Significance of digital accessibility and inclusivity

Inclusivity and accessibility in the mobile app development process are vital not only from an ethical standpoint but also for expanding market reach and ensuring compliance with various legal requirements. By breaking barriers and focusing on digital accessibility, we empower persons with disabilities and enable them to have equal access to information, products, and services.

According to World Health Organization statistics, as of March, 7th 2023, Approximately 1.3 billion individuals worldwide are experiencing significant disabilities, which constitutes 16% of the global population. In other words, 1 out of every 6 people is affected by some form of substantial disability. Meaning that it is a big segment of potential app users.

Individuals with special needs face multiple challenges when attempting to use mobile applications that are not designed to accommodate their unique requirements. These challenges include difficulties in navigating through app interfaces, understanding and processing content, and interacting with interactive elements like buttons or menus. Moreover, specific disabilities, such as visual, hearing, cognitive, and physical impairments, require tailored solutions to provide a seamless user experience for all.

Guidelines for ensuring digital accessibility

Undoubtedly, numerous documents, treaties, agreements, and guidelines address various aspects of providing equal access to information. For instance, the Marrakesh Treaty specifically focuses on ensuring access to reading materials for individuals with visual and print impairments. In the realm of digital accessibility, developers can reference the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which were published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), as a valuable resource for optimizing digital content and user experience.

These guidelines cover a wide range of recommendations for making mobile apps more accessible, organized into four key principles: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. By following WCAG, mobile app developers can ensure their apps meet the unique needs of users with diverse abilities.

Implementing WCAG in app development

Incorporating the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) into mobile app development processes helps bridge the digital divide, ensuring an equitable experience for all users. With a more extensive understanding of WCAG guidelines, developers can create inclusive applications.

The suggestions encompass a wide range of subjects related to conveying information, such as providing text alternatives, utilizing time-based media, incorporating appropriate use of color, allowing for pausing, facilitating smooth navigation, employing gestures, and much more.

Seamlessly incorporating the WCAG guidelines into the mobile app development process demands a comprehensive understanding of each principle, coupled with a commitment to prioritizing accessibility. Key steps in achieving this include:

1. Establishing accessibility as a core value from the very beginning of the development process.
2. Communicating clear instructions to the design and development teams, ensuring that accessible design practices form the backbone of the project.
3. Performing regular accessibility audits throughout the development, effectively identifying and addressing potential issues before they solidify in the final product.
4. Guaranteeing that all multimedia content, including images, videos, and audio, is made accessible—by providing Alt text for images and captions for videos, for instance.

Screen reader will read a file’s name instead of what is depicted on the image without an Alt text

Source: Ronas IT

By integrating WCAG guidelines into app development, developers can create versatile, inclusive, and user-friendly mobile applications that prioritize accessibility and cater to all users, ensuring that digital experiences are equitable and engaging for everyone.

Best practices for accessible user interfaces

An accessible user interface (UI) is the keystone of an inclusive user experience. No matter how feature-rich an app may be, if the UI is not designed to be accessible, it inadvertently excludes a significant portion of potential users. In this section, we will explore some best practices for creating accessible UI designs in mobile apps. To achieve a successfully accessible UI, consider the following best practices:

• Optimal color contrast. Make sure that elements within the app are easily distinguishable and visually appealing by using colors with appropriate contrast ratios. This enhances the visibility of text and interactive components, particularly for individuals with vision impairments.

Difference in the readability of images of different contrast

Source: Ronas IT

• Resizable text and adaptable layouts. Accommodate users of varying visual acuity by designing text and layouts that can be resized and adapted to different screen sizes and device orientations.
• Versatile interaction methods. Ensure that all UI elements, including buttons, links, and form fields, are accessible and functional through various input methods like touch, keyboard, and voice commands. This offers flexibility to users with different input preferences or limitations.
• Clear instructions and feedback. Assist users in navigating your app and completing tasks by providing clear instructions, cues, and feedback. This includes informative labels, helpful error messages, and consistent navigation patterns that allow users to easily locate and understand app functions. Offering comprehensive guidance not only aids users with cognitive impairments but also creates a more user-friendly experience for all.
• ARIA landmarks and roles. Implement Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) landmarks and roles to make it easier for assistive technologies to understand and interpret the app’s structure and components. This aids users who rely on screen readers or other assistive tools in navigating the app more efficiently.
• Captioning and transcripts for multimedia. Provide captions and transcripts for all audio and video content within the app. This ensures that users with hearing impairments can access and understand multimedia content as effectively as those without such limitations.
• Customizable user experience. Offer options to tailor the app’s appearance, such as adjustable color schemes and font sizes, to meet individual users’ needs and preferences. This empowers users to create their preferred experience, enhancing accessibility and overall satisfaction.
• Regular accessibility updates and testing. Perform regular audits and updates to ensure continued compliance with accessibility guidelines and standards. Set up a testing routine that includes users with varying abilities to identify and address any issues that may arise.

By implementing these practices, you can create an inclusive, engaging, and user-friendly mobile app that prioritizes accessibility. Adopting guidelines and techniques ensures that mobile apps consider users of all abilities, creating a more inclusive digital world.

Advanced technologies for enhancing accessibility

Emerging technologies offer new opportunities to make mobile apps even more accessible and inclusive. Examples of such technologies include:

• Voice recognition to allow users to control apps using speech commands
• Text-to-speech outputs to convert on-screen text into audible speech, benefiting those with visual or cognitive impairments
• Haptic feedback to offer tactile responses through vibrations, which can enhance accessibility for individuals with hearing or visual impairments
• Eye-tracking to allow users with limited motor control to interact with apps using gaze control
• AI-generated image descriptions to provide contextual information about images for visually impaired users
• Personalized recommendations to offer tailored content to users with cognitive or learning disabilities

By exploring and incorporating advanced technologies like these, developers can further enhance the accessibility of their mobile applications.

To ensure an app is truly accessible and inclusive, it would be great to involve users with disabilities throughout the development process. By including them in user testing and gathering feedback on app design and functionality, developers can identify potential barriers and iterate on the app design accordingly. Involving users with special needs also promotes a sense of ownership and empowerment, giving them a voice in shaping the final product and ensuring it meets their specific needs.

Success stories and case studies

Screens of accessible apps: Be my eyes, Ava, Voice dream reader

Source: Ronas IT

Many mobile apps have effectively implemented accessibility features, benefiting users with disabilities and gaining recognition for their inclusive designs. Some notable examples include:

• Be my eyes. This innovative mobile app connects visually impaired users with sighted volunteers, assisting with daily tasks that require visual guidance. Be My Eyes leverages advanced technologies, including OpenAI’s revolutionary GPT-4, to provide round-the-clock support for its users.
• Ava. Designed to empower individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing, Ava delivers real-time audio captions by seamlessly converting spoken words into written text. This enhances communication, making it more accessible and inclusive for users with hearing impairments.
• Voice dream reader. A comprehensive text-to-speech app, Voice Dream Reader provides customizable settings that cater to users with visual or cognitive impairments. The app promotes greater engagement with written content in various formats and enables users to experience literature more independently and enjoyably.

These examples demonstrate the effectiveness of certain strategies in creating accessible mobile applications. They prioritize accessibility from the very beginning of the app development process. The apps utilize advanced technologies, such as voice recognition and text-to-speech, to enhance the app’s functionality for users with disabilities. Lastly, these examples directly involve users with disabilities in user testing, allowing their feedback to influence and refine the app design and features.

By placing an emphasis on accessibility and inclusivity, these apps have made a significant impact on the lives of users with disabilities by providing them with greater independence, autonomy, and access to information and services. Additionally, these apps have received positive reception and recognition from the broader public and the tech industry, demonstrating the value and importance of inclusive app design.

Conclusion

Creating accessible and inclusive mobile apps not only benefits users with disabilities but also has positive effects on the business side, such as reaching wider audiences and complying with legal requirements. Moreover, app developers and organizations can gain recognition for their inclusive designs and enhance brand reputation.

There is much potential for growth and improvement in mobile app accessibility and inclusivity. By implementing WCAG guidelines, embracing advanced technologies, involving users with disabilities in development, and learning from successful examples, companies can take the necessary steps to create truly accessible and inclusive mobile applications that empower users with disabilities and contribute to a more equitable digital world.

Check out the Ronas IT blog to read about top modern technologies in app development.

The post Breaking barriers: How to ensure digital accessibility and inclusivity in your mobile app development process appeared first on Business of Apps.

App Store Optimization (ASO) and user engagement strategy play pivotal roles in maximizing the success of mobile apps. Developers and businesses need to ensure their apps are discoverable, appealing, and capable of capturing and retaining users’ attention. This is where ASO and effective user engagement strategies come into play.

ASO involves optimizing various elements of an app listing, such as app title, keywords, description, and screenshots, to improve its visibility and ranking within app stores. By implementing ASO techniques, developers can increase their app’s chances of appearing in relevant search results and attracting organic downloads.

However, app success extends beyond acquisition or downloads, and user engagement strategy plays a critical role in this aspect. It encompasses the tactics and approaches used to interact, communicate, and build relationships with app users. Engaging users effectively leads to higher retention rates, increased app usage, positive reviews, and word-of-mouth recommendations, ultimately driving app growth and long-term success.

A well-crafted user engagement strategy goes hand in hand with ASO, as it ensures that once users discover and install an app, they remain actively engaged and satisfied. This includes personalized experiences, timely notifications, relevant content, and responsive customer support, among other factors that contribute to a positive user experience.

Increasing the use of AI in engagement

The increasing adoption of AI in ASO and user engagement strategy signals a paradigm shift in how apps are optimized and how users are engaged. By harnessing the power of AI, developers and businesses can unlock new possibilities, enhance their app’s visibility, and build strong, lasting relationships with their user base.

It is now possible to use AI in many ways to help developers engage with app users. Developers can create highly personalized and interactive experiences that not only enhance user engagement but also build loyalty and satisfaction. The power of AI lies in its ability to quickly analyze user data, understand user preferences, and provide relevant and timely interactions, ultimately creating a compelling user experience that fosters long-term engagement with the app.

Developers have integrated AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants within apps that enable them to offer instant and responsive support to users. Chatbots can assist users with common inquiries, guide them through app features, offer troubleshooting assistance, or even facilitate transactions.

Pitfalls of AI in user engagement

Most of us can easily tell when we are chatting with a bot. It just doesn’t feel authentic. And while the chatbots can certainly help us with basic tasks, it can be frustrating to get through these gatekeepers before solving possibly more complex requests.

Engagement should feel like a personalized experience between app users and developers. Relying solely on AI may take away from users feeling personally seen or heard. AI algorithms may struggle to fully grasp the contextual nuances of user interactions, leading to misinterpretations or inappropriate responses. This can result in ineffective engagement strategies that fail to resonate with users.

Additionally, overreliance on AI can lead to generic or repetitive interactions that fail to engage users effectively. Users may feel that their experiences lack the human touch, reducing the likelihood of building genuine connections and long-term brand loyalty. AI algorithms still often lack emotional intelligence and empathy, which are crucial aspects of human engagement.

Specific industry examples

In the fintech industry, if a user encounters financial difficulties or experiences fraudulent transactions, AI-driven communication may lack the necessary empathy and understanding to address their emotional concerns effectively.

Similarly, in the insurance sector, when policyholders file claims due to significant losses, AI-driven communication might fail to provide the needed human touch and empathy, leaving customers frustrated and unheard.

To mitigate these pitfalls, it’s crucial to complement AI-driven communication with human expertise and emotional understanding to build trust and enhance customer satisfaction.

AI within app store page communication

AI algorithms can face challenges in grasping the contextual nuances of user interactions, leading to a limited understanding of specific concerns. For instance, in a fintech app’s app store communication, AI may struggle to interpret financial transaction-related inquiries accurately, potentially resulting in misunderstandings or misaligned messaging that affects user trust.

Similarly, in an insurance app’s app store strategy, AI algorithms may find it difficult to comprehend the intricacies of specific insurance policies, leading to incomplete or unclear responses that hinder users’ decision-making process.

Additionally, in a gaming app’s app store communication, AI may struggle to interpret user queries about gameplay or in-app purchases, potentially providing generic or irrelevant responses that impact user perception and discourage engagement.

On both iOS and GP, businesses can create a more nuanced app store experience through custom product pages (iOS) and custom store listings (GP). Leveraging AI for targeting, while considering the human touch and contextual understanding of the target audience, ensures that businesses will see great results in engaging users and driving app success.

Continuing the human involvement with AI

We must recognize these current AI limitations, and supplement AI-driven communication with human expertise to ensure accurate, personalized, and contextually relevant messaging on the app store page.

Without human intervention, AI algorithms may not anticipate certain user behaviors or emotional responses, potentially leading to misunderstandings, frustration, or disengagement. Overreliance on AI can lead to formulaic or repetitive interactions that fail to engage users effectively. Furthermore, a lack of transparency from developers in how AI algorithms make decisions and handle user data can erode trust, hindering engagement efforts.

Conclusion

In an era where millions of apps vie for attention, mastering ASO and implementing a robust user engagement strategy are imperative for developers and businesses. By optimizing app store visibility and engaging users in a meaningful way, they can significantly enhance their app’s chances of success, secure loyal users, and achieve their business goals.

Mobtimizers is actively working towards balancing AI in ASO strategy and user engagement by combining the power of AI algorithms with human expertise. Our approach recognizes the limitations of relying solely on AI and emphasizes the need for personalized experiences and genuine connections with app users. We are dedicated to helping businesses find the right balance by providing insights, guidance, and tailored strategies that optimize app performance while ensuring human touchpoints for meaningful user engagement. You can read more about how Mobtimizers mitigates the use of AI in ASO and engagement here.

The post The pitfalls of AI in engagement strategy appeared first on Business of Apps.

ChatGPT isn’t just a shiny new toy. It’s the latest evolution of consumer intent, which is to get the things we want as fast as we can. Consider Google’s rise to popularity 2 decades ago. It stood out among other search engines because it gave better results, faster.

But even as Google remains the world’s best search engine, people still want answers to their queries faster. Google might deliver results fast, but we still need to scroll, browse, and click to find exactly what we want. This is why we’ll yell at Alexa for an imperfect, but faster response when we have the opportunity.

Enter ChatGPT, which filters through search results to quickly generate a natural, easily digested response without all the manual effort. The irony here, though, is the consumer desire at this point diverges. While we want the original response fast, once we have something that we feel is worthwhile, we are willing to invest the time it takes to read, chat, and engage with ChatGPT to finish whatever job it is we’re trying to do.
This is the contradiction of mobile consumer desire: There are moments when we want to reduce friction, and, thus, time spent, to get what we want. But once we have a certain level of interest, we’re willing to engage in a story and learn what we can.

As technology advances to better serve our needs, app developers need to explore divergent philosophies around time spent with their apps so they can understand when users’ time can and should be reduced (such as when we want a fast search response) and when increased time should be considered a valuable metric (such as when we know what interests us and are willing to spend more time to engage).

By studying the marketing funnel to better know when and where users are spending their time, app developers can better meet their needs depending on what users are trying to accomplish.

Building awareness at the top of the funnel

At the top of the funnel, when users are in discovery mode, they don’t know your brand yet, so they’re still learning about solutions in the market. Much like the beginning of a ChatGPT query, this means they aren’t ready to engage in an app download. Gaining their attention, however, isn’t simple.

With more than 5 million collective apps available for download across the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, there is a ton of choice. The sheer volume can leave users feeling apprehensive since they don’t always know what they are going to get. Will the app be high quality and offer a great user experience? Will the app be engaging or perform as advertised?

Users are also experiencing “app fatigue,” meaning they do not want to download an app for every experience. In addition, users don’t always trust apps on their devices due to the rise of malware and privacy violations. All this makes an app download a conscious choice of whether “it’s worth the time.”

Ultimately, the goal for app developers should be speed and reduced friction. Rather than trying to draw them in with long, engaging content, the focus should be on quick touches and simple, impactful messaging.

During the awareness phase, consumers may conduct searches, browse ads or recommendations, or simply listen to what friends or influencers are buzzing about. Ensuring your app name is visible, messaging is consistent, and your app is easy and simple to find can help grow awareness. Consider opportunities like alternative app stores that can pull your app out of the haystack and give it more light of day.

Educating the audience mid-funnel

Once users have become aware of your app, they will now be more willing to take some time to gather information. This is when app developers can slow things down to tell a story that educates the consumer – much like when ChatGPT has delivered an interesting initial result and the user wants to find out more.

Many marketers still view reach and impressions as key advertising performance metrics. But with attention spans shrinking, we should question whether these are the right data points to measure their campaigns.

Ideally, engagement will lead to conversion. However, because people have become so judicious about downloading an app, the ultimate goal here should be education. Studies focused on attention have shown that focusing on time spent telling your story can drive better brand recall.

In-game rewarded video is a great example of this storytelling phase where you can build value because the user is willing to spend more time engaging. When playing a game, users are ready to be entertained. And that mindset remains not just while they are solving puzzles or breaking blocks, but when they also are viewing ads. You can and should take advantage of these moments when you have a captivated and engaged user.

Converting the audience at the bottom of the funnel

Finally, once you have educated consumers enough that they are willing to convert, the goal should once again be about removing barriers and making the process painless for the user. This means, once again, developers should focus on speed and simplicity, remove friction, and ultimately, lead to a quick conversion.

App marketers can optimize their bottom-of-the-funnel conversions through a variety of means, including through preloads, optimizing their apps in storefronts, or minimizing user taps to complete actions.

In the end, taking the time to understand what users are trying to achieve, when they are willing to invest their time, and using weighted metrics may be the best indicator of determining true KPIs. Knowing how users spend time in discovery, learning, and converting will help lead to better outcomes.

The post The lesson ChatGPT has for performance marketers appeared first on Business of Apps.

For app marketers to stay ahead of the game, it’s important to stay on top of the new trends for App Store Optimization in 2023. In the past couple of years, Apple and Google have been releasing more sophisticated tools for App Store Optimization managers to use within their optimisation practices. There are now a wide range of ways to drive visibility and conversion on the stores, which, when utilised properly, can have a positive impact on your app’s marketing performance. However, it also introduces a lot of complexity into the practice and those managing App Store Optimization and organic growth must keep on top of frequent updates to capabilities.

Let’s look at the opportunities available on each store, and how these can be used to maximise impact for your App Store Optimization strategy in 2023.

App Store Optimization on the iOS App Store

While Apple has not made any major updates in the past year or so to the capabilities and tools they offer to publishers, there are several elements that apps should be utilising on an ongoing basis as part of their 2023 ASO strategy.

Keyword optimisation tactics on iOS

One of the classic elements of driving visibility through ASO is keyword optimisation, allowing an app to rank for relevant keywords in the app store search results. Unlike Google, which has a strong search background and a lot of technology to identify key terms within long-form text, Apple takes a simpler approach and takes keyword information from the title, subtitle, and backend keywords. Ongoing metadata optimisation is a crucial basis for ASO activity.

To make your keyword optimisations go further, we implement what we call Super-Geo Localisations here at Yodel Mobile. Limited to 180 keywords on the App Store with your title, subtitle and backend keywords, app marketers should implement clever ASO strategies of localising certain languages that are indexed for popular markets. That way, you can increase your available characters for keywords by up to 5x! This will allow you to supercharge your keyword indexing and ranking efforts.

Make in-app events standard practice

The introduction of In-app Events has driven new opportunities for visibility in a way that supports their curated approach to the “Explore” areas of the store (anywhere outside of the Search tab). So, what are they?

• In-app events are creative-led cards which highlight events such as challenges, new content or new features.
• With some metadata accompanying the creative, these cards open new avenues through which users can discover your app.
• They can be highlighted within lists on the App or Games tabs, as well as the Today tab and the Search tab.

It’s an opportunity to take up more real estate on the stores and drive awareness and acquisition. We also see these cards targeted towards users who already have the app, so they can also be effective as a re-engagement tool. Apps can run up to 5 events at one time, so an always-on strategy can be incredibly impactful in increasing organic traction overall.

Test, test, test!

Alongside new visibility opportunities, there are several tools built to improve the conversion of users from the listing to download. The first is Product Page Optimisation, allowing apps to run A/B testing of the listing to understand the impact of different elements. We find these to be most successful when testing creative-led elements such as video or screenshots, which helps us to drive an average win rate of 37% in comparison to the industry standard of 14% (Storemaven, 2022). Our tests have driven up to 40% improvement to overall CVR, which makes a massive impact on all acquisition performance including ROAS.

Take every opportunity to personalise

Apple also offers Custom Product Pages, which are essentially custom landing pages that can be used to align listings more closely with particular ad creative, messaging and contextual information from the source the user has come from. Being able to give users a comprehensive educational journey from acquisition source to listing to download is a big advantage which we’ve seen can reduce CPIs by up to a staggering 50%!

Custom Product Pages

Source: Yodel Mobile

Top tip – don’t just reiterate your creative messaging in the CPP but try to add to the educational journey. For example, a retailer may be trying to build credibility. They could use their breadth of brands in the ad creative, and testimonials in the CPP to drive trust from different angles.

With all the strategies above used in tandem, apps are now able to consistently improve visibility and conversion to drive strong organic traction, which is a key factor to business profitability for iOS apps.

App Store Optimization on the Google Play Store

Google recently held their annual I/O event, announcing a plethora of changes and additions to the capabilities available to ASO managers, alongside some other updates which have taken place this year, changing the game for ASO for Android apps.

Google Play Store

Source: Yodel Mobile

Keyword optimisation tactics on Android

As mentioned previously, keyword optimisation on Android works like SEO – the algorithm identifies key terms within the description and uses that to determine the keywords which may be relevant for an app to rank for.

The way this works is changing:

• There is a larger emphasis on natural language to prioritise total text optimisation.
• Rather than identifying keywords and using repetition within the description to increase keyword density, marketers will need to shift focus towards Google Natural Language performance scores.
• It will also be more difficult for keyword ranking tools to drive the basis of optimisation strategies, as keyword optimisation will rely less on elements like keyword competition and focus more on Google’s ability to glean context and relevance.

You guessed it… AI

AI is the talk of the town in 2023, and Google has also introduced more AI-led tools to help apps with their app store optimisation. With just a couple of prompts, the technology can write a complete store listing description for the app.

This is only available in English for now, but we expect to see this expanded out over time. It’s worth noting that, as with most AI best practise, Google has emphasised that this tool should be used alongside human input, rather than instead of. It’ll be crucial that marketers do not rely purely on AI and use their own learnings and understanding of their audience and brand to refine their descriptions.

Google wants you to go global

In addition to store descriptions, new translation models have been launched for 10 languages, to translate the app and listing in minutes – saving time and resources for global app marketers. This will reduce the barriers that apps experience around geographical expansion and could drive significantly more revenue through increased opportunities to grow the audience in target markets.

Promotional content for Android apps

Like Apple’s In-app Events, Google has been testing Promotional Content and has launched new, dedicated high-traffic surfaces to drive visibility through these content cards. Interestingly, they have stipulated that only “high quality” apps will be featured in these new placements, with factors such as core value, technical quality and privacy and security feeding into this definition. Apps will have to adhere to high standards to benefit, but with such broad opportunities to appear in the store, the rewards are also high.

Promotional content

Source: Yodel Mobile

Further personalisation through Custom Store Listings

In terms of driving conversion, Google are updating Custom Store Listings (which are the equivalent to Custom Product Pages on the App Store). These have been available to tailor store listings by country and pre-registration status for a more personalised experience, but you will soon be able to customise your app store listing for inactive users, and Google Ads App campaign ad groups. There are strong opportunities here for both acquisition and re-engagement of users to effectively optimise your paid acquisition efforts also.

Winning the 2nd half of 2023

In summary, there are some exciting trends and opportunities available to app marketers in the ASO ecosystem across both platforms. The introduction of content cards (whether In-app Events or Promotional Content) opens opportunities for ASO to drive not only acquisition but also re-engagement of users. Tools such as Custom Product Pages and Custom Store Listings will be crucial to increase the personalisation of each user’s experience, something we know they’re coming to expect with all brand touchpoints.

And we can expect Google to continue their emphasis on AI-driven products and increased reliance on their machine learning through elements such as natural language optimisation. Overall, it’s clear that there is a wide range of complexities within ASO practices today, but when utilised fully can be incredibly impactful in driving organic traction and improving ROI from all acquisition sources for your App Store Optimization strategy throughout 2023.

If you want help taking your ASO to the next level this year, contact Yodel Mobile’s award-winning team today.

The post App Store Optimization in 2023: What’s new? appeared first on Business of Apps.

Apple rarely disappoints its users. This year WWDC 23 came with many surprises: from MacBook Air 15”, the world’s thinnest laptop, to the plethora of software updates and much more.

But what caught everyone’s attention was Apple Vision Pro. The product can transform the present reality with augmented reality. Apple’s vision encompasses its long-term strategic outlook, design, philosophy, and commitment to innovation.

Apple aims to shape the future of technology. Now the best part, this technology is deeply ingrained in the products, services, and user experience they deliver.

However, the product is weighed down by its $3,500 price tag. Now you are probably wondering – with so many AR headsets available on the market at reasonable prices, what’s up with Apple Vision Pro?

After watching Apple’s demo, it’s very clear that this is their best product yet. And it has the potential to change the entire landscape of augmented reality.

Let’s dwell more into augmented reality and what Apple Vision brings to the table. Also, we will discuss how Apple prioritizes user interface design in its vision.

Augmented reality: An ever-growing industry

Apple Vision Pro (1)

Source: Apple

Augmented reality is a profound technology that blends digital content with the real world. This technology creates a 3D space that you can fully control with gestures.

In 2023, the AR headset and glasses market was valued at 2.4 Bn US dollars and it is expected to reach 9 Bn by 2027, according to Statista.

Whether it’s Oculus or Apple Vision Pro, this is a growing industry. The first notable AR headset was the Google Glass introduced in 2013.

Today, there are over 1.4 Bn active users of AR, according to Artillery Intelligence.

The AR headset allows users to access information such as maps, notifications, and emails. It also takes photos and videos, all integrated into a user’s field of vision.

So, let’s take a look at Apple Vision Pro.

Apple Vision Pro: Spatial computing

“Creating our first spatial computer required invention across nearly every facet of the system,” said Mike Rockwell, Apple’s vice president of the Technology Development Group.

What is spatial computing in Vision Pro?

Spatial computing refers to the ability of the device to understand and interact with the physical environment in real time. It allows for the seamless integration of virtual content into a user’s surroundings.

It encompasses the technology and algorithms that enable the headset to perceive and analyze the spatial dimensions, geometry, and relationships of objects in the real world.

