The MMP buyer’s guide for app marketers

As marketers begin to incorporate different measurement methodologies into their tech stack, they need a centralized platform to monitor, analyze, and act on the various marketing data sources they have. This is where an MMP really shines!

An MMP will keep you ahead of privacy changes

As these developments continue to unfold, app developers and marketers often struggle to understand the most recent changes and how they impact their current marketing efforts. With user-level data no longer always the primary input for campaign measurement, many marketers find themselves unsure of how to best optimize their campaigns. An MMP acts as a privacy guide for marketers, helping them in the following ways:

1. An MMP bridges measurement data gaps

As Adjust’s Chief Product Officer, Katie Madding addresses below, an MMP provides app developers and marketers with solutions that help them fill in many of the framework-induced gaps in data that impact how they measure their campaigns. The good news is that technological innovation is clearing paths for marketers to carry on campaign performance measurement.

2. An MMP partners with major players on your behalf

A good MMP should be looking ahead and anticipating future challenges and opportunities for growth marketers. To best obtain information on how the mobile marketing landscape will shift in the coming years, the best MMPs partner with tech giants, like Apple and Google, to help shape the roadmap of digital advertising.

Here are just a few ways Adjust proactively partners with tech giants:

• Leveraged Meta’s Robyn MMM package to build a new solution called Budget Planner.
• Had the first SKAN 4 SDK on the market.
• Chosen by Google as an early tester of Google Privacy Sandbox.

3. An MMP alerts and prepares you for upcoming changes

Scaling an app is a large enough job on its own, let alone staying abreast of industry trends and changes. So not only should MMPs be working with the major players in the app marketing ecosystem on your behalf, but they should also be communicating with you on how to best prepare for upcoming industry developments and embrace new innovations.

For example, over the last year, Adjust kept our clients ahead of changes with:

• Webinars such as with Google on decoding Google Privacy Sandbox.
• Leading sessions like this one at MAU on next-gen measurement strategies.
• Insightful guides such as our recent one on media mix modeling.
• Helpful “how-to” blogs like Switching from SKAN 3 to SKAN 4.
• Industry guidance with our experts providing articles on AdExchanger and Forbes.

The downsides of marketing without an MMP

Across the years, many app marketers and developers have braved mobile measurement alone—manually monitoring and optimizing campaigns with data from multiple channels, platforms, and sources, often hoping that self-attribution networks like Facebook or Google Ads are accurately reporting attribution. Pre-iOS 14.5, savvy marketers may have done alright, but in today’s world of cross-device marketing over multiple channels, inaccuracies in data abound without an MMP.

If your app marketing does not utilize an MMP, you

• Risk data inaccuracy, impacting the reporting of ROAS, retention, and LTV.
• Have to piece together marketing data from multiple sources, leading to a fragmented overview of how your campaigns across channels and devices impact each other.
• Are likely giving away some (if not a lot) of your budget to mobile ad fraud.
• Have to tackle aggregated measurement and complex attribution frameworks (e.g., SKAN) alone and unsupported, potentially missing valuable insights.
• Miss out on automated campaign optimization and audience segmentation.
• Undermine your ability to scale intelligently.

Leverage aggregated data to optimize campaigns

It’s paramount to partner with an MMP that stays ahead of industry changes and empowers marketers to successfully work with aggregated data within these newer privacy-centric attribution frameworks. (As we’ve mentioned above, it’s their job!)

For example, a good MMP will provide guidance for its clients as they adjust to each iteration of SKAN and help them prepare for Google Privacy Sandbox on Android. Insights and campaign optimization for Apple’s SKAN are possible with an MMP offering iOS measurement solutions.

Save time and resources with automation

For greater marketing efficiency, automation tools are a must as they remove manual tasks to automate campaign optimization, data sorting, bid and budget optimization, and bulk editing campaigns.

Most MMPs’ campaign automation solutions enable you to quickly update your campaign bids and budgets directly in a dashboard and provide unified cost and performance reporting covering your custom KPIs. Other automation tools include smart alerts, which allow you to set customized notifications on everything from KPIs to ad spend to anomalies and ad fraud.

Bottom line: The campaign automation features of an MMP will save you time, reduce human errors, help you stay on top of your campaigns, and empower you to scale more effectively.

Confidently measure ad spend, purchase, and LTV

At the end of the day, proving the ROI on your marketing strategy is central to the role of a growth marketer. An MMP enables you to connect your monetary metrics with accurate attribution data, providing a holistic view and reporting of your marketing spend. In doing so, you can identify the highest-performing channels, partners and creatives and discover which users have the highest LTV.

