• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 2, 2020

AppsFlyer on Tuesday announced a partnership with Facebook Audience Network to bring campaign-level return on advertising spend (ROAS) and in-app advertising measurement to gaming.

Ideally, the partnership with Facebook enables brands to accurately measure ROAS generated through the Facebook Audience Network.

Eran Dunsky, product lead at ROI 360 at AppsFlyer, said the company “wanted to explore the ability to more accurately measure campaigns across the Facebook Audience Network, so we reached out to them.”

It allows advertisers, who may also be publishers, to close the loop through ad-revenue measurement. Brands run acquisition campaigns as an advertiser and can also monetize them by serving ads within the app.  

COVID-19 lockdowns have boosted user engagement with video games and esports during the past few months, and revenue for many gaming companies has increased as a result.

Verizon reported an increase of 75% in gaming traffic during peak hours, compared with 12% in digital video traffic and 20% in web traffic. 

Overall, the global video game market is forecast to reach $159 billion in 2020 -- up four times over box office revenue at $43 billion in 2019 and nearly three times over music industry revenues at $57 billion in 2019.

The biggest market by revenue is Asia-Pacific with almost 50% of the games market by value. North America accounts for a quarter of revenue.

“The biggest challenge was the need to protect user privacy while providing monetization,” Dunsky said. “This API allows us to finally provide this data while maintaining user privacy.”

The integration between AppsFlyer and Facebook relies on an API. The move ties revenue generated by users from Facebook Audience Network to the user acquisition source. It allows app developers to precisely optimize their user acquisition strategy, improving ROAS and LTV accuracy.

The tools aim to help brands acquire quality users, understand the ideal experience for those users, and ensure long-term engagement and revenue.

Greater transparency into in-app revenue is becoming essential for gaming optimization success. “Keep in mind that this looks at the data from monetization,” he said, pointing to publishers. “It allows the attribution provider, AppsFlyer, to tie back the revenue and attribute it to the acquisition campaign, regardless of whether or not the acquisition campaign runs on Facebook.”