DM: So David give us a brief into to Sam4 Mobile if you would please

DS: Sure. We set up in Paris two years ago, and we’re now also in London, New York and Brazil, and we’re looking to open an office in Singapore and Germany. In France, we already work with most of the big media agencies, including Omnicom, Publicis, Aegis, and GroupM.

Sam4Mobile provides detailed analytics about the performance of mobile and tablet ad campaigns. It’s designed specifically for media agencies and advertisers, to deliver faster and more efficient media planning, serving, tracking, optimizing and reporting for any mobile campaign. It enables agencies and advertisers to deliver smarter mobile media campaigns.

Media agencies and advertisers use our platform to host and serve ads and then measure the campaigns. So for an app download campaign, we measure the number of downloads, but also, after the install, whether the app has been opened, what pages people have been to, and how many times people have been back. Then this links this back to the ad spend to measure where the most successful downloads come from, in terms of people actually using the app. Because sometimes with a download campaign, you can get a lot of installs, but no one uses it.

We consolidate all relevant campaign data in one place – our tool replaces the need for separate ad servers, mobile app trackers, mobile rich media platforms and mobile app analytics platforms. We solve the problem of disaggregated analytics across multiple systems, so while we may compete with for example DoubleClick or HasOffers in certain feature sets we offer a much more comprehensive platform across ad serving, tracking and analytics for both apps and mobile web and for any format.

DM: So talk us through how it works on a typical campaign.

DS: Typically we set it up at the beginning of the campaign, but the tool can be used on a self-serve basis, and then we can tell the advertiser or agency which ad placements are working and which aren’t beyond clicks and cost per clicks. We can focus on any KPI – installs, usage, repeat usage, sales, registrations etc., and then optimise the campaign around that.

Our data is publisher-agnostic and we provide unbiased reporting across any media source, so it gives agencies an audit and verification tool. We’re also starting to create benchmarks for industry sectors based on the campaigns we see to give advertisers an idea of what they should be seeing. The more data you get, the better picture you can build up. So you can say that if the objective for a given campaign is to get users to download then use an app five times, or to collect brochure requests or test drives, the following placements are the best inventory sources for that. The flexibility of the tool gives agencies and advertisers complete control of their mobile media campaigns, saving time and generating stronger returns.

DM: But don’t advertisers have access to this type of data already?

DS: They do, but in the past, it’s been a very manual process, dealing with lots of reports from lots of different systems, publishers and ad networks. We unify all this data. We connect to over 120 ad networks and publishers so we streamline this process – weekly reports are now available instantly. Integration is simple via a universal SDK, so we can work with anyone. In addition we work seamlessly across both mobile web and apps and our device fingerprinting approach means minimum discrepancies.

DM: And how do you get the data?

DS: We use fingerprinting technology, so when the ad request comes from the device, it collects certain information about the device, including the OS, browser version, screen size, resolution, fonts etc., and we use that to create a fingerprint that is unique to the user at that time. We only use information that is publicly available so we are 100 per cent privacy compliant, and which can identify the user with a 90 per cent degree of confidence.

DM: And this is just for mobile, or does it/could it work for online advertising or ads on other connected devices?

DS: In the future, smart TVs and other connected devices are all possible, but currently as a business, we are focused on mobile; there are a still a lot of big issues that need resolving for advertisers on mobile relating to measuring their marketing spend and what they are getting from it. For anyone to say that mobile advertising is not trackable and measurable – this is no longer a valid argument.

David Schruers is UK country manager for Sam4Mobile