Industry

Apple reveals new app metrics on stage with TUNE, commits new transparency and measurement to marketers

Becky Doles

apple postback

“So, tell us Todd, Why Postback? – Peter Hamilton, CEO, TUNE

“I like to be where the people are. This is as rich an environment for talking about what’s going on in the industry and for talking about how we’re thinking about things going forward” – Todd Teresi, Vice President of Advertising Platforms, Apple

Friday afternoon at the Postback conference in Seattle, something very unique happened. Apple took the stage with TUNE to talk about bringing more transparency to mobile measurement. This is the first public conversation about how Apple plans to work more closely with developers and measurement platforms like TUNE to close the gap between the install and engagement metrics available today, and the more accurate metrics Apple can provide from App Store.

As many in the marketing world know, installs are measured by the first time a person opens an app, and that number never lines up with the number of downloads counted by the App Store. New insights into these metrics could transform the way marketers acquire and retain their customers.

Apple estimates that, on average,up to 20 percent of all installs are not viewable to attribution systems because of limited ad tracking toggled on by app customers. This creates an issue for app marketers and developers who want the most accurate data about who downloaded their apps and what happens after that. The slide below is a never-before-seen estimation of discrepancies between what a platform like the TUNE Marketing Console provides and what Apple knows to be true.

apple tune

It gets more complex when you take into account that many app users, according to Teresi, download, delete, re-install and open a previously downloaded app. This re-install data is passed back as a new install — skewing a marketer’s efforts to accurately attribute and understand the efficacy of their user acquisition efforts. In an exciting announcement on stage, Apple confirmed they will be working to provide metrics like these, while maintaining a privacy-centric approach.

Going forward, Hamilton and Teresi committed to working together to address this industry-wide issue. “Trust is the important foundation of the industry,” Teresi said. “We will work with TUNE to expose this information to help developers understand this.”

“I was thrilled that Apple chose to speak to the industry at Postback 2017 and provide us such unprecedented transparency into some key measurement challenges,” said Hamilton. “I couldn’t be more excited for the opportunities ahead as we to transform the way we judge the performance of mobile marketing.”

It was an electric close to an all-star laden Postback 2017. Watch the closing keynote here.

Author
Becky Doles

Becky is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at TUNE. Before TUNE, she led a variety of marketing and communications projects at San Francisco startups. Becky received her bachelor's degree in English from Wake Forest University. After living nearly a decade in San Francisco and Seattle, she has returned to her home of Charleston, SC, where you can find her enjoying the sun and salt water with her family.

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