10 questions to ask when choosing a mobile agency

Mobile dataIn a market that is increasingly diverse, fast-moving, and difficult to understand – the challenge of choosing the right mobile agency has never been greater. Here are ten of the most important questions (and answers), to help you decide:

What’s the difference between RTB and DSP?

RTB = real time bidding. DSP = demand side platform. A DSP is a server integrated with exchanges that buys media in real-time. RTB is the buying method and DSP is the machine used to make the buy.

What’s the difference between CPI and eCPI?

CPI measures ‘cost per install’ directly attributed from paid media. eCPI is calculated by dividing all installs by the cost of paid media. eCPI otherwise known as effective CPI includes app store rank downloads (from burst campaigns), viral downloads, and organic downloads.

What’s my K-Factor and why does it matter?

Your K-Factor measures the number of free downloads you get when running an app store rank campaign. If you have a high-profile mass-market game you may achieve a K-Factor as high as 400%, or if a niche app as low as 10%.

Knowing your K-Factor helps you to work out whether it is cost-effective to run a burst campaign or another type of campaign.

What are the risks of using affiliate media sources?

Some (not all) affiliates have been known to use bot traffic, filter in incentivised, run on adult content and on non-mobile optimised sites, which leads to low quality traffic.

Does incentivised work? 

Yes, but not as well as it used to, and not for all apps. If your K-Factor is greater than 100%, then depending on your budget, incentivised will work.

How should I split my budget between iOS and Android?

It depends what you want to achieve. Android has greater market reach but iOS users are more valuable.

How accurate is mobile tracking?

In theory 100% from in-app traffic and 80% from mobile web. In reality mobile tracking is still considered new tech and relies on a wide variety of integrations all required for tracking to work. Utilising device ID is the more accurate method and fingerprint a fall-back. HTML5 cookie is cumbersome and affects UI so should be avoided if possible.

How accurate is mobile targeting?

When you choose parameters such as GEO, device, OS you would hope to get what you purchased. In reality this is often not the case, inaccuracies up to 20% are relatively standard and due to the multiple ways of tracking the issue is further confused. E.g. should location be tracked by app store, IP address, at the ad-network end or advertiser end.

How senior is the person working on my account? (account executive, manager, director?)

The difference between a senior and junior person working on an account can really affect bottom-line results. An experienced and skilled buyer is likely to achieve at least 20% better results than a less skilled buyer.

How relevant is wearable tech?

Not very, well not yet anyway. Fragmentation of technology increases the difficulty of distribution. While Android fragmentation is not helpful, it is manageable and iOS provides a sufficiently large homogenous target audience. The proliferation of virtual headsets and smart watches will create the need for new types of ad-formats, networks, integrations and experiences – so for the time being these aren’t concerns for those wanting to reach a mass-market audience, but definitely mediums to keep an eye on for the future.

Daniel Solden is chief executive of MobAd