Have you ever wondered how marketers keep on updating and improving app performance to ensure users have top-notch experiences and their engagement stays soaring high? And why others may fail, or some apps get lost in the bustling pool of very many applications that make it to the digital world every day?
It is the presence of postbacks and their absence that can make or break the game for marketers behind apps. But what is a postback and why is it so important in managing app performance and keeping a tab on conversion tracking?
Let’s figure that out in this blog, covering everything from the basics of postback to its working and types so you never have to compromise on your app conversion tracking:
The concept of postback has become quite a buzzword among marketers as it plays a crucial role, especially in the digital marketing and web development niche, where it brings clarity and the concept of communication to the table. How so, and what is it?
Do you receive a notification each time someone mails you? Now imagine you develop an app and have it advertised somewhere, and then you receive information or notification every time someone installs it or takes some desired action. That’s what postback is.
It is simply the name given to the exchange of information that takes place between servers regarding app installations or in-app events. Whatever users install or do on certain websites, apps, or networks, you can get a notification for it, which is the postback.
How does this help? By knowing where and what derived the installation or certain in-app action, you can judge the effectiveness of your ad campaign as a marketer or advertiser and adjust things to provide an unparalleled user experience to your consumers. The best part about postback is that it has all the information that attribution providers need and can benefit from to figure out what actions users took on their website or the application and make informed decisions accordingly.
You must have seen many game ads while streaming YouTube videos that give you the link to the app store to continue playing. When you follow this link, you end up with the app installation option. If you click on the install button coming from that ad, you unknowingly trigger a postback.
That’s not it. This happens every time any user interacts with particular ads, whether in the form of clicking on it or doing something on the app, or even giving a rating to the app, a postback sets out on a new journey, albeit a rapid one. How? Let’s explore the nitty-gritty of the postback mechanism, or in other words, let’s see how postback works in step-by-step fashion:
Think of yourself as a user. The first step of the postback process will be initiated when you click on an ad that you come across or perform any specific action within an application, like making a purchase, reaching a new level, or buying any subscription plan for a premium app experience.
Now, because of your action or click, the application or server will create a postback URL or postback to the attribution provider or ad network that placed those ads for you to view. The postback will have all the information about your action as a user, such as where you installed it from, the source, your device type, and other parameters that can help marketers calculate the conversion easily.
Now, let’s say that this time, you are an advertiser or person behind the app. Based on the data that is processed by your user’s server, your app’s server will trigger a postback to send the information back to any attribution provider in the picture to confirm the action or conversion instance.
Finally, the attribution provider will process the postback, the messaging postback URL contains and update its records. How will that benefit you as an advertiser? You will be able to see which of your campaigns are worth it and driving user action. All this feedback loop will let you figure out the effectiveness of your ad campaigns in real time and enhance your decision-making process.
Now, all this process takes place over a URL in most cases, which is called the postback URL. What is it? It is a really specific kind of URL that includes all different information parameters.
It is triggered in response to a particular action so when it comes to digital marketing and app tracking, this is a URL that is called whenever any user does certain things like installing the app or doing some in-app activity driven by ads. Here’s all that it contains:
Given that postbacks play such an important role and cater to diverse actions, it is understandable there isn’t just one type of postback. Here are the main types of postbacks commonly seen in digital marketing, especially mobile app tracking arena:
This is the kind of postback that triggers in response to users installing the application. If you are behind an ad campaign, this postback can notify you or any other advertisement source like an ad network or media source that this particular install can be attributed to your or their campaign. These are great for companies to see which of their ad campaigns are good for them and optimize their ad spend.
Different from install postbacks, in-app event postbacks are the ones that get triggered because of specific actions on the user’s end after the app installation, like registering or creating an account in the particular application or even making a purchase.
This is a kind of postback that is specifically beneficial for ad networks or advertisers containing information about certain conversion events like sign-ups, purchases, etc, which can help them get the hang of their advertising campaign’s ROI (Return on Investment) easily.
While all of the above postback kinds are easily deliverable for Android devices and applications, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework and SKAdNetwork have changed the face of how postbacks function for iOS applications.
Amidst rising safety concerns, Apple has made stricter policies that impact postback mechanisms. Instead of directly conveying users’ personal data, SKAdNetwork postbacks are the ones that combine data regarding app installation and in-app events into a single postback and then send it anonymously to protect user privacy and adhere to safer cybersecurity practices. Read along to know more about it.
To comply with Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, SKAdNetwork made it into the market. This network has completely revamped the postback mechanism to augment user privacy in several ways. Here’s how SKADNetwork postbacks are different:
Apple sends SKAdNetwork postbacks that contain anonymized data, meaning specific user identifiers aren’t included to ensure user privacy.
Instead of sending multiple postbacks, SKAdNetwork combines app install and in-app event data and delivers it in a single postback to simplify the data exchange process and minimize the number of interactions between apps and advertising networks.
With SKAdNetwork 4, advertisers can receive three postbacks max, depending on the number of installs and the privacy compliance standard. Each postback can include precise conversion values to give insights into user behavior to advertisers without compromising on user anonymity.
SKAdNetwork doesn’t send postbacks immediately like other types of postbacks. There’s a randomized delay of typically at least 24 hours to further protect user identity. How? It ensures that app owners or advertisers can not trace back to individual users based on specific actions and timing.
In SKADNetwork, when an ad impression leads to an install, the winning ad network receives a postback that confirms the attribution. If the impression qualifies, however, it fails to win, a different postback is sent which highlights that the attribution did not succeed.
Postbacks have become a necessary tool for tracking app conversion and figuring out the effectiveness of multifarious ad campaigns designed to promote app installation and in-app actions. They aren’t just ordinary messages but a testament to the success of the campaign for advertisers while proof for companies and brands who want to partner with the only best minds in the field to derive app growth and success in the digital world with optimized ad spend.
A postback is the exchange of information that takes place between servers regarding app installations or in-app events usually between an app or server and a tracking platform.
To create a postback URL, decide on different crucial parameters that contain information about the user action or conversion event and include these parameters. You can include these for example:
Then the app’s server or certain website can trigger this postback URL when any user installs the app or does some desired action in it, and sends the contained data to the attribution provider or ad network.
Postback tracking is crucial for both companies and advertisers as it employs postbacks to attribute or relate user actions and conversions to particular marketing campaigns or ad sources.
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