Prerequisites | You've signed up for Singular and have access to the Singular app. |
Understand your Usage Needs
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Plan your Setup + Use Relevant Sections from this GuideThis guide has seven sections:
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Understand Singular's Analytics OfferingsSingular gives advertisers a unified view of all their marketing data in one place to empower them to make better decisions. What Singular does:
To pull data from all the sources as described above, Singular is integrated with over 1000 companies, including ad networks, agencies, self-attributing networks, BI services, and more. You can browse the full list of partners to get an idea of who we work with. |
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Understand Singular AttributionMobile app attribution is the process of connecting the install of a mobile app and the user's activities inside the app to the marketing campaign that led to the installation. Singular makes these connections by matching an ad view or ad click that happens on a mobile device to the install (or, more precisely, the first session) of a mobile app on that same device. Attribution may also be done by self-attributing networks such as Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Google, and Apple's SKAdNetwork. » To see how we do this, see Understanding Singular Mobile App Attribution. |
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Decide which Events You Need to TrackThere are three types of events that Singular helps you track:
Below are some common events you may want to consider for your business needs:
» For more help planning your in-app events, see How to Plan In-App Events (With Suggestions per Vertical). |
Set up Singular for your Business
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Integrate the SDK/S2SSingular has SDK versions for iOS, Android, Unity, and React, as well as for websites, and a server-to-server integration option. Use the developers' documentation at Getting Started with the Singular SDK/S2S to get:
To test your integration, you will run your app on a test device and trigger user events. Use the SDK Console within the Singular web app to ensure the SDK is reporting events to Singular servers properly. See Using the SDK Console for step-by-step instructions. You can run an automatic SDK audit report or manually test your apps. Important: During your SDK setup, you should be defining the business events you want to track. |
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Add Your App in Singular
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Set Up Attribution PartnersConfigure attribution settings for the partner for each app. This is done on the Attribution > Partner Configuration page. Set up Facebook
Set up Google Adwords
Set up Apple Search Ads
Set up Other Partners
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Set Up Data ConnectorsData connectors are the integrations through which Singular pulls cost and other campaign data from your networks. Once you set up your data connectors, you'll be able to start running reports containing cost, creatives, clicks, etc. If you set up Facebook and Google Adwords in Partner Configuration above, setting up their data connectors will complete their setup. Set up a data connector for each of your network partners:
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Create Tracking Links for your Campaigns
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Create Tracking links for Singular-Compatible PartnersTracking links let Singular know when a user clicks on one of your ads (or views an ad, if it's an impression-based campaign). Links can include additional parameters - such as the user's device platform or the ad creative asset - which can be leveraged in your reporting. Remember: You don't need to do this for self-tracking networks such as Facebook, Google Adwords, or Apple Search Ads, among others.
» For more details on advanced setup, see the Singular Links FAQ. |
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Create Links for Custom SourcesSingular allows you to track this activity by setting up tracking links for custom sources, which are any channels that aren't a preconfigured network partner. You can use these to track email and text message campaigns, as well as cross-promotional or influencer marketing campaigns. Use the same steps as above by going to Attribution > Manage Links > Create Link. Under Link Type, instead of "Partner" select "Custom Source". Under Source Name, choose from "Crosspromo", "Email", "SMS", "Social", or "Custom". The value you choose here will reflect in your reports under the Source dimension. |
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Test Your Tracking LinksAfter you create a tracking link, you can test it. » See How to Test a Tracking Link. |
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Set Up Deep LinksIf you want to direct existing users to specific parts of your app, you can configure a tracking link to be a deep link. This is what you use for re-engagement and retargeting campaigns. With a deep link, if a user clicks the ad and they already have your app installed, not only will the app open - but it will show specific app content of your choice, not just the app's default screen. » See How to Create Deep Links: Guide for Marketing/Business Teams. |
Run Campaigns with iOS 14+ and SKAdNetwork
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Understand SKAdNetwork (SKAN)SKAdNetwork is an iOS framework where Apple itself provides an attribution solution that aims to preserve its users' privacy. Any data that can be used to uniquely identify a device or user is not available through SKAN. Starting with iOS 14, Apple has prohibited the use of probabilistic attribution and released an update to SKAN, which is now the preferred method of attribution. With the new update, SKAN introduced conversation values, a 6-bit value, to track post-install events and measure how valuable a user is. See Introduction to Singular's SKAdNetwork Solution. Our SDK integration guides already address how to set up for SKAN. However, you may want to see if our SKAdNetwork Integrated Partners have special limitations. |
