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How your MMP feeds Catchbase

Your mobile measurement partner (MMP) is where Catchbase gets post-install data: installs measured on your side, in-app events, and all revenue. This page explains how those records become the numbers you see in the dashboard, and the practical differences between connecting Adjust and connecting AppsFlyer.

What varies customer to customer

MMP data is the part of Catchbase that varies customer to customer. The dashboard shape is standardised (same cohort windows, same columns, same formula for ROAS), but the content reflects how you have set up your MMP. In particular:

  • Installs attributed by the MMP depend on your MMP's attribution settings (window length, priority rules between paid sources). Catchbase reads whatever your MMP reports.
  • Revenue is whatever the MMP is told to record. If your purchase event does not carry a revenue value, the MMP will report events but no revenue, and Catchbase will show a zero ROAS.
  • Event names are yours. "purchase_complete" in one tenant and "completed_purchase" in another are two different events as far as Catchbase is concerned.

By contrast, Apple Ads metrics (impressions, taps, tap installs, spend) come directly from Apple and are defined identically across every customer.

What the MMP provides

Catchbase reads three kinds of records from Adjust or AppsFlyer:

  • Attributed installs. The MMP's view of who installed your app after seeing or tapping an ad.
  • In-app events. Signups, purchases, level-complete, and any other event you track in the MMP. Each event carries a name and, where configured, a revenue amount.
  • Cohorted revenue. Revenue generated by users who installed on a given day, grouped into D0, D7, D14, and D30 windows, plus lifetime.

Catchbase joins these records to your Apple Ads spend by campaign, ad group, keyword, country, and app, so that metrics like CPA and ROAS compute against the same calendar day.

Both providers give you the same cohort windows

Whether you use Adjust or AppsFlyer, the Catchbase dashboard exposes the same set of D-cohort windows: Revenue D0, D7, D14, D30, and lifetime Revenue. You do not need to think about which MMP you have connected to pick a target. The choice is a product decision: "do I want ROAS measured at day seven or day thirty?"

The difference between the two providers is in timing and in coverage, not in what Catchbase shows you.

Adjust

Adjust computes cohorted revenue on its own servers and sends Catchbase a pre-grouped record per install day, with the D0, D7, D14, and D30 totals already accumulated. That means the numbers Catchbase stores match what you would see in Adjust itself, and the computation is unambiguous. Catchbase treats Adjust as the preferred source for cohorted revenue when it is available.

AppsFlyer

AppsFlyer does not send pre-computed cohort windows. Catchbase reads individual event records with install times and event times, and computes D0, D7, D14, and D30 by measuring the gap between the two. The end numbers are the same idea as Adjust's, but the computation happens in Catchbase rather than on AppsFlyer's side.

A few AppsFlyer-specific notes that matter in practice:

  • Configure every revenue-generating event. AppsFlyer only captures revenue for events that are explicitly listed in your integration settings. Unlike Adjust, which reports total revenue whether or not a specific event is tracked, AppsFlyer will understate revenue if a purchase event is missing from its configuration. The AppsFlyer setup page walks through this.
  • AppsFlyer Partner events take a day or two to appear. After you connect an AppsFlyer Partner integration, events typically become selectable in Catchbase within 24 to 48 hours. If they do not appear after 48 hours, check the AppsFlyer configuration.

Date attribution

Revenue is attributed by install date regardless of when the revenue was earned. A user who installed on the first of the month and made a purchase on the tenth contributes to revenue for the first. Spend is attributed by ad event date: a tap that happened on the first costs money on the first.

For that reason, daily ROAS can be noisy, especially at the keyword level. Aggregating over a week or a month smooths out the mismatch between when a tap happens and when the resulting install is counted. See Revenue and cohorts for the full explanation.

References

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