AppsFlyer Destination

AppsFlyer is the world’s leading mobile attribution & marketing analytics platform, helping app marketers around the world make better decisions. Our AppsFlyer destination code is open-source. You can browse the code on GitHub for iOS and Android.

This document was last updated on April 27, 2018. If you notice any gaps, outdated information or simply want to leave some feedback to help us improve our documentation, let us know!

Getting Started

The first step is to make sure AppsFlyer supports the source type and connection mode you’ve chosen to implement. You can learn more about what dictates the connection modes we support here.

1. From your Segment UI’s Destinations page click on “Add Destination”.
2. Search for “AppsFlyer” within the Destinations Catalog and confirm the Source you’d like to connect to.
3. Drop in your AppsFlyer Dev Key, which can be retrieved from the App Settings section of your AppsFlyer account.
4. Follow the instructions in the Github repos: iOS SDK and Android SDK.
5. After you build and release to the app store, we start translating and sending your data to AppsFlyer automatically.

Important: If you plan on using the server-side destination for an Android project, make sure to enter your Android App ID. If you are using only the mobile SDK, Android projects only require the AppsFlyer Dev Key. iOS projects always require both the AppsFlyer Dev Key and the Apple App ID. Also, note that if you do use the server-side destination, you will not be able to selectively disable calls sent to AppsFlyer using your Segment dashboard.

Server

AppsFlyer offers an augmentative server-side HTTP API intended for use along side their mobile SDK. Use the server-side destination alongside the mobile SDK to associate out-of-app events such as website or offline purchases with attributed users/devices. Read further for more information on this functionality.

Important: Keep in mind that the server-side destination is not meant to supplant the client side SDK! In order for AppsFlyer to properly attribute, you must bundle their mobile SDK! The server-side destination should not be used alone. Also, keep in mind if you are passing in appsFlyerId for server-side calls, you will not be able to disable events from sending to AppsFlyer using your Segment dashboard.

If you’d like to use AppsFlyer fully server-side, this can be done but it is a Enterprise Customer Feature and you need to contact your AppsFlyer representative to enable this feature.

Identify

If you’re not familiar with the Segment Specs, take a look to understand what the Identify method does. An example iOS call would look like:

[[SEGAnalytics sharedAnalytics] identify:@"12091906-01011992"
                                traits:@{ @"email": @"john.doe@example.com" }];

When you call .identify(), we will use AppsFlyer’s setCustomerUserID to send the userId that was passed in.

Note: identify calls are not supported using AppsFlyer’s HTTP API at the moment. You can only send .identify calls if you have the AppsFlyer SDK bundled.

Track

If you’re not familiar with the Segment Specs, take a look to understand what the Track method does. An example iOS call would look like:

[[SEGAnalytics sharedAnalytics] track:@"Article Completed"
                           properties:@{ @"title": @"How to Create a Tracking Plan", @"course": @"Intro to Analytics" }];

When you call track, we translate it automatically and send the event to AppsFlyer.

We include all the event properties as callback parameters on the AppsFlyer event, and automatically translate properties.revenue to the appropriate AppsFlyer purchase event properties based on our spec’d properties.

Finally, we automatically use AppsFlyer’s transactionId deduplication when you send an an orderId (see the e-commerce spec).

Server

If you’d like to attribute offline events with a certain user or device, the server-side destination may be employed.

AppsFlyer requires the following properties for this attribution:

AppsFlyer Device ID

Send the AppsFlyer Device ID with each event at integrations.AppsFlyer.appsFlyerId, see example below. This identifier is unique to each device and can be retrieved using the AppsFlyer SDK. It is a good idea to store this value in an external database where it may be easily accessible by a server or website environments.

Device Type

AppsFlyer requires the user’s device type as either 'ios' or 'android', passed at context.device.type object, see example below.

Advertising ID

AppsFlyer requires the passing of an Advertising ID (referred to as IDFA on iOS and Advertising ID on Android) at context.device.advertisingId, see example below:

// node.js library example
analytics.track({
  event: 'Membership Upgraded',
  userId: '97234974',
  context: {
    device: {
      type: 'ios',
      advertisingId: '159358'
    }
  },
  integrations: {
    AppsFlyer: {
      appsFlyerId: '1415211453000-6513894'
    }
  }
});

Check your specific serverside library docs for specifics on how to format the method properly.

Finally, the serverside component will look for the following properties and handle them specially:

• ip (this should be the ip of your customer–this is not collected by Segment’s libraries out-of-the-box)
• timestamp (refer to AppsFlyer’s docs on how they process timestamps. Since our libraries generate a timestamp, we will always set this value)
• currency (defaults to "USD")
• revenue (For Order Completed events, precedence is given to total, falling back to properties.revenue)

All other properties will be sent to AppsFlyer as custom properties inside eventValue.

Note: Be sure to calibrate/update the time window in AppsFlyer’s dashboard to see your events!

Install Attributed

Client

Segment will automatically trigger an Install Attributed event if you have trackAttributionData enabled in your settings, and the Segment-AppsFlyer integration installed in your app. The event payload will adhere to our Install Attributed event specification documented here and will propagate to your other downstream destinations.

