A great deal of tracking software is available for mobile marketing purposes. When we talk about clients, the companies that spring to mind are tech giants AppsFlyer, Adjust, MAT etc. When we talk about trackers for ad agencies, we think of slightly different tracking systems like HasOffers, FuseClick, Affise, Cake. Mobio has used three of the aforementioned systems — HasOffers, FuseClick, and Affise. Each one served a particular purpose as our company has evolved over time. This article will cover the advantages and disadvantages of their software, since there were certain aspects of every system that could be tweaked.
Let me start by telling you a little bit about each system before I analyze them by criteria:
HasOffers. Has a monster presence on the market; practically everybody knows about them. They have a solid, time-tested system, and third party companies usually start by integrating their services with HasOffers software.
FuseClick. Developed in China. Certain aspects of this software have been fine-tuned even better, but it has numerous significant drawbacks, too, which I’ll discuss later on.
Affise. Developed in Lithuania. This software has been tailored to meet mobile agencies’ needs since it was created by them. Of the three companies considered, this one is the youngest and most rapidly growing.
I’ve used the following criteria to evaluate these three systems:
I’ll use 20,000,000 clicks as a cost benchmark with a 1.5% CR of 300,000 conversions.
Enterprise, HasOffers’s pricing plan including 1,000,000 clicks, 10,000,000 impressions, and 500,000 conversions, costs $799. Each additional 1,000 clicks cost $0.80, while an additional 1,000 impressions costs $0.005. The overall cost is $15,999.
FuseClick charges strictly by the click — 20,000,000 clicks would cost you $4,300.
Affise calculates cost based on conversions. Enterprise includes 60,000 conversions for $499 and $0.008 per each additional conversion. 300,000 conversions would cost you $2,419.
Naturally, this price criterion is rather flexible. You can dump varying volumes of traffic with different CR and use VIP pricing plans; however, I’d rank these companies in the following order based on my data.
We are going to evaluate the overall page loading time when opening a page or refreshing it.
HasOffers is rather fast. I have nothing to complain about. It never crashed. Five stars!
FuseClick was exactly the opposite! Speed is not FuseClick’s strong suit. It often took a minute or so to load pages with offers on them, which was one of the factors causing us to stop using this system.
Affise isn’t as fast as HasOffers, but it’s not too slow. Yes, sometimes it does lag a bit; however, overall, it keeps rolling along. Moreover, according to tech support, they will be switching to new architecture soon, which will help pages load faster. They get a B- for now, though.
I’d like to consider how precise and timely the companies’ statistical reports are.
HasOffers has very detailed, easy-to-use statistics, user-friendly. It has all the necessary functions. The only drawback is that you can’t filter all the other events from those pre-set.
FuseClick allows you to do what you can’t with HasOffers — there’s a special box for All Events or, alternatively, Initial Events. A big minus though is that it often has some horrible glitches, so you can only really trust the conversion report and overall report. Actually, that’s all you really need.
Affise’s statistical reports are being finalized at the moment — they’re pretty raw as of now. Yes, you can get all the information you need, but it won’t be all roses.
How quickly can you create and customize an offer?
With HasOffers you can create an offer pretty quickly; however, some problems arise when you want that offer to work in MyTarget or you need to customize events and separate payments. You need to create a tech offer and link it with HasOffers via Offer-Group to solve the first task. You have to customize events and ask your client to transfer them by using the same ID as HasOffers (this is quite a pain) to solve the second task. You have to create all sorts of separate groups and include them in the offer to make different payments.
With FuseClick you have to create a tech offer anyway, but it’s easier to send non-targeted traffic there from the main offer — there’s no need to create a group. However, fine-tuning the offer takes much more time, but this has more to do with speed than usability. It’s rather easy to create targets and assign them customized values, which saves time. Nevertheless, you have to create many different offers to be able to make different payments — FuseClick doesn’t support multiple payments within one offer.
Affise is at its best when it comes to offers. You don’t need a tech offer at all — you can send all your non-targeted traffic to preview-link, which solves all your MT problems. All payments and targets open in one window, allowing you to customize various geographic tracking and target combinations within one offer.
Variety of methods and settings, API consistency.
The HasOffers manual contains detailed information on all its methods and examples. You can run them directly from the instructions page. A stable platform, everything went smoothly for me.
FuseClick — their methods are described in detail, but you can’t test them right away. Their API looks more like a typical PDF manual. As for stability, I noticed an odd bug in their system — the interface produced an accurate conversion report, but the API method returned different statistics depending on the time it was opened. FuseClick’s tech support team addressed this problem within twenty-four hours, but it still left a bad taste in my mouth.
I didn’t have any problems with the stability of Affise’s methods. The instructions are rather detailed, and you can run a test on the generic methods (you don’t need authorization). Overall, their API is pretty good, especially considering the fact that it was launched not all that long ago. It’d be nice to see some more methods in the future, but the current setup is fine for now.
Affise came in first place. It’s affordable, easy-to-use, and its drawbacks aren’t too crushing. Now we’re happy with how their system works. We do not regret switching to it.
HasOffers is breathing down Affise’s back. It goes without saying that everyone is used to this system, and it has a solid spot on the market. Nevertheless, that’s part of the problem — some things could be improved, but it doesn’t look like anybody is going to be doing that anytime soon.
FuseClick came in last place. Their system is raw and slow, although it does have some good qualities. It may suit some users, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it.
Naturally, certain aspects and advantages of each system may appeal to individual users, but that’s a matter of personal preference. As for what Mobio needs, Affise is the best option available. We’d be happy to discuss our rankings if you have anything you’d like to comment on or add.
Mobio — Mobile User Acquisition Agency. Every month the company is acquiring more than 5 million quality installs for the clients all over the world.
The article was brought to you by Ilya Sereguin, Analyst, Mobio
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Affise Academy
Affise is a partner marketing platform for brands, advertisers and agencies to scale via all possible performance marketing channels. Synergy of technology and our long standing experience lets you expand your partnerships, automate every step of the campaign lifecycle and make data-driven decisions.
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