As competition increases for the attention of peoples’ eyeballs online, digital marketers have had to use a wide range of tactics to get those impressions that convert to sales. There are native social media ads, rich media banners, in-app mobile ads, and video ads on both mobile and desktop platforms. All of these tactics are fine and good, but everyone is applying them these days. However, are all of those impressions you are getting meaningful and valuable?

You are going to want to find out just how valuable your desktop and mobile advertising campaigns are along every step, from awareness to conversion. This is where viewthrough attribution comes in.

Implementing Viewthrough Attribution

There are two types of attribution: viewthrough and clickthrough. Clickthrough is more down the funnel since the user actually clicks on the ad, while viewthrough is more of an upper funnel for users who see the ad but for some reason are not convinced to click on it in the moment. Viewthrough allows to capture those relevant users after a short period of time as long as they are genuinely were interested in the app and downloaded it at the same day. Normally an attribution window for impression is 24 hours vs 7 days for click. A Clickthrough always comes out on top over viewthrough. This means that whoever sent the last click will “win” the credit for app installation. In essence, viewthrough attribution allows the programmatic DSP to compete and “win” app installations stemming from impressions to relevant users that are interested in the product, which otherwise might have been misattributed. It creates a win-win situation for the advertiser and transparency into the real performance of their marketing mix.

This is crucial to understand, because when DSP is buying traffic from exchanges and SSPs, they are paying by CPM (cost per mille). The DSP will receive credit for the install only if the targeted user saw the ad, hasn’t clicked on any other similar ads, and later downloaded the app from the app store within the viewthrough attribution window. As you can see, the DSP is influencing the decisions of the user to install the app and drives the awareness and later on the action to it.

Viewthrough attribution should be an essential component of your mobile advertising strategy, so you can ensure the money you spend on ads is worth it. With most advertisers opting for omni-channel digital marketing strategies across Social, Search, Affiliate, and Programmatic and since each channel has their own attribution windows and types, it’s essential that the advertiser will setup an equal playing field for all vendors. If the playing field is not equal, the marketer might have an issue of misattribution on their hands, which will divert budgets to the wrong channels.

Implementing Programmatic Advertising

Programmatic advertising is considered to be the future of online advertising for good reason: it allows advertisers to outbid each other in milliseconds, to vie for the eyes of a potential customer. The process is essentially a real-time auction occurring in the blink of an eye, as a web page loads. There is automated bidding for the opportunity to show an ad to a targeted customer, within a specific context.

A programmatic DSP makes marketing easier because of its predictive capabilities. By using AI, you can understand what specific marketing actions to take when you are targeting a single person at a particular point in time. This makes programmatic DSP fall under the category of predictive marketing, where potential customers can be targeted with personalized ads that are relevant to their interests and preferences.

Viewthrough Attribution and Programmatic DSP Work Together

In the complex omni-channel marketing strategy of today, you have to allow for a viewthrough attribution within your programmatic efforts. Popular advertising platforms, such as Google and Facebook, have this enabled by default. This means they have the highest likelihood of “winning” an installation of an app by a user if the DSP is lacking a viewthrough attribution. Furthermore, the marketing budget will move over to channels that are not as effective in driving the right users to convert.

The world of mobile advertising is changing rapidly. The advancement of AI and automation is allowing for even more precise real-time targeting of users with ads. Brands can allow their marketing to become more efficient and productive than ever before. Mobile programmatic campaigns can be especially successful today, with the use of viewthrough attribution and a quality programmatic DSP. Once you have seen the success these tactics can provide, you will never want to advertise without them again.