by Herman Manson (@marklives) Yesterday, Effective Measure and IAB South Africa announced a new application measurement service that will enable IAB members to track the traffic to, and usage of their apps. We catch up with Nicolle Harding, country manager for Effective Measure, for more details.
Please give some background on the development of the app measurement system.
Nicolle Harding: From a development perspective app tracking is relatively routine. Our developers used the Software Development Kits provided by Google and Apple to create tracking ‘pings’ very similar to those used for tracking web pages. The resultant data is then integrated into Effective Measure’s Dashboard so App traffic and activity can be compared and contrasted with activity from the broader Internet.
What benefits will this offer publishers, advertisers and consumers?
NH: Being able to measure beyond download (actual App usage). Using the standard currency in the market (trust & accuracy). Provides marketers and planners an easy interface to get the data (EM Dashboard Integration).
What is the expected take-up and how is will app measurement affect mobile/app publishing and marketing?
NH: Take up should be brisk as EM is the certified digital measurement currency in South Africa. For the first time, App data is being offered to the market as a comparable marketing and media opportunity. Understanding how users navigate Apps will assist media owners and content providers to ensure they are building relevance and engagement.
What are the current limitations of the system?
NH: App measurement doesn’t allow demographic profiling as EMs current methodology relies on cookies. Apps tend to be single purpose and don’t have the ability to run surveys in the same way web browsers do. For the time being this isolates Apps from Effective Measures demographic profile database.
What does the implementation process entail from the publishers/app developer point of view?
NH: EM sends a link to their online resource, where an APP SDK is available for download. The publisher developers implement the App and QA with EM. Generally it takes a few weeks for implementation with the SDK, as the App will need to be relaunched on the relevant App store. Data validation is done once we have a full month of data. Once the data has been validated, EM sets the data live in the EM Dashboard.
Demographic profiling isn’t yet available on the system but it must be the next logical step?
NH: App profiling is the next step, but the methodology isn’t the same as standard web browsing profiling (using a cookie). Apps don’t use cookies, so the next step will require some creative, non-cookie based solution, which we are currently exploring.
It is important to remember that EM are able to map user behaviour and content interest and therefore does give more insight then simple Census data.
Demographic profiling would be a concern to privacy advocates and consumers. How can you address their concerns?
NH: Profiling exists across the web and all spectrums of the media landscape, users opt-in with profiling and the users data isn’t identifiable – so shouldn’t be a concern as the opt-in process gives the user a choice to volunteer their demographic information. None of the data that Effective Measure collects is personal information and everything is opted into, therefore is compliant with South African laws such as POPI.
Herman Manson (@marklives) is the founder and editor of MarkLives.com.
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