With spatial computing, the Apple Vision Pro headset can accurately map and track a user’s environment. It detects surfaces, objects, and other physical elements. This information is then precisely positioned to anchor virtual objects within the user’s field of view. This is responsible for creating realistic and immersive augmented reality experiences.

By leveraging spatial computing, the Apple Vision Pro headset can enable a variety of applications and interactions. For example, users can place virtual objects on real surfaces, and interact with virtual characters or elements that respond to physical movements.

Apple Vision Pro has incredible resolution with a micro OLED display system. That fits 64 pixels in the same amount of space as a single iPhone pixel and it packs 23 m in two panels the size of a postage stamp.

With spatial computing, users can easily interact with apps, enjoy movies, and much more.

Apple Vision Pro (2)

Source: Apple

Apple Vision Pro headset features

When it comes to its features, it has a revolutionary operating system called VisionOS. This is designed specifically for spatial computing. The operating system is built on the foundation of macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. It is optimized for low-latency spatial experiences.

• VisionOS introduces a 3D interface that makes digital content appear and feel present in a user’s physical world.
• Easy navigation by the user’s eyes, hands, and voice. Users can browse through apps by looking at them. Tap their finger for selection, and flick their wrist to scroll. Plus, users can use voice commands for dictation.
• Another notable feature is EyeSight, which helps users to stay connected with those around them. And allowing the user to see others.
• The custom aluminum alloy frame curves around the user’s face, giving a modular system that allows for a tailored fit.
• The headset is powered by Apple silicon, including an M2 chip that is responsible for standalone performance.

With these features, Apple Vision Pro has become an outstanding product. When it comes to privacy and security, it uses the Optic ID authentication system.

With this Optic ID, data is stored on the device’s secure Enclave and fully encrypted, inaccessible to apps, and not stored on Apple servers.

How does Apple prioritize user interface design in their Vision Pro?

Apple’s emphasis on user interface design aims to create a seamless and intuitive AR experience with the Vision Pro headset.

Let’s look at some points that highlight how Apple prioritizes user interface design in their vision pro.

Three-dimensional interface

With a 3D interface, the Vision Pro headset feature integrates digital content into a user’s physical environment, providing a sense of presence and immersion.

Natural interaction

Apple emphasizes intuitive and natural interaction methods. The users can control the interface using their eyes, hands, and voice, enabling effortless navigation through apps and content.

Dynamic response to natural light

The interface responds dynamically to natural light, casting shadows, and adapting to lighting conditions in a user’s environment. This enhances the realism and integration of digital content into the real world.

Visual cues

Eyesight provides visual cues to others about a user’s focus, indicating where the user’s attention is directed. This helps maintain connection and facilitates collaboration in group settings.

Intuitive gestures and voice commands

The interface supports intuitive gestures such as tapping, flicking, and scrolling, making it easy for users to interact with content. Voice commands are also integrated allowing users to dictate and control various functions.

Overall, Apple’s focus on user interface design in the Vision Pro headset aims to enhance AR experiences. It provides users with a seamless, intuitive, and immersive interface that seamlessly blends the digital and physical worlds.

Final words

The Vision Pro will be the flag bearer for the next revolution in the industry. Powered by state-of-the-art technologies like spatial computing, we can expect a great many things in the future to come. So keep your eyes open!

The post Design meets technology: Inside Apple’s Vision Pro for seamless experiences appeared first on Business of Apps.

Which channels, paid or organic, yield higher user acquisition rates and better user quality?

While both organic and paid channels are crucial for maximizing app outreach, it is important to analyze and understand their significance in the context of App Store Optimization (ASO). Even more importantly, it’s essential to grasp how they are capable of forming a synergistic relationship for app growth.

Organic app marketing vs paid search marketing

With users constantly looking for new experiences, it comes as no surprise that new apps are introduced every single day with developers looking to get their own share of success. Recent reports placing total app downloads at over 140 billion inevitably motivate app marketers to grab their piece of the pie. So should they focus on paid marketing or organic?

Organic app marketing is what will set your app up for sustainable long-term success. Developing a solid keyword strategy driven by your core feature set and unique value proposition will remain fundamental regardless of any paid marketing you look to run. Additionally, users’ search queries over a prolonged period of time will regularly relate to the core features of your app, regardless of any temporary trends.

Apple Organic Listing

Click on image for full size

Source: Gummicube

Paid campaigns generate installs while the campaign is active, while organic outreach persists as long as your app remains available. Seeing how about 60% of app installs derive from organic searches, it’s essential to develop an ASO strategy that acts as a solid driver of App Store and Play Store discovery. However, this doesn’t mean you’re safe ignoring paid app marketing initiatives entirely. Neglecting paid search campaigns can cause you to miss out on obtaining more downloads and valuable insight into your target audience.

Paid campaigns allow you to pursue specific keyword objectives in a shorter time frame than possible with organic alone. Apple Search Ads and Google Ad campaigns can get you closer to reaching your target audience and knowing which strategies work in less time. They can also scale your existing organic performance (budget permitting) to new heights with increased visibility for the keywords selected.

Apple Search Ads

Click on image for full size

Source: Gummicube

Now the question is, “Which strategy is right for you?” The answer… both.

Paid app marketing and organic ASO – How to combine them

Consider a new app in the market, whose developers are still wondering how they can attract users and pick up traction. While an effective ASO strategy that promotes prolonged organic growth should be in place, it may take some time before significant results are noticed. This is where running paid search ads come in.

Paid ads play a crucial role in enhancing an app’s organic growth and reach, and as a result, maximizing the potential of organic acquisitions. When users click on an app featured in an Apple Search Ad or Google Play Store Ad, it generates traffic that improves the app’s click-through rate (CTR) and keyword indexation. This, in turn, increases the app’s visibility in organic search results, leading to more users discovering the app organically over time. If your app listing is set up optimally, the audience coming from your campaign will be more likely to convert.

Building brand recognition is a pivotal factor in app growth. Marketing data indicates that prospective users typically need exposure to an ad or brand around seven times before establishing a connection, so continuous exposure to an ad can result in a download with an effective campaign.

Apply your own paid and organic app marketing strategies

Tackling your mobile app marketing doesn’t have to be an either-or decision between organic and paid. Incorporating both acquisition channels into your marketing plan creates a comprehensive ASO strategy that leverages the power of both in the short and long term.

Organic app marketing provides the foundation for free continuous app growth over time as you gradually adapt your metadata strategy to fit current and future objectives. Paid initiatives, on the other hand, serve as powerful tools for gaining insight into different marketing efforts.

Whether you’re just starting off or an app marketing veteran leveraging both channels can consistently attract new, high-quality users for your app.

Learn how to combine the power of organic ASO and paid marketing with the App Store Optimization experts at Gummicube. Get in touch today!

The post App marketing strategies: Combining organic and paid appeared first on Business of Apps.

A successful app depends on a variety of factors from alluring features to reliable UI. Although reviews are recognized to help an app, their full potential is occasionally overlooked. As a result, app evaluations are frequently underused by mobile app developers.

It’s reported that your app store reviews should average at least 4-stars to ensure a strong conversion rate. Increasing your reviews by just 1 star can improve your business revenue by 9%.

Then why are ratings and reviews so important when we try to get more users?

This post was first published on appranking.com.

Feedback boosts your app’s social proof

Positive app reviews act as a new user acquisition channel in addition to helping an app rank well in the app store’s search results. User reviews are essential to establish a direct connection between the user and the product before downloading mobile applications because they are intangible.

It is obvious that there is a significant correlation between customer reviews and their level of brand trust. Because it can persuade a visitor to click “install,” social proof is crucial. 90% of shoppers read internet reviews before making a purchase, and 88% of them are just as trustworthy as personal recommendations, according to a survey.

How do ratings and reviews work to get users?

There are a few tactics you may use to improve the ratings and reviews for your app.

Earn more positive reviews

Make reviewing easy

A mobile app review should be straightforward. Making the procedure quick and simple is important since people are far less inclined to post reviews if there is too much work involved. You should program the route into your app so that it may be reached with a single click by users. Better yet, let users write and submit reviews without ever having to leave the app.

Be transparent

Through in-app prompts, you may directly ask users to submit reviews. Tell them how much it helps your company! Naturally, you shouldn’t send these out often and mindlessly. This is particularly true for the App Store because each user is only allowed to see review prompts three times a year. When a person is most likely to wish to submit a review, choose such periods to display requests.

Notify users of any changes

Respond to reviews that are pertinent to the remedy or change you’ve just released to let those users know about it. This demonstrates to them that you have paid attention to their comments and offers you the power to request that they amend their review with a higher rating. With this technique, you may turn unfavorable reviews around and demonstrate to visitors that you put your customers first.

Perform A/B testing

A/B testing, sometimes referred to as split testing or bucket testing, is the process where a platform developer examines the outcomes from two versions to see which performs better. To determine which of your review prompts your users find most persuasive, try A/B testing.

Get hands-on with your brand reputation

One unfavorable review might fuel negativity among other users, harming the reputation of your app. Here are some strategies you may use to actively manage and safeguard your brand’s reputation if you do receive a bad review.

• Respond to every review: Aim to answer as soon as possible while maintaining a polite and sympathetic demeanor. Customers will appreciate a prompt response, and the app store algorithm also favors engagement.
• Report any unsuitable reviews: A user’s emotions are heightened when they are upset or dissatisfied, and as a result, they may use foul language or make inaccurate statements in their review. Trolls or spammers could also leave you with phony testimonials. Make sure you are aware of Google’s and Apple’s policies and notify them of any reviews that violate these requirements.
• Create frequent updates: By routinely updating your app based on user feedback, you may demonstrate to your users that you are paying attention to them. This will be well-liked by your existing user base and will enhance the user experience for new people as well.

Include reviews as a business metric

Software store ranking is a typical acquisition driver because it places your app among the top search results for users. However, you must first please the algorithm in order to rise to the top of the app store. You guessed it—positive evaluations are one of the key factors the algorithm takes into account. Your product is more likely to rank higher the more favorable reviews it can collect. As a result, app evaluations must be taken into account in your business’ growth KPIs if user acquisition is your primary goal.

Reviews should be taken into account in addition to other indicators like:

• User retention and engagement
• How much a user spends (ARPU)
• How long a user spends on the app
• How first impressions on your app’s page influence installs

Repurpose reviews across additional platforms

Social media: These followers interact with you on social media because they enjoy your material. Reminding them that other users have downloaded and appreciated your program makes it easier to convert them if they haven’t already made a purchase from you.

Website and app store description: Users’ confidence will increase throughout the deliberation stage if you feature positive reviews on your website and in the app store. Since previous users have obviously had a similar experience, they will assume that the software will live up to their expectations.

Your paywall: When users have the option to subscribe or upgrade, remind them of the great experiences of others. This will give them more confidence that they are choosing wisely when it comes to spending their money.

The importance of user evaluations in assisting user acquisition should not be ignored, despite being occasionally disregarded. Try each strategy we’ve covered to see which one works best for your company and helps you optimize profits.

If you feel that all this sounds too tedious, you can try using our intelligent app marketing platform Appranking to optimize your reviews and ratings.

The post How to use rating and reviews as an app user acquisition method appeared first on Business of Apps.

You developed a game and now you’re willing to go to the next level. To bring new visitors, you decide to invest a huge amount in advertising your game. You get new users and finally, all efforts make sense. However, something doesn’t feel right. Your installs are high, but the conversions are low.

Shady users are interacting with your game and your genuine users are leaving. The question is, “Why did this happen?” Your digital ads are under attack by fraudsters. You are unaware of their intentions, and they are just hiding behind the screen to counter your next move.

The above scenario is one of the basic cases that a game advertiser has to face. In the pandemic era when the whole world was inside their home, mobile games gave them a chance to escape. In the past 2 years, the number of gamers has increased to 420 million online gamers and approximately 400 gaming companies have come into existence during this phase.

One of the reasons for this growth is high disposable income and an increase in the number of smartphones and tablets. With this sudden spike in gamers, advertisement spend in gaming industries has also increased. In 2021, advertising spend was estimated at $46.7 billion and is expected to increase up to $130.9 million by 2025 worldwide.

This post was first published on mfilterit.com.

It is said that “wherever the money flows, the fraudster’s radar follows it.” And seeing the rapid increase in the gaming industry, the fraudsters are going to sit ideal.

In this blog, we are giving an insight into the various ways fraudsters attack digital ads and steal digital ad spend in the gaming industry.

Games that fraudsters love to play

Steal the credentials (Account takeover)

Account takeover attacks leave a deep impact on the brand and the consumer’s trust. In this type of fraud attack, the fraudsters obtain personal information like the username, password, or email address to illegally log in to a victim’s account.

As the gaming industry continues to grow, ATO attacks have become quite common in this arena. Once the fraudster gets access to the user’s account, they can attempt multiple malicious activities for their profit. Posing as a real customer, the fraudster can get easy access to the account details, withdraw the coins or unique loyalty benefits, make an online purchase, or leverage the stolen account data to hack other accounts of the user on different platforms.

Guess who I am? (Fake accounts)

In the gaming industry, it is expensive to acquire new customers and even costlier to convince a customer to make their first in-app purchase. Thus, the gaming brand needs to ensure that the purchases are legitimate. If not, the brand will bear huge losses from the chargebacks.

The most vulnerable mobile apps are the ones that allow the player to play for free but have features like in-app purchases. In the case of these apps, the fraudster creates a new account and uses stolen credit cards to purchase digital items, go to the next level, or load the account with gaming currency. Once they have made the account a golden asset, they sell it on a trading site.

When the credit card owner calls the bank on account of fraudulent charges, the gaming brand ends up paying for the chargebacks. Not just the gaming brand loses its money, but its brand reputation is also at stake.

Win, win, or lose? (Referrals and promo abuse)

Referrals and promotions are run by gaming marketers to engage new customers and retain existing ones. However, when the fraudsters seep into the sales funnel, they use different fraudulent techniques to abuse referrals and promos. Cybercriminals either misuse the promo codes or abuse referral programs by becoming both the referrer and the referee.

When cybercriminals abuse the referral programs and the end customer becomes the victim, they lose trust in the brand. They feel that they have been cheated by the gaming brand. And in this chaos, the fraudster wins, and the advertiser loses both money and consumer trust.

Tippity tap (Click fraud)

Beyond hacking user accounts and stealing referral benefits, the easiest way for fraudsters to extract money is through click fraud. Gaming advertisers invest huge budgets to bring new gamers to their platforms. However, these digital ads are under the constant radar of fraudsters, and they find different ways to steal the advertiser’s money.

When a user installs a malicious app on their phone, the fraudsters get access to the user’s device and can track their activity. Furthermore, when a user downloads the advertiser’s gaming app, the fraudster fires a fake click in the background. This fake click is attributed as the last click source by the MMPs and the fraudsters get the credit for an organic install. Due to this, advertisers end up wasting their ad spend on installs generated by fraudsters.

What do you need to protect your gaming app?

The smarter the advertisers get; the fraudsters ensure to stay one step ahead. They use advanced and sophisticated methods to hide their tracks and keep the advertisers in the dark. To tackle these attacks, advertisers need a solution that can detect the anomalies in an ad campaign and take real-time action to prevent the consequences.

mFilterIt’s ad traffic validation suite helps you eliminate fraudulent traffic using AI, ML, and data science. To reduce the impact of fake users and click spamming, we run various algorithms checks and blacklist the fraudulent IPs and traffic coming from bots or concentrated devices.

Kill the fraudsters, reach your target

It’s time that you must have the right weapon to attack the fraudsters. To ensure it is not a game over for you, keep a real-time check on the fraudster’s movement. This will help you to prevent the consequences of fraudulent activities and save your ad spend from being wasted. And the biggest outcome will be that you will be able to reach the right audience instead of the bot traffic.

So, are you ready to take down the fraudsters?

The post Gaming advertisers vs fraudsters: Who will make it to the finish line? appeared first on Business of Apps.

Whether you know it or not, AI is likely already a part of your daily life. Many of the products and platforms we use leverage artificial intelligence to help us solve problems or complete tasks. AI helps us do things like navigate to work, unlock our iPhones with our faces, look up answers on Google, talk to a chat assistant, or send push notifications at an optimal time for each smartphone user to drive engagement .

Generative AI describes a particular type of artificial intelligence that can be used to create new content, the impacts of which are just starting to ripple through our personal and professional lives. Although there are many fruitful and necessary debates to be had about how AI is built, used, and regulated, there’s one undeniable truth that we can all agree on: Generative AI is here to stay, and it will change our world. As Bill Gates says so frankly, “The development of AI is as fundamental as the creation of the microprocessor, the personal computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone.”

This post was first published on onesignal.com.

Embracing a new status quo

In this brave new world, there’s both reason to fear and reason for excitement. In marketing and other fields where content creation is the bread-and-butter of daily work, it’s easy to feel trepidation about embracing a tool that might one day outperform you. On top of that instinctive fear, our cultural reverence for authenticity and deep-seated distaste for plagiarism can be hard to reconcile with the notion of using generative AI in creative fields.

Fear aside, ignoring the potential of this incredible resource while others take advantage of it can be a foolish and short-sighted mistake. If history has taught us anything, it’s that the more adaptable and smart we are in response to change, the more likely we are to grow. That’s especially true in business, where companies that fail to evolve in the face of change disappear into oblivion.

Even if you welcome the idea of using generative AI in your customer engagement campaigns, figuring out how to use it in a responsible, valuable, and efficient way can be tricky when there’s no precedent to work from.

With that in mind, we’d like to be your partner in this new journey. In this article, we’ll show you some simple yet impactful ways to begin incorporating tools like ChatGPT into your customer engagement strategy.

Creating message variations to A/B test

ChatGPT isn’t a reliable source for current events, but it excels at iterating on the content it’s given and crafting compelling copy. Whether you’re writing email subject lines and preheaders, push notifications, social copy, or SMS, creating multiple variations of your message to A/B test can be challenging. If you want help with copywriting or just need some inspiration to break through your writer’s block, ChatGPT can help.

Example:

Marketer:

I’m an eCommerce shoe brand with a website and a mobile app. I’m writing a push notification to promote a buy-one-get-one sale that is going on for a limited time. The copy I wrote is: Title: Upgrade Your Look, Message: Don’t miss our BOGO deal on shoes — today only! Can you write other more compelling copy options for push notifications to A/B test?

ChatGPT:

Sure, here are some alternative options for push notification copy that you can A/B test:

Title: Sale Alert! Message: Buy one pair of shoes, get the second pair free! Limited time only.

Title: Steal the Deal! Message: Get two pairs of shoes for the price of one! Shop now before it’s too late.

Title: Time is Running Out! Message: Don’t miss out on our BOGO shoe sale! Buy one pair, get one free. Offer ends soon.

Title: Double Your Style! Message: Buy one pair of shoes, and get another for free. Upgrade your shoe game now!

Title: Flash Sale! Message: Hurry! Buy one pair of shoes and get the second pair free for a limited time only.

Remember to keep the message short and sweet, and use strong action words to encourage users to take action. Additionally, you may want to consider personalizing the notification by addressing the user by name, or by suggesting specific products that match their past purchase history or preferences.

Marketer:

Can you try to make the copy more creative? Maybe by using puns related to shoes.

ChatGTP:

Sure, I can certainly help with that! Here are some creative push notification copy options that use shoe-related puns:

Title: Get Soled Out! Message: Our BOGO deal is the perfect fit for you! Buy one pair of shoes, get the second pair free. Hurry, this deal won’t last long!

Title: Don’t Miss the Boat! Message: Step up your shoe game with our BOGO sale! Buy one pair of shoes, get one free. But hurry, this offer sails away soon!

Title: Sole Searching? Message: Search no more! Buy one pair of shoes, get the second pair free. Walk this way to our BOGO sale now.

Title: The More the Merrier! Message: The more shoes, the merrier! Buy one pair, get one free. This deal is too good to pass up!

Title: Shoe Must Go On! Message: The show must go on with our BOGO sale! Buy one pair of shoes, get the second pair free. Don’t wait, step into savings now!

Remember to use puns sparingly and to keep the message clear and easy to understand. Puns can be a fun way to grab attention, but make sure they don’t distract from the main message.

Copy editing and improvement

As the previous example illustrates, another area where ChatGTP shines is copyediting and enhancement. Some easy ways to use ChatGPT for editing include:

• Editing for style – Inputting copy and asking ChatGTP for help smoothing transitions, fixing awkward phrasing, or reordering information to improve the flow.
• Editing for tone – Inputting copy and asking ChatGTP to make something sound more friendly, professional, conversational, etc.
• Editing for concision – Different messaging channels have different content parameters and best practices. ChatGTP can help you make the email copy you wrote more concise, adapt the copy for a Linkedin post into a Tweet, and generally help trim the fat around your main idea.

Example:

Product Marketer:

My company is a cryptocurrency trading app. I’ve written a push notification to help re-engage and onboard users who drop off in the first few days after downloading the app before they finish setting up their account or utilizing other important features. The push notification copy is: Title: You Still Need to Set Up Your Crypto Account, Message: Finish setting up your account to easily trade currency and enable 2-factor authentication to ensure your account is secure. Can you improve this by: 1) making sure the copy is the right character count for a push notification 2) making the copy more compelling and clear.

ChatGTP:

Certainly! Here’s an improved version of your push notification copy that addresses each of your concerns:

Title: Don’t Miss Out on Crypto Trading! Message: Your account is almost ready! Finish setting it up now to easily buy and sell cryptocurrency. Enable 2-factor authentication for added security.

Title: Finish Your Crypto Account Setup Today Message: You’re only a few steps away from trading cryptocurrency! Finish setting up your account and enable 2-factor authentication to keep your funds secure.

Title: Unlock the Power of Crypto Trading Message: Don’t let your account go unused! Finish setting it up now and start trading cryptocurrency like a pro. Protect your account with 2-factor authentication.

In these versions, I’ve made sure the copy is concise and optimized for a push notification. I’ve also tried to make the message more compelling and clear by emphasizing the benefits of using the app, such as the ability to easily buy and sell cryptocurrency and the added security of 2-factor authentication.

Adapting messages to different channels

Messaging channels have unique formatting and character count limits, and the types of content and messaging that appeal to audiences also vary by channel. These nuances mean that it’s not always easy to adapt the email copy you wrote into a push notification or text message, or vice versa. If you’ve written an email but want to send a multichannel campaign, ChatGPT can help you adapt your messaging to different channels and expand what you’ve already created into a multichannel customer journey.

Example:

Product Marketer:

Can you write email copy to support the cryptocurrency push notification message campaign I shared before?

ChatGTP:

Sure, here’s an example email copy to support the push notification message campaign:

Subject: Don’t miss out on the benefits of a fully set up account!

Hello [User],

We noticed that you recently downloaded our cryptocurrency trading app, but it looks like you haven’t finished setting up your account yet. We understand that getting started with a new app can be overwhelming, but we’re here to help you along the way.

By setting up your account, you’ll be able to easily trade currency and take advantage of all the features our app has to offer. Plus, enabling 2-factor authentication will ensure that your account is secure and protected from any unauthorized access.

We don’t want you to miss out on any of the benefits of using our app, so we encourage you to complete your account set up as soon as possible. If you have any questions or need any assistance, our support team is available 24/7 to help you out.

Thank you for choosing our app for your cryptocurrency trading needs. We look forward to seeing you succeed with us!

Best regards, [Your Company]

Product Marketer:

Thanks but this email copy is very long. Can you shorten it to one or two short paragraphs?

ChatGTP:

Sure, here’s a shortened version of the email copy:

Subject: Finish Setting Up Your Crypto Account Today!

Hello [User],

We noticed that you started setting up your account on our cryptocurrency trading app, but it looks like you haven’t finished yet. By completing your account setup, you’ll be able to easily trade currency and ensure your account is secure with 2-factor authentication.

Don’t miss out on the benefits of using our app – finish setting up your account today! If you have any questions or need assistance, our support team is available 24/7.

Thank you for choosing our app for your cryptocurrency trading needs.

Best regards, [Your Company]

Now you have a workable draft that just needs some lighter-lift edits, personalization, and a compelling call-to-action (CTA).

Creating educational content

Adding relevant content links to emails and other onboarding resources is a great way to educate user and help contextualize the CTA. In the crypto app email example above, linking to a blog post that explains why two-factor authentication is important to account and fund security would be a great way to enforce the value of completing account setup. For this more general educational content that’s not too product-specific, ChatGPT can provide a great working draft. In addition to asking about a topic, hone your prompt by including information about who your target audience is and any subtopics you’d like it to cover.

The TLDR

We’ve provided examples of ChatGPT queries to help show you what this tool is capable of and guide you as you look for meaningful results, but there’s more than one way to ask a question. We encourage you to play around to find what works for you and how to be more efficient yet descriptive with your queries. For some additional guidance, check out these 10 best practices for writing ChatGPT queries in marketing.

Interested in discovering more tricks and tools to enhance your customer engagement strategy? We’d love to help!

The post 4 Ways to use ChatGPT to enhance your customer engagement strategy appeared first on Business of Apps.

The mobile app industry is expected to continue growing in the coming years, with revenue projected to reach $935 billion by the end of 2023. This presents a significant opportunity for app developers and publishers to tap into affiliate marketing as a way to reach new audiences and generate more downloads. In this article, we’ll dive into the world of affiliate marketing for apps, discussing what it is, how it works, and some best practices to get the most out of this marketing channel.

What is affiliate marketing for apps?

Affiliate marketing for apps is a performance-based marketing strategy in which an app developer or publisher partners with an affiliate (such as a blogger, social media influencer, or content creator) to promote their app. The affiliate earns a commission for every user they refer who downloads and installs the app.

The commission rate typically varies depending on the app and the affiliate program, but it’s not uncommon to see commission rates of 10% to 30% per download or purchase. Some affiliate programs even offer recurring commissions for users who continue to use the app over time.

How does affiliate marketing for apps work?

The process of setting up an affiliate marketing program for your app is relatively straightforward. First, you’ll need to find affiliates who are a good fit for your app. This might involve reaching out to bloggers or content creators in your niche or joining an affiliate or CPA network that connects you with potential affiliates.

Once you’ve identified potential affiliates, you’ll need to set up an affiliate program or create a CPA offer and provide them with the necessary tools and resources to promote your app. This might include promotional materials like banners and ads, as well as a unique link that tracks downloads and installs from each affiliate. To understand how well you are performing, it’s important to use analytics to track downloads and installs from each affiliate.

When an affiliate promotes your app and someone clicks on their link and downloads your app, the affiliate earns a commission. The commission is typically paid out on a monthly basis and can be done through various payment methods such as PayPal, Paxum, bank transfers or local cards.

Benefits of affiliate marketing for apps

Performance marketing

One of the primary benefits of affiliate marketing for apps is that it’s a performance-based marketing strategy. You only pay for the results that affiliates bring in, which can help you maximize your marketing budget and get more downloads for your app.