Server

If you are tracking events server-side, AppsFlyer can still send attribution postbacks but you will need to configure this functionality in your AppsFlyer account. To enable this, navigate to your AppsFlyer app and on the sidebar of the main screen click on Integrated Partners and search for Segment. You will be prompted with a couple of configuration options and asked to input your Segment Write Key. Once enabled, successfully attributed app installs will begin showing up as Install Attributed events similar to the client side behavior documented above.

If you are sending in the attribution data yourself, for iOS be sure the following properties are sent in within the campaign object on the Install Attributed or Application Opened event so Appsflyer can correctly attribute it as an Apple Search Ad event. These values should be returned by the Apple Search Ads API:

"campaign": {
        "content": "keyword1keyword2",
        "ad_creative": "OrgName",
        "conversion_date": "2018-03-07T04:05:50Z",
        "ad_group": "US-iOS-campaign-Exact",
        "id": "123",
        "ad_group_id": "456",
        "name": "US-iOS-campaign",
        "click_date": "2018-03-06T04:05:50Z",
        "lineitem_id":"789",
        "attribution":"true",
        "lineitem_name":"US-iOS-campaign-Name"
      }

For example, an attribution event coming from an attribution partner would look like:

[[SEGAnalytics sharedAnalytics] track:@"Install Attributed", properties: @{
    @"provider" : @"Appsflyer/Tune/Kochava/Branch",
    @"campaign" : @{
        @"source" : @"Network/FB/AdWords/MoPub/Source",
        @"name" : @"Campaign Name",
        @"content" : @"Organic Content Title",
        @"ad_creative" : @"Red Hello World Ad",
        @"ad_group" : @"Red Ones",
        @"conversion_date": @"2018-03-07T04:05:50Z",
        @"id": @"123",
        @"ad_group_id": @"456",
        @"click_date": @"2018-03-06T04:05:50Z",
        @"lineitem_id":@"789",
        @"attribution":@"true",
        @"lineitem_name":@"US-iOS-campaign-Name"
    }
}];

Other Features

Revenue Tracking

The destination automatically recognizes spec’d revenue property and translates them to AppsFlyer’s revenue tracking method.

Transaction De-duplication

The destination automatically recognizes the spec’d orderId property, and sends it as the Transaction ID to AppsFlyer for revenue de-duplication.

In-App Purchase Receipts

The destination does not currently support in-app purchase receipts. If this is important to you, email support@appsflyer.com.

Deeplinking

The destination does not automatically support out-of-the-box deeplinking (you need to write code here regardless!).

Therefore, you can use AppsFlyer’s OneLink integration which is a single, smart, tracking link that can be used to track on both Android and iOS. OneLink tracking links can launch your app when it is already installed instead of redirecting the user to the app store.

For more details, review the AppsFlyer OneLink set up Guide. More information is available in the AppsFlyer SDK Integration Guides (iOS, Android) and Segment’s mobile FAQs (iOS, Android).

Personas

You can send computed traits and audiences generated through Segment Personas to this destination as a user property. To learn more about Personas, contact us for a demo.

For user-property destinations, an identify call will be sent to the destination for each user being added and removed. The property name will be the snake_cased version of the audience name you provide with a true/false value. For example, when a user first completes an order in the last 30 days, we will send an identify call with the property order_completed_last_30days: true, and when this user no longer satisfies we will set that value to false.

When the audience is first created an identify call is sent for every user in the audience. Subsequent syncs will only send updates for those users which were added or removed since the last sync.

Settings

Segment lets you change these destination settings from your Segment dashboard without having to touch any code.

Android App ID

Your Android App’s ID. Find this in your AppsFlyer’s ‘My App’ dashboard. It should look something like ‘com.appsflyer.myapp’. This is required for Android projects if you want to send events using the server side integration.

Apple App ID (iOS)

Your App’s ID, which is accessible from iTunes or in AppsFlyer’s ‘My App’ dashboard. This is optional for Android projects, and only required for iOS projects.

AppsFlyer Dev Key

Your unique developer ID from AppsFlyer, which is accessible from your AppsFlyer account.

Can Omit AppsFlyerId

Only applicable for Appsflyer’s Business Tiers customers using server-side or cloud mode destination. Please contact your AppsFlyer representative for more information. This setting allows to use the advertising ID as appsflyer ID.

Enable HTTP fallback (Android)

If selected, HTTPS calls will fallback on HTTP

Roku App ID

IMPORTANT: In order to send Roku data, you must contact your AppsFlyer representative as this type of data stream requires a full server to server integration which is available but is gated as a AppsFlyer Enterprise Customer feature. Without AppsFlyer’s consent we are unable to forward your Roku data. Your Roku App’s ID. Find this in your AppsFlyer’s ‘My App’ dashboard. This is required for Roku projects if you want to send events using the server side integration.

Track Attribution Data

Send attribution data to Segment and other tools as a track call (mobile libraries only).