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Best Marketing Practices for Growing Your Mobile App Proven ways to increase your ROI and get your app in the hands of loyal users

Best Marketing Practices for Growing Your Mobile App

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Page 1: Best Marketing Practices for Growing Your Mobile App

Best Marketing Practices for Growing Your Mobile App

Proven ways to increase your ROI and get your app in the hands of loyal users

Page 2: Best Marketing Practices for Growing Your Mobile App

fiksu.com/ebooks

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Table of ContentsCompeting for Users ..................................................................................... 3

Overcoming the Challenges ........................................................................ 4

The Unfortunate Reality ............................................................................... 6

Organic and Loyal Users ............................................................................. 11

Best Marketing Practices for Acquiring Loyal App Users and Growing Your Mobile App ..................................................................12

Fiksu’s Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform ............................. 18

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Competing For UsersWith more than 2.5 million mobile apps competing for users, finding the right users for your app can be a huge challenge. How do you make certain that your app gets enough downloads to scale your business, and that those downloads turn into loyal users that help you reach your business goals?

And how do you accomplish all this without draining your budget in the process?

If you’re like most companies, you’re struggling for answers.

Although you’re competing with millions of other apps, you can take solace in the fact that you’re not alone – because your competitors are facing the same challenges.

The good news is that with the right technology and tactics, you can overcome these challenges, and build successful, sustainable mobile app businesses.

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Overcoming the ChallengesOvercoming the ChallengesThe costs to find users are too high.What most app marketers will tell you is, “We took a financial beating trying to get users. We spent a ton of money and didn’t get any volume at all.” And many who did get the volume say, “We spent tons of money on volume, but our cost per user was significantly higher than we could sustain.”

Finding users is complex, and we don’t fully understand it.“We have a great app, but we have no idea how to get it into the hands of users. This is all new to us, and there’s really no way to know for sure if our advertising will deliver the results we need. So we experiment and test and hope we hit our target.”

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NEED MORE USERS !!!

It’s all extremely time-consuming.“We’re having some success, but we can do much better. We just don’t have the bandwidth to make it happen fast enough. The ad networks are getting us downloads, but they have no way of telling us if the downloads translate into profitable users. The problem is that it’s much too time-consuming to work with all the possible traffic sources, and we have limited staff to make it happen. So we feel like we’re settling.”

The market keeps changing.“Just when we figure out how to market our app, industry changes render our marketing strategy obsolete. We want to stay ahead of the curve, but that’s difficult when change is so rapid. We keep hearing about real-time bidding, programmatic media buying, and other new strategies, but we don’t know where to start or if it’s right for us.”

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NEED MORE USERS !!!

The Unfortunate Reality

The result of these challenges is that you may find yourself spending money on an ad network or two and hoping they deliver the results you need. What most organizations are finding, though, is that they’re not achieving their goals.

All of these challenges add up to an obstacle course app marketers have to overcome.

Learn more at:fiksu.com/fiksu- obstacle-course

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So why isn’t this working?Here are three of the most common reasons your approach may not be working to the degree you require:

1. You may not be buying across a full complement of traffic sources.

2. You may not be tracking performance and optimizing ad spend in real time.

3. It’s hard to manage all of these different traffic sources by yourself.

Let’s explore each of these in further detail.1. You may not be buying across a full complement of traffic sources.To achieve peak results it’s vital to generate traffic from a variety of sources including:

• Ad networks that display your banner ads on their network of mobile publishers – typically inside other apps.

• Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter that allow you to reach very specific audiences via dedicated mobile app ads.

• Real-time bidding platforms that allow you to get your ad in front of the right users for the right price.

• Incentivized networks and app discovery platforms that reward users for downloading and trying your app.

• Video networks that display your video ads on their network of mobile publishers.

By limiting the number of traffic sources you use, you’ll be missing opportunities to identify potentially higher-performing traffic from other ad networks – sources that could lead to larger numbers of loyal users. In addition, you’re not maximizing your ROI by identifying opportunities for lower acquisition costs. And finally, by working with a small number of traffic sources, you are in danger of subjecting your app to audience saturation.

