Mobile marketing benchmark tool by Adjust brings light to marketers

Adjust announced the second version of its free mobile benchmarking tool - updated with even more sophisticated metrics and a wider range of data than before. Designed to empower marketers and publishers to better understand the mobile marketing landscape, the tool is the first of its kind to make specific KPIs, such as session data, publicly available. With time spent on mobile soon to surpass TV, and ad spend on the channel increasing accordingly, understanding app performance and user behavior is critical for marketers looking to pinpoint shifts in user habits.

The update of the benchmarking tool follows the launch of the platform in the summer of this year and includes five new metrics and fresh data from the past two quarters. The tool is based on Adjust’s aggregated database and analyzes a combination of over 7,000 apps.

Providing marketers with crucial insights into apps’ performances

Designed to give publishers and marketers easily accessible measurement capabilities, the tool can be used to create tailored reports, free of charge - saving users from having to buy expensive third-party benchmark reports.

The new metrics included in the update consist of Click Through Rate (CTR), Conversion Rate from Click to Install, Cost per Mille (CPM), Cost per Click (CPC), and Distribution of Fraud Types. This is in addition to the original metrics, which count Retention Rates, Cost per Install (CPI), Sessions per User and Rates of Fraudulent Installs.

The metrics can be sliced and diced by quarter, vertical, acquisition type, platform, and region - the latter of which covers Europe, Asia & Pacific, North America, Latin America and Africa & the Middle East. This level of customization allows mobile marketers and app publishers to get the data they need to optimize performance and ultimately revenues.

“All mobile marketers want to improve their apps’ performance, but finding the right data to inform marketing decisions can be a time-consuming and costly process. Our benchmarking tool provides the insights needed to make smart, data-driven decisions, and after receiving great feedback from the industry on the launch, we’re very pleased to share expanded metrics and fresh new data with this second version,” said Christian Henschel, Co-founder, and CEO at Adjust.

As retention rates continue to drop, user experience is paramount

Data from the benchmarking tool shows that retention rates - the number of users who still use an app after a certain number of days, post-install - continue to drop. More than three-quarters (79%) of users now churn the day after installing an app. One week later, and that number stands at 89%. As the opportunity to retain users shrinks, the data highlights the importance of creating a better user onboarding experience. Incentivizing users to check back into an app within the first week will also go some way to reducing churn rates.

Ad fraud on the up as fraudsters add SDK Spoofing to their arsenal  

With ad fraud costing the mobile industry an estimated $4.9 bn, the issue remains front of mind for app marketers everywhere. The data shows that fraud rates have increased slightly, and as methods of fraud constantly evolve, keeping an eye on distribution of fraud rates sheds light on fraudsters’ preferred methods. SDK Spoofing, for example, has gained in popularity and makes up a fifth (21%) of all fraud - while rates of Click Spam have dropped from 32% to 26%.

The benchmarking tool forms part of Adjust’s mission to bring education and transparency to the mobile marketing ecosystem. The company’s easily accessible tools and resources aim to empower the market to tackle the most pertinent challenges faced in the industry - such as the rise in ad fraud - and give them the insights needed to scale their business.