Attribution for mobile games

Start from how the game makes money

What you measure depends on the business model, so settle that first.

An ad-led game with no ad revenue in its reports cannot calculate ROAS at all. A purchase-led game that looks only at average revenue hides the fact that a handful of players carry a campaign.

Payback speed is the main question

Game marketers buy installs at a known price and ask one thing: how many days until the players from this campaign have earned back what they cost? To answer it you need spend per campaign, revenue per install-date group, and a view of that revenue at fixed ages such as day 1, day 7 and day 30.

Two more readings sit next to payback. Retention tells you whether players come back often enough to earn anything. Predicted LTV lets you act before the full revenue has arrived, which matters when you change bids every few days.

Many networks, one yardstick

Games often buy from many sources, including networks that place ads inside other games. Each network reports its own results with its own rules. The attribution tool's job is to apply one rule to all of them so that an install is counted once and credited once. The guide to ad channel integrations explains what a connection involves and how to count the ones you need.

Check plan limits here before anything else. Airbridge Core measures Meta Ads, Google Ads, Apple Ads and TikTok only, and the Growth Plan covers 330+ ad networks along with PC and console attribution.^[1] A game buying across many networks should compare higher plans, whichever vendor it chooses.

Fraud and progress events

Paying per install across many small sources can attract fake installs. A game spending on such sources should treat fraud checks as part of measurement, since a fake install inflates one network's numbers and takes budget from honest ones. Ad fraud prevention basics covers the common types and when the protection is worth paying for.

Games also want events that standard lists do not include, such as level reached, tutorial finished or boss defeated. Those are custom events, and some entry plans accept only standard ones. If you plan to optimise campaigns toward "reached level 10", confirm the plan allows it.

A checklist before you pick a plan

• List every network you buy from today and the ones you plan to test this year.
• Write down your revenue streams and confirm each can be sent to the tool with a value.
• Decide the payback window you manage to, and check that reports show revenue at that age.
• Name the two or three progress events that predict a paying or long-staying player.
• Ask whether fraud checks are in the plan or priced separately.
• If the game also ships on PC or console, ask how those players are measured.

With that list in hand, the comparison on the home page shows which tools publish what a game needs.