AppLift was founded in 2012 as a Mobile CPI Network, working with advertisers to offer the best supply as well as offering publishers the best demand to monetize their inventory.
Since the beginning, we have been convinced that advertisers should be able to buy what they are interested in, namely installs. We believed that by matching the right advertisers to the right inventory, we would be able to achieve the best results for publishers in terms of yield (eCPM).
While we quickly gained traction in the fast-paced mobile industry, we began to realize that CPI could not be the only correct metric. While this practice did reduce the risk of buying non-converting clicks, many installs resulted in non-engaging users. This could not work in the long run, as the ultimate goal for our advertisers is a monetary return on their investment, or ROAS (Return on Advertising Spend).
As a network, we felt conflicted very soon. How could we manage the expectations of our advertisers — interested in ROAS — while also managing the expectations of our publishers — interested in higher yield on their inventory (eCPM)?
To increase the yield for publishers, we would have to focus on increasing eCPMs by optimizing the way ads are served, finding the highest paying advertisers for every impression and optimizing to increase publishers’ fill rates.
To increase the ROAS for advertisers, our focus would need to be around various optimization levers, finding the right audience at the right price.
We believe that for us to create a true value gain for our advertisers we must be aligned with their needs. We changed our entire company’s DNA, evolving into a demand-centric app advertising company.
To achieve this, we decided to separate our Publisher monetization solutions from AppLift. That part of our business was taken over by a team of adtech entrepreneurs, who created the world’s first mobile native SSP and called it PubNative. This way we avoided a conflict of interests between advertisers’ and publishers’ needs — a move towards transparency and interest alignment that has yet been unmatched in our evolving industry.
The advertising market needs focused specialists – less ad networks, more players that either play on the demand or the supply side.
This philosophy translated into our mission ever since:
“To fuel mobile advertisers’ growth by connecting their products to the right audience globally through technology, data, and services.”
We extended that vision by building DataLift 360, a unified platform to offer advertisers one gateway to all mobile supply channels, supporting them across the entire app advertising lifecycle — from Launching their app to Growing and Retaining their user base, utilizing all ad formats: banners, interstitials, native ads, rich media and video.
We also invested our efforts into our technology and into hiring the right people. Our enhanced offering enables dynamic pricing, empowering advertisers to optimize for their true ROI using CPA targets. As our commitment to highest standards of quality, we invest in detecting and fighting fraud with a dedicated in-house team. With our footprint across the globe, we support advertisers in all major markets in their timezone and local language.
By aligning our interests with our advertisers we can help them grow, and our growth will come as a bi-product of our ability to provide real added value to our customers.
This is our belief, this is our philosophy. This is AppLift.
Sincerely,
Tim Koschella
Co-Founder