New audiences

Another benefit is that affiliate marketing can help you reach new audiences that you might not have been able to reach through other marketing channels. By partnering with CPA networks that have a strong affiliate base in your app’s niche (VPN,  entertainment, social apps, e-commerce, dating, etc.) you can tap into their audience and generate more downloads for your app. This can be especially beneficial for new apps that are just starting out and trying to build their user base.

Cost-effective

Compared to other marketing channels like paid advertising through ad networks or influencer marketing, affiliate marketing can be a more cost-effective way to promote your app. Instead of paying a flat fee for advertising or influencer marketing, you’re only paying for actual downloads and installs. This can help you save money and get more downloads for your app.

Brand awareness

Affiliate marketing can help you build brand awareness and increase visibility for your app. By partnering with networks and affiliates who have a strong online presence and following, you can get your app in front of more people and increase brand recognition.

Increased credibility

When affiliates promote your app to their audience, it can help increase the credibility and trustworthiness of your app. Affiliates who have a strong reputation in your app’s niche can help lend credibility to your app and make it more appealing to potential users.

Why partner with CPA networks

Working with CPA networks can provide several benefits for mobile app owners. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Since you only pay for specific actions, working with CPA networks helps mitigate the risk associated with traditional advertising models, where you may pay upfront without guaranteed results. CPA networks allow you to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns and optimize accordingly.
• CPA networks provide detailed tracking and analytics capabilities, allowing you to monitor the performance of your campaigns in real time. You can track key metrics such as the number of installs, conversion rates, and user engagement, which helps you make data-driven decisions and optimize your app marketing strategy.
• CPA networks offer various targeting options to reach specific audiences based on demographics, interests, location, and more. This level of targeting ensures that your app is promoted to the right users who are more likely to engage and convert, maximizing the return on your investment.
• CPA networks often have a large network of affiliates and publishers, which allows you to scale your campaigns quickly and reach a wider audience.  CPA networks work with experienced affiliates who have expertise in promoting mobile apps. They understand the industry, user behavior, and effective marketing strategies. Leveraging their knowledge and skills can greatly benefit your app’s visibility and user acquisition efforts.
• CPA networks provide flexibility in campaign management. You can set specific campaign goals, define payout structures, and adjust bids based on performance. This level of control empowers you to optimize your campaigns and allocate resources efficiently.
• CPA networks employ robust fraud detection systems to identify and prevent fraudulent activities, such as fake installs or incentivized actions. This helps ensure that you are paying for legitimate and high-quality traffic, maintaining the integrity of your marketing campaigns.

Overall, collaborating with CPA networks can provide mobile app owners with a cost-effective, scalable, and measurable approach to user acquisition, while optimizing marketing spend and maximizing ROI.

App affiliate marketing trends

As the mobile app industry continues to evolve, so does affiliate marketing for apps. Here are some of the top trends that are likely to shape the affiliate marketing landscape for apps in 2023:

Increased use of artificial intelligence

With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), app developers and publishers can leverage this technology to improve their affiliate marketing efforts. For example, AI-powered tools can help identify and target high-value affiliates, optimize marketing campaigns in real time, and personalize offers based on user behavior and preferences.

Focus on user engagement

In 2023, app developers and publishers are likely to focus more on user engagement and retention through their affiliate marketing programs. This means providing affiliates with high-quality promotional materials that are designed to engage users and encourage them to continue using the app over the long term.

Influencer partnerships

Influencer marketing is likely to continue to play an important role in affiliate marketing for apps in 2023. App developers and publishers can partner with influencers who have a strong following in their niche to promote their apps and offer exclusive incentives to their followers. This can help increase brand awareness and drive more downloads for the app.

Emphasis on data analytics

Data analytics will continue to be a key component of successful affiliate marketing for apps in 2023. By using analytics tools to track user behavior, app developers and publishers can identify trends and patterns that can help them optimize their affiliate marketing campaigns and improve their overall app marketing strategy.

Integration with app store optimization (ASO)

App store optimization (ASO) is the process of optimizing an app’s listing on the app store to improve its visibility and ranking. In 2023, we can expect to see more integration between affiliate marketing and ASO, with app developers and publishers using affiliate marketing to drive more downloads and improve their app’s visibility on the app store.

Summing up

In conclusion, affiliate marketing for apps is a powerful marketing strategy that can help app developers and publishers reach new audiences and generate more downloads for their apps. By partnering with CPA affiliate networks that have a strong base, provide high-quality promotional materials, and track performance with analytics, app developers and publishers can create successful affiliate programs that drive results.

Reach out to Adsterra and start growing today.

The post Unleashing the power of affiliate marketing for apps appeared first on Business of Apps.

Getting people to open your app is an obvious win, but keeping them there while delivering important contextual information is where the true victory lies.

In the age-old conversation of acquisition versus retention, we know retaining users is significantly cheaper than scouting new ones. In-app messaging allows mobile platforms to effortlessly communicate with their users based on highly personalized messages as well as drive permission access to support push notifications. Think of in-app messages as the seamless gateway between your app’s most critical information and your users’ everchanging attention spans.

This post was first published on onesignal.com.

In-app messages can improve app retention rates by 27% and we’re going to walk through some of the most impactful use cases where they can make the biggest splash within your messaging strategy. Use each one of these as app inspiration, marketing ammunition, or simply some great reminders of just how effective in-app messaging can be for driving app engagement.

App onboarding

For many apps, the most important touchpoint is the first touch. In fact, “important” is an understatement. The onboarding process is the make-or-break period (and very first impression) you will make with new users during those crucial first few moments on your platform. Establishing an instant emotional connection while educating newcomers on how to navigate your app through in-app messages has been proven to reduce app installs by up to 25% in the first month.

Let’s see it in action.

Construction management app Ogun specializes in facilitating and coordinating for contractors and renovation experts. It’s essentially a unified hub for construction teams to keep their projects and communication all in one place.

By utilizing an in-app messaging carousel, Ogun not only built out an intuitive welcome message but a series of custom welcome cards designed to progressively engage new users with all the necessary functionality they need to navigate their app with ease.

Remember, onboarding enables user success — and a user who feels successful on your app is one who will stick around to recapture that feeling.

Ogun’s onboarding carousel

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

Key takeaways:

• Under five slides. Your onboarding should be comprehensive enough to explain basic app functionality but not so long that your new users’ eyes start to glaze over.
• The option to skip. On the note of attention span, some newcomers may be savvy enough to get started immediately – give them a path of least resistance to your app.
• Appeal to visual learners (that’s most of us!) Don’t make people read a novel – break things up with emojis or example images to keep all eyes on the prize (your app’s value proposition)

The best part? It worked. After proactively optimizing their onboarding pain points with the above welcome flow, Ogun saw an immediate 80% increase in CTR for their onboarding messages using OneSignal’s Carousel feature. To read more about how Ogun reduced churn with new in-app messaging, read the case study here!

Permission prompting

Getting permission to send users push notifications is nowhere near as easy as it used to be. People have dozens of apps on their phones, many of which they don’t frequently use. If you are going to ask for permission to ping your users’ devices, you better have a good reason and be willing to share it with them. In-app messaging provides a perfect opportunity to “pre-prompt” users with the helpful context necessary to justify push notifications or SMS notifications before they see the generic native prompt on iOS or Android. In short, this is invaluable real estate to tell your users how enabling push notifications will improve their experience.

A great example of this is Palisades Tahoe app’s pre-prompt structure. Palisades Tahoe is a ski resort app that helps skiers track their ski days, monitor lift statuses, and connect with friends. Their in-app pre-permission prompt message encourages users to allow notifications BEFORE the native iOS permission prompt is triggered.

Palisades Tahoe’s in-app pre-permission prompt messaging

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

Key takeaways:

• Justify, justify, justify. By explaining the “why” behind asking for push permissions (“capture your ski stats,” “real-time deals,” “messages from friends”) these in-app messages make a solid case that they won’t merely be pestering you with irrelevant notifications.
• Everything, upfront. Palisades Tahoe demonstrates a need for both location permission and push notifications to get the most out of its app.
• Two-step. Notice that the native iOS permission prompt appears immediately after the app’s pre-prompt sequence. It’s important to make it clear that, although you are explaining why users should allow notifications, they still must select “Allow” on the official prompt to seal the deal.

For a bit of added nuance to your in-app messaging strategy, OneSignal offers detailed in-app messaging segmentation features which allow for prompting users based on specific time triggers like single session time or total number of sessions.

Creating pre-permission prompts via in-app messaging can be a quick, no-code way to bolster opt-in rates for notifications —  just don’t force it, and don’t expect your users to select “Allow” just because you asked. Help them make informed decisions based on how your app improves their life.

User surveys

Collecting user feedback is the most direct way to gather insights to help improve the user experience, address churn-inducing pain points, and improve user lifetime value (LTV). Don’t rely on email to gather customer feedback – most people are not in the right headspace to set aside time for surveys when they’re trying to clear their inboxes. However, when someone opens your app, you have their most undivided attention meaning they are much more likely to share feedback while your platform is top of mind.

Rather than forcing users to think about your app when their minds are elsewhere, in-app surveys catch them when they are already thinking about (and actually using) your app.

Example of an in-app user survey

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

Key takeaways:

• Crystal clear. If you are using a number-based rating system, leave no doubt in the minds of your users which option signifies “strongly recommend” or “would not recommend.”
• Get the forecast. Remember, in-app surveys are good for more than just collecting insights on existing features. Ask your audience which new features or tools they would like to see implemented in the future. Is the winning topic something your team can easily implement next quarter? Everyone loves a crowd pleaser…

It doesn’t matter if you’re a marketer or developer, reducing user friction should always be a top priority. In-app messages allow you to embed your customer surveys directly into your app, giving users both a relevant context for a feedback request and increasing the chances of collecting quality data to use for feature improvement.

OneSignal’s in-app carousal editor

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

Take OneSignal’s in-app carousel editor, for example. Create up to 10 pages of questions, all with multiple-choice answers and a variety of placement, color, and image options. After your users complete the survey, OneSignal collects the results and allows you to group the responses using Data Tags for future targeted messaging.

User education

One of the most common reasons that users churn is because they either misunderstand the core functionality of your app or they simply can’t figure out how to use it outright. This is especially true with new newer technologies or apps that hit the charts within emerging industries.

A perfect example of addressing this mobile user education challenge is Bitcoin.com. The popular financial services platform and cryptocurrency wallet provider was looking for a way to inform and educate their users about the benefits of their cloud backup service.

Cloud backup education by Bitcoin

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

The feature was designed to give users greater security in the event that they lose their device or forget their wallet key. Because this feature must be activated from within the app, in-app messages were able to make a direct impact in reaching users and prompting action while users were engaged.

Additionally, Bitcoin.com used in-app messages to address common hiccups in the user experience and provide case-by-case “remedies” designed to reach specific user segments and educate them on the best way to enhance their experience.

As Daria Dovzhikova, Bitcoin.com Growth Product Manager, explains, “We’re constantly meeting with the customer support team. For instance, if I get information that some users experience the same problem over and over and that problem is common for different cohorts, then we can send an in-app message to educate the user so that they don’t make that same mistake again.”

Sharing rewards and promos

Rewards and promotions are some of the best ways to keep users incentivized and feeling a sense of accomplishment for engaging with your brand. Certain apps, particularly mobile games, benefit from the inclusion of in-app messaging as a way to convey exciting deals or in-game rewards designed to keep players engaged.

A great example of a brand building anticipation through in-app messaging is Shake Shack. After working with OneSignal, Shake Shack leveraged both push notifications and in-app messages to promote a limited-time Superbowl offer with an “order now” call-to-action button. The result? 37 thousand impressions and a 20% click-through rate!

But they didn’t stop there. During the pandemic, Shake Shack was looking for ways to embrace the growing demand for digital and distanced lifestyles. They wanted to incorporate order pickup and delivery services into their mobile but because delivery logistics vary from city to city, they needed a way to test those different markets.

Promotional in-app messaging by Shack app

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

The solution? Target densely populated city centers (like New York and Chicago) using geolocation data. As Shannon Reilly, Shake Shack CRM Manager, explains, “We would target certain metro areas to let them know the feature was launched in order to boost adoption and generate excitement.”

Interested in seeing how Shake Shack grew their subscriber base by 184% using OneSignal cross-channel messaging? View the full Shake Shack Case Study!

Updates and alerts

Many mobile app verticals require their users to be in the know around the clock. From sudden price changes on a fintech app to itinerary updates through a travel app, there is just some information that cannot wait for the next email blast. In-app messages can bend to fit almost any form of update or alert notification:

• Notify users about updates. In-app messages notify users about the availability of app updates. This is a great way to drive awareness and encourage users to keep their app version up to date by learning about new features, bug fixes, performance improvements, or security patches.
• Highlight important changes. Have you recently redesigned your user interface or added a new core feature? In-app messages are a perfect place to include visuals, descriptions, or even short videos to showcase the changes and explain their benefits.
• Urgent alerts and critical notifications. Some messages are time-sensitive in nature and require users to take a specific action with their account. For example, if there is a security vulnerability, service disruption, or important system maintenance scheduled, you can use in-app messages to inform and advise users about the situation.

Example of limited offer alert

Click on image for full size

Source: OneSignal

By leveraging in-app messaging for mobile app updates and alerts, you gain the ability to communicate changes, engage users, and maintain a positive user experience through unexpected circumstances. These messages ensure that your users are well-informed, increase the adoption of new updates, and foster a sense of transparency and responsiveness between you and your users.

OneSignal makes in-app messaging easier than ever

In-app messages represent one of the most powerful ways to improve user experience and support retention, all without giving away the one thing all mobile apps need to survive: user attention.

Designing custom in-app messages for every use case has never been easier than it is with OneSignal. Our platform unifies your user communication across various channels, including in-app messaging, mobile push notifications, web push notifications, bulk SMS, and email. At OneSignal, we’ve built our reputation on giving businesses of all sizes the ability to easily set up in-app communication and to allow for as much (or little) customization or automation as you see fit. Experience it firsthand by trying OneSignal for free and see what the buzz is all about.

The post 6 Powerful in-app messaging use cases and examples appeared first on Business of Apps.

While a sense of uncertainty hangs over much of cultural and economic life going into 2023, one thing we can state with certainty is that connected television (CTV) will continue to thrive. It remains popular worldwide and is continuing to pick up new audiences across generations, social classes, and interest groups, and is reflected in ever-increasing interest by advertisers. According to Insider Intelligence, this year advertising spend in the CTV market will reach a record $26.92 billion, continuing its double-digit growth since records began in 2017.

It’s important to remember that five years ago, total CTV ad spend totaled $2.80 billion and that growth has consistently increased by over 50% each year since then. You can therefore appreciate just how formidable CTV’s rise has been. In fact, not only will total CTV ad spending increase this year, but by the end of 2024, it looks set to edge out linear TV.

There’s still room for improvement

As the CTV is still lagging behind more mature mobile and web industries, it does face some challenges that it needs to overcome like ad fraud, attribution, and measurement.

Due to the market’s relative infancy, there are few if any industry-wide standards on factors like fraud. CTV ads have one of the highest CPM rates in the digital advertising market which make them highly attractive to fraudsters. Unsophisticated algorithms in acquisition lead to the impossibility to implement performance advertising. Therefore, it’s hard to create anti-fraud tools that will identify invalid traffic (IVT) beyond basic algorithms. This underscores the need for not only widely accepted standards but also more sophisticated and specialized measurement tools that are tailored to the unique characteristics of this rapidly-evolving medium.

However, the good news is that all the processes in the CTV industry are highly interconnected and interoperable, meaning improvements can be rapidly adopted. Data transfer is able to be enhanced through the implementation of solutions such as data clean rooms. In the coming year, we can expect a shift towards increased compatibility and standardization in the market, which is likely to lead to positive outcomes this year and beyond.

SVOD dominance will be challenged

In 2023, the traditionally dominant position of the subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) platform is sure to be challenged by two channel formats: advertising video-on-demand (AVOD) and free, ad-supported services (FASTs). The SVOD market has become saturated with multiple offerings and many consumers are also experiencing a cost-of-living crisis due to increased inflation. As such, they have tended to cut back on subscription-based services and select free at the point of use alternatives instead, which are bound to propel the development of AVOD.

According to a report by Deloitte, by the end of 2023, approximately two-thirds of consumers in developed countries will be using at least one AVOD service every month. This represents a 5% increase from the previous year and highlights the growing trend toward ad-supported streaming. By 2024, it’s predicted that half of the remaining SVOD providers will launch a FAST service as well.

These developments could pave the way for exciting growth in the CTV industry where AVOD and FAST platforms could either reach the level of their SVOD counterparts or even go on to eclipse them entirely. This will provide a great opportunity for advertisers as the huge increase in the popularity and availability of ad-based content will naturally increase the demand for ads as well.

CTV goes beyond video

While video content will most likely continue to be the most popular format among consumers, other offerings in the CTV industry will also experience increased uptake. Smart TV technology will come into its own during 2023, and while consumers are sure to continue to watch their favorite video content on smart TVs, they’ll also be able to experience new interactive digital activities like Web3 and the metaverse.

Another promising area to consider is CTV gaming. Even though this area is still in its early stages, accounting for less than 2% of the total CTV market, smart TV games have great potential to attract a very distinct audience. As the demand for high-quality games exceeds supply, there are a lot of opportunities for developers to occupy a promising niche and some companies like Playcent Games and Play. Works are already actively developing in this sphere. Gaming is a good example of how an existing concept can be readily adapted to CTV, especially as its popularity is well-established.

But what about something that may be less mainstream but has the same potential as video games? We can look to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as an example.

The NFT market reached $5.4 billion in 2021 and is steadily expanding into popular consciousness. NFTs offer content creators significantly increased monetization options, with NFT-based platforms like Audius providing a token-based peer-to-peer reward system that pays up to 90% to artists for streaming.

While NFTs were primarily designed for mobile devices, they are now being readily adapted for smart TVs, providing consumers with more choices. For example, Samsung has developed a Smart TV NFT platform that will include some of the most popular NFT marketplaces, and the company’s main competitor LG is following suit. Where the giants lead, the market will follow, and NFTs look increasingly likely to move to CTV.

Good times will roll for retailers

The retail industry is another area of CTV that is likely to perform well in 2023. There’s a lot of potential for brands looking to advertise on CTV platforms in 2023, and frankly, the figures speak for themselves. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), nearly one-third to one-half of ad buyers are planning to shift their investments towards shoppable and retail media network ads, reflecting a growing trend towards more interactive and engaging advertising strategies.

As a result, major CTV platforms are beginning to integrate more shopping and e-commerce options into their programming. For example, Roku, one of the most popular CTV platforms, now has a partnership with the American supermarket behemoth Walmart to integrate clickable ads across its content on behalf of the latter. While this initiative is in its initial stages, if it’s successful for both companies, it could serve as a lodestar for the rest of the industry.

The takeaway

Looking ahead to the rest of the year and beyond, the CTV industry is poised for exciting growth opportunities. With the rise of AVOD options this year, advertisers can tap into a whole new segment of viewership and boost revenue. To achieve this, advertisers should focus on creating high-quality, tailored content campaigns that resonate with viewers.

Furthermore, to fully leverage the potential of CTV, advertisers should explore niche and developing areas. The potential is already significant, and as the CTV industry is working to resolve issues pertaining to fraud and data gathering among others, and with solutions like data clean rooms, the possibilities are seemingly endless. All in all, 2023 is shaping up to be a promising year for the CTV industry.

The post CTV advertising trends for 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

My name is Nadia Katrich. I am the co-CEO of performance marketing agency Appska. Our company pays great attention to interaction with clients. It is an essential factor in our success in the market, distinguishes us from competitors, and contributes to long-term relationships with partners. In this article, I will talk about the three foundations of working with clients on which we build our relationships.

In-depth analysis

One of Appska’s values is: Focus on the client, and everything else will follow.

It is crucial for us to understand the needs and goals of our partners deeply. We believe that this focus on a specific business and individual approach is the key to the success of a product promotion campaign.

Based on this, we attach great importance to careful analysis in our work. This is a multi-level process, and it begins even before the start of cooperation, before the first touch.

We always come to a potential client full-handed. Before the first contact, our sales team studies the business using publicly available sources. It determines the stage of product development, analyzes the needs of future partners, tries to understand how we can help, how to solve their problems, describes promotion options, etc. Based on our successful cases, the Appska team decides what work needs to be done to bring results.

With such a primary analysis and understanding of the future partner’s business, we make contact. In this appeal, we do not give extensive details and do not write long texts but pronounce theses and bullet points. It’s short and lets clients clearly see how Appska can help develop their product. This establishes a dialogue and dramatically increases the likelihood of a fruitful relationship.

Once the contract is signed and the collaboration begins, we move on to a more in-depth analysis stage. In Appska, it is not customary to simply ask advertisers what paid action they need and in what GEO, and immediately launch a campaign based on superficial data. Also, we do not use standard briefs and do not shift the responsibility for filling them out to the client. Instead, we conduct in-depth interviews to identify needs, find growth points, and understand the target audience segment the campaign should be aimed at.

At the stage of in-depth analysis, it is necessary to explain to clients the importance of their involvement in this process. It will make the campaign as effective as possible.

As a result of such a thorough multi-level analysis, we understand the values and mission of our partners, their customers, and their needs and growth points. In fact, we become experts on the client, allowing us to develop an adapted and personalized version of their product promotion. Appska’s experience and successful cases show that this approach brings the best results.

Expertise and continuous development

Another value of Appska sounds like this: Provide WOW through our services!

We have a large set of digital tools in our arsenal. Appska can provide services in any vertical and any GEO. In addition, we have mastered more than 150 first-class traffic sources.

It allows the client to receive a full range of services in one place, to cover all the needs for product promotion. Partners always have a choice — to use our tools separately or act on the omnichannel principle when different marketing services, when used in parallel, reinforce each other and significantly increase the campaign’s effectiveness.

The digital market is constantly changing. Something is always happening here — some old things die off, but new opportunities appear. That’s why staying flexible and fast is important because speed is vital in this field. Appska evolves along with the market. We follow trends, analyze competitors, take many training courses, invite famous speakers, and participate in all significant conferences and exhibitions worldwide. Thus, we always understand where Appska needs to move and how to adjust our development vector.

Appska allocates resources for testing new verticals, GEOs, traffic sources, and digital tools. After that, we keep the most profitable solutions and discard those that do not work.

Considerable attention is paid to developing and recruiting the best specialists on the market and establishing communication between the teams. This contributes to building effective relationships with partners. In the case of Appska, hunters from the Sales Department find clients, then transfer them to account managers, who “grow” them and implement agreements, while affiliate and influence managers build connections with advertising networks and publishers. Everyone is doing their job, and at the same time, each department is constantly communicating with others. Such an established chain allows us to interact closely with clients and satisfy their needs.

The focus on expertise and development significantly impacts building successful relationships with partners. We have a deep understanding of what we do. Our team knows how the psychology of the buyer works. We know the trends and how to perform competently in this volatile market.

Trusting relationship

We do care! — this is another value of Appska.

We pay great attention to customer care. It is essential for us to build trusting relationships with partners, identify their needs, pains and desires, and even exceed expectations. We are not indifferent to what happens to the partner’s business, so all customers — large, medium and small — receive the same high level of service and can count on the help of our specialists almost 24/7.

This approach increases loyalty and helps to ensure that relationships with our partners are long-lasting. In addition, we earn a reputation in the market — our good name works for us and triggers the effect of word of mouth.

Nowadays, in the field of activity in which our agency operates, there are many players promising what they cannot fulfill. In other words, they “sell air” — conclude a contract and then think about how to perform it. Appska believes that long-term relationships cannot be built on “selling air” because it threatens the loss of reputation earned by hard work.

We always try to be as honest and transparent as possible with our partners, and we are careful not to promise the client what we cannot do. That’s why Appska always relies on our successful cases. Also, during the negotiations on cooperation, we try not only to show the possibilities but also to inform about the risks.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, I would like to note that at the moment there is a lack of normal human relations in our market. At Appska, we believe that it is important to build not only purely business relationships with partners but also friendly ones, up to helping with personal issues. Therefore, we are often told that we are just good guys, and it is not only pleasant to work with us but also to communicate, meet at parties and have fun. Such humanity also contributes to the fact that customers prefer us to competitors, and the relationship with them is long-term and fruitful.

Deep analysis, expertise and trusting relationships are important foundations of successful client interaction. Being in a bundle, they complement each other and produce a synergy effect that allows you to achieve maximum results and be head and shoulders above many other players on the market.

The post Three foundations for building strong client relationships in performance marketing appeared first on Business of Apps.

Today, when water pollution, air quality, and radiation pollution are the core environmental challenges, sound monitoring surfaces are needed. Maintaining a healthy society will let the world catch up with sustainable growth.

Lately, with modern sensor development and the Internet of Things (IoT) advancement, environment monitoring is experiencing enhancement and taking the face of smart environmental monitoring (SEM) systems. In 2021, the global environmental monitoring market was valued at $14.5 billion and is expected to reach around $17.9 by 2026 at a CAGR of 4.5%. SEMs successfully target various industries, like smart cities, pharmaceuticals, smart homes and offices, environmental protection, etc.

More facts about this system magnetize more returns and sustainability in countless means. How? Let’s go through this post to learn precisely about smart environmental monitoring (SEM) systems, benefits, challenges, and a lot more.

What is a Smart Environmental Monitoring (SEM) system?

SEM system

Source: EmizenTech

Smart Environmental Monitoring and Control apps monitor and control the industrial processes and environmental events that may adversely impact the environment, such as toxic waste and natural disasters. Besides, such solutions measure human activities that impact the environment, like population growth.

On this globe, in natural terms, environmental monitoring systems target soil, air, and water, monitor pollution, and meteorological and topographical data that leads to air pollutants analysis.

In urban communities, IoT-powered environmental monitoring systems perform data tracking and analysis, for instance, population demographics, traffic volumes, security, city infrastructure, resource scarcity, and more.

Ahead, in smart environments, the collected sensor data is uploaded to the cloud databases and other data lakes, where it’s monitored and analyzed and can also be used to build self-learning and intelligent apps.

Chief support of SEM systems

Smart environments include physical and non-physical elements, like IoT devices, sensors and actuators, machine learning models, and more. Let’s discuss a few below:

IoT devices

The device holding the caliber to connect, using a wired connection or wirelessly to the internet, is IoT. Usually, such devices are wireless, but not every time. These integrate with advanced technology that backs network connections with functional software, such as APIs, sensors, and actuators. Using such devices, you can automatically transfer the details between people, objects, and software with no human intervention.

