The recent launch of The Collective, Kochava’s new mobile data marketplace, may mark a new phase in the evolution of attribution companies. Already a highly-competitive space, the big four attribution players - Tune, Appsflyer, Adjust and Kochava - are facing an increasing convergence in the services and features they provide. Looking ahead they will need to innovate around new market differentiation points, and in a data-obsessed world, leveraging the data they already collect seems like an intuitive play.
Kochava’s Collective enables advertisers to build and target custom audiences per specific supply partners, or select lookalike audiences to export to third-party platforms such as Facebook. It does this by leveraging data that is already being collected from third-party-data providers, like ad networks and app publishers.
Besides the fact that data marketplaces like these can become a lucrative new revenue stream and a key differentiator for attribution companies, they might also lure companies who are in the process of building their own data stockpiles, such as Oracle and Salesforce.
These giants have been investing heavily in consumer data as a means of reinforcing their marketing cloud services. Being able to incorporate the app data attribution companies have access to could hold strong appeal for them as they evaluate further data-focused acquisitions.
