Mobile advertising analytics: 3 key trends shaping measurement

Mobile advertising analytics is evolving at an unprecedented pace, driven by shifting privacy regulations, platform updates, and changing consumer behaviors. As traditional measurement approaches face growing limitations, marketers are increasingly adopting innovative strategies to ensure accurate performance insights.

Here are 3 critical trends reshaping mobile marketing analytics.

For each, Singular’s advanced data capabilities are at the forefront of developing and testing solutions around these big trends to enable our clients to thrive in this new era.

1. Incrementality: seeing the impact of every touch

Incrementality measurement has gained traction as marketers seek deeper insights into campaign effectiveness. This method isolates the impact of paid media by comparing exposed and unexposed user groups, enabling advertisers to determine which conversions were directly driven by marketing activities.

Incrementality testing often employs control groups or geographic-based testing to quantify true marketing lift. By excluding natural or organic conversions, marketers can make data-backed decisions and optimize their budget allocation more effectively.

This mobile advertising analytics approach is especially powerful in the wake of user privacy changes, as it does not rely heavily on user-level tracking. Instead, incrementality focuses on overall performance outcomes, making it a flexible and privacy-compliant method for gauging marketing success.

2. On-device measurement: precision without compromising privacy

With privacy frameworks like Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and in the near future, Google’s Android Privacy Sandbox restricting traditional tracking methods, device ID agnostic measurement methods like on-device measurement are emerging as a powerful solution. This mobile advertising analytics method processes and attributes conversion data directly on the user’s device, ensuring sensitive data remains localized.

Several solutions are currently on the market and others are being explored around this methodology:

Pre-install
In pre-install campaigns, app owners collaborate with original device manufacturers (OEMs), to have their apps pre-installed on devices before they hit the market.

These campaigns can also involve third-party media partners who facilitate partnerships with multiple manufacturers, streamlining the process for app owners.

Meta
Meta introduced a privacy-safe way to get back user-level click-through and user-level view-through attribution on Android for ads on Facebook or Instagram, using the Meta Install Referrer.

This significantly expanded the measurement possibilities already available via Google Play Install Referrer. Meta saves the campaign metadata to local on-device storage in the Facebook or Instagram app, wherever the ad was shown. For the first time in years, Android app advertisers got view-through attribution back on Meta, providing additional details and data to build up a more accurate picture of the results of their campaigns.

Google
According to Google, its on-device conversion measurement solution is “designed to enhance conversion observability for iOS App campaigns while maintaining user privacy.” This method empowers marketers to assess campaign performance accurately without compromising data security.

In addition, Google Analytics 4 has introduced enhanced on-device measurement capabilities, providing marketers with improved insights while aligning with privacy-first practices.

3. Modeled attribution: filling the gaps left by privacy restrictions

Modeled attribution has become increasingly important as privacy regulations and platform updates restrict direct user behavior tracking. This method leverages machine learning and statistical models to predict and assign credit to touchpoints along the customer journey.

By analyzing observable patterns and aggregated data, modeled attribution estimates conversion paths even when deterministic tracking is unavailable. For example, when a user interacts with multiple channels but cannot be tracked directly, modeled attribution can assign probabilistic credit to each touchpoint.

This mobile advertising analytics method offers mobile marketers a scalable way to improve measurement accuracy in environments where user-level identifiers are limited or unavailable. It is especially useful in in-app environments heavily impacted by signal loss from privacy frameworks.

Be a part of the mobile advertising analytics future with Singular

Singular is at the forefront of mobile advertising analytics topics in the mobile marketing space, constantly innovating and adopting the most important industry trends.

As a certified MMP partner with all the major partner networks, Singular is a member of programs dedicated to testing and implementing these new technologies.

By adopting these forward-looking measurement strategies with Singular, marketers can achieve faster growth with smarter insights—while staying compliant with evolving privacy regulations.

Want to know more about how Singular is innovating on these topics?

Reach out to your Singular representative or get in touch with us today!