fear not! We provide some insight and best practices on how to track mobile advertising efforts effectively below:
First, let's talk about the cookie—a common tracking tool on desktops, but a term wrapped in caution tape and question marks on mobile. Apple introduced Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) within Safari in 2017 to curb tracking abilities and protect users’ privacy online. There have been several ITP updates since then; all of them have been focused on restricting the utilization of cookies to track user behavior.
In the Safari browser, third-party cookies are fully disabled and first-party cookies are deleted after seven days. From an advertisers’ perspective, this means that conversion activity can be recognized only if a user has: 1. clicked on an ad (thereby setting a first-party cookie), and 2. completed the conversion action within seven days of clicking.
The emergence of ITP has made the measurement of mobile advertising challenging for many advertisers. However, since ITP is focused solely within the Safari browser, there are additional mobile environments that an advertiser can utilize to gain better insights into their mobile advertising performance:
By employing mobile attribution partners, advertisers can track any actions or engagement within their app. These actions range from installs or opens, to placed orders.
If an advertiser wants to drive users to a brick and mortar location, Centro works with partners to measure in-store traffic via paid media efforts.
When a user navigates to an advertiser’s website after exposure to an ad, the phone number on the website dynamically updates to a new, custom number that a user can click to call. An advertiser can then easily attribute their call volume back to their paid media.
It's no secret that mobile advertising lacks a simple solution to measure the overall effectiveness of a campaign. By understanding the goal or target KPI you’re trying to accomplish, Centro can help strategize and implement a plan that will allow for maximum visibility into your mobile advertising performance across all devices.
Learn more about Mobile Advertising with Centro.