AppsFlyer, a mobile advertising measurement platform, has released an ad measurement and attribution tool that tracks the effectiveness of television ads for mobile app install campaigns, which it says is an “industry-first”.

Called ‘AppsFlyer for TV Ads’, the tool tracks new installs from users in a designated market area immediately after a TV ad has run in that region, then provides analytics to allow app marketers to measure their return on investment in TV advertising.

It can track the number of new installs a specific TV ad brought in, as well as the quality of those installs and the overall ROI for every media source within the campaign.

“These previously unquantifiable results can then be used as planning tools for the next round of TV advertising buying,” said CEO and founder of AppsFlyer, Oren Kaniel.

“Brands, e-commerce and travel companies find television to be the new frontier of mobile app advertising. The exposure and reach of television ads is practically unparalleled, but until now app marketers have been unable to measure the effectiveness of their TV campaigns,” he added.

The tool will let app marketers track the effectiveness of TV campaigns via categories like time, geographic market and TV channel and use factors such as cost and audience size “to provide a holistic view of an advertiser’s TV campaigns”.

Post-install analytics such as user retention and lifetime value help marketers analyse the ROI for television ads by source and optimise their campaigns accordingly.

Cohort analysis is also available so that marketers can compare the behaviors and performance of two or more different groups of consumers, such as those who installed an app after viewing a TV ad during the week as opposed to the weekend.

The tool comes as developers are increasingly looking to cash in from their apps. Annual revenue from apps is expected to reach $99 billion by 2019 while a recent report revealed that app providers will need to focus their development, marketing and branding “more intensely toward retention strategies”, as the market matures and users become comfortable with current usage levels,