Unlocking full-funnel visibility with assisted installs

At this year’s App Growth Summit San Francisco, Adjust's Strategic Product Partnerships Lead, Sebastian Daly, shed light on the value unlocked when analyzing assisted installs. We have recapped his key points for you in this blog. Or, you can watch the recording from the App Growth Summit session for full insights.

On average, marketers use more than 14 platforms to engage users. Ad engagements from these platforms are matched (attributed) to app installs. Attribution data is vital for marketers to know which platforms are bringing in valuable users so that they can optimize ad spend.

In a world of multi-channel campaigns, it’s important to be thoughtful in how an install is attributed so that it is assigned to the most appropriate platform. Adjust uses an attribution waterfall to do this. For example, if an impression happened right before install, but a click happened a day before install, according to the waterfall, the platform with the click will be attributed to the install as it is the more intentional user engagement.

Here’s how that is applied for a non-assisted install. Both engagements occurred within the attribution window, and Google Ads was the last touchpoint, but Facebook is attributed with the install because the engagement was a click, versus Google Ads’ impression.

Many marketers look only at their attributed channels when optimizing ad spend. However, the true value of the data is unlocked when considering the broader picture, inclusive of assisted channels.

An assisted install means that multiple ad engagements across channels competed for attribution. The assisting engagements can be a click or impression, but the install must fall within the associated attribution window. Using the above example, we can see that TikTok and Google Ads both assisted Facebook.

Analyzing assisted installs gives you a better understanding of how specific channels increase the performance of other channels and subsequently contribute to conversions. Assisted install analysis unlocks data about:

• The correlation between your brand campaigns and installs
• How your marketing channels interact (and which ones work best together!)
• Potential fraudulent click spam and click injections
• How many ads across platforms on average lead to conversion
• The full user journey
• The true impact of CTV campaigns

In fact, assisted installs are critical to measuring the performance of connected TV (CTV). As an impression-dependent channel, it is severely hindered by last-touch attribution. CTV is an incredibly powerful advertising platform. However, as many companies only measure last touch, the impact of the CTV ad is rendered invisible.

In sum, your analysis is incomplete if you are not taking assisted installs into consideration when analyzing your attribution data. Assists help:

• Piece together the full user story
• Examine the full-funnel impact of your marketing channels
• Make better-informed decisions for optimization strategies
• Reveal the power of CTV

Ready to unlock the potential of your attribution analytics? Learn more about Adjust’s Assists dashboard in Datascape, your single home for all data.