Protect your budget from fraud

By 2028, the amount of digital advertising spend lost to ad fraud will hit US$172 billion, greatly impacting marketing teams who do not protect their data and budgets from fraud. Supplying end-to-end fraud prevention is one of the primary duties of an MMP, as without it, the attribution data it provides wouldn’t be accurate.

Effectively allocate ad spend budget

Without accurate attribution, protection against fraud, and robust reporting, it’s difficult to know how to properly distribute your ad spend budget. An MMP takes the guesswork out of marketing with clean data you can rely on. Make decisions in certainty to optimize your campaigns based on real-time app performance data.

Ensure privacy and compliance

Given that mobile measurement partners manage vast amounts of data, it’s crucial that the MMP you select be completely compliant with all privacy legislation and have built-in security features and protocols for guaranteed data protection. We’ll cover the exact certifications to look for below.

App developers and publishers

App developers and publishers need MMPs to monitor app installs, connect app events to specific marketing campaigns, and oversee user behavior in general. They are heavily invested in user engagement as their end goal is to boost user retention and overall app revenue.

As such, app developers and publishers should opt for MMPs that provide clear SDK documentation, unlimited raw data, seamless integrations with numerous network partners, and responsive tech support.

User acquisition managers

App user acquisition (UA) managers look to MMPs to help them uncover the value of specific channels, publishers, media sources, campaigns, and creatives to best enhance app performance. As such, they want an MMP that makes it easy to connect with various partners and to create deep links for seamless interactions with users and their ads.

UA managers also rely on MMPs for accurate user journey data to monitor retention, LTV, in-app events, and more. Additionally, fraud is a main concern for UA managers, and they require an MMP that blocks fraud and removes the cost of data discrepancy associated with ad fraud.

Analytics team and growth managers

Growth marketers and teams centered around analytics need an MMP to collect and synthesize marketing data from a wide range of sources. They’re looking for user growth opportunities and, therefore, need an MMP that lets them follow the entire user journey with unlimited lookback data and provides user-friendly data visualizations of trends in user behavior.

Agencies and media buyers

Similar to marketing teams, agencies and media buyers utilize MMPs to gain insight into their cross-channel and platform campaigns. As they typically work with many clients, it’s essential that an MMP provides them with accurate campaign performance data so they can help their clients to best allocate ad spend budgets.

Ensure your MMP has these five solutions

At a minimum, make sure the MMP you use has the following five solutions.

1. Cross-device and channel attribution

Today’s world is multi-device, with the average number of devices in Europe and North America totaling 3.6 per person. As you pursue app users across multiple devices and channels, it’s essential to have cross-device attribution to prove the ROI of your diverse marketing efforts. Avoid piecing together a fragmented user journey and let an MMP provide a comprehensive marketing overview.

Cross-device and -channel attribution lets you:

• Gain complete visibility into marketing tactics from the top to the bottom of the funnel.
• Identify trends and correlations between networks and devices driving conversions.
• Pinpoint where value is generated along the user journey.
• Measure which campaigns bring the most uplift.
• Know which ineffective touchpoints to eliminate.

2. Unified analytics and reporting

Similar to the above, getting all your marketing data in a single platform for analytics across mobile, web, CTV, and PC & Console campaigns, as well as your monetary metrics like ad spend, ad revenue and purchase revenue, is key for sharp decision-making. An MMP does all of this and should provide granular breakdowns of ad spend per partner, campaign, creative, and ad group. This allows for unified reporting and reliable data for marketers to quickly maximize their campaigns’ success.

3. Campaign automation

Although not all of the main MMPs on the market offer campaign automation solutions, you will want them if you wish to have agile marketing. As today’s teams are tasked with doing more with less, automation allows them to increase efficiency and scale ad spend by reducing manual tasks often prone to error.

Automation solutions in an MMP let marketers:

• Save time by setting automation rules to optimize campaigns based on key metrics.
• Automate budget and bid optimization.
• Get automated reporting on performance data and reduce manual tasks.
• Set up customized smart alerts providing updates on campaign status.

4. Fraud prevention

An MMP that is truly looking out for its clients will have a proactive fraud prevention solution in place to make sure marketing budget isn’t wasted on ad fraud. MMPs should enable real-time rejection in which fraudulent installs are rejected before you pay for them. An MMP’s fraud prevention solution can send real-time rejection callbacks to all the partners and networks used for full transparency and guarantee that organic users are captured accurately and not misattributed.

Make sure your MMP combats these four major types of fraud:

1. SDK spoofing
2. Click injection
3. Device farms
4. Click spamming

5. Next-gen measurement

Any app marketer who’s been in the industry for a minute knows technology, regulations, and trends are never in stasis but are in a constant state of change. Therefore, it’s vital to partner with an innovative MMP that develops forward-thinking measurement solutions that propel marketers ahead and are not merely reactive to shifts in the industry.