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Successful mobile app marketers recognize that working with several traffic sources and ad networks increases their chances for success. Casting a wide net across multiple networks is always more efficient than working with one network.

Working with several traffic sources is also critical because the best network today may not be the best network tomorrow. New technologies, changing user behavior, and an evolving landscape could all prompt shifts in performance, and working with a full compliment of sources will better prepare you for when this shift occurs.

Fiksu’s changing ad spend over time

In mobile, change is rapid. Networks owning considerable share can change virtually overnight, as has been the case with Fiksu’s ad spend over time. Advertisers need to be able to shift media spend rapidly to find the best traffic sources, as the best network today is not necessarily the best network tomorrow.

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2. You may not be tracking ad performance and optimizing ad spend in real time.To get the highest possible return from your ad spend, you must continuously track and analyze all of your ads’ performance variables and make adjustments, ideally in real time. That’s a complex and time-consuming task with just one network, let alone several. You may not have the in-house expertise or the tools to perform the necessary analysis and adjustments. But if you don’t, you may be spending too much or missing out on users from the best performing sources.

3. It’s hard to manage all of these different traffic sources by yourself.Working with multiple traffic sources is easier said than done. It’s extremely challenging to work with multiple traffic sources, let alone multiple properties within each source type. Some of these challenges include:

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Fiksu’s programmatic buying and optimization

Fiksu’s programmatic technology allows for real time optimization that results in significantly lower CPIs. This graph illustrates manual optimization on the left, and programmatic optimization on the right. Introducing programmatic buying and optimization resulted in a more than 20% drop in effective CPI.

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It’s complex and time-consuming.How can you possibly work across dozens of traffic sources spanning numerous ad networks, real-time bidding platforms, social networks, video networks, and incentive-based programs? Working with multiple networks increases the workload and complexity exponentially. How many people would you have to hire to manage multiple insertion orders, consolidate different types of reports, and conduct ongoing performance analysis?

Disparate reports make tracking and analysis difficult.Each network provides different reporting, tracking different types of data. For example, some networks report that a download occurs on the day an ad is displayed. Others report when the app was actually opened the first time. Data is reported differently from network to network, and somehow you need to reconcile this. It takes an enormous amount of work to consolidate and normalize all of these reports, and without the ability to do so, you can’t identify the best value for your spend.

There are numerous technical complexities.Each and every traffic source requires you to embed tracking code – an SDK – into your app. All this code can compromise your app’s performance and cause technical complexities. Moreover, the need to incorporate all this code requires engineering time and resubmitting to the app stores for each additional traffic source you integrate with.

ad networks RTB social video incent

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Organic and Loyal UsersWhile it’s true that downloads are critical to your success, in reality, they are just a means to getting what you really need: loyal users. And organic users are almost always more likely to turn into loyal users than users acquired through paid channels.

Organic Users Organic users are those who install your application without clicking an ad usually after searching in the app stores.

Our data shows that these users are significantly more likely to become loyal users than those who download your app after clicking an ad.

Therefore, as you develop your user acquisition plan, think not only in terms of “number of downloads,” but also in terms of “number of organic users.”

Loyal Users At the end of the day, you want your downloads to turn

into loyal users, because loyal users use your app repeatedly, make purchases, and spread the word on your behalf:

all the things that go into app success. It’s loyal users on whom you build your business. A download, or even an app launch, doesn’t mean you have a loyal user.

So what is a loyal user? It completely depends on your business and your app.

If your app is membership-based, a loyal user might be someone who registers and becomes a member. If you’re a retailer, a loyal user may be a customer who makes a purchase. If you’re an app developer who relies on in-app ad revenue, a loyal user may be someone who opens your app at least three times.

Rapid and sustainable app-business growth is all about finding loyal users – whatever that means to you. And ad networks don’t have access to the info you need to measure and target loyal app users.

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Best Marketing Practices For Acquiring Loyal App Users And Growing Your Mobile App

Here are 10 proven tactics you can use to overcome the challenges outlined in the previous pages and greatly increase the likelihood of finding the right users at the right cost.

