That depends Matt. Solutions like Flurry, Apsalar, Playnomics, and even Millennial certainly provide remarketing services for specifically targeting those who previously installed your app. However, the idea of re-engagement and giving credit to in-app purchases provides a different benefit that is applicable to any number of publishers including those providers. You can insure a return on investment with incentivized traffic by compensating them for the sales they generate rather than the installs they provide, or you can make sure you’re properly rewarding those who provide valuable in-app actions but to users who happen to already have the app installed.

I’m sorry to hear you’ve had so many poor advertising experiences. The simple truth however is that much of the content you want is only made possible by advertising that supports it. Without advertising many of the games, products, tv shows, and newspapers of the world simply would not exist.

I agree that marketers need to get better at providing relevant advertising that provides value to consumers, and I believe this re-engagement ideology for promoting mobile apps makes sure the ads that created a favorable user experience are highly compensated. Over time, providing this the right incentives for good marketing should slowly continue to improve user experience.