As new platforms and technologies emerge, so do innovative ad formats like playable, skippable and short-form video ads. Advertisers and ad agencies who manage ad campaigns on their clients’ behalfs are running ads across many different platforms at once. When trying to analyze the performance of a campaign that ran on TikTok vs. a similar campaign that ran on LinkedIn or Instagram, it’s crucial to understand what content works best on each platform. Engagement metrics remain a sought-after metric for advertisers — behind returns on investment — as they seek to assess performance, especially when dealing with tighter budgets. But, Benjamin Cole, Global Senior Director of Strategic Partnership Development at AppsFlyer says, “the current standard of metrics, like clicks and impressions, don’t completely capture the value of new engagement types.”

Cole argues that cross-platform campaigns necessitate the adoption of standardization of metrics. Standardization is a net positive for advertisers as well as ad and analytics platforms, he says.

“It’s an opportunity to define new ways to measure engagement, and establish crucial new standards for capturing and measuring purchase intent,” Cole says. “Traditional metrics can’t fully capture the diversity and nuance of user behavior, which calls for more granularity, more transparency and standardized units of measurement across platforms.”

Cole points to new immersive experiences in the ad ecosystem. For example, there has been a rise in gamified ads within ad units, often with the call to action for installing or buying the app after you’ve taken it for a trial in-ad. “For measurement purposes, that has to weigh more for consumer intent than just regular impressions. It’s a very clear sign of intent, which shows why transparency into how they’re engaging with ad units is important.”

Then consider the confusion due to measurement discrepancies among major platforms. Meta’s definition of engagement for an “engaged view” is the total number of actions that users take 10 seconds, while at Snap, it’s the total number of 15-second impressions (or alternatively letting the ad reach 97% completion for shorter videos). TikTok and Twitter/X have their own measurements that differ from the other platforms as well.

The formation of an industry coalition

A lack of standardization means clicks and views have never really been measured consistently across platforms and networks, or captured the complexity of changes in user behavior over time — making data-driven decisions difficult and significantly hampering competition in the market. Instead of apples-to-apples, comparing engagement on Instagram vs. Twitter has been more of an apples-to-chairs comparison if looking at how they measure views and clicks side-by-side. Marketers need data to back up their decisions, especially in times where budgets are under more scrutiny than ever.

To tackle this head on, AppsFlyer has designed a comprehensive new standard of ad engagement measurement, collaborating with industry giants from across the ecosystem, from platforms to tech vendors and marketers/advertisers alike over a number of years to solicit feedback.

With the aim of creating an industry-wide standard of enriched engagement and greater transparency, AppsFlyer approached a cohort of industry giants in every facet of the business to take the first steps. The consortium, including industry leaders like TikTok, Snap and Unity, along with advertisers and media agencies like M&C Saatchi Performance and Zynga, are seeking to reshape how engagement is measured.

“Our position in the market enabled us to work with these companies very closely, lead this initiative and standardize across so many companies,” Cole says. “It was an easy request to understand from both the partner and customer perspective, as a concentrated effort to move the industry forward.”

Measuring performance holistically on TikTok
Traditional last-click attribution models have been shown to undervalue TikTok conversions by 73%, which is why the company is working with the measurement partner ecosystem to develop standards that help advertisers confidently measure their ad performance on TikTok, says Chen-Lin Lee, global head of data and measurement product partnerships at TikTok.

“It’s obvious that the industry-wide changes of the last few years have shaken up how we look at measurement, and dictated a need to adapt,” Chen-Lin says. “However, we view it as a healthy challenge to evolve and innovate.”

A fundamental difference of TikTok and its place in the social media landscape starts with how users interact with the platform, Lee says. TikTok users don’t just check TikTok, they watch it, representing a new era of personalized entertainment that drives undivided attention — in other words, high-quality views and engagement.

However, when users view an ad on TikTok, it’s not always a simple click-and-buy scenario. TikTok ad views frequently serve as the starting point for further exploration on and off the platform. This means the impact of the ad experience is different, and the way to measure that impact needs to evolve. Many advertisers, through years of ingrained behavior, were used to defaulting to “last click” to measure ad campaigns, and yet they intuitively know that doesn’t seem to be the proper way to assess TikTok ads. That’s why standardization of ad engagement measurement is so critical both for advertisers and for the industry as a whole.

“We want advertisers to truly understand how their ad budgets deployed on TikTok are adding value to their business,” Chen-Lin explains. “Users today interact with a more diverse array of dynamic ad types, on different platforms which are unique in format and experience and require more sophisticated and finessed measurement solutions.”

Enabling a unified source of truth with M&C Saatchi Performance
“Standardizing ‘engagement’ is a complex and necessary endeavor, and with varying definitions of engagement across platforms, it is often difficult for brands to understand what content resonates most effectively with key audiences,” says Dane Buchanan, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at M&C Saatchi Performance.

“As an agency, we pride ourselves on providing clients with a digestible, unified source of truth, which often entails heavy lifting by our data engineers and analysts,” he explains. “A standardized approach will help alleviate some of this workload, freeing up teams to focus on deeper strategic questions and adapt to industry changes like the removal of cookies and device identifiers.”

Enhanced transparency and a shared language for engagement will benefit the entire ecosystem and grow trust between parties, he adds, enabling advertisers and partners to operate on equal footing, focusing on delivering impactful experiences rather than debating definitions.

For example, let’s say you’re running both a TikTok influencer campaign and a traditional display ad campaign. With standardized metrics, you might discover that your influencer partnerships bring a higher percentage of engaged views and longer interactions, while the display ads primarily generate quick impressions. Knowing this allows you to confidently shift your budget and focus on where it will have the greatest impact, he adds.

“Ultimately, standardized engagement reporting means less time debating the definition of metrics and more time focused on driving impact from marketing investments, which benefits both brands and platforms,” he says.

Rolling out a comprehensive measurement framework

The new metrics proposed go far beyond the two traditional measurements, impressions and clicks, which could not possibly measure all types of consumer intent. The new framework proposes seven metrics:

preload or download
click to download
click to app
engaged click
engaged view
view
listening
“The introduction of these is largely based on the intent behind the actions,” AppsFlyer’s Cole says. “Someone who’s clicking with the specific intent to install now, that’s a very clear intent signal. That’s probably leading to the action. But someone just viewing an ad unit and scrolling by, that’s a much lower intent signal. We’ve added an attribution priority or a weighting in our measurement according to the intent that the action represents.”

Cole and team are now working with customers and partners to introduce the enriched engagement metrics into the AppsFlyer analytics platform, which should be up and running starting in Q1. At the end of Q1 they expect to be ready to launch these metrics into their attribution and measurement production environment, and then start gradually rolling it out to more partners and customers.

“We hope that the standard, once it’s implemented, will be adopted by all the platforms on the sell side as well as the measurement side,” he says. “Our goal is to provide better measurement so companies can make better decisions. The introduction of these standards encourages adoption of industry-wide best practices, which promotes a more uniform and ethical advertising landscape. This is just the first step as we seek more robust or future proof tools for ad engagement metrics.”