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Set Up a SKAN Conversion ModelThe conversion value being a 6-bit value is simply a number between 0 and 63. By itself, the number is meaningless. However, we can add meaning to that number by creating a conversion model. A conversion model is a way to encode as much information as possible about the user and their post-install activity into the limited space of the conversion value. For a more detailed explanation, see Understanding Singular's Conversion Value Management. If you've already understood and planned a model, you can configure it in the Singular app. To configure a new conversion model:
» For more help, see the SKAdNetwork Model Configuration FAQ. |
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Learn About Probabilistic AttributionIn probabilistic attribution, Singular's tracking URL is used to collect basic information about the device, such as IP address and model. However, Apple prohibits probabilistic attribution methods on iOS devices. To protect advertisers and partners, Singular has disabled probabilistic matching for iOS. As a technology provider, Singular is committed to helping our advertisers and partners stay compliant with Apple policies. |
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Run SKAN ReportsOnce you've set up SKAdNetwork in your app, configured a conversion model, and allowed some time for data to start coming in, you can start to analyze your results. Singular offers two reports for SKAdNetwork:
Notes:
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Set up Other Singular Features
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Set Up Fraud PreventionSingular's Fraud Prevention Engine protects your marketing efforts from ad fraud using a mixture of out-of-the-box detection methods and custom user-defined rules to prevent attribution fraud. The Engine evaluates installs before finalizing the attribution or reporting it to the partner, thus preventing excessive billing for CPI/CPA campaigns. » For an introduction to Singular's fraud prevention mechanism, see Singular Fraud Prevention. » To configure your fraud prevention settings, see Configuring Fraud Settings and Configuring User-Defined Fraud Rules. |
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Set Up Ad Monetization TrackingSingular's ad monetization reporting lets you track all your aggregated ad revenue from different networks and mediation platforms on one page. Ad monetization tracking is an Enterprise feature. If you have it enabled for your account:
» For more help, see the Ad Monetization Analytics FAQ. |
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Set up Ad Revenue AttributionSingular's ad revenue attribution gives you more visibility of your channel and campaign performance. There are three ways to set up Ad Revenue Attribution that balance additional integration against the amount of data available. » Find the best method for you in our Ad Revenue Attribution Onboarding Guide. |
Run Reports
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Run Your First ReportOnce your campaigns are up and running, you can start running reports in Singular to analyze your ROI and measure campaign KPIs.
You can also try these sample reports: » For more details, see our Reports FAQ. » To understand how often Singular pulls data from your partners, see Data Freshness and Update Times. » To understand how Singular combines your data, see Understanding Singular reporting Data. » To see which networks provide which dimensions, see our Dimensions Availability FAQ. |
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Run a Creative ReportIf your ad network supports creative data, you can set up Singular to report on the performance of individual creative assets and their performance. You can also set up tag groups to run aggregated reports. This will help you understand and optimize your campaigns. » For a full guide, see How to Set Up and Run Creative Reports. » Also see Creative Reports: FAQ and Troubleshooting. |
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Use Export Logs to View Device-Level DataThe Attribution > Export Logs page in the Singular web app lets you manually download user-level data for clicks, installs, re-engagements, in-app events, postbacks, and fraud-related data. The page generates a CSV file. User-level data is useful for a number of reasons, such as cross-checking the data in aggregated reports in case there is a discrepancy or sharing fraud-related data with your partner networks. You can export user-level logs for up to 90 days back from the current date. We recommend keeping the date range as narrow as possible to avoid going over the record limit per download.
» For more, see Export Logs and User-Level Data FAQ. |
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Set Up Events for Detailed Reports in SingularEvents are any user activities within your app (post-install) or your website that you want Singular to track in order to help measure the success of your campaigns. The nature of the events you choose to track depends on your KPIs. Some commonly tracked events are purchases, level-ups, and registrations. You would've already defined events when you integrated the Singular SDK. Now, you'll define them within the Singular app so that you can see them in reports. To define events:
» To plan your events, see Defining In-App Events. » For other help, see the Events FAQ. |
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Visualize your Data with DashboardsWhen you visit the Dashboards page, you will see a pre-configured basic dashboard for your data. You can customize this dashboard or create a new one:
Your dashboard will be updated automatically as new data becomes available. » For more help, see the Dashboard FAQ. |
See your Data in your BI Platforms
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Use Data Destinations to Auto-Export Your DataSingular can feed data directly into your data warehouse, storage service, or BI platform, where you can use your own BI and visualization tools to process and analyze the data. See Supported Platforms. Data Destinations are an Enterprise feature. If Data Destinations are enabled for your account:
The destinations marked "User-Level" are used to export user-level data. The others are used to export aggregated data. Ensure Singular IP addresses are whitelisted. » See Singular Data Destinations (ETL) FAQ and Troubleshooting for specifics and more help. |
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Configure Internal PostbacksWhen you configured your partners, you configured what postbacks (automatic notifications) you want Singular to send to them about attribution decisions and other events. But you can also have Singular send automatic postbacks to your own internal BI system, for tracking purposes.
» For more, see Internal BI Postbacks: FAQ and Troubleshooting. |