Device Software

IoT operating systems comprise various IoT devices, allowing them to connect to IoT device management applications.

Sensors and actuators

In smart hubs, data comes from multiple sources, like software apps, sensors, and actuators.

Environmental monitoring apps get the input data from proximity, water and air quality, smoke, temperature, and gas. A physical device, known as a sensor, converts physical events or traits. For example, a light switch or motion detector.

One more physical device, an actuator, transfers electrical signals into the physical events. For example, a valve or switch that converts electrical signals into physical events into air conditioning.

Closed-circuit television (CCTV)

In smart environments, the latest technologies are also transparent to non-technical users. CCTV helps in enabling this transparency. Here, specific video surveillance software can be integrated into smart environment systems to offer functionality like face tracking, motion detection, and data storage.

Wireless sensor network (WSN)

This technology is usually used in IoT systems. In a wireless sensor network (WSN), an extensive collection of sensors helps gather and send data via a router to the internet in an IoT system, like a smart environment. This network may include wired devices, but a WSN might not incorporate wired devices.

For example, a wireless sensor network that monitors the rainfall in a specific area may or may not be connected to a smart environment network.

Benefits of SEM systems

Real-time alerts

Such solutions provide instant alerts to the users easing them to make immediate and sound decisions, leading to better and improved business outcomes meeting the desired goals.

Improved resource management

By monitoring varied parameters, such as water usage, energy consumption, or water generation, communities, and organizations can find room for improvement with SEM systems. This leads to conservation measures promotion and sustainable resource usage.

Apps

In smart environments, such apps monitor pollution, traffic, energy and water usage, infrastructure, and crime. This improves the caliber of such environments converting raw data into meaningful insights, automated alerts, and actions.

Environment effect assessment

With SEMs, you can get detailed data on varied factors impacting the environment. Ahead, using that data, you can evaluate the potential impact of project development, industrial activities, and other actions. This ensures reduced negative impacts and improved sustainable practices.

Remote monitoring and control

The remote sensing technologies, data transmission caliber, and IoT that SEM systems include facilitate remote monitoring and control of environmental situations from a central hub. There’s no need for physical presence, which diminishes the operational costs.

Compliance monitoring

Key environment parameters’ monitoring becomes easier with SEMs that check their compliance with environmental regulations and standards. So, by consistently monitoring pollutant levels, emissions, or noise levels, such systems can inform relevant stakeholders or authorities if non-compliance gets caught. Further, they enable routine corrective measures.

Data-driven research and planning

The data accumulated by SEM systems assist in scientific research, urban planning, and policy development. Researchers can use this data to learn environmental patterns, know trends, and build predictive models. On the other edge, the planners reap the benefits of the accumulated data in designing more sustainable infrastructure and cities.

Early alert and risk assessment

The SEM is best at collecting and analyzing data in real-time, facilitating easy identification of potential environmental hazards and risks in the early stages. This way, the environmental planners and relevant authorities find ways to prevent environmental damage and take proactive measures to diminish any adverse impacts.

Public awareness and engagement

You can boost public awareness of environmental issues by considering SEM usage for data accumulation and understanding. These systems with user-friendly interfaces, reports, and visualizations educate and engage people allowing them to follow environmentally conscious options.

Challenges of SEM systems

Lack of experience and guidance

Studies state that most organizations that have integrated SEMs into their solutions find it challenging to analyze the accumulated data and use it to make better business decisions. The reason behind this is the lack of proper guidance and expertise in IoT usage.

Outpaced technology emergence

With time, as IoT is cropping up uncontrollably, governmental regulations lag, catching up with the pace. This leads to inadequate control over the regulation of environmental standards.

Server-side blockage risk

To authorize, authenticate, and connect with various nodes, IoT networks depend on a centralized client-server paradigm. With the increasing number of nodes, the risk of server-side blockage increases.

Machine learning algorithm flaws

Such flaws in ML create false negatives or positives that extend the manual work in mission-critical systems.

To process unstructured data

IoT helps generate and use structured and unstructured data. Legacy systems lack the power that IoT systems should hold.

Final note

The complexity of smart systems lays an additional burden on organizations, according to which they need to monitor databases, performance, apps, hardware, and cloud services.

Here, a platform holding intelligence, Smart Environmental Monitoring, offers valuable insights into varied areas of smart world networks along with automated alerts and notifications. This helps businesses in making sound decisions for the seamless accomplishment of goals.

So far, SEM users may encounter the challenges mentioned above, but constant improvement and the adoption of advanced trends and techniques will help overcome these and drive enhanced sustainability and returns.

Devising to develop a Smart Environment Monitoring System? Connect with an experienced app development company holding proficiency and a trusted track record of guiding projects toward success.

The post How a smart environmental monitoring system can drive profit and sustainability appeared first on Business of Apps.

The recently published research on global programmatic ad spend by Statista shows consistent yearly growth since 2017 and estimates total revenue to reach $725b by 2026. DSPs (demand-side platforms) and SSPs (supply-side platforms) entered the market when the proliferation of online content and available ad space got to the point where ad networks and direct deals stopped being efficient solutions for media buying. The global digital advertising market is expected to cross the trillion-dollar mark in 2026, so what technology is going to streamline campaign optimization when it becomes inefficient to manage them individually? In line with the rest of the IT industry after 2022, the answer seems to be AI.

What is a smartlink?

A smartlink is a tracking link incorporating multiple CPA offers and ad creatives that evaluates incoming traffic and uses that data to send each click to the landing page and the CPA offer with the highest ROI potential for it. In simpler terms, a smartlink takes care of every part of campaign optimization that comes after generating or buying traffic. Every click a smartlink receives gets sorted by country, connection type, carrier, device, operating system, and other parameters to determine the best destination for it and the best path to get there.

This process is facilitated by machine-learning algorithms that use campaign performance data to continuously improve a smartlink’s traffic distribution efficiency. These algorithms use both the massive data set put into them when building a smartlink and every bit of data from ongoing campaigns to hone their targeting, account for banner blindness and overexposure, and ultimately increase ROI for the traffic they receive.

In essence, smartlinks are similar to AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. Trained on massive datasets, the algorithms are designed to recognize patterns in the data they analyze and produce the most optimal outcome. Another similarity is that smartlink algorithms measure their performance and use that data to further improve their efficiency. The main difference is that smartlinks only ever receive one prompt: find the best ad creatives and destination for this click based on its parameters.

Ad creatives are regularly updated by the maintenance team and measured against others to trim underperforming ones. A smartlink’s database of creatives usually consists of ads that have previously been tested in regular CPA campaigns. Our company, ClickDealer, has a team dedicated to developing and testing creatives for our smartlinks.

Currently, smartlinks are increasingly gaining popularity in affiliate networks, but the technology has not yet been adopted by the wider performance marketing industry. There are a few reasons for that.

Why are smartlinks not everywhere yet?

Smartlinks are a relatively new technology. The first AI-driven optimization algorithm appeared on the market in 2018 and it could only be applied in a select few verticals. That list has grown longer since then, but the fact that there is a list remains one of the obstacles on the way to the market-wide adoption of the technology. ClickDealer has encountered many of these challenges first-hand.

Currently, smartlinks work best in verticals with a wide target audience, where all the competing companies offer a singular type of service, such as iGaming or dating. The current set of targeting parameters smartlinks work with does not account for users’ age, gender, income bracket, and other similar demographic indicators that are vital for success in many other market verticals. This obstacle can be overcome by finding ways of integration with traffic sources that would pass that data to smartlinks since the algorithms’ A/B testing optimization method would work just as well with that type of targeting parameters.

Another major challenge is adapting to verticals with many niches and different types of goods and services being promoted. The current way of dealing with that problem is creating a separate smartlink for every niche, but that does not work in e-commerce, for example, where categories of products are too varied to cover each one with its own smartlink. To a lesser extent, the same goes for home improvement and legal service verticals.

Affiliate marketing companies are racing to overcome these challenges because the business that brings the perfected smartlink technology to the market will take over a large share of it. ClickDealer is certainly a part of that race, as are most of our industry competitors. Let us look at every way smartlinks can bring major changes to the performance marketing industry.

Why smartlinks are going to be everywhere

Smartlinks are time-efficient. The amount of man-hours saved by a self-optimizing campaign gives an undeniable competitive advantage to a network, agency, or solo marketer that decides to employ the technology.

Smartlinks are scalable. The volume of traffic a smartlink can handle is only limited by processing power. The capacity for large-scale operations provided by smartlinks puts major growth opportunities in front of performance marketing companies.

Smartlinks are easy. Campaign optimization expertise is a barrier to entry into performance marketing, and removing that barrier brings companies more partners to work with.

Smartlinks are evolving. The nature of machine-learning algorithms dictates that the quality of optimizations they perform is only going to grow with time and increasing amounts of targeting data available to advertisers.

Smartlinks are trendy. After ChatGPT exploded in popularity, becoming publicly available in November 2022, tech companies have been scrambling to upgrade their offerings with the power of generative AI and be the first to offer AI-driven solutions to their clients. Knowing how much AI has shaken the tech market and how much it has progressed already as a result of that, there is no reason to believe it is not going to touch online advertising.

In conclusion

Smartlinks are inevitable. It is exactly what DSPs and SSPs are to ad networks and agencies – a consequence of industry growth. In the next decade, missing out on this level of automation, and consequently, growth opportunities will become unaffordable to performance marketing companies. Early adopters of this technology stand a lot to gain, so the suggestion to performance marketers is to seriously consider becoming one.

Want to Try ClickDealer SmartLink? Register here.

The post Smartlinks: The AI-driven future of performance marketing appeared first on Business of Apps.

TikTok has taken the world by storm, becoming one of the most popular social media platforms in recent years. With over 1 billion active users, it has become a hub for creative and engaging content, making it an attractive platform for brands to advertise on. However, advertising on TikTok requires a different approach than other social media networks. In this article, I will present the benefits of advertising on TikTok, the importance of adjusting your ad strategy and creatives to the platform, the unique features of TikTok, the convergence of user acquisition and organic reach, and the services offered by Zoomd to help brands successfully advertise on TikTok.

Benefits of advertising on TikTok

One of the biggest benefits of advertising on TikTok is the unique audiences that cannot be found on other platforms. This means TikTok can help advertisers unlock new audiences. With the majority of users being 25+, it is an ideal platform for brands targeting a wide demographic of users.

Additionally, TikTok’s algorithm is designed to show users content that they are interested in, and not social connections, making it easier for brands to target their ideal audience.

Another benefit of advertising on TikTok is the platform’s high engagement rates. TikTok users spend an average of 100 minutes per day on the app, and engagement rates are higher than other social media platforms. This means that brands have a higher chance of their content being seen and engaged with by their target audience.

Research confirms that consumers do purchase products after seeing them on TikTok and this is likely becoming more and more prevalent.

Adjusting ad strategy and creatives

When advertising on TikTok, brands need to adjust their ad strategy and creatives to fit the platform’s unique style. TikTok is all about short-form, creative videos that grab the user’s attention quickly. Brands need to create content that is entertaining first and selling second.

For creatives to succeed on TikTok, they must feel native to the platform and have unskippable first 3 seconds.

Additionally, TikTok’s advertising options are different from other social media platforms. Brands can choose from various ad formats, including in-feed ads and spark ads. Each format has its own benefits and requires a different approach to create effective ads.

Unique features of TikTok

TikTok has several unique features that differentiate it from other social media networks. For example, the platform’s “For You” page shows users content that they may be interested in, even if they don’t follow the user who created the content. This means that brands have a higher chance of their content being seen by a wider audience.

TikTok also allows users to create and participate in viral challenges, making it easier for brands to create engaging and shareable content. Additionally, the platform’s editing tools and filters allow for creative and visually appealing content to be created quickly and easily.

Convergence of user acquisition and organic reach

One of the most significant benefits of advertising on TikTok is the convergence of user acquisition, organic reach, and brand awareness. Unlike other social media networks, where brands need to pay for both user acquisition and organic reach, TikTok allows advertisers to engage with their audience through organic presence and community building by promoting their brand and driving actual sales.

The platform is designed to show users content that they are interested in, regardless of whether it is organic or paid. This means that brands have a higher chance of their content being seen and engaged with by their target audience, even without paying for ads.

Partner with Zoomd to better perform on TikTok

Partner with Zoomd to make your TikTok campaigns stand out and perform well. Our media team is highly experienced and understands what works better on TikTok to make your app shine. That’s just one of the reasons we’re a TikTok Certified Marketing Partner.

In conclusion, advertising on TikTok requires a different approach than other social media networks. Brands need to adjust their ad strategy and creatives to fit the platform’s unique style and take advantage of its unique features and benefits.

With the help of Zoomd, brands can successfully advertise on TikTok and reach a new audience.

The post A unique growth approach for TikTok appeared first on Business of Apps.

In this highly competitive world of mobile apps, success largely depends on having an engaged user base. As economic and privacy concerns linger, both consumers and marketers around the world are increasingly questioning their spending habits. Acquiring high-value customers has become an even greater challenge, especially for those working with restricted ad budgets and data limitations. As consumers tighten their purse strings, marketers must navigate complexities to maintain quality user acquisition at scale. But how can they overcome these hurdles? Let’s delve into just a few strategies to take your app to new heights.

Tapping into new channels

It’s essential to take advertising efforts beyond the oversaturated app stores and explore new sources to reach users. With the right approach and proper allocation of ad spend, there is a wide range of channels that can be valuable in acquiring new users.

Here are a few channels to explore:

• Over-the-top TV (OTT) – Promoting digital content, including video and music, that is streamed on TV, mobile, tablet, and desktop devices via apps or websites. By leveraging the data available through these services, you can create highly targeted campaigns that reach specific demographics with personalized messages.
• Connected TV (CTV) – The physical device a customer uses to watch and stream video content online, like the Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, Roku, or Chromecast. CTV offers a more personalized and interactive ad viewing experience for users than traditional broadcast television.
• Contextual display – Targeting users based on the relevant keywords, topics, or themes on a webpage, rather than the user’s past browsing behavior, to find users who are more likely to be interested.
• App Store Optimization (ASO) – Optimizing various elements of the app listing, such as the app title, description, keywords, screenshots, and reviews, to improve the app’s visibility to users who are searching in the app store.
• Influencer – Leveraging an influencer’s audience and credibility to increase awareness and drive installs or engagement for the app. This can be especially effective for apps targeting a specific niche or demographic that aligns with the influencer’s audience.

Want to begin expanding your reach through emerging traffic channels? Check out Perform[cb]’s recent webinar with Business of Apps to learn expert strategies and tips.

Reduce acquisition costs

In today’s economic climate, acquiring users can be a costly endeavor, with apps globally spending $80 billion on user acquisition last year. Marketers are facing the challenge of operating with smaller teams, lower budgets, and higher user expectations. However, there are ways to scale user acquisition without breaking the bank.

To improve your app’s organic ranking and visibility to potential users, combining App Store Optimization (ASO) with standard acquisition channels, such as blog, email, or social media, can be highly effective. In addition, promoting your app using different ad formats such as video, native, and display ads can help introduce it to a larger audience. These ad formats can often be less expensive than traditional search or display ads while being more effective at driving conversions. By focusing on both ASO and standard acquisition channels, you have a far better chance of acquiring qualified consumers and optimizing around an efficient cost-per-install (CPI). Discover how Perform[cb] implemented an intensive keyword research strategy that resulted in a #1 keyword ranking for a popular social casino gaming app, boosting its overall app store ranking by an impressive 72%.

To further decrease your user acquisition costs, it’s crucial to analyze performance data from your campaigns. This may involve identifying high-performing keywords, optimizing ad targeting, and testing different ad formats and messaging. By continually refining and optimizing your approach, you can drive high-quality user acquisition. Access the recording of Perform[cb]’s new webinar with Business of Apps to learn how to navigate and uncover impactful optimization opportunities to scale user acquisition, all while staying within budget constraints.

User retention

The user journey is far from over after installation – in fact, acquiring users is just the tip of the iceberg for an app marketer. Retaining these users is the real prize – with so many apps available, users can quickly lose interest and uninstall, or perhaps even switch to a competing app. In fact, 77% of users who install an app do not use it again after the first month.

To keep users coming back for more, we recommend marketers try testing the following strategies:

• Offer incentives: Providing incentives such as discounts, rewards, or exclusive content to users who engage with your app can encourage strong retention.
• Personalize the experience: Use data analytics to personalize the user experience by offering customized content and recommendations.
• Send push notifications: Push notifications keep users engaged with your app by providing updates, reminders, and notifications about new content or releases.
• Regularly update the app: Consistently updating your app with new features, content, and bug fixes can ensure a seamless, interactive user experience.
• Listen to user feedback: Make sure users know their opinions matter by responding to their feedback and optimizing around their suggestions.
• Offer social integration: Allow users to connect their social media accounts to your app so they can share their experiences and content with friends.
• Keep your app relevant: Stay up-to-date with trends, incorporate new technologies, and stay ahead of your competitors.

Jump the hurdles

With the right strategies in place, you can drive success in the highly competitive app market by overcoming the challenges of user acquisition. Don’t wait any longer to put these tactics into action and start acquiring the users your app deserves.

If you’re interested in these topics and more on how to effectively scale user acquisition in 2023, access Perform[cb]’s recent webinar with Business of Apps now!

Ready to jump in? Perform[cb]’s team of user acquisition experts are here to help. Let’s get started.

The post How to overcome 2023 user acquisition roadblocks appeared first on Business of Apps.

Being the most competitive GEO, Tier 1 countries have the reputation of being “mission impossible” when it comes to iGaming offers. However, such GEOs are really promising in terms of profit and aren’t that scary if you know the basics of working with them.

In the article, the RichAds team shares their insights on promoting iGaming offers in Tier 1 countries and offers a real case study from an experienced marketer.

Promoting offers in Tier 1: Tips to start with

Before even starting any campaign, it’s crucial to understand the basics of any successful launch, especially when it comes to Tier 1.

The more competitive a GEO is, the more effort you need to put into your campaign, but it will surely pay off with greater profit.

Choose the right bid

It’s vital for Tier 1 countries because if the bid is too low, you won’t get enough volume and the campaign won’t be spending at all.

Apply at least 5-10 creatives

Old but golden advice is to always test as many approaches as possible. As a rule of thumb, no less than five creatives are needed for a proper test. This way you’ll find your target audience and know how exactly you can attract it.

Divide mobile and desktop campaigns

The cost of mobile and desktop traffic actually differs, so it’s better not to mix the two traffic types within the same campaign. This way you’ll collect better data for optimization and get more quality traffic.

Start with whitelists

If you’re new to a specific GEO, it’s better to cut off potentially expensive or non-converting sources in advance.

Always set up tracking

Not just Google Analytics, but a tracker and a postback should be your permanent helpers. This way you’ll know all about your traffic and can analyze and optimize it properly to get higher profits.

Case study: iGaming in Canada with 23% ROI

The case was conducted by Nick Lenihan, a full-time affiliate marketer with 12+ years of experience together with the RichAds team.

• CPA network: Yellana
  
• Offer: Kazaboom
• Payout (FTD): $176
• Country: Canada
• Period: 27.02.2023 — 02.03.2023

He took an iGaming offer named Kazaboom from the Yellana network and chose Canada as one of the best GEOs for iGaming as he had run many offers there in the past six months with great success.

Campaign structure

Source: RichAds

His strategy was a mixed one, using both push ads and email marketing to promote his offer. Basically, he ran traffic to landing pages with a form on them, got the users to opt-in to his email list, and then I promoted offers to them via email marketing.

Choosing the creatives

The first step of his strategy was to attract clients via creatives linking to a  landing page. The next one was to get them to register with their emails.

To do this, he used a mix of push creatives, putting an emphasis on the bonuses available. He tried to avoid using the word “free” because that tends to attract freebie seekers and low-value players.

Example campaign in action

Source: RichAds

Nick then tested various pre-landing pages with interactive elements and without them. After a user plays on the pre-landing page, they are then invited to claim their bonus and get redirected to the landing page with the email form.

Creating an email list

The next step was to create email templates. Most affiliates that use email marketing send generic emails and simply rotate offers, but Nick does it a different way.

He wrote unique emails (both promotional and follow-up emails) for each offer. All in all, there were 5 emails for each offer.

Example email

Click on image for full size

Source: RichAds

Once the emails were created and added to an automated emailing and tracking system, they were sent out to subscribers.

The system reacts to the actions users are taking in the email. For instance, if a user registers at a casino but doesn’t make a deposit, they’ll receive a follow-up email asking them if they would still like to make a deposit.

Automated emails in actions

Source: RichAds

Setting up the campaigns

Nick decided to set up three push ad campaigns with the same targeting. One was a classic manual CPC campaign, and the other two were target CPA campaigns that were optimized automatically.

He chose mobile devices only. He also chose to keep the targeting fairly broad, only excluding a few of the older operating systems and lower population regions.

Targeting

Source: RichAds

He then saw that Android versions from 9 to 13 showed the best results and targeted them.

Optimizing the campaigns

As we’ve mentioned earlier, Nick had three campaigns running. Two campaigns were optimized by a target CPA algorithm, which means that the black- and whitelists were created for him automatically. The only difference between these two campaigns was that one was solely for new subscribers, aka users who subscribed to push notifications less than seven days ago. Finally, the third campaign was run manually.

Conversions

Click on image for full size

Source: RichAds

The outcomes of the campaigns were as follows:

• The manual CPC campaign had the best results, getting 72 conversions.
• The target CPA campaign for the usual subscriber base got 32 conversions.
• And the last one received 13 conversions. The target CPA campaign for new subscribers got 13 conversions.
  

Results

Source: RichAds

Nick’s campaigns brought in 117 registrations and 7 deposits. His total revenue was $1,232 with a ROI of 23%. The campaigns brought in $232 in profit.

Conclusion

It doesn’t matter whether your experience in affiliate marketing is extensive or you’ve just started working with such competitive GEOs as Tier 1, it’s crucial to create your own flow and have a checklist of tips.

Don’t hesitate and launch your iGaming campaign with RichAds to increase your results and become successful.

The post Tips for launching iGaming ad campaigns in Canada with 23% ROI appeared first on Business of Apps.

Over the past few years, the quantity and quality of data available to app developers has been severely reduced. Relying on ad platform targeting data is forcing app UA teams to “go broader”, which is driving down ROAS. App marketers are backed into a corner. Is there a way out?

There is!

You don’t need to rely on ad platform targeting for long-term success.

To discuss how, we got together an expert panel of app marketers to offer practical tips and tricks on the most effective ways to retain control against automation so you can take back ownership of your user acquisition targeting.

Learn trade secrets from app marketing experts from EastSide Game Studio, Appvertiser, Bango, and Upland.

Read on for key takeaways from each panelist on the one piece of guidance that mobile marketers can’t afford to overlook.

Dale Lawrence, Head of Client Solutions – Bango

Look into payment behavior – true payment behavior. Everything that we see internally at Bango Audiences is based on truth because we are a payment processor.

There have to be questions raised about platform-based interest targeting. I think people are very trusting of platforms like Facebook, expecting that when you’re trying to reach people who are interested in casual games, for example, they are actually the users that you’re targeting.

At Facebook, they’re very secretive about how their algorithms work. So, knowing if you are actually targeting the right audience requires a lot of trust.

I think sometimes bad data might be more harmful than no data.

If you are framing a lot of your development or your targeting on what platforms are telling you, you are making key decisions on misrepresentative and misleading data.

So, my key takeaway is to try and use as much truthful, proven data as possible rather than inferred or algorithmic data.

Hagop Hagopian – Founder & CEO – Appvertiser

Take control as much as you can.

Keep testing and exploring instead of relying on machines. But, if you go that route and rely on machines, have the right mechanism in place to feed the system the right data.

SKAD4.0 is going to be a powerful tool for tracking and optimizing your campaigns. With advanced schema and three postbacks to help you finetune your results, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions with ease.

So, keep testing, and gain control over your marketing initiatives.

Lindsay Anne Aamodt, Head of Marketing – Upland

Understand the entire funnel and its optimization. All aspects of the funnel need to be optimized in order to have healthy purchasers and revenue.

I would say, zoom out and do a final analysis. Figure out where the gaps are.

If we’re running a little blind on the campaign performance, then you can take back control of what you can see, which is your full funnel. If you see that there are larger gaps than there should be, then your bigger problem is funnel optimization, which is where growth, lifecycle, and product meet together. And that’s where teamwork and magic really happen.

Ahmed Mrad, Product Growth Analyst at EastSide Game Studio

Look at your game/app metrics more holistically. All disciplines are related.

The granular loss of signals will propel marketers and UA managers into thinking more globally than just about specific campaign performance.

Avoid clinging onto whatever probabilistic signals are coming from iOS and looking for elusive granularity. The future is anonymity, and we need to adapt our measuring methodologies to this new environment not double down on old measurement techniques.

Put UA at the center of your thinking but connect with other departments.

Really think about your product, whether it’s a game or any other type of product, as a lifecycle thing.

Watch the full webinar recording here.

The post How to take back control of your mobile app user acquisition targeting appeared first on Business of Apps.

By avoiding these pitfalls and adopting a strong marketing strategy, you can increase your app’s visibility and drive downloads, ultimately achieving your goals as an app owner.

Over 4 million apps are available to download across Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store combined. It’s almost impossible for a new app to cut through the clutter and capture users’ attention, making effective marketing crucial for any app owner. But in a market where users are accustomed to free apps and may be reluctant to spend more money after purchasing an expensive smartphone, getting users to pay for your app can be a tough sell.

This post was first published on appranking.com.

To make your app stand out and convince users that it’s worth paying for, your marketing strategy needs to be nothing short of amazing. After all, first impressions matter and a poorly executed marketing campaign could be the difference between success and failure. That’s why it’s important to learn from the mistakes of others, and in this article, we’re going to explore the top four mistakes that app marketers commonly make when launching paid ad campaigns.

By avoiding these pitfalls and adopting a strong marketing strategy, you can increase your app’s visibility and drive downloads, ultimately achieving your goals as an app owner.

Not thinking about paid advertising

In a market saturated with countless apps, relying solely on the quality of your app to attract organic users is no longer sufficient. Paid acquisition is becoming increasingly important, as even a small budget can help your app reach a larger audience.

However, some app owners make the mistake of neglecting paid advertising due to concerns over additional expenses after investing heavily in app development. But the truth is that paid advertising can guarantee visibility and reach, which can greatly improve your chances of success in reaching your target audience and driving sales conversions.

Ignoring paid advertising completely is a missed opportunity to gain traction and get your app in front of more people. So, consider including a well-planned paid advertising strategy in your overall marketing plan to maximize your app’s potential and increase your chances of success in the competitive app market.

