App Annie launches ad analytics product Ascend

App Annie is building on last year's acquisition of analytics company Libring with the launch of a new version of Libring, rebranded as App Annie Ascend.

CEO Ted Krantz told me that while Ascend will be sold to existing App Annie customers, the real hope is to reach a dramatically different market" as App Annie moves beyond just providing app market data by offering advertising analytics as well - particularly for game publishers and other companies on the supply side of the ad industry.

Krantz argued that with mobile platforms and browsers adding more limitations to user tracking (most recently with Apple's announcement that it will give users the ability to decline app ad tracking), the room is going to get pretty dark" for advertisers - creating an opportunity for App Annie's approach of combining broader market data with a publisher's own first party data.

To achieve this, Ascend offers what Krantz said are hundreds of connectors" to pull data from the different platforms like AdColony, Unity and Chartboost, allowing customers to see these data sets side by side." Krantz emphasized that this data is very much for the customer's own use and will be quarantined" from App Annie's larger market data, at least initially.

Over time, we have the ability to open that up [for] benchmarking data," he said, adding that this approach is part of what makes Ascend unique: You've got to have that benchmarking data from your peer group. Without the market data, you can't be certain you're making the right calls."

Companies already using Ascend include Reddit and Jam City.

"Ascend takes away the burden of integrating, maintaining and constantly updating dozens of APIs, allowing us to focus on what matters: achieving our KPIs and improving our campaigns," said Reddit's director of marketing Spiros Christakopoulos in a statement. Thanks to the critical insights Ascend provides, via its well designed reporting tools, it has become an essential part of our marketing analytics infrastructure."

App Annie acquires analytics firm Libring, bringing adtech-related insights to its platform