Ensure your MMP includes these next-gen measurement offerings:

• SKAN solutions, including conversion value mapping configurations based on your app’s business type, vertical, and strategy.
• Preparation for and insights on Google Privacy Sandbox on Android
• Predictive analytics, incrementality, and media mix modeling on their roadmap.
• Solutions for rising ad channels like CTV and PC & Console.
• Product think tanks in which they collaborate with clients and utilize client feedback.

Adjust is currently offering early access to our incrementality and predictions solution. For more information, reach out to Adjust.

Make use of this handy MMP “must-haves” checklist

It’s wise to research and investigate two or three MMPs for comparison. As you schedule demos, talk to different salespeople, and review your app business needs, download this MMP must-haves checklist to ensure the MMP you’re considering checks every box.

10 questions to ask before buying an MMP

Before signing the contract with an MMP, ask them the following 10 questions to make sure you’re not missing any core functionalities, that it’s fully compliant and that it’s clear what type of support and pricing are available to you.

1. Does your solution allow for cross-device, cross-channel attribution?

Ask your MMP if it’s possible to follow the entire user journey—across devices and channels—and accurately attribute installs and post-install events from multi-touch campaigns. Check if they offer attribution for the following: mobile (including SKAN attribution), web, CTV, PC/desktop, and gaming console. Make sure you get specifics on their attribution methods.

2. Do you provide integrations with the top ad networks and platforms?

Your users are everywhere, and in order to advertise to them where they are, your MMP ought to deliver complete coverage of the industry’s major ad networks, platforms, self-attributing networks, third-party platforms, various APIs, SDKs, customer data platforms, and email service providers.

3. How much control will I have over my data?

Most growth marketers and app developers desire to have access to raw data to feed it back into their internal BI tools and spreadsheets. However, many MMPs don’t allow them unlimited access to this data, and if they do, they charge extra for this access or have hidden fees when an app scales up. Therefore, investigate the control and pricing of the data an MMP will offer you.

4. Do you offer comprehensive aggregated measurement?

As we’ve stressed, privacy-centric aggregated measurement is a large part of the present and is the foreseeable future of app marketing. Therefore, partnering with an MMP that offers aggregated data analysis for incrementality testing, media mix modeling, and predictive analytics just makes sense!

Make sure the MMP you’re looking at isn’t only offering last-touch attribution or weak aggregated analysis that doesn’t provide actionable, granular insights. For example, marketers should be able to successfully measure and run iOS campaigns using aggregated SKAN data insights from an MMP.

Keep in mind that many MMPs are still building out these solutions, so ask them if they have betas and what their roadmaps look like for the coming year for aggregated measurement.

5. Are your solutions compliant with all privacy regulations?

As the industry continues to place increasing value on user privacy and data regulation, it’s essential to check that your MMP has the proper compliance certifications and security protocols.

MMP privacy and compliance checklist:

• Certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001:2013.
• ePrivacy certified, covering GDPR laws.
• In compliance with CCPA and GDPR laws.
• Compliant with COPPA’s and CARU’s child-centric guidelines.
• Fully prepared for the enforcement of the Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act.

6. Where do you process and store data?

Related to compliance, where an MMP stores and processes data determines the degree to which your data is protected. Ideally, an MMP should own its own servers (as Adjust does), removing the security risk of exposed data that comes with data storage on public cloud servers.

7. How do you prevent fraud?

An MMP is tasked not only with measuring your marketing efforts but also keeping your data and budgets safe from fraud. While some MMPs may try to sell you on the idea of “post-attribution fraud”, you want an MMP that offers real-time install fraud protection that rejects fraudulent installs before they happen (and before you pay for them).

8. How flexible is your pricing?

We imagine you plan to scale your app and, therefore, recommend investigating the flexibility of an MMP’s pricing model before you buy. Several MMPs on the market have hidden fees and will raise prices significantly depending on your app’s growth.

9. How comprehensive yet easy-to-use is your dashboard?

This question is one that you can likely answer for yourself during a demonstration of an MMP. Look for an MMP that is robust in its solutions, dashboards, and reporting options but is also easy to navigate. After all, you and your team members will use this daily, and the user experience of the MMP should be highly intuitive.

10. What does your customer support look like?

As your app and the industry at large go through changes, you’ll want a solid MMP customer support team by your side. Ask the sales team of the MMP you’re considering about their onboarding process, feature introduction, language support, and how often they utilize customer feedback to inform their products.

Leader in aggregated measurement

As new privacy-centric regulations and frameworks continue to roll out, Adjust has been there at every step to ensure our platform is adapted and our clients well-informed. We were the first MMP on the market with a SKAN 4 SDK and have built iOS solutions empowering our clients to measure and optimize their iOS campaigns with certainty.