Ignoring App Store Optimization

Mobile marketers often overlook the power of search as a tool to drive app downloads and sales. With a well-planned App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy, you can optimize your app’s visibility on the app store’s search results page, potentially pushing it to the top of the rankings.

ASO enables users to easily find your app by optimizing key elements like the name, title, keywords, description, subtitle, number of downloads, and ratings and reviews. By paying attention to these details, your app can climb higher up the app store rankings, increasing your visibility and download rate.

Not offering free options

Offering a free premium version of a paid app can be a valuable marketing strategy that can attract potential users. Providing a free premium version of your app allows potential users to try out your app and get a taste of its features and functionality. This can increase the likelihood of them downloading the full paid version.

Also, by offering a free premium version, you can increase the visibility and awareness of your brand among potential users. This can help build a loyal user base and increase word-of-mouth referrals.

When users enjoy the free premium version of your app, they may be more inclined to purchase the full paid version to unlock additional features or access more content. So, making the app free or free with in-app purchases for a limited period may be the easiest way to get to the top.

Marketing goes beyond just getting users to download your app

It’s important to remember that many paid apps rely on subscriptions or in-app purchases, which means retaining customers is crucial for long-term success.

Unfortunately, many marketers focus solely on increasing downloads and overlook the value of retaining existing customers. To keep users engaged and interested in your app over time, it’s essential to use a variety of techniques, such as personalized push notifications.

Push notifications are an effective way to remind users to interact with your app. By tailoring the notifications to the user’s location, preferences, and behavior within the app, you can increase the chances of re-engaging them with your app.

Launching and marketing a paid app can be challenging. But by avoiding common mistakes and implementing effective retention strategies, you can significantly increase your app’s chances of success.

The post The most common pitfalls in marketing paid apps appeared first on Business of Apps.

ASO works just like SEO

Keywords, indexation, and rankings – sounds just like how a search engine works, right? While it may be tempting to use the similarities between App Store Optimization and Search Engine Optimization to justify applying the same strategies, there are some notable differences.

SEO is primarily focused on optimizing web content for search engines, whereas ASO is focused on optimizing mobile apps for app stores. The different elements that make up ASO support the notion that there’s more to it than just keywords.

SEO primarily focuses on including keywords throughout the site’s content to help it rank higher, while ASO centers not only on keywords but other fields focused on driving downloads as well. This includes the app title, subtitle, descriptions, keyword bank (on iOS only), screenshots, and preview videos.

App Store Optimization isn’t for everyone

Every app can benefit from ASO, regardless of its size or current performance. The goal of ASO is to improve visibility and downloads, but also to maintain them over time. No matter how big an app is or how well it may be doing, there will always be room for improvement or new platform tools you can use to keep a competitive advantage.

Whether it be a seasonal event, a change in user behavior, or a new technology the app stores release, developers can find ways to continuously stand out and maintain their competitive edge by leveraging what is currently available. Is a holiday coming up? Give your screenshots a refresh. Is there a new feature users might be interested in? Highlight it in your metadata. Are In-App Events and Live Ops helping engagement and retention? Double down.

There are several ways an app, regardless of category or size, can constantly use ASO to stay on top. Moreover, ASO can help even the most niche apps reach their target audience and improve their discoverability with strategic long-tail keyword selection and thorough market research.

Every developer should have a well-executed ASO strategy in place to increase their chances of success in the app store, no matter the stage their app is at.

App marketing is just paid search

Some app developers and marketers believe that focusing solely on paid search is enough to drive app downloads and revenue. While paid search can be an effective way to increase app visibility and downloads, it is not enough to sustain long-term growth.

Paid search campaigns can be expensive, and they only provide short-term results as campaigns run for a limited time. If a developer does not have a strong organic strategy in place, they will not be able to sustain the temporary success seen from paid search efforts.

An effective app marketing strategy consists of combining organic ASO best practices with paid search. This complementary approach helps ensure you’re setting the foundation for long-term app store success while also giving your organic marketing a boost in visibility to reach even more of your audience.

App Store Optimization is identical for the App Store and Google Play Store

Another common misconception about ASO is that it works the same on the App Store and Google Play Store. Although there are similarities, the two app stores index metadata information differently, meaning you need a custom approach to each platform.

The App Store indexes:

• App title
• App subtitle
• Keyword bank

The Google Play Store indexes:

• App title
• Short description
• Full description

To get the best results you’ll want to adapt your keyword optimization strategy to ensure you are targeting the right terms in the right places. For example, both platforms share a 4000-character space for the description, making it tempting to recycle one for the other. However, your Play Store description, while important for conversions, should give keywords priority. Your App Store description, on the other hand, can also include some keywords but will focus more on readability and conversion.

ASO tools aren’t worth it

What if you could streamline your keyword selection, competitive analysis, and creative optimization even further? While you can go at it manually, endlessly scanning search results in search of inspiration or hints on how to optimize your listing, there’s a better way. ASO tools can be incredibly helpful in streamlining the optimization process, identifying relevant keywords, monitoring app performance, tracking competitors, and much more.

But it’s not just about selecting any ASO tool and starting off on your mobile marketing journey. Which one you choose is critical to ensuring your strategy is backed by data that accurately represents your market so you save time and resources. If you want to maximize your app’s potential, make sure the ASO tool you are using relies ONLY on mobile app search data and not other distribution channels or sources of traffic.

Some services may use web data to recommend keywords, competitors, and other strategies, but this doesn’t accurately represent how an App Store or Play Store user behaves. Focus your efforts on using an ASO tool that uses platform-specific data to get a clear picture of how you should perform your app store optimization.

App Store Optimization – Getting started

After going through some ASO basics and resolving misconceptions that you might have run into at some point, you can confidently start your app store optimization journey.

The main points to consider:

• ASO is fundamentally different from SEO
• All apps can benefit from ASO
• Paid search is not enough to build a successful long-term ASO strategy
• Your App Store and Google Play Store optimization strategy should be different
• An ASO tool can significantly help streamline different aspects of your ASO

Now that you’re an ASO myth-buster, what are you waiting for? Start optimizing your app listing the right way and get in touch with us today!

The post App Store Optimization myths appeared first on Business of Apps.

As we approach the second anniversary of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework, it’s clear the daily lives of marketers have changed dramatically. But outside of the iOS ecosystem, marketers need to prepare to adapt once again. On Android, the Privacy Sandbox is expected to be generally available by the end of 2023, aiming for a complete rollout by 2024. On the web, Google plans to phase out cookies in the second half of 2024 after originally announcing the withdrawal in 2019.

Luckily, marketers won’t be caught completely unaware. While the official retirement date of tracking cookies still lies ahead, several privacy-oriented browsers such as Firefox or Safari are already enforcing it, and Google is increasing the trial population of the Privacy Sandbox throughout 2023.

Still, preparing ahead of time is necessary for those who want to hit the ground running. Despite a year between announcement and enforcement, the implications from Apple’s ATT framework were so vast that most weren’t ready for the scope of changes that went live in Q2 2021. It took months to adjust metrics, systems, and particularly mindsets, as marketers were forced to break their addiction with user-level data.

Since Google is providing a transition period to help developers experiment with the different Privacy Sandbox tools and APIs ahead of time, there is no excuse for marketers to be caught out.

Here are four lessons learnt from iOS that Android marketers can take advantage of right now.

Assess dependencies

Some channels may be impacted more than others, depending on the amount of user-level data needed to function and the system upgrades required. There is little point in making hard and fast bets on which approach may suffer more – instead, a healthy mix can protect against an underperforming channel that may otherwise undercut overall performance.

Apple’s ATT rollout demonstrated how marketers who concentrated their budget on specific partners and channels were forced to rethink ad spend structure. Maintaining the flexibility to shift budgets always helps – especially in times of change.

Additionally, the activities that have already moved away from advertising IDs or third-party cookies could act as a contingency backup if things go awry. For instance, influencer marketing or Connected TV are less likely to be as affected. Operating across multiple channels allows marketers to be agile and respond effectively without upending overall performance or revenue.

Keeping an eye on the industry, assessing other players, and reaching out to potential partners can also provide further insights and support.

Be ready to adjust metrics and tech stack

On iOS, marketers had to move from a unified view, measuring all channels in a fairly comparable manner, to interpreting different sources for different cases.

Instead of click-through rates (CTR) and installs per 1000 impressions (IPM), marketers have become more aware of other top-of-the-funnel metrics such as hook rate, video completion, and other interactions that indicate performance and affect modelisation. This shift is visible in TikTok’s prioritisation of Instant Pages, which provide different metrics, data insights, and available user journeys that marketers may want to experiment with ahead of time.

Another scenario involves supplementing the existing stack with additional layers. Using AppStoreConnect data was never a very reliable option on iOS, but with higher uncertainty, it could offer a better understanding of future outcomes. The same is true for Android; now more than ever, Android marketers need a good understanding of how Google reports results in the Play Console, which might require onboarding new partners or building additional tools. An early start is recommended for any marketer planning to add Media Mix Modelling, as this typically takes time.

Now is also a great time to take stock of, and audit, existing stacks. There may be unplumbed potential in specific features and existing partners with new solutions to hidden problems. Considering historical partnerships and identifying who has been particularly adaptive and innovative in the past can prove fruitful for the future.

Having a clear overview of both existing stacks and developing technologies makes transitions easier. Keeping on track of progress keeps the financial burdens lighter and the changes to internal teams and external partners less resource-intensive.

Start evolving mindset and habits

Changes in attribution are forcing marketers to rethink how to act in their day-to-day, especially for those operating one channel only, focusing only on their own metric. This is particularly true with ATT. Going forwards, taking a more holistic, multi-faceted approach that compares and contrasts different methods across teams and colleagues will be critical.

Both on Android and on the web, it is very likely that marketing teams’ dynamics will change when handling hard data, metrics, and stack, just like they changed on iOS. This shift may be even more important for daily activities and processes: alignment within the team, with other stakeholders (such as non-marketing data analysts), product managers, and more. If that isn’t the case yet, making friends with data analysts will pay off when it comes to creating a smooth-running, knowledge-sharing culture that encourages positive outcomes.

How much first-party data is being used?

The pending restrictions on third-party data access and the introduction of clear consent place more emphasis on the potential of first-party data. This applies to networks, and how they utilise interactions on their side, as well as developers and publishers.

For instance, where the total reach of remarketing was reduced on iOS, more resources could be allocated to lifecycle activities (in-app messages, push, email etc.). This holds for product topics. More teams are implementing a “how did you hear about us” feature, to create an additional measurement metric. This can be done ahead of future changes, so teams allow time to learn, compare results, and implement informed decisions.

The bottom line

If ATT taught us anything, it’s to start preparing now so marketers can be better informed and equipped when the full scope of privacy changes take hold permanently. Rather than thinking only about metrics and tools, a more holistic approach will facilitate the adoption and implementation of transformational changes to come.

The post What Android marketers can learn from iOS apps to prepare for the privacy-driven future appeared first on Business of Apps.

Car rental services have become increasingly popular in recent years, providing individuals with a convenient and cost-effective way to access transportation for their daily needs or travel. This blog will help you in understanding how you can develop the best car rental apps.

Among the many car rental companies, car rental apps like Turo are one of the most renowned and respected brands in the industry. Before we dive deeper into how we can develop the best car rental apps, here are a few statistics you must consider:

• The car rental statistics say that the market in Asia is expected to gain an overall 348.9 million users by the year 2027.
• By the year 2026, the expected number of car rental users is 602.2 million.
• United States of America accounts for nearly 50% of the car rental industry every year.
• The overall number of users in the American market will rise to 108.50 million by the year 2027.

Car rental users

Source: Enterprise Apps Today

If you’re looking to develop a car rental app like Turo, you’re in the right place! In this article, we will explore the key steps and considerations to develop a successful car rental app, with a focus on the best car rental apps in the mobile app development market.

Why develop a car rental app?

Car rental apps like Turo have gained significant traction due to the convenience and flexibility they offer. They allow users to rent a car for a short or long-term period, providing access to a vehicle without the need for ownership or maintenance responsibilities.

With the rise of the sharing economy and the increasing popularity of travel and tourism, car rental apps like Turo have become a preferred choice for many individuals and businesses alike.

Moreover, the best car rental apps have opened up new opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses to enter the lucrative car rental market. By developing apps for rental cars, you can tap into this growing demand and create a profitable business model. However, it’s crucial to understand the complexities and considerations involved in developing the best car rental apps to ensure their success.

Turo app (1)

Click on image for full size

Source: Resourcifi

Key features of car rental apps

Before diving into the development process, it’s important to understand the key features that make up successful and best car rental apps. These features are crucial to providing an exceptional user experience and differentiating your app from the competition. Let’s take a look at the essential features to develop the best car rental apps:

Registration and user profiles: Users should be able to easily register and create a profile within the app. The registration process should be simple, and secure, and may include options for social media login or email signup. User profiles should store relevant information such as contact details, payment preferences, and rental history.

Vehicle listings and booking: The app should allow users to browse through a wide range of vehicles available for rent, with detailed information on each vehicle including its specifications, availability, and pricing.

Users should be able to search for vehicles based on location, type, and other filters. The booking process should be seamless and allow users to select a vehicle, specify the rental period, and make payments.

Payment integration: The best rental car apps should support secure and convenient payment options, including credit/debit cards, e-wallets, or other popular payment gateways. It’s essential to ensure that the payment process is secure and compliant with industry standards to protect user data and build trust.

Vehicle tracking: Integrating GPS tracking functionality into the app allows users to track the location of the rented vehicle, ensuring safety and security. It also helps the car rental company to monitor and manage the rented vehicles efficiently.

Rental policies and insurance: The best rental car apps should clearly outline the rental policies, including terms and conditions, cancellation policies, and insurance coverage. It’s crucial to provide transparent and comprehensive information to users to avoid any confusion or disputes later.

Reviews and ratings: Incorporating a review and rating system allows users to provide feedback on their rental experience and helps other users make informed decisions. It also helps car rental companies to maintain quality standards and improve their services based on customer feedback.

Customer support: Offering reliable customer support through the app, such as chat or call options, helps users resolve issues or seek assistance in real time. Prompt and efficient customer support is crucial to ensuring a positive user experience and building customer loyalty.

Admin panel: A robust and feature-rich admin panel is essential for managing and monitoring car rental operations, including vehicle inventory, bookings, payments, and user profiles. It provides car rental companies with the necessary tools to manage their business efficiently.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the key features of the best rental car apps, let’s dive into the steps involved in developing a car rental app like Turo.

Define your business model and target audience

The first step in developing the best rental car apps is to define your business model and identify your target audience. Understanding your target audience and their needs will help you tailor your app to meet their specific requirements.

You need to decide whether you want to focus on a particular niche or offer a general car rental service. Consider factors such as vehicle types, rental periods, pricing models, and target locations. Conduct market research to identify your competition and analyze its strengths and weaknesses to differentiate your app from the rest.

Choose the right platform

The next step is to choose the right platform for the best rental car apps. You can opt for either a native app or a cross-platform app, depending on your budget and requirements. Native apps are built specifically for a particular platform, such as iOS or Android, and provide a seamless user experience with optimized performance.

Cross-platform apps, on the other hand, are built using frameworks such as React Native or Flutter and can run on multiple platforms with a single codebase, saving development time and effort.

Design the user interface and user experience

The user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are critical aspects of any app development process, as they determine how users interact with your app. Design a visually appealing and intuitive UI that allows users to easily navigate through the app and complete tasks such as vehicle browsing, booking, and payments.

Ensure that the design is responsive and adapts to different screen sizes and devices. Pay attention to the UX, ensuring that the app is easy to use, efficient, and provides a seamless experience from start to finish.

Develop the frontend and backend

The front-end development involves building the user interface of the best rental car apps, including the screens, buttons, forms, and other visual elements. This is where users interact with your app, so it’s crucial to ensure that it’s visually appealing, user-friendly, and responsive.

The back-end development involves building the server-side logic that powers your app, including the database, APIs, and other server-side functionalities. This is the backbone of your app that handles user data, bookings, payments, and other functionalities. Choose the right technology stack for your app, such as Node.js, Ruby on Rails, or PHP, depending on your requirements and expertise.

Integrate payment gateways

Integrating secure and reliable payment gateways is a crucial step in developing a car rental app like Turo. Users should be able to make payments for their bookings securely and conveniently. Choose popular payment gateways such as Stripe, PayPal, or Braintree, and ensure that the payment process is secure, encrypted, and compliant with industry standards.

Implement vehicle tracking and booking management

Vehicle tracking is an essential feature of all the best rental car apps that allow users to track the location of their rented vehicle and ensures its safety and security. Implement GPS tracking functionality that provides real-time location updates of the rented vehicles to users and the car rental company.

Turo app (2)

Click on image for full size

Source: Resourcifi

Additionally, implement booking management functionality that allows users to view their booking history, modify bookings, and cancel bookings if needed.

Implement rental policies and insurance

Clearly outline the rental policies, terms and conditions, cancellation policies, and insurance coverage in your car rental app like Turo. Users should be aware of the rules and regulations associated with renting a vehicle and understand their responsibilities.

Implement a system that allows users to accept the rental policies and provide necessary documentation such as driving license and insurance information.

Incorporate reviews and ratings

Implement a review and rating system in the best rental car apps that allow users to provide feedback on their rental experience. Reviews and ratings help other users make informed decisions and build trust in your app.

Users should be able to leave reviews and ratings for the vehicles they rented, the overall experience, and the service provided by the car rental company. This will also help you gather valuable feedback to improve your app and services in the future.

Implement customer support and communication channels

Customer support is a crucial aspect of any service-oriented app, including the best rental car apps that implement customer support functionality that allows users to contact the car rental company for any queries, issues, or emergencies.

Provide multiple communication channels such as phone, email, chat, or in-app messaging for users to reach out to the customer support team for your best car rental apps. Ensure that the response time is prompt and the support team is well-trained to handle customer inquiries efficiently.

Ensure security and privacy

Security and privacy are paramount in any app that deals with user data, payments, and personal information. Implement industry-standard security measures such as SSL encryption, two-factor authentication, and data encryption to protect user data from unauthorized access or data breaches. Comply with privacy regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and other applicable laws to ensure user privacy and build trust in your app.

Perform rigorous testing

Thorough testing is crucial to ensure that your car rental app is bug-free, functions smoothly and provides a seamless user experience. Conduct extensive testing of all functionalities, including vehicle browsing, booking, payments, tracking, and customer support. Test the app on different devices, operating systems, and network conditions to identify and fix any issues before launching the best rental car apps to the public.

Launch and promote your app

Once your car rental app is thoroughly tested and refined, it’s time to launch it to the public. Publish your best rental car apps on the app stores such as Apple App Store and Google Play Store, and promote it through various marketing channels such as social media, content marketing, email marketing, and paid advertisements.

Utilize search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to optimize your app’s visibility in search results and attract organic traffic.

Gather feedback and iterate

After launching your app, gather feedback from users, analyze user behavior, and collect data on app performance. Utilize analytics tools to track user engagement, conversion rates, and other key metrics. Listen to user feedback and iterate on your app to continually improve the user experience, add new features, and address any issues or concerns.

Conclusion

In conclusion, developing a car rental app like Turo requires careful planning, thorough development, and continuous improvement. Define your business model, target audience, and unique selling proposition.

Choose the right platform, design an intuitive UI/UX, and implement essential features such as vehicle tracking, booking management, payment gateways, rental policies, and customer support.

Ensure security and privacy, perform rigorous testing and promote the best rental car apps effectively. Gather feedback, analyze data, and iterate on your apps for rental cars to provide the best car rental experience for your users. With proper execution and attention to detail, you can develop a successful car rental app that competes with the best rental car apps in the market.

The post How to develop the best car rental apps like Turo appeared first on Business of Apps.

Many media buyers consider dating an evergreen vertical. In fact, this makes sense as dating websites and apps are not like Christmas giveaways or quick trends that disappear faster than they become popular.

However, the Dating vertical does have its own kind of seasonality. It might not be as strongly pronounced as, for example, in the Travel niche — but our research shows there are some tendencies and changes depending on the season.

So what is the best time to run affiliate marketing Dating sites and apps, and does Saint Valentine’s or Christmas Eve matter for a dating app campaign’s profitability?

Dating apps statistics by season

First, we compared statistics of popular dating apps. We took Tinder, Badoo, Bumble (statistics from open sources), and SweetMeet (PropellerAds statistics) and tracked their monthly downloads worldwide — without taking GEO into account at this point.

Here is what we got:

Source: PropellerAds

4 Essential takeaways from the statistics

After comparing the peaking months for every app, we could make several important conclusions.

Consistent performance throughout the year

Dating apps are relatively stable throughout the whole year. There are activity bursts during particular months, but they don’t appear like sudden major traffic spikes.

This conclusion is also supported by our experienced media buyers. For example, Ettore Spinelli, our partner, and active PropellerAds Telegram Chat member, believes that ‘dating works all year long, with some sort of increase as winter/summer come closer. There is no completely dead season — you can promote Dating all year long.’

January and May are ahead of the game

The most active months for Dating apps are January and May — and it leads us to believe winter and summer can be unhesitatingly called the most ‘romantic’ seasons. While summer allows a bigger opportunity for outside dating activities, January is the after-party period implying the end of Christmas family reunions and a time when Saint Valentine’s Day is inevitably approaching.

The end of the year is not the most profitable

The fourth quarter shows a slight drop in installs. This is also explainable: the end of the year is a family holiday period, which people prefer spending with close ones instead of establishing new bonds.

We also checked this theory by comparing the latest PropellerAds campaign statistics for the SweetMeet app. It turned out that the conversion rate increased 1.16 times in January compared to December:

Source: PropellerAds

Saint Valentine’s Day is not the key to success

Although Dating products for affiliate marketing are supposed to be extremely converting in February thanks to Saint Valentine’s Day, in fact, they don’t demonstrate a big traffic spike. There are still more impressions, clicks, and actions from users a month before. Besides, here are the daily statistics for SweetMeet that prove 14 February is not the most profitable day when we are speaking about Dating apps:

Source: PropellerAds

Seasonality trends for different GEOs

What is also interesting is that the statistics in the affiliate marketing Dating niche do not change dramatically from GEO to GEO. For example, Australian and, say, users from Germany have similar behavior during the Christmas holidays and summer vacation periods.

To support this conclusion with numbers, we gathered the most profitable GEOs for the SweetMeet app. Although the conversion rates differ in summer and winter, the rankings by GEO still don’t change depending on the season:

Source: PropellerAds

Pro tip: Consider cultural differences between GEOs in your creatives and mind what is acceptable and appealing for the particular country you target. For example, images of people in revealing outfits will not be appropriate for most MENA region users. Besides, there is a range of widespread ideas about beauty standards in different GEOs, and you can test them in your creatives, too.

Dating formats and creatives: Does seasonality matter?

This part of our research also brought us a couple of insights. There are evergreen formats and creatives proven to show outstanding performance with Dating apps throughout the whole year — but some nuances exist, too.

Creatives

It doesn’t always seem reasonable to reinvent the wheel — after all, it is not Christmas decorations or autumn landscapes that attract users to Dating affiliate marketing creatives.

Here is an example of a highly-converting Push Notification creative that brings a considerable number of clicks irrespective of the season:

Source: PropellerAds

Pro tip: Such a standard but efficient creative may receive an even bigger potential with PropellerAds badges — small icons for Android Push Notifications. They are proven to bring higher CTRs compared to creatives without badges and at least 5 of 30+ available icons perfectly suit the Dating vertical. Besides, a Push Notification can also be improved with custom button texts.

Here is what the enhanced creative might look like (Notification Badge and custom button text added):

Source: PropellerAds

However, some media buyers are sure that creatives must match the season for the best performance. According to Ettore Spinelli, it is also important to understand what season it is in the country you are currently targeting — and prepare the images accordingly.

Pro tip: Also, make sure that your creatives are relevant for a particular GEO. For example, some GEOs generate a much bigger number of clicks with creatives containing blondes— and this often matters more than seasonal decorations.

Formats

According to Alexandra Dremina, a media buyer working with PropellerAds, affiliate marketing dating sites and apps work perfectly with Push Notifications and display formats like OnClick. Her experience shows it doesn’t depend on seasonality.

Final Words

According to our research, a Dating app offer is able to generate stable conversions throughout the year — with a higher chance of becoming a big deal in January and the beginning of summer. The usual flow for offers in this vertical is cost-per-install, and you might also consider finding less common but still existing cost-per-lead flow Dating offers.

With high-quality traffic from PropellerAds, you can make both options work. Try it out!

The post Dating apps seasonality: Does it matter for your affiliate marketing campaigns? appeared first on Business of Apps.

We worked with social networking app Chaty to acquire users for its iOS and Android apps in the US. Chaty is a unique app allowing users to connect with like-minded people in the area. The goal is for users to share their thoughts, participate in meaningful conversations, and meet new friends.

Results at a glance

• x1.5 D7 ROAS (cohort) vs. KPI
• 100% D7 ROAS by week 6
• x4.3 Campaign scaling in 12 weeks

Campaign goals

The primary campaign goal was to acquire users who would purchase the in-app currency to access premium app features. In this case, D7 ROAS was a primary KPI along with eCPI.

This post was first published on persona.ly.

Priding itself on being completely ad-free, Chaty’s monetization model is based on in-app purchases. It allows Chaty to maintain the quality of users and bring those with high intent to engage in genuine conversations with other users.

The process

When we started promoting Chaty, our approaches to UA for iOS and Android were principally different.

On iOS: For post-iOS 14.5 / SKAN campaigns, we applied Contextual Distance targeting. Using machine learning capabilities, our in-house DSP targets placements based on the contextual distance between the promoted bundle and the placement. NLP (Natural Language Processing) algorithm utilization allows us to pick the placements based on the store description rather than a category. Taking into consideration that the app store categories can be tweaked to improve the ASO, the ML algorithm creates a vector representation of the app description for each bundle and measures the contextual distance between the apps. This allows us to target the placements in a very granular way.

On Android: Following the initial campaign exploration, once enough attributed data had been gathered to safely predict which audience segments would engage with the app and start making purchases, we built the lookalike audience of Chaty’s paying customers. From there, we began to gradually expand the audience.

Campaign results

Campaign scaling and D7 ROAS KPI

When we started running campaigns with Chaty, our machine learning algorithm focused on finding the most prominent audience that would download the app.

By week 4, our proprietary programmatic bidder established an ML model and identified which audience segments would convert by making an in-app purchase (and those that wouldn’t convert). This allowed us to outperform the D7 ROAS KPI and scale the campaign almost 3 times.

Campaign scaling and ROAS D7

Click on image for full size

Source: Persona.ly

Once the ML model matured, it was able to predict the users who would make the first in-app purchase and continue making the purchases with high probability. With that data, we managed to scale the campaign by x4.3 while topping the KPI by a significant margin.

