AppsFlyer Attribution Setup Guide

 

AppsFlyer attribution events can be sent to deltaDNA from your game client or from the AppsFlyer servers as a postback – we would always recommend using the server postback method.

Follow one of integration methods below to integrate AppsFlyer attribution data in to your game.

Server Postback Integration Method

1. Integrate the deltaDNA SDK into your game – more information on this process can be found in our SDK documentation pages

2. Add the appsFlyerAttribution event to your game on our platform by navigating to your DEV environment and visiting Setup > Manage Events > Create Event and then selecting the appsFlyerAttribution template event

add-appsFlyer-event

appsFlyerAttribution Template Event

3. Integrate the latest AppsFlyer SDK

4. Retrieve the deltaDNA userID that your game is using and set the customer user id in the appsFlyer SDK with it. The deltaDNA userID can be retrieved from the userID property on the deltaDNA SDK instance

N.B. The deltaDNA SDK userID, whether auto-generated or provided by the game, must be set as the customer user id in the appsFlyer SDK to make this work. This must only be done on builds of the game integrated against the LIVE environment on the deltaDNA side. Test builds of the game using the dev environment must not set the customer user id since that will result in dev environment users leaking into and polluting the live environment.

5. Configure the deltaDNA postback on your appsFlyer management console. You can find more information on the appsFlyer site, or follow the instructions below:

5.1 Navigate to your Media Source Configuration page on appsFlyer and search for deltaDNA

 

delts1

AppsFlyer Media Source Configuration

5.2 In the deltaDNA configuration page, enable the integration parameter and insert the environment key you can receive from deltaDNA (image further below), then click Save & Close

deltas2

Key Configuration

5.3 Make sure the Partner Activation toggle is set to active if this option is available:

activate_twitter.png

Once this configuration is saved, AppsFlyer will begin sending the following data to deltaDNA for every organic and non-organic install:

  • envKey
  • Install Time
  • Media Source
  • Campaign name

5.4 Enable sending of  attribution data on  installs by toggling the Sending Options to ON for Install events in the Default Postbacks section.

According to Facebook’s T&C, we can’t share user level data with any 3rd party. As a result, all Facebook and Twitter installs will be sent to deltaDNA as organic.

You can find the LIVE Environment Key used above on the Game Details page in the deltaDNA dashboard:

deltaDNA Live Key

Alternatively, you could use a pure client side integration method but the server postback method described above is the preferred method.

Client-Side Integration Method

1. Integrate the deltaDNA SDK into your game

2. Add the appsFlyerAttribution event to your game on our platform by navigating to your DEV environment and visiting Setup > Manage Events > Create Event and then selecting the appsFlyerAttribution template event

add-appsFlyer-event

appsFlyerAttribution Template Event

3. Integrate the latest AppsFlyer SDK

4. Following either the iOS or Android documentation to implement the AppsFlyer deferred deep linking feature in your game

5. In the onConversionDataReceived (iOS) or onInstallConversionDataLoaded (Android) implementation send an appsFlyerAttribution event using the deltaDNA SDK based on the data received

In order to comply with Facebook and Twitter’s terms of service all attributions from those sources must be reported simply as ORGANIC and none of the attribution parameters should be included
  • While many of the fields of the appsFlyerAttribution are listed as optional you should always populate all of the STRING based ones, using empty string values if data isn’t available. This is  to ensure that the LAST value of any attribution fields is always correctly set in your user metrics. TIMESTAMP parameters like afAttrClickTime or afAttrInstallTime should be skipped completely or populated with a valid timestamp.
  • acquisitionChannel : It is up to you what you populate the acquisition channel parameter, there is no common definition of this parameter across attribution providers and games. This is your highest level attribution parameter. It is used as a Dimension in Slice & Dice and is available as a filter across all your deltaDNA charts. It  is also visible on all events in Data Mining and Direct Access. It should therefore be populated with the most important, highest level, of attribution that you want to track (ask yourself, where do I spend my marketing bucks as this will generally be the level of granularity you want for the acquisition channel).Because the acquisition channel is defined as a dimension you shouldn’t populate it with too many distinct values. An acquisition channel list of 12 entries is great to work with but you’ll give yourself headaches if you try and define hundreds of different acquisition channels.Many games will concatenate a few attribution parameters together to form their acquisition channel. E.G <Network>::<Campaign> might return TapJoy :: Halloween Campaign 2014 etc..
  • The acquisition channel parameter is limited to 72 characters long.
  • Data sharing with deltaDNA will need to take into account any agreements you have entered into with other parties. e.g. Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/advanced_mobile_measurement/tos