We continue to provide guidance on aggregated measurement for both SKAN and Google Privacy Sandbox on Android for clients and the industry, with major media companies like AdExchanger and Forbes featuring our experts’ advice. Additionally, our next-gen measurement solutions are continually evolving, with our current focus on incrementality and predictive analytics.

Top MMP in privacy

Adjust puts user privacy first and offers superior data security with our end-to-end proactive data protection. We are completely compliant in all our processes, from ISO/IEC 27001 to ePrivacy for GDPR to CCPA and COPPA certifications.

You’ll note other MMPs on the market have additional certifications, and that’s because they are required to have them as they store data on public cloud servers, which are more exposed to security risks. Adjust owns our own physical servers, so data is never stored on a third-party server, providing enhanced security.

Another unique offering our clients love is that we are the only MMP to offer explicit data residency. This means that our clients get to decide the location for the processing and storage of their data. This provides our clients with flexibility and ensures user transparency and compliance. Feel free to read more about Adjust Security and our Privacy Policy.

The only MMP proactively preventing fraud

Did you know Adjust is the only MMP to tackle mobile ad fraud with proactive prevention? Our Fraud Prevention solution ensures fraudulent installs are rejected before you pay for them and that real-time rejection callbacks are sent to all partners and networks for full transparency. Our solution guarantees organic users are captured accurately and not misattributed, so you can trust the campaign analysis Adjust provides.

How Adjust combats the four main types of fraud:

• SDK spoofing: We offer multi-layered encryption at no extra charge.
• Click injection: We’ve a Click Injection Filter to prevent fraudulent engagements.
• Device farms: Our Anonymous IP Filter rejects any installs associated with compromised IPs.
• Click spamming: We use distribution models fed with years of research to identify and reject clicks which are spam.

Plus, we promise to stay ahead of mobile ad fraud, continually enhancing our technology and taking proactive steps to protect your marketing budget.

Extensive partnerships and integrations to fuel your marketing

We work hard to ensure our clients have access to the top platforms and partners so that they have everything they need to grow their app marketing. Whether it’s our partnerships with the top self-attributing networks (SANs) like TikTok, Google Ads, and Facebook, our seamless integrations—including SKAdNetwork partner integrations and CTV integrations– or the vast array of technology, solution, and agency partnerships available exclusively for our clients in our Partner Marketplace, we make getting the right integration or partnership for your business easy.

135,000+ apps trust Adjust to drive results

We’ll stop talking for ourselves and let our clients tell you how Adjust helped them achieve their marketing goals.

Duolingo trusts Adjust as its single source of truth

Beloved education app Duolingo desired to enhance the measurement of its user acquisition campaigns and better understand user journeys. By partnering with Adjust, Duolingo received granular insights on which channels worked best for them as user acquisition channels.

Duolingo results:

• Significantly increased its day 7 retention rate and LTV.
• Saved media costs by identifying fraud within popular acquisition channels.

Random Log Games successfully managed SKAdNetwork attribution

With the rise of privacy-centric attribution frameworks, specifically Apple’s SKAdNetwork (SKAN), mobile gaming company Random Logic Games knew it needed a measurement and analytics partner that could best support the demands of working with SKAN. Upon partnering with Adjust and utilizing our aggregated data capabilities, the team at Random Logic Games felt confident in running iOS campaigns.

Random Logic Games results:

• Confidently managed SKAN attribution for its iOS campaigns
• Depreciated internal BI tool and reduced operational costs by 40%

SeABank acquired over 1 million users and removed fraud with Adjust

Leading bank Southeast Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SeABank) desired to grow visibility in its user acquisition campaigns for its mobile app so that it could identify which sources were bringing in high-quality users. By leveraging raw data from Adjust and our Mobile Attribution solution, SeABank’s marketing team gained a deeper understanding of each touchpoint in the user journey and identified user trends to acquire and engage more users.

SeABank results:

• Obtained over 1 million new users and increased Daily Active Users (DAUs) by 200%
• Achieved over 80% of users completing registration by removing fraud

Gartner and Staudt boosted budget efficiency 40% with Adjust

The ultimate sneakerhead companion app, Gartner and Staudt’s HEAT MVMNT needed a comprehensive understanding of the user lifecycle and the efficacy of its ad creatives and campaigns. With Adjust’s intuitive analytics, the brand gained a complete overview of its top KPIs—all in one place. As such, Gartner and Staudt could test and measure the performance of its creative assets for HEAT MVMNT, improving user reach and retention.

Gartner and Staudt results for HEAT MVMNT:

• Increased budget efficiency by 40%
• Generated 18K downloads