Contextual bandits for creative optimization

Thanks to the latest addition to the bidder infrastructure – contextual bandits for creative optimization – we reached another level of campaign optimization that allowed us to outperform the KPI and scale the campaign simultaneously. These contextual bandits allow for the most relevant audience-specific creatives to be displayed to different audiences based on the audience context.

The contextual bandits creatives optimization algorithm derives from the MAB (multi-armed bandit) algorithm where, contrary to A/B testing, multiple creatives are being tested at the same time. In MAB, the creative “champion” is getting the highest share of impressions, while the less successful creatives – “challengers” – are still being displayed and tested on a significantly smaller scale.

With contextual bandits, using reinforcement learning where both positive and negative interactions are considered, the algorithm assesses multiple contextual data points (predicted gender, predicted age, placement) to display the relevant creatives to the relevant audiences – even for iOS campaigns.

Context to creatives

Click on image for full size

Source: Persona.ly

“I highly recommend collaborating with Persona.ly DSP. Their approach is goal-oriented and focused on achieving ROAS/KPI targets. We have witnessed remarkable outcomes in just a few weeks of working with them. Their commitment to understanding the product and maximizing its potential is unparalleled. Moreover, their extensive experience and helpful nature make them an excellent partner.”

Alina Dobrzinsky, Managing Director at Spyke Media GmbH (marketing agency of Chaty)

About Chaty

Chaty is a fun and lite way to get in touch with interesting people, share thoughts and enter meaningful conversations. Chaty is a convenient and simple messenger that offers direct connections to find and stay in touch with new people around you. It encourages users to talk about sports, music or their favorite series and get to know real people.

“We are excited to work with a new app vertical. The campaign’s success proves the versatility of our machine-learning algorithm. We have found synergy with the Chaty team from the start. They are extremely thorough and clear on objectives, which helps us adapt our strategy and achieve great results.”

Daniela Purinson, Business Development Manager at Persona.ly

The post Unleashing the power of contextual bandits: Chaty case study appeared first on Business of Apps.

When building your Apple Search Ads (ASA) campaigns, keyword insights should be an essential part of your winning bid strategy. When it comes to discovering potential keywords to target in your ASA campaigns, ASO data is instrumental, whether they drive good traffic on the App Store, evaluate what users expect to find with their queries, identify trends and opportunities to improve your campaign creatives and app product page metadata, etc. Selecting and bidding successfully on the right keywords will, therefore, win you impressions for your Apple Search Ads campaigns.

In this article, we will discuss how ASO keyword insights can inform and improve your Apple Search Ads campaigns.

Find and select keywords for Apple Search Ads

Conducting proper keyword research is the key to a successful campaign in Apple Search Ads. Important, high-volume keywords but also highly relevant long-tail keywords will allow you to achieve scale and performance. To begin with, let us look at a few ways can try finding keywords to bid on:

• Brainstorming all the possible search terms is a good starting point as well as accepting the Search Ads Console suggestions.
• You can also dig into your app metadata and category insights to get keyword recommendations.
• New keywords can also come from your discovery campaigns after you have tested them and proved their value.

Deep-dive into keyword research with insights from ASO tool

With the help of additional tools, you can really professionalize your keyword research. For instance, using an ASO tool like AppTweak, UA managers can uncover relevant keywords that are underperforming organically and identify popular keywords that drive organic downloads for competitors. These are all very interesting keywords to target with Apple Search Ads campaigns.

For example, at AppTweak, we found that the travel-booking app Booking.com doesn’t rank in the top 10 for highly relevant keywords such as “last minute hotel,” “resort,” and “vacation rentals.” Booking.com could actually increase exposure for these keywords by including them in their ASA campaigns.

Booking.com keywords

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

Secondly, an ASO tool can also help you evaluate a handful of metrics associated with the keyword like:

• Search volume: Helps you analyze how popular the keyword is in terms of searches on the app stores.
• Competitiveness: How many apps are actively targeting that keyword organically? From the perspective of Apple Search Ads, consider it as if it’s a keyword that’s being heavily bid on.
• Relevancy: AppTweak has a unique KPI called the relevancy score (a metric between 0-100) that indicates how relevant a keyword is to an app. This helps confirm if an app and keyword are semantically close to each other. For example, the keywords “run” and “running” would be different in the eyes of the app stores than in our eyes. While the app stores would view “run” in terms of mobile games like Minion Rush, Temple Run, etc., “running” is about a physical outdoor activity, so, it might not be interesting for Minion Rush to run ads on “running” as Apple might not consider this app very relevant to the keyword.

Utilize search terms from user intent

The way users search in the App Store can be very different from how people search on the web or how people would talk about a product or service (highlighted by the example of “run” and “running” in the previous paragraph). Therefore, it is important to put yourself in the mind of the user and think about how they transform intent into search behavior on the App Store. To find those highly relevant keywords with high user intent, consider the following two options:

• App user reviews are a great way to discover a few keywords that users use often and identify motivators. Mining competitors’ reviews can also give you valuable insights into relevant keywords that might be interesting to bid on.
• Organic search results is another place to analyze user intent. Top-ranked apps are meant to be most relevant for the query, so analyzing how they relate to a specific keyword can tell you a lot about user intent.

Tips to inform your Search Ads bids with keyword insights

Consider the following tips to increase the effectiveness of your Search Ads campaign with keyword optimization:

• Structuring your account by keyword themes (brand, generic, competitor, and discovery campaigns) helps you measure results and monitor performance, optimize your campaign, and set up to scale for long-term growth.
• Using negative keywords (for example, search terms with poor performance, names of apps you do not want to compete with, words you do not want your app to be associated with, etc.) in your Search Ads campaign will ensure that your ads will not display when users search certain terms and be added on the campaign or ad group levels.
• While monitoring keyword performance, you may identify keywords that do not drive high efficiency. However, you don’t always need to remove bad-performing keywords. Instead, you can decrease bids on the poor-performing ones and increase bids on the better-performing keywords.

Lower bid prices with a strong ASO performance

Apple will consider your metadata to determine whether or not a keyword you bid on is relevant to your app. The more relevant a keyword is to your app, the higher your chances your app will win the bid auction, at a lower bid. This means that a well-ASO-optimized app page that contains highly relevant keywords will aid in lowering your bids and the cost of your campaign.

Here is where you should leverage the synergy between App Store Optimization (ASO) and Apple Search Ads (ASA). As explained, a strong ASO strategy is expected to have a positive impact on your Apple Search Ads performance. On the other hand, you can also use the learnings from your ASA campaigns to optimize your app page and strengthen your ASO performance even further. Apple Search Ads can give quick insights into which keywords have a high conversion rate. If a keyword has a high conversion rate, it is a good indicator that the keyword is very relevant to the user’s search intent. If you add these high-converting keywords to your app’s metadata, you will likely increase your organic keyword rankings and visibility. This improved ASO performance, in turn, will have an impact on your ASA campaign performance.

The post Optimize Apple Search Ads campaigns with ASO keyword insights appeared first on Business of Apps.

Creating a mobile app that delivers a delightful experience is only half the battle won. For any app to be considered successful, it needs downloads, and that’s where app marketing comes in.

There are many ways to market an app and drive downloads. This is both a boon and a bane. The availability of options can be confusing. However, for those who understand app marketing, the same availability of options can act as a competitive advantage. If you fall in the first category and are confused about the best ways to market your mobile app, this article is for you.

In the upcoming sections, we will discuss two of the most commonly used tactics to market mobile apps- incentive and non-incentive campaigns. This article will also provide you with all the information you need to employ them to your advantage and attract genuine users to your app. Let’s jump right into it.

Understanding incentive ads vs non-incentive ads

If you have done even a little research on app advertisements, you must have come across the term incentive ads. These, and non-incentive ads, are two of the most common ways to advertise apps to drive more downloads. Let us look at what both terms mean.

Incentive ad campaigns

As the name suggests, incentive ad campaigns provide users with an incentive when they take a predefined action. With incentive ad campaigns, the cost per install or CPI is remarkably low. However, the same incentives that drive a low CPI are also responsible for inaccurately inflated install numbers that may diminish after a few days. This usually happens because many users download the app (or perform the desired actions) solely to get rewarded. Once they have received the rewards, they may uninstall the application from their device.

Usually, the user lifetime value is low in incentive campaigns. However, there are exceptional cases where some users that learn about the app because of the incentive ad campaign may download it and find it useful or engaging enough to continue using it.

Non-incentive ad campaigns

Unlike their incentivized counterparts, non-incentivized campaigns don’t reward users for downloads or other in-app actions. These campaigns depend heavily on the relevance of the app and the ads marketing it to the users. If the users find the digital ads interesting and the app relevant/useful, they hit download.

Without the incentives, the CPI for these ads is much higher than incentivized ad campaigns. However, since there are no incentives involved, a large percentage of the users that download the app because of the campaign may continue using it as they are genuinely interested in it.

When are incentive ads better than non-incentive ads?

By now, it must be apparent that both types of ad formats offer their pros and cons. But, is one better than the other? How do you choose one?

Fortunately, you don’t have to choose. Smart marketers can employ both types of campaigns to develop a holistic ad campaign strategy that delivers results in the short and the long term. Reward-based ads can be used close to the launch of your application, enabling you to drive those initial downloads. Since the CPI of an incentive ads campaign is low, you can get a lot of downloads for a relatively low investment.

Once your app receives massive installs, you can start using a non-incentive ads campaign as a way to ‘retarget’ ideal users and retain them. If they have claimed the reward offered in the initial campaign and uninstalled your app, a low-volume non-incentive ads campaign may be able to convince them to reinstall your app.

Alternatively, you can employ a cost-per-engagement (CPE) campaign that rewards users for specific actions that are taken after an app has been downloaded. For instance, for an iGaming app, such an action can be completing the tutorial of the game. However, the success of these strategies depends heavily on the app’s ability to drive user interest. If the users download an app to get a reward and then don’t find the app engaging enough, there is little hope to retain them.

Pros and cons of incentive ad campaigns

Here are some pros and cons associated with reward-based ad campaigns:

Pros of incentive campaigns

• Reward-based ad campaigns can deliver massive results in a short period of time. This is highly advantageous in newly launched applications that are trying to break into competitive markets.
• Rewards can incentivize even the most difficult users to give the app a chance and download it once.
• Engagement-based rewards can be incredibly compelling. This is because the users have to invest their time (besides installing the app) to get the rewards. This investment can further encourage them to continue using the app in the hopes of getting a return for their investment in time.
• If an incentive ads campaign reaches a user that may find your app relevant, the reward may act as a way to build goodwill. This goodwill may inspire loyalty and prevent the user from switching to a competitor’s app later.

Cons of incentive campaigns

• The relevance of the users downloading the app is questionable with reward-based campaigns. Many users that may have no real benefit from using your app may download it solely for the sake of getting the reward and then uninstall it later.
• If the rewards are not properly thought through, it may result in a failed campaign or worse, a negative ROI. If, for instance, the reward offered for installing the app is not lucrative enough, then your campaign may not be able to attract enough users. On the other hand, if the reward is costing your business a lot of money, making a positive ROI from your campaign may become challenging. The worst part is, there is no dependable way to verify the expected impact of the reward you are planning to offer before actually running the ad campaign.
• Another disadvantage associated with reward-based ad campaigns is the likelihood of fraud. The incentives may motivate scammers and fraudsters to download your app and manipulate the results of your ad campaign. How are incentive ad campaigns manipulated? Let’s find out.

How are incentive campaigns manipulated?

While incentive campaigns are a good way to attract new users, the fraudulent affiliates use them as a medium to fool advertisers. They use mediums like messaging platforms like Telegram and Whatsapp to reach users at a larger scale. This keeps the advertiser in the dark as they think they are getting high traffic.

The affiliates use incent campaigns to manipulate the app traffic. Here are a few ways they keep advertisers in the dark:

Inflated install numbers

The affiliates use incentive ad campaigns to attract users into installing the app in exchange for a reward. This way the affiliates bring a high number of installs and make them believe their ad campaigns are performing well. However, the users installing the app are interested in the reward and they often uninstall the app once they are able to avail the reward.

As the users uninstall the app after availing of the incentive, this results in a high uninstall rate and a low lifetime value. In the end, the advertisers end up wasting the ad budget on users which doesn’t bring a significant impact on the ROI.

Faking app events

To attract users, the fraudulent affiliates post offers on messaging platforms with incorrect messaging. They lure the customers using shiny offers and ensure they complete the action to meet the KPIs. For example, “Sign up and get Rs. 30 instant cashback.” These offers often encourage the users to complete an event like signup, register, etc.

By manipulating the users to sign up, affiliates claim their payout on events and the advertisers end up with low-quality users.

Real case

We identified incentive campaigns running for one of the largest private-sector banks in India. These campaigns had misleading messaging with the intention of luring users into installing the app in exchange for cashback. Users were additionally asked to do a 1Re transaction to meet the publisher’s KPI.

Example of a fraudulent incentive ad campaign

Click on image for full size

Source: mFilterIt

Key takeaways

Incentive ads present a superb advertising opportunity when they are used correctly. App creators must remember that at the end of the day, it is the quality of their app, along with its ability to intrigue and delight users, that decides its success. No matter which type of advertising you use, how well-targeted your ads are, or how engaging your creatives are, they cannot help you in the long run if your app experience is subpar.

With that said, if you objectively think your app will delight the users you are targeting, try using a combination of incentive and non-incentive ads to market it. Incentive ads will allow you to garner initial interest in your app quickly and non-incentive ads can be used to fuel long-term organic growth.

In order to leverage the maximum benefit of incentive ads, app marketers need an advanced media validation tool to evaluate the quality of the app traffic and eliminate the possibilities of fraud. By validating the ad traffic, the advertisers will have the transparency to invest in the ad campaigns that bring greater ROI and collaborate with affiliates that are trustworthy.

App marketers! Take the power in your hand and make the best opportunity out of incentive and non-incentive ad campaigns by validating the media quality with mFilterIt.

The post The rewards and risks of incentive ads in app marketing appeared first on Business of Apps.

You’ll find “increase user retention” on every app’s marketing plan, and there’s a good reason for that. While launch plans often focus on the number of downloads, for a sustainable business you need those users to stick around. A low (or falling) user retention rate is an early warning sign that something has to change if you’re to make it in the long term. Keeping the retention rate high it’s not easy, especially because 1/3 of users churn after Day 1 on average.

So how do you figure out your retention rate, and more importantly, improve it? Here’s our five-step plan to help you get started.

Increasing mobile app user retention – your five-step plan

Review your mobile app data

Set up your KPIs and measure your key metrics from day one. It’s fundamental to identify key drop-off points so you can fix your UI/UX accordingly.  The formula for calculating your app retention rate is simple:

App retention = number of [time period] active users / number of [time period] installs

30-day retention is a good place to start. From there, you can compare other time periods (say, 1 day and 7 days after installation), and begin to work out when users typically begin to drop off.

Inevitably, you will experience customer churn, and your retention curve will look like a version of this:

Source: CleverTap

While the worst case scenario is that your retained users dwindle down to zero, a more common outcome is that a majority will stop using it, while a smaller portion will continue for the long term. The sooner you can stop that line from falling and see it stabilise along the X-axis, the better.

An effective product analytics tool will help you find that crucial moment, so you can examine what behaviour or event triggered these users to stick around – it’s been dubbed the “Aha moment”, because it’s the moment that users suddenly realise the value of your app. From there, you can change your UI/UX to bring that moment forward, increasing user retention as a result.

Andrew Chen comments “The best way to bend the retention curve is to target the first few days of usage, and in particular the first visit. That way, users set themselves up for success”. It’s a strategy Yodel Mobile has often adopted with clients seeing a large drop-off between day 1 and 7 of use. Uncover the value of your app as early as possible, and you stand the best possible chance of retaining your users.

Understand your users

Cohort analysis (simply looking at a group of people over time) takes you deeper into understanding your user retention.  It’s a chance to formally analyse the number of users still active over a given period of time, and map their behaviour alongside key events along the way.

Your cohorts will share a common feature, whether that’s the time at which they started using your app (acquisition-based cohort analysis) or an action taken, such as responding to a Push Notification (behaviour-based cohort analysis).

By understanding the frequency of returning users and the way they engage with specific features, you can begin to see what’s working and what’s not, and then tweak your UI/UX in line with those insights.

Optimise your onboarding

Now it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty. If you want your users to fall in love with your app as quickly as possible, your onboarding process needs to indicate why your app is a must-have.  It’s been reported that the average user has 40 apps on their phone but spends almost 90% of their time on just 18 of them. You need to be one of those 18.

There are a variety of ways you can educate your users. In the below example,  Evernote favours a functional approach, taking users through a number of screens to show them how to use the app. Alternatively, you can focus on communicating your value proposition by clearly signposting the benefits of your app. Finally, some apps suit the more intuitive approach of Progressive onboarding, where users are left to learn about the app as they go – educational apps such as Duolingo commonly use this approach.

Functional onboarding

Source: Yodel Mobile

While screens are the most common way of onboarding users, it might also be worth considering video, particularly if you’re looking to forge a deeper connection with your user. Mental health app Headspace favours this approach, and it works particularly well because a lot of the app itself is multimedia-based so it’s a format users are comfortable with.

Use design to your advantage

It stands to reason that the design of your app is going to have a significant impact on your user retention rate. It starts with the basics, ensuring that your product is bug-free and loads quickly.

From here, UX must-haves are commonly regarded as:

• Keeping it clear and clutter-free
• Providing intuitive navigation
• Following design convention guidelines
• Making tap targets manageable
• Including action confirmations
• Prioritising readability
• Making it accessible

And the last step in your design decisions? Making it look good.  Colours should be contrasting, so users can easily see the various elements of your design. And those colours should be in keeping

Build loyalty into the app

Getting your users to stick around for the long haul shouldn’t be an afterthought, but a consideration baked into the initial build.

The aim is to encourage users to open the app regularly, and could take the form of rewards or in-app tokens to unlock new features, earned at key moments in the user journey.

Starbucks runs a loyalty program that rewards users with free coffee when they use the app regularly, while loyalty card Nectar invites users to “scratch to win”, taking the well-loved scratchcard experience online. Octopus Energy uses a virtual roulette wheel to achieve the same thing. This kind of gamification might have started with gaming apps, but it’s now a common approach in everything from eCommerce to health apps.

The ultimate in loyalty is a recommendation, and peer recommendations hold a lot of weight in today’s app-saturated world. According to Forbes, 81% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. By adding visible and easy-to-use social share buttons, users will be able to tell their friends and followers about your app, effectively doing your marketing for you.

with your brand and value proposition – your B2B networking app may not be the place to roll out that bubblegum pink logo… Finally, your in-app copy should also reflect your brand, and be consistent across all customer touch points.

Summary

The obvious question this all leads to is “What constitutes a good user retention rate?”, and as this graph shows, it very much depends on the vertical in question.

Retention rate on day 30 of mobile app installs worldwide in 3rd quarter 2022, by category

Source: Statista

While there’s not been an app built yet that has achieved 100% user retention, what success looks like to you will depend on what you’re offering and the market you’re targeting. After all, a finance app targeting those over 60 is unlikely to match the engagement of a Gen Z- focused social app.

Here’s the truth: the battle to increase user retention is never truly over – there are always improvements to be made and new obstacles to overcome. It’s by regularly reviewing the data available that you can stay on top of any changes and make incremental improvements over time.

At Yodel Mobile, we are constantly working to increase user retention with our holistic approach that creates a unique plan for each individual app to help maximise the app’s performance. Our focus on the entire lifecycle of the app marketing campaign not only increases user retention rates but user acquisition and monetization as well. If you would like to learn how Yodel Mobile can help with any of your app marketing needs, contact us today for a free app review.

And who knows – maybe we can help you become the first app ever to hit that mystical 100% user retention rate!

The post Your five-step plan to increasing mobile app user retention through UI/UX changes appeared first on Business of Apps.

Testing the accessibility of interfaces is crucial for ensuring that everyone can use and access digital products and services. That’s why we at JetRuby pay close attention to the accessibility of our interfaces. This article is dedicated to the tools the JetRuby developers use to ensure a comfortable user experience when creating Android apps.

The importance of accessibility

Accessibility of interfaces refers to the design and development of digital products and services that are usable and accessible by people with disabilities. These disabilities may include physical, visual, auditory, or cognitive impairments. Ensuring that digital products and services are accessible to everyone is crucial in creating an inclusive society where everyone can participate and contribute equally.

Accessibility in interfaces is particularly important because the digital world has become increasingly essential in our daily lives. Many tasks that were traditionally performed in person can now be done online, such as shopping, banking, and socializing. This means that people with disabilities who may have difficulty with physical access have more opportunities to engage in these activities but only if the interfaces are designed with accessibility in mind.

Accessibility testing should be integrated into the design and development process to identify potential barriers and ensure that digital products and services are usable by the widest possible range of people. Some common accessibility features include keyboard navigation, closed captions or transcripts for audio and video content, high contrast or adjustable font sizes, and screen readers for visually impaired users.

The importance of accessibility in interfaces cannot be overstated. The World Health Organization estimates that there are over one billion people with disabilities worldwide, with 15% of the global population being affected by some form of disability.

By ensuring that digital products and services are accessible to people with disabilities, developers can open up their products to a new market of users who were previously unable to access them. This can help to increase the overall reach and impact of digital products and services, as well as create more opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in society.

Another key benefit of accessible interfaces is that they can help to avoid legal consequences. In many countries, including the United States and the European Union, accessibility is required by law. Failure to comply with accessibility regulations can result in legal action, including fines and lawsuits.

Those are just a few examples of why accessibility testing is crucial. So let us proceed with a more in-depth review of the tools we use at JetRuby to ensure accessibility while creating Android applications in particular.

Android accessibility scanner

Google has developed a tool to make mobile application interfaces for Android OS more accessible to users with disabilities. It’s called Accessibility Scanner, and it scans the graphical user interface and displays a description of the accessibility issues found. It also gives recommendations for fixing them. For instance, to make controls bigger or add text labels on them, increase image contrast, change a font, etc. All of that will improve the usability and accessibility of the interface.

What we test for

• Content shortcuts
• Touch targets
• Clickable elements
• Text and image contrast

You can use Accessibility Scanner on smartphones and tablets running Android 6.0 or above. It’s also up for download in Google Play.

How it works

The Accessibility Scanner application does not require special technical skills for its use and, among other things, is recommended for ordinary people who can file a report on the problematic interface and send it to the developer. Our developers, though, usually use this tool themselves, since the results of its tests may look unintelligible to a person who’s not acquainted with the app development process.

From a technical point of view, Accessibility Scanner is a so-called accessibility service or an application that runs in the background and interacts with the Android OS accessibility API in order to provide additional functionality for users with disabilities.

Having opened the interface that needs to be tested, the scanner will sequentially describe all the issues found and offer options for fixing them. It’s also possible to display all found issues in a single list and send it as a report by email.

The Accessibility Scanner is a great tool for basic testing, but it has a significant drawback. The scanner only detects obvious issues, like text size, touch target size, missing image shortcuts, and so on. In more complex cases, it’s not that effective. That’s why it can’t compete with real manual testing.

TalkBack

TalkBack is Android’s built-in screen reader. When TalkBack is on, users can interact with their Android-powered device without seeing the screen. Users with visual impairments might rely on TalkBack when using our applications, so it’s important to ensure there aren’t any issues.

How it works

People with vision impairments use their fingers to “explore” the interface, and when they come across any element that can be acted on, or any block of text, TalkBack helps. For text (including things like time and notifications) the screen reader service tells exactly what’s written on the screen. What concerns clickable elements, TalkBack explains what button it is, and lets people act with a double tap or move to the next element without triggering anything. It’s pretty well thought out, making it possible for people with visual impairments to use audible prompts and basically do anything on their smartphone.

What we test for

• Are all the elements properly labeled allowing TalkBack to read them to the user?
• Are notifications or popup windows being read to the user?
• Can users swipe through a page to navigate and explore every element on the page?
• Are users able to use the double-tap feature to randomly explore the application or pick specific elements to explore?

Testing the accessibility of an app explains how easy it is to navigate, access, and comprehend its content.

Keeping Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in mind, we perform manual and automated Accessibility testing. Thus, in order to avoid pitfalls, we usually incorporate Accessibility testing in the early stages of the Software Development Life Cycle.

Hopefully, you found this article helpful! If you’re interested in learning more design and development tips and insights check out the JetRuby blog. We’ve got articles, tutorials, and resources to help you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and techniques.

The post Making apps more inclusive: Android accessibility testing appeared first on Business of Apps.

Over 92% of Internet users access the web using their mobile devices. Clearly, there is a lot of incentive for advertisers to advertise on mobile devices. Advertisers can reach a large, targeted audience on mobile devices. The advertising messaging can be personalised to an incredible level, and results can be tracked closely to drive informed segmentation and optimisation decisions.

However, the same mobile ads that marketers can use to their advantage are also used by fraudsters and scammers to commit mobile ad fraud. Advertisers are expected to spend $326 billion on mobile advertising in 2023. This presents a lucrative opportunity for fraudsters to make a quick buck. While mobile ad fraud is a type of cybercrime, unfortunately, most businesses that use mobile advertising don’t employ protection against these rising threats of mobile ad fraud.

If you are one such marketer, feeling out of depth and struggling with preventing mobile ad fraud from skewing your advertising metrics and wasting your ad budgets, this article is for you. In the subsequent sections, we will discuss everything you need to know to protect yourself against mobile ad fraud. Let’s begin with the basics.

What is mobile ad fraud?

Fraudsters use unethical activities and tactics to fraudulently make money by stealing from advertising budgets. Any activities to achieve this objective fall under the umbrella of mobile ad fraud. There are a number of different parties or personas that stand to gain from committing ad fraud. Some of the most common ones are:

• Independent fraudsters or groups of fraudsters that want to make quick money by duping advertisers.
• Unethical advertising publishers that want to make money using fake impressions on ads on their websites or platforms.
• Competitors that conduct fraud with the objective of gaining an advantage by wasting their competitors’ ad budgets.

Unfortunately, ad fraud is a problem that plagues consumers and advertisers across almost every industry vertical. It is also worth noting that successfully committing mobile ad fraud requires expert technical knowledge and access to a large number of resources. This means that a lot of fraudsters are educated people backed by handsome budgets.

Fraudsters employ a variety of techniques, both simple and sophisticated, to generate fake impressions, clicks, app installs, and even leads to scam advertisers. Let’s look at some of the most common forms of ad fraud prevalent today.

