Medialets' tools mean mobile advertisers can track campaigns in real time

Mobile ad publishers looking to maximize campaigns — and dollars — may have a new friend in town.

Mobile-attribution play Medialets, headquartered in Manhattan, unveiled a new set of tools today that enables publishers and advertisers to track how their ad campaigns are fairing across multiple mobile devices. This isn’t analytics per se; it’s about real-time attribution. Medialets, a software provider, is calling its new suite of tools Servo Total Attribution.

“This is about every place that saw the ad and then the placement of that ad. We can tell the advertisers where people saw the ads,” said Medialets founder and chief executive Eric Litman. “The question is: How is that ad performing?”

The mobile ad attribution sector — where advertisers can see where their campaigns are receiving clicks and downloads — is getting crowded. Brands want to see how their ads are fairing, and attribution software is one of the primary ways they are able to do this.

For their part, Medialets competes with Google’s Doubeclick, and, to a lesser degree, mobile analytics standout Tune (formerly known as HasOffers) and a host of others. Litman recognizes the challenge but is undeterred.

And he has the paying clients, many of them brick-and-mortar, to prove it: Procter & Gamble, Verizon, Mondelez, American Express, Kraft, Chase, Capital One and Toyota, among others.

Mobile is where its at. And the big brand advertisers, once comfortable only on desktop, are increasingly realizing this. And they are more comfortable opening their wallets than they were six months ago. The numbers back this up. Mobile was a $17 billion industry in 2013, and that number is expected to crest $35 billion by the time 2014 calls it quits, according to eMarketer.

With the Servo tool suite, publishers can track their campaigns down to individual clicks or downloads. This means they have a real-time intelligence funnel on ascertaining whether money is being well spent — or wasted. Litman claims Servo is the only software platform to connect view-throughs and clickthroughs across mobile apps and mobile browsers.

And it’s all in the name of improving conversion rates, or more specifically, converting site visitors into paying customers.

The data that Servo’s software collects is then routed directly back to publishers, networks, and ad exchanges for example.

One positive facet of the Servo suite is that advertisers are no longer on the hook for unused inventory.

“We are giving advertisers the understanding of how ads are performing. We are giving them the tools to understand how well their ad dollars are performing in mobile,” the fast talking Litman said.

Ben Phillips, global head of mobile at WPP’s MediaCom, put it this way in a release trumpeting the new suite of Servo tools:

“Measurement is everything. Mobile provides a digital footprint throughout the consumer journey, from intent to the ultimate engagement, whether that be a social share, video view, store visitation lift, purchase, or test drive. It is important to be able to demonstrate the role of mobile with confidence and conviction. Servo measures acquisition to retention and enables intelligent optimization to take place within a mobile campaign.”

Having real-time intel on campaign performance also enables advertisers to tweak and weed their efforts. Litman asserts that Servo Total Attribution, at day’s end, makes easier the “process of running app installs and app re-engagement campaigns across the entire mobile ecosystem, all without the need to install SDKs.”

Medialets has its work cut out for it. Going head-to-head with Doubleclick and others with deeper pockets than the six-year-old company will not be easy. It is a challenge that Litman relishes. That and fending off buyout offers he says some of the bigger players are making for Medialets.

But they all say that.

“I’m a 90 percent gross-margin business,” Litman said.