Trust. It’s a lofty word. All companies talk about it, but how many actually live up to their own hype? As an attribution provider, Branch occupies a very important position in the ecosystem. What we say and how we act in this position matters, which is why we launched our Certified Partner Program in March of last year and recently announced a host of new partners.
We work closely with the partners in the program to seamlessly deliver high-performing campaigns, eliminate fraud, and maintain trust with mutual customers. While we spend a lot of time publishing best practices to drive better performance and fight mobile ad fraud, our recent discussions with these partners have also focused on trust. It’s been extremely rewarding to hear from them directly about the level of trust we have built with them over time, and I wanted to highlight the key areas that these discussions have identified. With apologies to the marketing professionals in the audience for paraphrasing the following cliché, here are Branch’s 4 P’s of Trust:
1. Pricing
Branch prices based on Monthly Active Users (MAU) and the number of channel integrations a client wants to use. Some legacy attribution providers charge for events (like installs), and then charge extra for fraud prevention. Why? Because blocking fraudulent installs reduces their billable event count, and that revenue has to be offset somewhere! This is something Branch would never do — we feel it is about as blatant a conflict of interest as you can get. Branch includes industry-leading fraud prevention for all attribution customers by default, and works closely with our ad network partners to eliminate fraud because that is what our clients pay us for: comprehensive and accurate attribution; not semi-accurate attribution that can be a little more accurate if you pay extra. Even though they are not paying, themselves, our CPP partners notice the conflict and have highlighted it to us.
“Branch was a natural partner for us based on what our clients were asking for. Transparency is one of our core beliefs and it’s exciting to work so closely with a partner that shares that emphasis.”
Matt Barash, Head Of Strategy & Business Development, AdColony
2. Policies
Our CPP functions with clear policies that are as transparent as our pricing and agreed ahead of time. Our common objectives are clear and the practices we put in place to obtain them must be complied with or it triggers a review with the partner and potential removal from the program. For example, with regard to fraud, with all our CPP partners we require additional data fields that take longer to implement, but help provide an increased level of transparency. The fight against fraud is not over and Branch works closely with ad partners and is constantly enhancing the capabilities of our platform to fight ad fraud and protect campaign budgets.
“As a part of Branch’s Certified Partner Program, we are able to work together to drive trust and transparency for on-demand apps worldwide.”
Andrew Whiteside, Head of Sales, North America, Jampp
3. People
Branch has oriented our entire company and culture around working hard and doing what is right for the client. That’s not to say that Branch is never wrong or our decision making is perfect; it is not, but when that occurs, clients and partners know they can trust us to act in their interest and work tirelessly to address the situation. It is not just a slogan; we hold ourselves to that standard and ask our partners to as well.
“Being Certified Partners, we at TikTok Ads have received quality and instant support from them and helped us drive innovations for our mutual clients. We look forward to more engagement with the Branch team to continue supporting our Advertisers.”
Pratik Basu, Partnerships Manager, TikTok Ads
4. Product
Branch’s orientation to the market is different. We not only want to provide the most accurate and comprehensive attribution across channels and platforms, but it is also core for us to solve the user experience issues and drive higher performance. That’s why we evaluate every integration we build, whether with an ESP, an ad network or anyone else with the perspective of how we can drive the best customer experience and clients and partners trust us to do this every time. The mobile ecosystem is complicated. For example, some partners wrap links with click tracking domains that interrupt the user experience and decrease performance, while others require extra development work to deliver a seamless experience for install campaigns, maintaining context into the app. Branch’s integrations with partners address these issues and the benefits are seen in the performance of the campaigns they manage.
“Branch worked with our Product team to ensure deferred deep linking (where context is maintained through install) works every time for clients. It drives significant improvement in install campaigns.”
Kent Moy, Head of Measurement and Creative Partnerships, Snap
“Adikteev is excited to strengthen its partnership with Branch by becoming a Certified Partner. Branch deep linking technology, which increases the performance of Adikteev Retargeting & re-engagement campaigns, is a huge asset for our mutual clients.”
Dimitri Souffan VP, Partnerships & Business Development, Adikteev
At the end of the day, we want our clients and partners to trust Branch to do what is right, not just what is expedient. We built our Certified Partner Program on these values and are proud to have partnered with a group of leading global ad networks. It has been very gratifying to see that we share not only the same leading clients but also these same values. We’ll continue to develop the program and look forward to the continued conversations with these trusted partners.