Techniques used to commit mobile ad fraud

In order to protect your app against mobile ad fraud, you must first understand how fraud is committed. Here’s a brief overview of some of the most commonly used techniques to commit mobile ad fraud:

Click spamming

Click spamming is a relatively simple technique to commit mobile ad fraud. As the name suggests, with click spamming, the fraudsters generate a large number of clicks in the hopes of getting credit. The technique, also called click flooding, depends on overwhelming a measurement system with the objective of letting one of the clicks slip through.

Click spamming is done both manually and with the use of sophisticated bots. These bad bots are designed to perform repetitive actions in a manner that mimics human activity. On the other hand, fraudsters in regions where labour is cheap hire hundreds of people to click on ads. Such operations are commonly known as click farms.

Click spamming is used to hijack the last click attribution before a conversion is made. By hijacking the last-click attribution, the fraudsters keep the advertisers in the dark and steal their marketing budgets. Usually in this process, the fraudsters fire a thousand clicks in a short span of time to fool the MMPs to misattribute the click. This further results in the payout to fraudsters and the advertisers end up with skewed data.

Click injections

Click injection is a slightly more complex tactic to commit fraud. Fraudsters use a malware-loaded app that “listens” for Android download broadcasts that are sent out when a user downloads an Android app. And when an install happens, the fraudsters ‘inject’ a click right before the installation is completed. This click allows the fraudsters to take credit for the download and receive the subsequent payout.

Ad stacking

As the name suggests, this fraudulent activity scams advertisers by stacking ads on top of one another. This type of fraud is usually conducted by fraudulent publishers who want to make extra money from ad placements on their websites.

From the user’s perspective, only one ad is visible. However, the advertiser stacks multiple ads under that one ad, getting impressions recorded for all of them. Fraudulent publishers are known to stack as many as eight ads on top of each other. This means that in such cases, fraudsters make eight times more revenue from that ad placement.

SDK spoofing

SDK Spoofing is another type of mobile ad fraud that is used to fabricate records of app installs when there are no installs happening. Detecting an instance of SDK spoofing can be challenging as most fraudsters use real devices to create download events, making them appear legitimate.

To conduct SDK spoofing software development kit or SDK is lined with malware. Unknowingly, developers may use a malware-loaded SDK to develop an app. Fraudsters break into the SSL encryption between the app SDK and the servers and deliver a “man in the middle” attack. They then test different URL parameters to determine those that will trigger legitimate high-value actions such as an app install or an in-app purchase. Once successful, the fraudsters are able to register app installs on the mobile measurement partner (MMP) and get the payout for the app install.

Once the fraudsters have determined the right URL parameters, they can repeat the subsequent process indefinitely, sometimes getting paid for hundreds of downloads that never take place.

Device farms

Device farms are physical locations where several devices are used to perform actions that allow fraudsters to get ad payout. These can range from manually performed clicks or instals. The common industry misconception is that device farms are a problem limited to Asian countries. However, the reality is that device farms can be found across the world and affect almost all advertisers, regardless of their location.

Device farms have been one of the longest-standing sources of pain for mobile advertisers as they are relatively simple to build and operate. Since many device farms employ real human beings, detecting device farm activity can be difficult. Some device farms have been known to perform post-install actions on apps for up to a month after downloading them.

Geo-masking

One of the factors that determine the cost paid by the advertiser for each impression or click, or app install is the location of the traffic. Depending on the industry and the product/service being advertisers, traffic from certain locations may be valued higher than others. Similarly, for some products/services, traffic from certain locations may be completely irrelevant.

For instance, if you have a product that would benefit from advertising to audiences in the USA, you may be willing to pay a premium to show your ads to this audience. However, a fraudster using geo masking may show your ads to traffic coming from, say, Pakistan, but make it appear as if the ad is being shown to US audiences. As a result, you may be paying a higher cost per click/impression/app install but getting access to a lower quality, less relevant audience.

Ad injection

Ad injection allows fraudsters to ‘inject’ any ad on ad inventories that may belong to other advertisements. This technique involves the use of browser extensions and adware tools to hijack servers and slip ads into the ad inventory meant for other ads. This means the ads may appear on a publisher’s website without their knowledge.

Impact of mobile ad fraud on digital campaigns

The impact of mobile ad fraud isn’t limited to subpar results from ad campaigns. Depending on the severity, mobile ad fraud can impact advertisers on multiple levels, with some implications becoming apparent days and weeks after a campaign’s data is reviewed. Here are a few ways in which mobile ad fraud affects marketers:

Wasted ad budgets

The most obvious impact of mobile ad fraud is the wastage of ad budgets on fraudulent placements and payouts. This year, it is expected that advertisers will collectively lose $100 billion to digital ad fraud.

Compromised analytics data

The less obvious but equally dangerous impact of ad fraud is felt in analytics reports. Because of sophisticated techniques used by fraudsters, your campaign data may be skewed without you even realising the same. The ad campaign performance reports generated may be reporting clicks and/or app instals that have been generated by bots or click farms run by fraudsters.

These misreported analytics compromise an advertiser’s ability to correctly optimise their campaigns and reach the right audiences. In many cases, because of wrongly reported analytics, advertisers pull their budgets from authentic publishing platforms and allocate them to fraudulent websites, unknowingly compounding their losses.

Lack of confidence in mobile advertising

As budgets get wasted, and skewed analytics prevent companies from reaching their advertising and sales targets, it will become more and more difficult to get stakeholder approval for digital advertising. This might translate into a huge, missed opportunity for many businesses that can benefit from mobile advertising.

Signs to identify mobile ad fraud

By now, it is clear that mobile ad fraud is a big problem. However, how can you be sure that it is a problem in your particular case?

In most cases, there are tell-tale signs that tell advertisers that they may be victims of mobile advertising fraud. While not all signs point to fraudulent activities, they should motivate you to take a closer look at your campaigns.

Some of the most prominent signs of mobile ad fraud include:

Unusual spikes in traffic

A spike in traffic/instals can be considered unusual when there have been no noteworthy changes made to the campaign. If you haven’t changed your targeting settings or the creatives of your ads and still see a significant spike in incoming traffic, it might be a sign that you have fallen victim to ad fraud.

Incoming traffic from unusual sources

If you are seeing a lot of visitors coming from a single IP address or your traffic is coming from a highly localised region, consider it a red flag. It is also a red flag if you are seeing a high number of user sessions but only a handful of unique visitors.

Incoming traffic from unusual locations

If your campaign is attracting visitors from locations that you have not specifically targeted with your ads, then it may be a sign of click fraud. This traffic may be coming from a botnet, or a click farm established in a location separate from your target locations.

Campaign performance-traffic disconnect

If you are seeing unusually low conversions despite your ads attracting a lot of traffic, then you must investigate your campaign reports closely. This might be a sign of bot activity since bots can access your app or landing page but cannot complete conversion actions.

Quickly draining ad budgets

If you have not changed your targeting settings and see your ad budget being spent quickly, it may be a sign of click spamming or another form of click fraud.

How to prevent mobile ad fraud

As you may have guessed, preventing mobile ad fraud is not a simple undertaking. Since there is serious monetary benefit involved for scammers, they are constantly on the prowl for new and innovative ways to dupe advertisers and make quick money. Considering there are so many forms of mobile ad fraud that already exist and that more sophisticated techniques will continue to crop up, advertisers cannot overlook this problem.

While some forms of ad fraud can be tracked manually, doing so is time-consuming and may not be entirely effective. Without a dependable, automated, and long-term solution, your ad campaigns will continue to be at risk of fraud. This is where holistic ad fraud detection tools come into the picture. By leveraging an ad traffic validation tool, marketers can eliminate invalid traffic coming from unknown and unsafe sources. These solutions give advertisers the transparency they need to make efficient business decisions and optimise app campaigns to get maximum returns.

In conclusion

Unfortunately, the mobile ad fraud problem is not going anywhere in the near future. With billions of dollars expected to be spent on mobile advertising every year, fraudsters have a lot of incentives in the game. This also means that there are many fraudsters that are backed by teams of educated people and expensive resources.

As advertisers become more cautious, fraudsters are also hard at work, looking for new and innovative techniques to drain ad budgets and make some quick money. While ad fraud has a lasting negative impact on advertisers, ad fraud detection tools can provide the necessary protection.
We hope this guide will spread more awareness about mobile ad fraud and how advertisers can protect themselves and their campaigns.

Find out how mFilterIt can help you protect your app campaigns from mobile ad fraud.

The post The dark side of mobile advertising: How to fight mobile ad fraud appeared first on Business of Apps.

Influencer marketing has been a popular buzzword for quite some time now, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. According to the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023, the influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately $21.1 Billion this year. As the market continues to grow, it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest news and trends to keep your business ahead of the game.

Firstly, let’s talk about how businesses could benefit from influencer marketing. Influencer marketing can be a powerful tool to reach target audiences and increase brand awareness. Here are some of the reasons why businesses should consider implementing influencer marketing into their marketing stack:

• Reach a target audience – Influencers have a loyal and engaged following in a specific niche, which can help businesses reach their target audiences.
• Build credibility and trust – Influencers have built a level of trust and credibility with their followers, and when they endorse a product or service, it can help build that same trust and credibility for your business.
• Increase brand awareness – By partnering with influencers, businesses can increase their brand visibility and reach a wider audience.
• Cost-effective – Influencer marketing can be more cost-effective than traditional marketing methods, as it allows businesses to reach a large audience without spending a lot of money on advertising.
• Authenticity – Influencers can help businesses create authentic and relatable content that resonates with their target audience.
• Drive sales – Influencer marketing can also lead to increased sales, as followers of an influencer may be more likely to purchase a product or service if it is recommended by someone they trust.
• Performance-oriented approach – Influencer marketing is widely known as a brand awareness tool, but it changes. Advertisers as well as platforms now optimize their campaigns for delivering performance KPIs and results.
• Price reduction – Buying advertising from influencers reduces the cost of attracting a user from other sources, i.e. Facebook, Google Ads, etc.

Overall, influencer marketing can be an effective way for businesses to reach their target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive sales, all while building credibility and trust with their customers.

Secondly, there are several ways to organize and manage the workflow when developing influencer marketing campaigns, and the specific approach used can depend on factors such as the goals of the campaign, the target audience, and the available resources.

Here are two common types of workflow management for influencer marketing campaigns:

The first one is to contact a team of professionals with deep expertise in influencer marketing. It’s a good option if you’re looking for a reliable and efficient way to execute an influencer marketing campaign. Working with an agency can help you save time and resources, while also benefiting from the agency’s expertise and experience.

By leveraging an agency’s experience and global database of influencers, you can identify the best bloggers, vloggers, and social media personalities who can help you reach your target audience. This can lead to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and a stronger ROI for your campaign.

Additionally, by working with an agency, you can benefit from the agency’s ability to negotiate with influencers and manage all aspects of the campaign, including tracking and measuring the results. This can help you optimize your campaign over time and achieve better outcomes.

The second is to grow expertise within your own team. Educational courses on influencer marketing management can certainly be a valuable investment for companies looking to build expertise within their own team. For example, the Hypertrain platform influencer manager course can provide valuable knowledge and insights into the influencer industry, including the latest trends and best practices.

Getting your marketing team to attend an influencer marketing course is generally a great place to start. Attending such a course can help your colleagues develop the skills and knowledge needed to effectively manage influencer marketing campaigns, build relationships with influencers, and stay up-to-date with the rapidly evolving industry. An influencer marketing course can also provide valuable knowledge and insights into the influencer industry, including the latest trends and best practices. This can ultimately lead to more successful influencer campaigns and a stronger return on investment for your company.

It’s worth noting, however, that simply attending a course is not enough to become an expert in influencer marketing. It’s important for your colleagues to also gain hands-on experience and continue to stay up-to-date with industry developments and changes. Encouraging them to attend industry events, participate in online discussions, and stay connected with influencers and other marketing professionals can all help build their expertise over time.

Latest influencer marketing trends

Keeping up with the latest platform updates and market trends is an important aspect of running a successful influencer marketing campaign. This is because social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok are constantly evolving, and new features and trends emerge all the time. Being aware of these updates and trends can help you identify new opportunities and stay ahead of the curve.

Speaking of the latest platform news, here are some of the ones you can apply to your influencer marketing strategy today:

• YouTube adds new options for podcast creators – Lately, YouTube has been making efforts to improve its podcast capabilities and features in response to the growing popularity of audio content. With the new podcast tools, creators can now create a new podcast directly within the YouTube Studio, and they can also designate an existing playlist as a podcast, which will make it easier for them to manage and upload their podcasts on the platform.
• YouTube is experimenting with suggested hashtags – By using the suggested hashtags, businesses can improve the discoverability of their videos and reach a wider audience. This can be particularly helpful for long-form video content that may not otherwise appear in search results or related video suggestions.
• Overlay ads are going away – As of April 6th, overlay ads will no longer appear. YouTube says that this is a “legacy” ad format, which has proven to be disruptive for viewers. With the removal of overlay ads, businesses may want to consider other ad formats such as skippable video ads, non-skippable video ads, and bumper ads. These formats can provide a better viewing experience for the audience while still allowing businesses to reach their target market.
• Instagram: full Reels video in Stories – Reels has become a key focus for Meta as it looks to re-ignite usage growth and keep people in the app for longer. Instagram’s working on a new way to integrate Stories and Reels. Some users are now seeing full-length Reels playing in the Stories stream as opposed to only getting the first 15 seconds and then having to tap to view the whole thing.
• Instagram: NFT deactivation – Meta announced that starting from April 11th active NFTs in Instagram and Facebook will be deactivated as the company winds down its NFT-related projects.

Another important factor for the success of an influencer marketing campaign is using the latest technology. For instance, incorporating technology such as AI can help you make more informed decisions and optimize your campaigns for better results. AI-powered tools can help you identify the most relevant influencers for your brand, analyze their engagement rates and audience demographics, and track the success of your campaigns. Or, you can use ChatGPT to help with creating content.

Finally, creativity is an essential approach when it comes to influencer marketing. With so many brands and influencers vying for consumers’ attention, it’s important to stand out and offer something unique and compelling. This could involve developing creative content that resonates with your target audience, partnering with influencers who align with your brand’s values and messaging, or leveraging innovative technologies to create a memorable campaign experience. Here are some examples.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing has become an increasingly popular strategy for businesses to reach their target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive sales. With the right approach and management, influencer marketing campaigns can lead to better engagement, higher conversion rates, and a stronger return on investment.

Staying up-to-date with the latest platform updates and market trends is crucial for running successful influencer campaigns. Whether you choose to work with a professional influencer marketing agency or build expertise within your own team, it’s important to stay informed and adapt to changes in the industry. By doing so, businesses can continue to leverage the power of influencer marketing to achieve their marketing goals and grow their brand.

To help businesses follow the latest trends and updates in digital marketing, we have launched a monthly podcast “Digital Marketing Digest,” check it out here.

The post Influencer marketing 2023: The latest trends every business needs to know appeared first on Business of Apps.

AI companies are making headlines as they continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in the tech world. And top TikTok marketing agencies like ‘House of Marketers’ are getting contacted about campaigns for AI-powered companies regularly.

From OpenAI’s text-generating GPT-3 to new facial recognition and machine learning applications, AI is quickly becoming a major player in our lives. But sustaining this growth requires more than just technical capabilities; it needs effective marketing strategies to reach potential customers and build brand awareness. For AI companies to succeed, they need a way to get a foothold within the most tech-savvy generations: Gen Z and Millennials.

Both Millennials and Gen Z are the perfect target audience for AI companies. They have grown up with technology – it’s like a second language to them. They communicate and consume content differently than previous generations, favouring platforms like TikTok for their quick-swipe navigations and bite-sized content. Concepts such as augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are not foreign to these audiences; they are a part of their everyday lives. So how can AI companies use this connection to Gen Z and millennials to grow their customer base and market their products?

Enter TikTok. AI companies have the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this platform’s over 1.2 billion active users – most of which are Gen Zers and Millennials – and use it as a powerful tool to spread the word about their brand. In this article, we’ll discuss how AI companies can virally grow on TikTok, why AI companies should consider using this platform for marketing, and how AI companies can use marketing agencies to help them do it.

Why TikTok?

Social media platforms rise and fall in popularity, but there is something about TikTok that has captured the world’s attention at a speed which can only be described as meteoric. Perhaps it’s a combination of the dopamine-inducing swipe feature, the incredibly smart algorithm, which delivers highly personalised content straight to users’ feeds, or the fast-paced short-form video format that’s perfect for a world in which we are all time-poor and attention-deficient. TikTok currently boasts an average engagement rate of 6.73% and a watch rate of 16.23%, making its audience one of the most engaged in the social media sphere.

Whatever the reason, TikTok has exploded and it’s currently raising an entire generation with quirky dance moves, viral sound bites, and cryptic memes. And if you’re an AI company, TikTok is your natural home. Why, you ask? First, TikTok itself is AI-driven – its algorithms identify what users like and then deliver content that they are most likely to watch.

TikTok’s new built-in generative AI filters such as Bold Glamour and Teenage Look are blowing minds (and terrifying many) with how realistic AI-generated images can look. AI is already part of the TikTok experience, which means its users are comfortable with AI-driven concepts and technology.

Secondly, TikTok’s users are the ideal demographic for AI companies. If you’re promoting your company’s new AI-powered filter app, for example, you’re probably not going to get your message across to a 70-year-old retiree on Facebook. But it doesn’t take much convincing to get a younger tech-savvy Gen Z user to download your AI app via TikTok. They’re already using AI-driven filters and content that’s been AI-generated – so why not yours?

How brands can supercharge their growth with TikTok

You’re ready to dive into the world of TikTok, but where do you start? One of the best things about TikTok from a marketer’s perspective is that there are simply so many different ways to launch your marketing campaigns.

TikTok Ads only launched in 2020, which means it’s a relatively fresh and unsaturated marketing channel compared to some of the more established social media networks. Their ads come in six different formats, which include the following:

• In-feed ads – These ads appear on the users’ For You Page, blending seamlessly with organic content. They contain a CTA the viewer can click to go to the advertisers’ landing page. Viewers can also interact with the ad by liking or sharing it.
• Spark ads – This ad format is similar to in-feed ads, with one key difference. The advertiser can use spark ads to boost their own organic content from their profile page, or another creator’s profile page (with permission). Any likes, shares, and comments will be retained, even after the ads have finished running.
• Brand takeover ads – These ads are shown to users as soon as they open the TikTok app, taking over the full screen for a few seconds before turning into an in-feed ad.
• Top view ads – Similar to brand takeover ads, top view ads will appear first thing when a user opens the app, but they won’t take over the full screen.
• Branded hashtag ads – Through this ad format, the advertiser can create a hashtag challenge to raise brand awareness and encourage other users to generate their own organic content promoting their brand.
• Branded effects ads – TikTok users love filters, and branded effects are a great way to get AI companies noticed. Brands can create their own custom-branded filters to be used in user-generated content or even their own ads.

That’s not forgetting TikTok influencers and creators. Collaborating with TikTok creators can be an excellent way to get AI companies noticed, especially those that are just starting out. They can help AI companies reach the right people and build trust and credibility with potential customers.

Whether AI companies go down the route of paid-for TikTok Ads or look for collaborations with influencers, one thing is for sure: AI companies have a great opportunity to reach potential customers through TikTok. With its huge user base of open-minded, AI-loving Gen Zers, AI companies can supercharge their growth.

Why use TikTok creators and TikTok Ads?

TikTok might be the fastest-growing social media platform but it’s not the biggest. Facebook still comes out on top with 2.9 billion monthly active users (MAUs), followed by YouTube (2.5 MAUs), and Instagram (2 billion MAUs). In comparison, TikTok has around one billion monthly active users, which doesn’t quite compete with the likes of Facebook when it comes to sheer numbers. But these numbers don’t tell the full story and there is more to social media marketing than just reaching a large audience. You want to reach the right audience.

Facebook’s user demographic is slowly ageing, with 43% of users currently over the age of 35. It’s interesting to note that 43% of TikTok users don’t have a Facebook account at all. This means that slowly but surely, TikTok is syphoning off some of the younger Facebook users, and this trend is unlikely to reverse. Putting all your marketing budget eggs into the Facebook basket is like betting on a sick horse – it might still be running but for how much longer?

If we dive deeper into user data, it’s also clear that the way people use TikTok is quite different to how they use its dinosaur competitor Facebook. Almost one-third of users who have installed TikTok use it every single day, spending an average of 1.5 hours per day on the platform. This level of engagement and presence is hard to find on other social media platforms. Even Instagram, which boasts the highest daily open rate, only has an average daily use rate of 51 minutes. Facebook users, coming in at the back, typically use the app for an average of 49 minutes per day.

TikTok has landed on a winning algorithm, and they know exactly how to keep their users engaged. It also happens that TikTok users are generally more receptive to advertising. According to one study, 92% of TikTok users are “purchase ready” and a whopping 56% of US consumers had bought something they saw in a TikTok ad. There’s no escaping it – TikTok is more than just a social network, it’s an incredibly powerful advertising platform.

Examples of AI companies utilising TikTok

If you want some inspiration for your next marketing campaign, then why not look at how other AI companies have used TikTok? Here are two recent examples of AI companies that have successfully gone viral and gained exposure on the platform.

Lensa

If you’re even a little bit online then you probably remember the recent “magic avatar” trend that flooded everyone’s social media feeds. Suddenly, people were sharing highly realistic photos of themselves in mythical landscapes and superhero costumes. These avatars were AI generated and the brand behind them was Lensa. Their #mylensaavatar hashtag received over 11.7 million views, with millions of users racing to download the app and try it for themselves. The app was subsequently downloaded over 10 million times in 2022, generating over $16 million in revenue in the same year.

Example of Lensa’s TikToks

@lensa Replying to @brandespino Now pick the best one #MyLensaAvatar #Lensa #LensaApp ♬ Somebody to love Basstrologe Bootleg – mthekyng

Source: TikTok

Replika

Replika is an AI companion app that people can use to talk and ask questions. Designed to meet the parasocial needs of the modern human, the AI-driven app has seen a huge surge in popularity over the past year. To help spread the word and encourage downloads, Replika threw itself into the TikTok bandwagon with clever and highly engaging marketing campaigns.

With over 51.7k followers and 1.2m likes, their brand profile has established itself as one of the top AI companies on TikTok. The app has now reached over 10.1 million downloads on the Google Play store alone, thanks in part to their successful TikTok campaigns.

Example of Replika’s TikToks

@replika I let Replika AI app control my life for a day and you won’t believe where it sent me! #ai ♬ original sound – Replika

Source: TikTok

Why you should partner with a TikTok agency

These AI companies have found success on TikTok not only through their creative campaigns but also by partnering with marketing agencies that know how to leverage the platform effectively. AI companies have much to gain from partnering with an experienced TikTok marketing agency.

AI companies that partner with a TikTok marketing agency can help launch their product into the spotlight and gain rapid user engagement on the platform. But for those unfamiliar with TikTok for Business, it may seem daunting to start. By partnering with a TikTok agency, AI companies can take advantage of the experience and expertise that marketing agencies have built up over time. AI companies can also benefit from the strategic insights and data-driven approach of an experienced team.

Get on TikTok – grow your AI company

If AI companies are looking to tap into the power of TikTok and reach Gen Z, they need to act fast. Partnering with a reputable marketing agency is one way to get ahead in the game. With access to powerful insights and data-driven approaches, AI companies can be sure their marketing campaigns are well-planned and effective.

Looking to partner with a TikTok agency? Contact House of Marketers today. We’d love to hear from you!

The post How AI companies can go viral by marketing on TikTok appeared first on Business of Apps.

Do you feel like being tethered to your desk, chained to your computer to manage your business operations? Or do you find yourself longing for the freedom to access critical data on the go? If so, consider adding a mobile ERP system to your workflow.

But what exactly a mobile ERP is? How can it benefit your business?

If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, let’s explore a mobile ERP and why it’s a game-changer for small and midsize companies. We will also highlight the benefits of mobile ERP and offer 5 mobile ERP solutions to help you get the most out of your system.

What is a mobile ERP?

A mobile enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is a software solution for mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, that provides users with real-time access to business data and processes.

It allows employees to access the ERP system and perform tasks, such as order processing, inventory management, or financial reporting, from anywhere, anytime, as long as they have an internet connection.

Mobile ERP solutions are typically accessed through a dedicated mobile app or standard mobile browser and work on iOS or Android. These systems improve productivity and efficiency by enabling employees to stay connected to business processes and data, regardless of physical location.

The benefits of mobile ERP

Meet Jane, the owner of a small manufacturing business that produces custom-made furniture. Jane has a team of designers, craftsmen, and salespeople who work together to make and sell her products.

However, as her business has grown, Jane has noticed that her team members struggle to stay connected and share information efficiently. Designers and craftsmen need to communicate regularly to ensure they meet customer expectations, while the sales team needs real-time access to inventory data to make accurate sales projections.

Jane implements a mobile ERP system to address these communication and data access issues. Here are the benefits that Jane’s business acquires:

Improved productivity

With mobile ERP, Jane’s team can access data and perform tasks from anywhere, anytime. For instance, her designers can easily update design specifications from their mobile devices while on the go, reducing delays in the production process;

Real-time data access

Mobile ERP provides real-time access to data, allowing employees to make informed decisions quickly. Now Jane’s sales team can check inventory levels in real-time while meeting with customers, ensuring they provide accurate sales projections;

Enhanced collaboration

Mobile ERP enables teams to collaborate more effectively, regardless of location. For example, Jane’s designers and craftsmen can communicate through the mobile app in real time, avoiding the need for back-and-forth emails and phone calls;

Better customer service

Mobile ERP provides businesses better customer service by enabling the team to access customer data and respond to inquiries more quickly. So, Jane’s sales team can respond to customer inquiries in real-time through the mobile app, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty;

Greater visibility of business operations

The mobile ERP application gathers data from various sources, giving her up-to-the-minute details about what is happening and where allowing her to make informed decisions that drive her business forward.

5 Mobile ERP solutions for businesses

Now that we have comprehended the meaning of mobile ERP and its advantages, let’s examine a few mobile ERP solutions.

SAP Business One

SAP Business One is specifically developed for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It empowers team members to access business information and perform tasks through a mobile device, regardless of location or time. SAP Business One suits businesses in various industries, including professional services, retail and wholesale distribution, consumer products, and industrial machinery and components.

This tool offers various features such as financial management, sales and customer management, inventory control, production planning, analytics, and reporting. SAP Business One offers both on-premise and cloud deployment options and comes with integrated business intelligence and integration with the SAP HANA platform. It is quick to deploy, available in 28 languages with 50 localized versions, and offers multi-currency support.

