6 Ways to Track Mobile Advertising Performance

Consumers today are always-connected on a range of mobile devices. MobyaffiliatesOpens a new window notes that mobile advertising will comprise 72% of all US digital ad spend by 2019.

When it comes to mobile advertising performance, there are various metrics available to determine if your efforts are on the right track.

Here are the key metrics that can help you understand how effective your mobile ad campaign is.

First, the 4 easily accessible KPIs:

• Click-through Rates: CTR is the ratio of the number of clicks on an ad to the number of ad impressions (number of times an ad has been viewed). CTR is not considered an ideal measure of ad performance. Nielsen researchOpens a new window has shown a high CTR to have a negative correlation with ad interaction. CTR doesn’t take into account user’s intent while clicking (clicks can be accidental) or calculating engagement, brand awareness, etc.
• Leads generated: The number of prospective customers identified during the ad campaign.
• Cost Per Acquisition: CPA shows the expenditure a business has to incur to convert a user.
• Sales Revenue Determines how much revenue was generated per ad (ad campaign). 

These indicators give a narrow view of how a campaign is performing.

To gather a more holistic view of your marketing efforts, you should consider these 6 metrics:

1. Conversion Rate (CR): This metric gathers data on the number of users who performed the desired action e.g. installs
   

   , registrations, purchases etc.

   If a user saw an ad and performed the desired action, he is a potential customer. This can be used to build a sales funnel and determine how many users abandon a sale and at which step. It can be computed according to an advertiser’s goals, eg. Installs/Clicks; Registrations/Installs; Sales/Installs etc.
    

2. Retention Rate: or Percent Retention is a very strong KPI. Advertisers instead should see that the user not only installs the app but also uses it in the long run. It’s typical for a user to abandon an app in the quest for more features, freebies, and offers.

   Retention Rate captures how many users use the app more than once within a specified time frame, by monitoring the user’s interactions with the app. It is more logical and profitable for advertisers to retain existing users rather than spend large budgets on acquiring new ones.
    

3. Social Metrics/ Social Engagement: Social Media Platforms have become imperative to any ad campaign.
   

    Using social networks also open better targeting opportunities based on location, age, gender, interests etc.

   Measuring the number of likes, shares, re-tweets or brand mentions can help analyze how well consumers react to an ad. This metric determines customer engagement and can indicate whether a customer will recommend your brand or buy from you again.
    

4. Brand Lift: If your mobile ads don’t generate the targeted number of clicks, but help increase brand awareness; they have done a part of their job. If a mobile ad was successful, brands would see a spike in search queries on search engines and higher web traffic on their site and social media pages. 
    
5. Return on Ad Spend (RoAS): This is the revenue generated after accounting for all ad expenditures. It is important to consistently track profits or loss combined with other metrics, you can then decide whether to invest more in the ad or reduce the ad spend.
    
6. Secondary Actions: Measuring actions that users take after they view the ad reveal if the ad generated an interest. These actions are easily measurable and comprise click-to-call, search queries about the business, sharing statistics on social media or accessing map or driving directions. This information can help marketers channelize their resources accordingly to plan more personalized campaigns that lead to conversions.

A few other metrics worth measuring:

• View-ability: measures if an ad was seen by a human, and how many times it was viewed. Sometimes the ads
  

  are not viewable because they take too long to load or aren’t visible for at least one second and the user quickly scrolls away.
  View-ability is related to ad effectiveness and brand recall. You can use it to measure how well different mobile ad formats are working.

• Purchase Intent: Monitoring a user’s wish-list or shopping cart indicates how close the person is to purchasing a product. Marketers can adjust campaigns accordingly to motivate them.
  Marketers must use a combination of metrics to gauge the true measure of their mobile ad effectiveness