I got to join the GameMakers podcast along with AppsFlyer’s Brian Murphy and WildCardGames’ Josh Chandley to discuss how mobile app ad attribution platforms (MMPs) are basically required for running mobile ads. It was a great chance for me to pitch the first open source MMP, Open Attribution.
Why are MMPs ‘required’ for buying mobile app ads?
Well, more and more they are NOT a necessary step of running ads in 2025. Now you can add Firebase (essentially an MMP just for google) or the Facebook SDK (same) and just buy ads from either ad network. The issue you hit there is that the network is free to claim any organic install as one of their users. This gives the ad network TOO much power in the relationship with the customer. Thus most customers on their own will search out another way to handle the app attribution and negotiate with the Ad Network for which installs can be attributed back to that network.
But why do you need attribution?
Mobile apps are missing the HTTP url that pins the web together. When you click a link it’s easy for anyone to add additional parameters to pass on to another site. For example, if I wanted to change the referrer for my OpenAttribution.dev URL above I could add: ?ref=postaboutMMP to pass that information on to the OpenAttribution.dev site for the analytics there to note which article the click came from. This doesn’t exist in mobile apps as the Google Play Store / Apple App Store do not allow passing random information from the click link, to the app store, which downloads an app (same app for all people as well), and then you open the app at a later time. In that flow, there is no room the for the direct URL that we use on the web.
Attribution collects the data at the click, then later attempts to recreate the attribution for installs for which click this came from. There are only a handful mobile app attribution companies in the world.
Open Attribution: How can open source attribution help?
Open source ad attribution is the next step in the evolution of the advertising mobile app ecosystem. Open source MMPs have several huge benefits:
- Self hosted: MMPs collect massive amounts of user data across thousands and thousands of apps. Self hosting your OWN attribution means that a company can keep it’s user data completely in house.
- Open code: Do MMPs sell your apps’ user data to governments or other entities? With open source code you know exactly how the data is managed and under your company’s control.
- Flexible attribution models: Older models like last click are still the best thing we have, but often fail at the edges.