AdMob announced yesterday that it will allow for the the first time iPhone applications developers to track clicks on ads that lead to a download of an application.

Let me tell you that this claim is wrong, AdMob is not the first to provide this kind of tracking.

I cannot tell you who was the first to allow advertisers to track downloads of applications coming from clicks on banners (or text links), but I know for fact that you could already do that with affiliate marketing solutions providers such as Linkshare or TradeDoubler, under the iTunes Affiliation Program.

With this program, you can link to any song, album, videos or iPhone/iPod Touch applications available in the iTunes Store. I’ve been setting up these programs and it works like a charm. With TradeDoubler, you can even run Google AdWords Mobile campaigns and know exactly what keywords lead to a click and then download of your iPhone app.

So, if you want to use affiliate links for your own applications, well, you can! You’ll get tracking:clicks on your ads will be reported in Linkshare/Tradedoubler reports, plus you’ll get a commission, for example with Linkshare the commission is 5%. So in Fact, when you sell an iPhone app, you’ll not get a 70% but a 75% revenue share…

I’m not saying that AdMob shouldn’t be used; but after reading their press release I felt like I needed to comment on the fact that it is not the first company to provide this feature.

It’s good to have other companies allowing you to do this, this way you won’t invest your money blindly on advertising, I can only recommend you to try them all, to see which one you feel the most confortable with as far as what tracking details are available, personally I’m happy with Linkshare and TradeDoubler.