1. Work with as many traffic sources as possible.As described above, working with only one type of traffic source (a mobile ad network, real time bidding platform, social network, video network, or incentive- based program), or even just one of each type, limits your universe too much to be successful. You’d be missing out on valuable opportunities to identify the best traffic sources for driving the largest numbers of loyal users.

For example, just a few years ago, social networks were barely on the mobile app advertising radar, and now Facebook is one of the best performing traffic sources for many apps (see #2). Video networks, meanwhile, are gaining traction, and could command stronger attention and larger spend in the not-too-distant future.

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But there’s no single magic mix of media channels that is right for every app. By working with several ad networks, you can optimize spend to the best-performing sources, as well as limit saturation on any one network.

The best scenario is to try to work with as many traffic sources as possible. This will enable you to reach your largest potential audience, realize the lowest- possible acquisition costs, and also protect your app from audience saturation. To attain the best results, app marketers should track users from at least ten traffic sources and at least two of each traffic source type.

2. Take advantage of the unique targeting capabilities of social networks.Social networks deliver an unmatched ability to target audiences based on unique characteristics, which often leads to acquiring more loyal app users at lower costs.

Facebook leverages the information in users’ profiles (including demographics, interests, and more) to give marketers the ability to show their ads to a precisely-sculpted audience. Twitter, meanwhile, leverages the topics its users are following and discussing to give marketers the ability to target audiences with particular interests, as well as by demographics.

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Both networks also allow marketers to target specific groups of customers based on email, phone, or their Facebook or Twitter IDs, and can even create “lookalike” audiences based on a list of current customers that you’d like to find more of. These capabilities allow you to target very precise audiences – the ideal candidates to become loyal users.

3. Focus on acquiring downloads from loyal users.The best way to get loyal users is to:

1. Define the characteristics of your loyal users.

2. Automate the tracking of those characteristics.

3. Identify the traffic sources that generate those users most cost-effectively.

4. Optimize your ad spend toward those traffic sources.

5. Track all of your users’ interactions with your app to further refine your targeting characteristics.

Understanding of the number of loyal users you’re generating from each media channel and at what cost is the key to cost-efficient user acquisition. Be sure to consider which intra-network sources are yielding the most efficient traffic, and consolidate spending to those sources.

4. Drive and track downloads from organic users.Organic users, those who actively seek and download your application without direct marketing influence, have a much higher lifetime value than ad-driven users. These are the users you should seek out, as they have a higher propensity to become loyal users. Over time, you can develop profiles for organic users and ad- driven users to understand what your loyal user funnel looks like to help guide your ad spend and maximize ROI.

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5. Focus on ROI.Define your lifetime value (LTV) per user to determine your cost-per-conversion target. This will help you to ensure you’re running ROI-positive campaigns, as you don’t want to be spending more to acquire a user than they’re worth. It’s worth noting that the LTV of users acquired on different channels may vary: low-cost networks may also produce low-value users, for example, or one type of device may net higher LTVs. Learning how much users from each of your channels are worth will help you budget and set CPI targets appropriately.

6. Retarget and re-engage lapsed users.Maximizing user engagement is critical to app marketing success. Typically, user engagement drops dramatically as time goes on. Retargeting these lapsed users can keep your app and brand top of mind and encourage users to take specific actions within your app. Retargeting costs are often lower than those associated with acquiring new users. However, before you consider this, it’s recommended that you have at least 100,000 users.

Organic Lift A vital dynamic in mobile app advertising is “organic lift.” This is the number of additional organic downloads you get above what you’d normally expect without a paid advertising campaign.

In the Apple App Store, all downloads improve rank, which allows more users to discover your app organically by browsing the App Store, which leads to more downloads, and so on – leading to a larger organic lift.

In the Google Play store, there are many more factors that contribute to how an app is ranked, including downloads, ratings, uninstall rates, engagement, etc. Whatever the exact formula is, though, it does factor in the total amount of downloads, so generating more downloads still leads to more organic lift.

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7. Understand your optimal rank.The key to achieving optimal rank is understanding that some apps get no more organic users at rank 15 than they do at 25. So why pay to drive enough users to reach rank 15 when there’s no additional organic lift compared to rank 25? Track performance and organics continuously to ensure you aren’t spending more than you need to.

