What is a mobile measurement partner (MMP)?

The problem an MMP solves

An app marketer buying across ten networks receives ten sets of numbers, each produced by a party paid on the result and each using its own windows and rules. Summed, they claim more installs than the app store recorded.

An MMP sits in the middle. Every network sends its click and impression data to one place, the app's SDK reports installs and events to that same place, and matching happens once under one rule set. The output is a single de-duplicated view where each install is credited exactly once — see biased attribution for what this removes.

What an MMP does beyond attribution

• De-duplication across sources, which is the core value.
• Fraud detection. Click injection, click spam, and install farms are easier to spot when one system sees every source at once.
• Event and cohort analytics, so post-install behaviour is comparable across acquisition sources.
• Privacy-framework handling, including SKAdNetwork and AdAttributionKit postback processing.
• Deep link and re-engagement measurement, including reattribution.

The limits

An MMP removes the incentive problem. It does not remove the measurement problem.

It still has to choose a model and a window, and those choices still determine the answer. It still cannot see unclicked influence, cross-device journeys, or anything that happened outside an ad interaction it was told about. And on iOS, much of what it reports is now aggregated privacy-framework output rather than deterministic matching.

The largest self-attributing networks also decline to send raw interaction data, so an MMP reconciles their claims rather than independently verifying them — which is a meaningful asterisk on the neutrality it is bought for.