The New Mobile Publisher Army (HasOffers Postback Panel)

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Mobile Publishers and Affiliate Performance and Tips

At the HasOffers Postback event, mobile and attribution leaders gather to discuss the future of mobile performance marketing. On the panel is Cameron Stweard of HasOffers, Mattias Lesch of CROBO, Edan Portaro of USamp, John Cosgrove of Tapit, Florian Lehwarld of KissMyAds and Pepe Agell of Chartboost.

The questions asked are around how customers, publishers and networks are responding to the changes and advances in the mobile space.

Based on the feedback from the panel, here are some of the major take aways from this particular panel:

  • Publishers have become a lot more transparent these days, and they are more about adding true value then they have in the past. They have become more data savvy.
  • Starting to learn which countries monetize the best and work with publishers within those countries to optimize campaigns even more.
  • Deferred traffic is one of the payment models used to reward publishers (affiliates) which has led to more successful programs long term.
  • It’s important to understand how things are performing on your own platform. You should know and understand all your own numbers before trying to understand someone else’s.
  • Rate your traffic sources and classify them based on their value score that you create.
  • Know where mobile publishers are running their ads and how they are driving traffic. There should be a level of expected transparency that helps make better business decisions and attribution value.
  • The main KPI is revenues, for both sides (publisher or advertisor), and in many cases CPM / CPI are the most important metrics to track in order to fully understand progress and success. Measuring impression, clicks and installs is essential to success.
  • Transparency is important to understand traffic sources so better economic models can be run. We rely on our platforms to report accurately on those metrics so we can make smarter decisions for our business and program growth.
  • People can either become overwhelmed by data or take it and use it by breaking it down. Use data as a resource tool to keep your publishers happy while growth for your programs healthily.
  • Relationships are some of the most important parts of our business, even on the mobile side, and it’s what fosters transparency which leads to more success.
  • The Publishers are the creative guys, so let them be creative and drive traffic and measure as best you can. They are the ones who can often reach targeted audiences others cannot.
  • Mobile banners don’t seem to convert very well for many. Mobile publishers seem to have more success from a variety of means. Since they are able to drive better engagement and more conversions and because it’s performance based, working with mobile publishers is extremely low cost and low risk.
  • Transparency is good, but at the end of the day it comes down to “is the campaign working.” Again – revenue / profits are and should always be your main KPI.
  • There are some more advanced publishers who use tracking platforms for re-engagement campaigns.
  • The most common tracking model for mobile is CPC (Cost per Click) and CPI (Cost per Install).
  • What networks are doing to prevent fraud is still very limited, though they are always on the lookout for it and always trying to find ways to test and help prevent it. It’s still very young and solutions are still being created and improved every day.
  • It’s not always black and white for fraud – sometimes transparency, tools or technologies are just not there to measure it or understand it accurately.  The good news is you have the control to block and stop anything you need to when it feels right for you.
  • Both publishers and advertisers can stop campaigns if it’s not working for them. But it’s essential to test, measure and track to truly understand performance before deciding a campaign is working or not.

What have your experiences been working with or as a mobile publisher?