Depending on your category, you’ll set a different optimal rank target. For example, if your app is in a very competitive category, such as Games, your goal may be to get into the top 25. Conversely, if your app is in a less competitive category, your objective may be the top five.

8. Use the right ad tracking technology.Accurate, reliable tracking is a critical component of app marketing: by being able to attribute downloads and post-download events like in-app purchases to the marketing source, marketers can gain insights that drive their business and deliver outstanding ROI.

The two main methods in use today are ID-based tracking and digital fingerprinting.Commonly used ID-based ad tracking technologies include Apple’s IDFA, the Android Advertising ID, and the Facebook ID, which provide a unique device code on each ad click and then later on app launch, allowing marketers to understand where their app users are coming from. Digital fingerprinting attempts to attribute conversions to marketing sources without the use of identifiers, using a combination of other device characteristics to try to match clicks to app usage.

You don’t need to choose one or the other: in fact it’s best to support both, to give your business access to as much media inventory as possible. You’ll need to work with a tracking partner to do this, though. Make sure you choose a partner that lets you track ad performance all the way through to customer lifetime value.

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9. Test different creative.Test your ad creative across all traffic sources to determine which ads perform the best and swap out lower-performing ads on a per-source basis. There aren’t too many hard and fast rules about what works in mobile creative—what works for one app may not work for another. One good rule of thumb, though, is to use short and punchy ad copy. Your ad text should be more like search engine ad copy rather than traditional ad copy because you have limited space. Less is more.

10. Work with a technology partner.Working with a technology partner like Fiksu will take the complexity out of mobile marketing and help you gain your desired results. By working with a partner like Fiksu, businesses are able to:

• Easily work with all ad networks

• Track ad performance and optimize ad buys in real time

• Generate more organic and loyal users at a lower cost

• Execute a complete marketing strategy across one fully-integrated, comprehensive platform

Mobile tracking can be a daunting topic. If you’d like a more detailed look, check out our eBook How Mobile Tracking Impacts App Marketing Results.

Learn more at:fiksu.com/resources/ebooks/

how-mobile-ad-tracking- impacts-app-marketing-results

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Fiksu Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform

Fiksu’s Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform makes these best practices a reality for many of today’s leading companies, from established consumer brands to fast-growing mobile ventures looking to build scalable businesses around their mobile apps.

The comprehensive Fiksu platform was developed by a team of seasoned entrepreneurs and PhDs, and is used by leading businesses to overcome the challenges of generating large quantities of loyal app users, while lowering user acquisition costs by as much as 3X. Among Fiksu’s successes:

• QuizUp- Drove #1 overall ranking in App Store

• Golfshot- Generated over 1M downloads across 50 countries

• Simpleprints- Achieved 70% business growth in 5 months

• Redbeacon- Reduced cost per install (CPI) by 74%

As we’ve discussed, marketing your mobile app is no simple task. But if you follow the best practices outlined above, you’ll be on the right track to success. If you decide you’d like a partner to help you through the process, you know who to call.

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Fiksu is used by 40 of the 50 highest-grossing apps to achieve exceptional app marketing results:

• 60 percent reduction in media costs

• 300 percent increase in loyal user acquisition

• Over 3.3 billion downloads generated to date

Clients:

Fiksu / Headquarters31 St. James AvenueSuite 1150Boston, MA 02116Phone: 855-463-4578Email: [email protected]

USFiksu / San Francisco51 Federal StreetSuite 402San Francisco, CA 94107Phone: 855-463-4578Email: [email protected]

Fiksu61 Robinson Road#13-01 Robinson CentreSingapore 068893Phone: +65-6372-9538Email: [email protected]

APACFiksuFirst Floor130 City RoadLondon, EC1V2NWPhone: +44 208 434 7051Email: [email protected]

EMEA

Copyright © 2014 Fiksu. All rights reserved. Fiksu, the Fiksu logo, and FreeMyApps are registered trademarks of Fiksu, Inc. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective holders.