Calculating your true ROI with powerful ad spend enhancements

If you are a performance marketer, you’re probably looking to get more from your data with one goal in mind: to seamlessly and accurately funnel data from multiple sources to one place, for holistic, coherent and reliable analysis.

The trouble is, with all the data fragmentation coming from different sources, macros, varying URL formats, and campaign structures, many of us struggle to get insights from our data. Even pulling the data in the first place poses its set of challenges.

For us earthlings generating data continues to expand, making extracting the right insight at the right time nearly impossible. Most marketers analyze after the fact, too late to make any impactful, critical iterations on the fly. When marketers dish out top dollar for their efforts, they are expecting deep insight in return and at the very least, the ability to accurately calculate true ROI to improve their marketing strategy.

Without it, how can they understand whether their strategy is effective or whether they should consider changing course entirely?

For most performance marketers, ROI is the single most important KPI; but calculating ROI across your entire marketing program is not a simple task.

How can you imagine making strategic decisions when this metric is inaccurate, unavailable or completely submerged from your analysis?

While you pull revenue data from different sources, without full coverage and granularity of our marketing spend, there is no way to precisely calculate ROI; and therefore, you continue to remain in the dark.

Announcing ad spend ingestion

At AppsFlyer, we are committed to providing solutions to some of the most complex problems that performance marketers face. Covering 100% of your ad spend data to extract meaningful insights is a major goal of ours.

That’s why we are excited to announce a series of new features, one of which is the Ad Spend Ingestion Tool. This will allow advertisers to upload spend data from any source, even those that don’t have an existing API integration already.

With the Ad Spend Ingestion tool, users can easily upload spend data from anywhere, including owned and earned media, influencers, and even out-of-home (OOH) like TV, radio, billboard, and more!

Simply send your file via an email attachment or upload directly to the UI and let AppsFlyer do the rest.

Using the ad spend ingestion tool, you can even send an optional Geo dimension in your file for deeper analysis by a specific segment; and files can accommodate data from multiple apps.

The CSV validation logic will verify that all mandatory fields are provided and validate whether they are in the right format. Advertisers can send the file via email and will be provided with automated feedback.

Data visibility and partner transparency

Providing partner networks the proper access they need to ensure that the data passed from their source is accurate, timely and true is essential to partnership success. We understand how hard it is for advertisers to manage this process on their own and manually. That is why we provided a solution for partners to take ownership on behalf of the advertiser to easily and seamlessly pass spend data to AppsFlyer.

Starting today, our partner networks have the ability to upload spend data on their advertiser’s behalf and access can be controlled from a dedicated permissions tab.

Ad Spend Ingestion Page

Full control and visibility

With managing ad spend, advertisers gain full visibility into each and every file uploaded. For example, what various apps in the file, the date-range sent, last uploaded by, and more! All in an effort to maximize efficiency and transparency between advertisers and partners.

It is crucial to have the full view and control of your data at all times, therefore we provided access to a full file management dashboard so that both partners and advertisers have the ability to troubleshoot gaps in the data, understand data integrity through match percentages and the total ingested spend.

Advertisers can also revert incorrect files to ensure accuracy. 

Partners who are provided with permitted access can see their specific network’s files, while the advertisers can see all files being ingested across the board. This allows for optimal collaboration directly from one central dashboard.

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A growing list of API integrated partners

Some time ago, AppsFlyer announced the first automated ad spend/cost and ROI reporting for Facebook, Google, Pinterest, and others.

Today, AppsFlyer has over 185 integrations for cost and ROI reporting for both click and API-based integrations, with new partnerships continually announced.

We recently added Liftoff to the list of API-based integrations; which already includes the likes of Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Tapjoy, AppLovin, AdColony, and many more. Through this integration, clients can now measure their performance and ROI down to the ad and geo level for Liftoff, one of the top trafficked networks in AppsFlyer.

These advanced integrations provide instant access to campaign data like impressions, clicks, and cost, alongside post-install activity such as in-app engagement metrics, ARPU, etc.

Integration Dashboard – Cost API Status

We also released an API status page to ensure visibility into data re-freshness, and connection validity, so that advertisers gain full confidence and visibility into their ad spend data flow in AppsFlyer.

Integration Dashboard

Using the most innovative solution makes or breaks even the most refined marketing strategy.

Funneling your ad spend data into one centrally-managed dashboard gives you unprecedented data visibility, analysis capabilities and the exponential ability to scale! And remember, smart decisions only come to those who are empowered by smart analysis.

We are so proud of the solutions we roll out to our customers and hope to keep delivering what is expected of the most innovative attribution platform in the market.

For more information on AppsFlyer’s Ad Spend feature, reach out to your Success Manager today.