Launched in March 2012, MATA is an attempt to create an industry standard for tracking app installs and demystifying user acquisition costs.

It appears to be gaining some momentum too, with companies such as Chartboost, AdColony, and W3i happy to put their names behind the initiative.

Lead by analytics outfit Kontagent, MATA (technically the Mobile Acquisition Transparency Alliance), provides an API so developers and publishers only need one dashboard to easily analyse the data from the multiple networks they used to buy users.

"Mobile marketers need to be able to identify the most engaged and/or profitable users they have and then track them back to the original marketing channels that produced these users. MATA helps them do that in a clear, effective way," said Aaron Huang, Kontagent's director of product marketing.

Streamlined flow

Chartboost is the first company to integrate the open source platform-agnostic API into its technology.

"What's exciting is MATA represents an opportunity for Chartboost to play an active role in driving open standards for mobile marketers and developers," said CEO Maria Alegre

"Chartboost's mission is to help game developers be successful by driving distribution power and enabling transparent, data-driven decision-making, and MATA fits within our overall goals. We were the first to complete the MATA API implementation and already have major developers such as Gaia Online on board."

Joined up thinking

Mobile video ad platform AdColony has joined the alliance with VP of sales and marketing Bryan Buskas commenting, "MATA is instrumental in upholding the integrity of data so that both mobile marketers and developers can continue to optimise the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and deliver a positive ROI."

Significantly, supporting MATA doesn't involve integrating another SDK and there's no per-install fee.

"We're always looking for better ways to provide actionable insight so our partners can make sound business decisions," said Rob Weber, co-founder of monetisation platform W3i.

"MATA will help developers get a consistent view of their data. To that end, we're excited to help set industry standards that will bring long-term sustainability to the entire mobile ecosystem."

To learn more, go to www.openmata.org.