The growth of mobile has brought with it many opportunities for advertisers. But with the maturity of the channel comes a need for better measurement.
James Hilton, CEO, M&C Saatchi Performance:
The problems around mobile measurement are focused on three main reasons. Firstly: the fragmentation of the mobile industry. Advertisers have to understand and tackle technical challenges on multiple platforms; browsers are all based on different standards or device identifiers are not present on platforms.
The second reason is app stores. Users have to go through the platform app store after the ad placement interaction and before they open the app. App stores have different limitations but some of them (such as iOS) have very closed systems. This prevents the use of usual online tracking solutions like ref-tags.
The final reason is online tracking solutions. Brands are still trying to implement online solutions, but this is not a simple task. Although mobile is digital, traditional solutions are not suited to the mobile space because some mobile browsers do not accept third party cookies, and when a new app is downloaded it is seen as a new browser on that platform (cross platform attribution is not possible without use of a unique ID).
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