AppsFlyer redefines the B2B payments experience with Primer

AppsFlyer is the global leader in marketing measurement, attribution, and data analytics. 

It gives over 80,000 businesses, from start-ups to global behemoths like Disney, SHEIN, TikTok, and Trivago, the insights and tools they need to make better business data-driven decisions, create exceptional experiences, and preserve customer privacy. 

Launched in 2011 and headquartered in San Francisco, the business has expanded rapidly over the last decade. In 2023, it hit the key profitability milestone with nearly $400M in annual recurring revenue (ARR). Its success is driven by relentless innovation and boundary-pushing, a mindset permeating the entire organization.

Consider its payment approach: AppsFlyer is revolutionizing B2B transactions with Primer, enabling customers to utilize efficient, cost-effective methods like digital wallets and Open Banking.

It’s a project—and vision—led by Shirly Katzir Kaslasy, Senior Payments and Risk Project Manager. Shirly joined AppsFlyer six years ago and is responsible for strategically planning the business's payments ecosystem. 

“AppsFlyer is a B2B business, but we approach everything with a B2C mindset,” she explains. “In our personal lives, we don’t tolerate a clunky payment experience, so why should our customers? That's why we're partnering with Primer to revolutionize B2B payments, ensuring our customers can pay us quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.”

‍Payments become a priority

Payment leaders driving transformation initiatives typically face two significant hurdles: securing leadership buy-in and obtaining the necessary resources for execution. Shirly didn't struggle with the former; AppsFlyer's leadership saw the project's ROI. The challenge was fitting it into the roadmap.

“I am a team of one, reliant on our engineering team to execute my strategic plans,” Shirly explains. “We made some progress enabling certain payment methods, but with so much happening across the business, payments often had to take a back seat.”

“At the time, we were working with one PSP,” Shirly recalls. “The business recognized this as a risk and green-lighted the plans to onboard with a payments infrastructure to connect more payment services, inject agility into our payment strategy, and ultimately enhance our customers' experience.”

Choosing the right partner 

Shirly chose Primer to become AppsFlyers payments infrastructure following a competitive tender process between five providers. 

What set Primer apart? In Shirly’s words: “usability” and “functionality.”

“Access to development resources has always been my biggest challenge,” Shirly explains. “But with Primer, that problem vanished. Now, I can add new payment methods and processors and build complex routing workflows with a few clicks and zero developer involvement. It’s a game-changer, giving me complete control over our payment strategy.”

Usability is powerful only when paired with robust functionality, and Primer also excelled here. “Primer stood out with its incredibly powerful workflows, allowing me to build and adapt payment flows to meet our business needs and respond to changes in local markets,” Shirly says. “Additionally, features like Fallbacks, Adaptive 3DS, and Observability empower us to optimize, manage, and leverage payments as a strategic growth tool.”

Shirly also highlights Primer’s comprehensive documentation and the team’s support throughout the process. “It was clear that Primer would be more than just a technology provider; it would be an extension of my team,” she says.

Immediate impact 

AppsFlyer went live in January 2024 following a pain-free integration and is ramping up its volume processed through Primer. 

“We've already begun processing our customer-initiated payments through Primer,” Shirly states. “And in the coming months, we plan to extend its use to our recurring payments as well.”

Even in these early stages, Shirly reports that the transition to Primer has yielded significant benefits, including:

Increased authorization rates

Shirly highlights that AppsFlyer has observed an uptick in its authentication rate since implementing Primer Adaptive 3DS, a feature that triggers a 3DS challenge only when absolutely essential.

Improved operational efficiency

‍With the ability to easily create and modify complex multi-country, multi-provider payment flows, Shirly’s dependency on the development team has disappeared, giving her full control over executing AppsFlyer’s payments strategy.

Greater visibility

The payment dashboard provides AppsFlyer with an overview of all the payments, authentication rates, and payment methods processed, allowing Shirly to monitor performance and begin searching for optimization opportunities.

Enhanced customer experience

Since going live with Primer, Shirly has enabled several new payment methods, giving AppsFlyer’s customers more optionality over how they pay.

Performance optimization

AppsFlyer is now connected with two PSPs, and Shirly can experiment with different routing strategies and utilize fallbacks to optimize acceptance, processing efficiency, and cost savings.

Strategic partnership

Primer has become a key partner, giving Shirly access to payment expertise and insights when needed to help shape the AppsFlyer roadmap, including identifying the most relevant payment methods to offer in different regions.

Building a new normal for B2B payments 

As the partnership between AppsFlyer and Primer progresses, Shirly is eyeing several significant milestones.

“Our top priority is going live with subscription payments,” she explains. “Simultaneously, we’re gearing up to integrate with additional PSP and roll out new payment methods, including ACH in the US. We’ll also integrate a fraud prevention tool through Primer later this year.”

Leveraging Primer’s Observability platform is another key focus. Shirly has already set up some Monitors to alert her when certain thresholds are breached, but she admits she’s only scratched the surface of its functionality so far. 

“In just a few months with Primer, we've accomplished what would typically take a year,” Shirly remarks. “We’re edging closer to our goals of enhancing our customers' experience, alleviating the internal complexities of payments, and ultimately reshaping the landscape of B2B payments.”

Get in touch to learn how Primer can help make payments a strategic growth level in your business.