Announcing Universal Ads with Facebook MMP

Today, we’re launching Universal Ads, a product that allows marketers to measure mobile advertising campaigns across web and app properties. Universal Ads uses our Attribution Engine, making it the first-ever product to give marketers an accurate and comprehensive view of their ad performance across desktop web, mobile web, and native apps.

We’re also excited to announce our partnership with Facebook as a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP). Over 50% of the top 200 apps use Branch, and many of them rely on Facebook to help them acquire and retain quality users. Our MMP status means that we can provide high-quality and high-granularity attribution for this essential channel. Branch is the first company to join the MMP cohort in several years, and Branch is the first MMP to open up free access to this functionality for partners with under 10,000 monthly active users.

Universal Ads also offers a beta integration with the new Google App Conversion Tracking API, giving advertisers the ability to connect AdWords accounts to Branch and measure AdWords attributions directly in the Branch dashboard.

Hundreds of other networks, such as Remerge, Criteo, Jampp, and Performance Horizon, are supported through our simple link creation and postback configuration tools. With Universal Ads, new networks can be set up in minutes but can also be configured for the most advanced use cases, with variable attribution windows, custom postbacks, and view-through attribution.

Speaking of analysis, we’ve greatly upgraded the Branch dashboard to help you answer essential questions about campaign performance over time, with additional visualizations and a rich set of standard events supported by our tools for measuring key conversions. On top of that, we recently rolled out Data Feeds, a comprehensive set of tools for exporting Branch’s rich ad attribution data to internal databases or third parties so our customers can answer the company-specific questions that no single dashboard can. Data Feeds is provided for free with the purchase of Universal Ads, or any other Branch premium product.

All of this is powered by our exciting Attribution Solution, the keystone technology that now allocates attribution for all channels, tying together web and app activity. Attribution Solution uses a historical record of anonymized and resettable identifiers to build a “link graph” that unifies a user’s cookies and device IDs into a single link graph. This attribution method can be contrasted with basic probabilistic modeling, which decreases in accuracy over long click-to-install times, and risks misattributing installs for users who switch IPs or users with similar model characteristics (for example, multiple members of the same household). By identifying link graphs instead of cookies or device IDs, Branch can reliably tie conversions on web or app to the appropriate channel. In fact, attribution tests have shown up to 30% more attributed conversions with Attribution Solution.

 

 

The advantage of Attribution is further highlighted when used across multiple channels. Customers who plan to use Branch in this manner will not only get the increased attribution accuracy provided by this more robust technology, but will also get more accurate, deduplicated attribution across all channels, painting the clearest picture of acquisition and engagement.

We’d like to thank our beta partners for their support and feedback as we’ve refined the product. LimeBike, HomeAway, and Nextdoor are among the many brands that have participated in the Branch Universal Ads beta over the past few months. We’ll continue to stand by Branch’s unparalleled commitment to our customers to rapidly roll out improvements.

We know that Universal Ads will be a game-changer for the industry. This is just the beginning. Over the next few months, Branch will provide deeper integrations with existing channels, more user-friendly dashboard features, and an even richer set of attribution methodologies. If you’re interested in trying Universal Ads, please sign into your dashboard or request a demo.