NetSuite

NetSuite is a cloud-based ERP software that offers various business solutions, including financials, inventory management, CRM, and e-commerce. Its ERP mobile app is designed with a mobile-first approach, offering a seamless workflow for iOS and Android users. It has features such as time tracking, call logging, and expense reporting, with push notifications for quick actions, enabling users to streamline work while on the go. According to NetSuite statistics, 84% of companies on the Forbes Cloud 100 List are NetSuite customers.

Acumatica

Acumatica is a cloud-based ERP software that provides a range of features such as commerce connectors, financial, construction, manufacturing, inventory, and warehouse management systems. It integrates seamlessly with Amazon, BigCommerce, and Shopify, enabling enterprises to connect their eCommerce storefront with Acumatica’s financials, inventory, product information, and real-time fulfilment.

The app for mobile devices provides a range of features, including time tracking, task administration, push notifications for mobile devices, and the management of expenses and sales orders, and is available for iOS and Android.

Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Oracle JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is a next-generation cloud-based ERP software that empowers businesses with applications such as CRM, manufacturing, financial management, project management, order management, supply chain management, reporting, and business intelligence. The mobile app for JD Edwards EnterpriseOne is designed for iOS and Android users and presents data in an intuitive graphical format, including pie charts and bar graphs.

Users can easily access detailed information with the feature list display and refine search results using custom filters and specific features. The mobile app offers a cutting-edge approach to accessing and visualizing business data.

Microsoft Dynamics 365

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Mobile is a cutting-edge mobile app that enables users to access ERP functions, such as financials, sales, and customer service, on the go. The app is available for iOS and Android devices, allowing users to stay connected and productive no matter where they are. With Dynamics 365 Mobile, users can easily manage their finances, view and update customer information, create and track sales orders, and access real-time insights into their business performance.

The app also features a user-friendly interface with customizable dashboards, so users can quickly access the information that matters most to them. Plus, it offers offline capabilities, enabling users to access critical business information even when not connected to the internet.

Bottom line

To wrap up, mobile ERP is not just a trend but a strategic investment in the future of a company’s digital transformation. With the growing demand for remote work, mobile ERP became necessary for companies looking to stay competitive and agile.

Thus, businesses increase the whole team’s productivity, streamline processes, and allow employees to access information and perform tasks from anywhere, anytime, which is so important in today’s fast-paced business environment.

The post From desk to pocket: Why it’s time to boost your ERP solution with mobile appeared first on Business of Apps.

Thomas will be addressing the hard truths about Apple Search Ads bringing his trademark wit and insight. Thomas is a well-known figure in the mobile growth industry, having worked with a diverse portfolio of apps to help them scale, and is a thought leader on mobile topics. We sat down with Thomas here to discuss the upcoming ASO Conference, current trends in the mobile growth space, and his thoughts on hot topics like AI, privacy, and third-party app stores.

You’re speaking at the ASO Conference in Berlin again this year, what are you looking forward to most?

Thomas: Being back in Berlin in spring is an enticing prospect, especially if the venue is as spectacular as last year. What I’m mostly looking forward to is reconnecting with the ASO community. The ASO Conference brings the best people in the field together, many of whom I’ve become personal friends with. Being together in one place pretty much only happens once a year, and the ASO Conference is the place to learn from the very best in the field. Of course, there are also various presentations I don’t want to miss, as the agenda looks really hot for 2023.

Can you give us a sneak preview of the topic you’ll be discussing at the ASO Conference?

Thomas: My own talk is about things that aren’t often said about Apple Search Ads; the hard truths that you won’t read in most posts. Agencies, MMPs, and the press often only mention the positive sides of this channel, and I’ll be discussing some not-so-nice ones to rebalance the narrative. I do use ASA for pretty much all my clients, and it’s definitely a channel to be on, but there are several limitations, drawbacks, and even traps I want to showcase.

Is the role of Apple Search Ads in overall marketing strategy changing, and if so, how?

Thomas: The way marketers perceive ASA and evaluate this channel has changed for sure, partly because of the positive public narrative I mentioned, but mainly because its measurement method is unique. I don’t think the role of the channel has fundamentally evolved, but practitioners are finally starting to get the most out of it by being smarter and maximizing performance (for example with CPP) but also fully utilizing the unique learnings, for example, trends on brand, or generic keywords post-install conversion data.

AI is the acronym on everybody’s lips at the moment, what do you think the main impacts of this will be in the mobile growth space?

Thomas: It’s definitely exciting to follow and play around with the various tools recently released. Given the astonishingly rapid pace AI tools are going, any prediction that extends any more than three months seems risky. I believe the biggest impact will be when we can fully use AI for visual assets creation, for ad creatives on one side, and for app content on the other. We’re not there yet in my opinion, because that means getting the same for video, sound, and animations, as we are starting to have for text and pictures, but this is likely only months ahead, and it will be a game changer.

Much was made of the fact that Apple will be allowing third-party app stores last year. What do you foresee will be the main fallout from this?

Thomas: A big nothing burger. Let’s assume it actually happens, and there are alternative stores to install iOS apps soon. I doubt most users will actually use them or even hear about them.

I also bet Apple will have obstacles in place, much like Google does today, publicly saying Android is open to all while enforcing restrictions that prevent the development of third-party stores (except in China, where the Play Store and Play Services aren’t available). There is certainly some business on the AppGallery or the Amazon Appstore, but to a scale that isn’t really disrupting the Play Store. I believe the same will happen on iOS. The messaging shown to users trying to install apps outside the Play Store is off-putting to most and I can see Apple doing something similar.

The only way I see my prediction may fail is if/when the biggest game publishers, with strong IP, form an alliance to propose an alternative store together, but this seems far away even though I can see Epic leading the move.

What are the trends that you think are flying under the radar right now that mobile growth professionals need to be aware of?

Thomas: As the app community is fairly open, the big trends are quite visible. I’ll mention three areas of focus I’ve seen more attention paid towards in the past year or so, and none of them uses Midjourney for icon or GPT for description.

Live Ops for non-gaming, and not just with Apple in-app events but regular campaigns and themes to create dynamism around the content and its communication

“Subscription optimization” and monetization in general. After a first phase that was maybe more focused on A/B testing paywalls layout and plans, many apps are getting deeper into monetization strategy, with more complex flows, hybrid models, and more attention on payment triggers, but also rethinking the balance between free and paid experiences to maximize both retention and conversions.

I used to say that as app marketers get more sophisticated, their success metrics tend to go down the funnel, from CPI to CPA to return to ad spend based on LTV. The next evolution is to look at the revenue development curves and payback periods instead of overall LTV to fully understand not just how much money comes back but WHEN it’s coming back because there is more pressure around short-term returns and cash flow with less easy access to capital.

You’ve made your name as an independent in the mobile growth space, what would be your advice to someone trying to emulate this path?

Thomas: “Just do it!” We’re lucky there is still more demand for talent than there is supply.

But also, I would say think twice about it. I love working as an independent, but it’s not for everyone. Some thrive in a more structured environment, working with the same team, need the support of a manager, the comfort of a regular salary and so on. I also see the stress of managing oneself prevents some from fully realizing their potential, and that’s especially true in uncertain times.

Even though I now work on fairly broad topics, I would also recommend starting with a more narrow approach, focusing on one speciality where one can go deep and make their name in, rather than offering everything and lacking differentiation. In my early days, most of my services were around paid UA and attribution, it’s only later that I started adding more disciplines. Even now, I’m reluctant to sell services where I don’t feel I can bring value.

Finally, and maybe most importantly: never leave clients unhappy! Sometimes it means extra effort for no money, and it’s still the way. Reputation is everything. I’d rather refuse potentially lucrative missions than take the risk of performing poorly and leaving a bad impression. It’s a small world where information flows fast, so play the long game.

Tickets are still available for the ASO Conference on June 1, where you can see Thomas discussing Apple Search Ads. For the full itinerary, see the ASO Conference 2023. You can get a 20% discount on a ticket with the code: THOMAS

The post ASO Conference 2023: AI and under the radar trends appeared first on Business of Apps.

Quality Assurance in software development is initiated to ensure the code has no bugs. We can rightfully apply QA to design. The design evaluation process involves usability testing and expert evaluation. Below we’ll focus on the two sides of the story and provide specific examples of the QA design process based on our experience as a digital development agency.

High-quality design must satisfy a wide range of criteria

These include:

• How easy is it to navigate a website or mobile software?
• Are the page/mobile app structure and options intuitive? Does the user have to scroll down the page or search the website for the required information? If quantitative or qualitative data suggest the features are not used as intended or are being dropped off, the design needs critical changes.
• How accessible is the information? Does it take a lot of effort to read a text and make sense of the information?
• Correspondence to the style guide: The design should match the mockup provided initially in the stage of prototyping.
• Does the design help to increase user engagement? It’s about a more appealing and interactive design and the logic of user-app interaction.

Usability testing identifies the problems hindering the achievement of business objectives or user engagement goals. Also, customer engagement and analytical data are examined to verify user experience.

The methodology and tools of the QA design process

Functional and non-functional testing

Functional tests aim to determine the loading speed and technical indicators of the mobile app’s performance. During the functional testing, working with the product manager is advised to ensure the app is ready to release. Non-functional testing evaluates the design properties from a user’s viewpoint and assesses the design consistency according to the initial intent and best practices. For example, assessing colors and font sizes and checking content order are examples of classic non-functional QA testing in the design stage.

Manual and automated testing

Most design examinations belong to manual reviews. Using the correct style guide elements, you should check if the implementation matches the mockup/design specifications. Automated methods help with responsive testing by using specialized tools, checking all screens and device versions, and catching all visual bugs. The last method works for stable UIs.

A/B split test and multivariate testing

Two versions of the product are compared against each other to find out which works better. The audience is split so that group A could evaluate version A and group B will check version B. An A/B test is also called split testing.

With multivariate testing, you explore the reaction of users to multiple factor variations, which takes longer but provides informative results. A/B and multivariate testing allow for tracking different design versions’ performance against set goals.

Focus groups, surveys, and impression analysis

You must be prepared to ask your focus groups very specific questions based on the hypothesis. It prompts participants to guide their thoughts toward a certain scenario and make practicable suggestions for change. Leading focus groups is especially useful when determining what the user wants from the system. It’s recommended to include at least six users in the focus group.

Customer effort score surveys show how much effort one needs to interact with the tested product. It usually suggests answering a question like: “How easy was it to interact with the website/app?” Other types of surveys may include open-ended questions in the form of an automatic feedback form.

Impression analysis aims to obtain information about the first impressions of the mobile app’s design. It can be a 5-second test, after which participants will be asked to list their impressions.

Heat maps

Visually represent users’ behavior, number of clicks, scrolls, mouse tracking, and other aspects. Various online applications help QA testers generate a heat map and see where the design is broken.

Measuring performance against goals

Any Quality Assurance test should check against the goal set by the project. Special metrics facilitate developers in this task. The goals can specify the number of ad views, inquiries, leads, sale deals, the level of customer satisfaction, etc.

Metrics analysis is essential when product owners realize there’s a problem but cannot identify its major source or sources. Testers and/or designers examine user behavior with the help of various tools and analytical programs (e.g. Google Analytics, Hotjar, Dovetail, Google Forms, Bugwolf, Web Visor), understanding at which stage the issue occurs. Another approach is to verify product performance and follow a UI/UX checklist. Those checklists are written based on best practices of UI/UX evaluation.

New technologies made it easier to measure user experience and check how people interact with your products and how much this interaction satisfies them:

• Engagement levels: The time spent on pages, the number of shares on social media, clicks, and pages/screen views.
• User retention shows how many users are returning to your website or app.
• User metrics: If you offer an app, this could be the number of installations. For websites, this is the number of visitor sessions, session duration, etc.
• Usability check shows how easy it is for users to interact with the functions of your app or the features of your website. The aforementioned customer effort score survey is exactly such a metric.
• User adoption indicates if and how users adopt your product. For example, you can match the number of app installations against the number of app opens.

QA design testing checklist: A case study

Let’s now have a look at how we conducted a Quality Assurance test for one of our commercial partners’ website.

QA testing: A case study

Source: JetRuby

Adaptive design

• The text isn’t easy to read on mobile. The text overlaps with the background icon image on one of the mobile devices.

Website header

• The header elements overlap on some of the adaptive mobile versions.

Functional testing

• The mobile version of the website takes longer to load than the desktop version.

Navigation

• The navigation is confusing on both desktop and mobile. Upon clicking on a specific menu title, you’ll be redirected to another affiliated website, which the user does not expect.
• It’s not self-evident that some titles are clickable, and the page contains more information under these titles.

Animation

• The switching between screens on mobile devices could be faster and smoother.

User interface

• When the user hovers the mouse over a particular field, there is no response (i.e. it doesn’t become active).
• The style of the round button and rectangular field shapes is different.
• The description must be more specific. Most importantly, there is no option to click the client icon to read more about the project.

Accessibility

• The text lacks contrast, which makes it difficult to read. Signatures cannot be seen.
• The lack of H1, H2, and H3 headings makes them less accessible.

The research was done with the help of the five seconds test and by interviewing users.

Bottom line

Ensuring a successful design Quality Assurance is inseparable from providing a seamless user experience and easy interface navigation. While you can refer to the checklist and best practices of quality assurance in design, continuous UI and UX optimization are the priority. Both processes involve acting on collected feedback from users, understanding critical touch points on mobile apps, and elaborating a flawless onboarding experience.

The post The role of quality assurance in UI/UX design appeared first on Business of Apps.

The efficiency and standard of mobile applications are crucially dependent on mobile app testing. With the increasing complexity of mobile apps, it’s important to have effective testing strategies and tools to deliver a seamless user experience.

This blog will explore the latest testing strategies and tools to help you improve your mobile app testing process. We will cover everything from manual testing to automation, functional testing to non-functional testing, including performance and security testing.

By the end of this blog, you’ll have a clear understanding of the best practices and tools for mobile app testing and how to implement them in your development process to ensure the success of your mobile app. So, let’s dive in!

What is mobile app testing?

Mobile app testing is the process of assessing the usability, performance, and functionality of mobile applications on a range of hardware, software, and network configurations. Before the app is released, mobile app testing looks for flaws, bugs, and usability problems to make sure it lives up to user expectations and provides a top-notch user experience.

Several manual and automation testing methodologies, such as functional testing, user research, verification and validation, vulnerability scans, and compatibility testing, may be used during the testing process. Effective mobile app testing can help improve app quality, enhance user satisfaction, and increase app adoption rates.

Importance of mobile app testing

Mobile app testing is a crucial part of the mobile app development process. It is the process of evaluating a mobile application’s functionality, usability, security, and compatibility on various devices and operating systems. Here are some reasons why mobile app testing is important:

Ensures app quality

Mobile app testing ensures that the app is high quality and performs as intended. Testing helps identify and fix bugs or defects before the app is released to the market.

Enhances user experience

Mobile app testing helps identify any issues affecting the user experience. The app can provide a smooth and enjoyable user experience by fixing these issues, which is critical for user retention and engagement.

Compatibility

Mobile app testing guarantees that the app functions across a range of platforms and devices. It aids in detecting compatibility problems and guarantees that the programme runs properly on various platforms.

Security

Mobile app testing helps to identify any security vulnerabilities in the app. It ensures that sensitive user information is protected and that the app is not susceptible to external threats.

Cost-effective

Early problem detection during the creation of a web app can help save time and money in the long run. After an app is launched, fixing problems can be expensive and detrimental to the app’s reputation.

Strategies for successful testing in mobile app development

The process of creating a mobile app development must include testing to make sure the app is reliable, user-friendly, and operates as intended. These are some tactics for effective testing in the creation of mobile applications:

Define testing objectives

The first step is to define the objectives of the testing process. Determine what needs to be tested, the success criteria, and the types of tests that need to be conducted.

Choose appropriate testing tools

Select the appropriate testing tools for your app. It includes automated testing tools, performance testing tools, and usability testing tools.

Test early and often

Testing should begin early in the development process and should be done frequently. It assures that problems are found early, which makes fixing them simpler and less expensive.

Test on multiple devices

Test your app on multiple devices to ensure it works correctly on various devices and operating systems.

Use real-user scenarios

Use real-world user scenarios to test your app. It ensures that the app is tested in the same way that users will interact with it.

Conduct usability testing

Conduct usability testing to ensure the app is user-friendly and easy to use. It includes testing the app’s navigation, user interface, and overall user experience.

Test for performance

Test your app’s performance under different conditions, including various network speeds and device configurations.

Test security

Ensure your app is secure by testing for vulnerabilities like data breaches, hacking, and other security risks.

Involve stakeholders

Involve stakeholders in the testing process, including developers, testers, designers, and users. It ensures everyone has a stake in the app’s success and can identify issues early.

Continuous testing

Continuous testing involves testing throughout the development process, from initial development to deployment and beyond. It ensures that the app is constantly being tested and improved.

Tools for successful testing in mobile app development

There are several tools available for successful testing in mobile app development. Here are some of the most commonly used tools:

Appium

Appium is an open-source test automation framework for mobile apps that supports Android and iOS platforms. It enables developers to write tests using any programming language and testing framework, including Java, Ruby, Python, and C#.

TestFlight

TestFlight is a beta testing platform for iOS apps that allows mobile app developers to distribute their apps to a limited number of testers for feedback before releasing them to the public. TestFlight also provides crash logs and analytics to help developers identify and fix issues.

Firebase Test Lab

A cloud-based assessment framework called Firebase Test Lab enables developers to test their Android and iOS apps across a range of hardware and setups. In-app purchases, registration, and other typical scenarios like login are all covered by automated testing.

Kobiton

Kobiton is a framework for testing mobile devices in the cloud that enables developers to evaluate their applications on actual devices. It provides access to thousands of devices with different OS versions, screen sizes, and hardware configurations.

Calabash

Calabash is an open-source test automation framework supporting Android and iOS platforms. It allows developers to write tests using Cucumber, a behavior-driven development tool, and Ruby programming language.

Espresso

Espresso is a testing framework for Android apps that allows developers to write tests using Java or Kotlin programming languages. It provides a simple, easy-to-use API for testing user interactions and UI elements.

Xcode

Xcode is an integrated development environment (IDE) for iOS app development that includes a built-in testing framework called XCTest. XCTest allows developers to write and run tests for their iOS apps using Swift or Objective-C programming languages.

Robotium

Robotium is an open-source testing framework for Android apps that allows developers to write tests using Java programming language. It provides a simple API for testing user interactions and UI elements and supports black- and white-box testing.

These are just a few tools available for successful testing in mobile app development. The choice of tool depends on the project’s specific needs and the development team’s skills.

Takeaways

In conclusion, successful testing is a critical component of mobile app development, and several strategies and tools can be utilized to ensure a smooth and efficient testing process.

These include developing a comprehensive testing plan, utilizing automated testing tools, conducting thorough manual testing, implementing continuous testing, and utilizing real devices for testing.

It is also essential to involve testers and developers in the testing process and prioritize testing throughout the development cycle. By implementing these strategies and tools, mobile app development companies can improve the quality and reliability of their apps, ultimately leading to a better user experience and increased customer satisfaction.

The post Strategies and tools for successful testing in mobile app development appeared first on Business of Apps.

Gaming and utility app developers, who generally focus on driving revenue via ads for downloads, have an opportunity to increase revenue by attracting brand buyers – without sacrificing any performance ads for clicks or installs.

Instead, publishers can add another layer of placements specifically for brands. App developers that already work with a mobile monetization platform should start by asking, “What mix do you bring of brand demand versus performance demand?” While app publishers may have previously focused on performance monetization, they should be looking at brand spend, too.

This post was first published on pubmatic.com.

Here are five ways publishers can appeal to brands and do just that.

Optimize mobile inventory for brands

In a challenging economic environment, brands and advertisers are pushing for budgets to work harder, and for media to be more accountable. Supply chain transparency and Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) have disrupted how the industry operates. Adopting app-ads.txt and enabling open measurement SDK (OM SDK) support have become basic brand monetization requirements for app developers.

To strengthen brand demand, publishers must think about brand buyers’ goals and KPIs, and optimize their app inventory accordingly. That means improving on brand safety, as well as finding opportunities to help brands achieve such key metrics as click-through rate, video completion rate, and viewability.

Incorporate exit screen placements

Game and utility publishers should also create new placements to appeal to brand buyers and capture more revenue. Of course, these placements should be where advertisers can capture user attention without interrupting the gaming or utility environment.

Examples include exit screen ads, where apps can display an interstitial video, or out-stream video to users after they have ended play but before they have exited the app. This is ideal as a placement created specifically for brand spend in a less-interruptive format.

Embrace more video

Game and utility publishers may already be applying banner ads as part of their strategy to attract brands. But brands also love video, and a strategy embracing video ads can drive higher eCPMs than banners. Interstitial in-game ads are another option. They are designed for upper-funnel consumers, which fall into the brand strategy bucket. In other words, a display-only strategy for brands is not enough. The additional tactics outlined above can help capture more brand dollars.

Consider dual bid native placements

Let’s consider native advertising, which until now has been considered a performance placement because it leads to a click or action. However, native placements that aren’t filled can also be taken up by an out-stream video ad, which turns a performance placement into a brand placement. Publishers can apply a “dual bidding” strategy to call for both native and out-stream video bids to maximize the fill rate of the placement.

Upgrade to programmatic placements

Until recently, intrinsic in-game ads have been static, but thanks to the IAB and standardization of measurement, there are more programmatic opportunities being opened. This allows publishers to alter placements based on user preferences. And, naturally, the result is a better experience than a static placement. What’s more, it also gives brand buyers an opportunity to engage with users during a gaming session above and beyond the existing performance strategy.

Download the guide and tap new revenue for your app today.

The post How mobile app developers can boost brand revenue appeared first on Business of Apps.

The fintech industry’s growth story is unmatched. Worldwide usage of financial services increased from 16% in 2015 to 64% in 2019. (EY) The pandemic greatly increased this trajectory of expansion, which was already upward. The rest is history.

The year 2021 brought about unprecedented increases in advertising spending, and since then, the trend has been increasing through 2022 and into 2023. Yet, the journey toward fintech’s use of programmatic advertising has only begun.

Let’s address the preconceptions and issues that commonly prevent fintech apps from adopting mobile advertising.

Challenges facing programmatic adoption

As digital technologies reshaped financial services, fintech apps became an integral part of people’s everyday lives. It didn’t take too long for the world to accept the idea of managing their finances via their mobile devices. Fintech apps grew rapidly, especially in emerging markets in LATAM, APAC, and Africa, fuelled by a need for more innovative finance solutions.

By 2020, fintech was the 2nd highest in terms of the number of apps and the 6th largest by install volume (AppsFlyer). Yet, there’s a disparity in the percentage of fintech apps that have adopted programmatic advertising. Why is that?

A perception problem

Real-time bidding, algorithms, data management platforms, demand-side platforms, and ad exchanges Let’s face it: programmatic advertising is no rocket science, but it can certainly seem so to the uninitiated. Programmatic advertising is still a relatively new concept, particularly for fintech.

Here’s how you can do a basic hygiene check to ensure that you’re working with trusted partners.

Source: RevX

Regulations and compliance: A roadblock to advertising adoption?

There are many regulatory issues in fintech, from compliance to user privacy to regulations about the market.

This poses a major hurdle to the adoption of digital advertising for fintech app marketers. Partnering with a DSP, for example, as an AdTech partner, entails:

• Providing the data required for user retargeting
• DMP and CRM integration for a thorough insight into the user journey
• MMP integration for precise measurement and attribution

All of this may sound new, but novelty need not be a bad thing.

How does programmatic work?

Programmatic advertising was born out of a need for automation and efficiency in digital advertising. It uses AI-powered algorithms to figure out who your app’s best users are and automatically bids on the best ad spaces. It enables advertisers to access high-quality and relevant inventories, at scale.

From audience segmentation to campaign optimization and reporting, it is made to be accurate, scalable, customizable, and highly efficient.

While resistance to a new channel is understandable, programmatic advertising is far too powerful to be ignored. Furthermore, programmatic advertising has evolved to be highly privacy-compliant.

Source: RevX

How do we do it at RevX?

No collection of personal data: Audience targeting is done solely through device IDs to be able to run better retargeting campaigns. The sole purpose is to target the right audience with the right ad, every time. We have employed industry-standard security measures and information security policy. We also undergo ITGC and DPTM audits, and vulnerability testing, while following private data handling practices.

Transparency in our tech and our culture: Most importantly, transparency is a pivotal part of our culture. Our platform was designed with user privacy at its very heart.

Publicly listed company with stringent compliances: As a part of the Affle Group, a publicly listed company with strict compliances, we take strict measures to uphold data safety.

We simply can’t afford to have loose ends and are compliant with major privacy laws like GDPR and CCPA.

Fintech apps are an important part of people’s daily lives because digital technologies are changing the way money works. However, there is a major gap in awareness and education about fintech around the world. See how RevX can help your fintech app get ahead of this.

The post Unlocking programmatic advertising for fintech apps appeared first on Business of Apps.

Creative ads can be the difference between a successful app and an app that fails. The quality of these ads – often referred to as creatives – has increased dramatically over the past two years as the app marketplace has become more competitive, particularly for apps using the in-app advertising monetisation model.

Moreover, developments in the mobile industry have continued to adjust the way creative teams work, and the current economic downturn is forcing us to double down on this even more. As it becomes more challenging to make a hit app, we are seeing more developers consider new approaches to creatives, in order to acquire new users and boost downloads.

To assist developers with this, SparkLabs – AppLovin’s in-house creative team – analysed how certain variables impact the creative success of each mobile app advertising initiative. Using data from SparkLabs’ own creatives, collected from across 200+ distinct mobile apps, we identified a range of concepts and strategies associated with top-performing creatives to provide analysis in a Performance-Driven Mobile Ad Trends report.

By combining this analysis with SparkLabs’ observations of emerging tech and creative trends in the market, the team were able to additionally forecast some of the likely trends in the mobile ad creative landscape in the coming year. These insights are designed to help app teams make smart, strategic decisions to achieve the best results from their creatives.

So, for developers and advertisers looking to keep creative production on the cutting edge, here’s what to look out for.

Generative AI will transform creative production

One thing we can expect to have an impact on the production process of creatives is AI. Across countless industries, AI is becoming an increasingly important innovation – and mobile advertising is no exception. For example, AI-generated voiceovers were associated with nearly 29% of creative wins last year at SparkLabs, and as the technology becomes more popular, visual and interactive applications, such as graphics, videos, 3D, chatbots and more are becoming more advanced and efficient. These tools are already being used to accelerate content production and data processing at numerous stages of the production process, and we predict that they will eventually make it to the UI level for mobile advertising.

Further adoption of diversity and representation will improve engagement

Users want to engage considerably more when they feel a sense of identification or connection to characters, themes and storylines. Therefore, developers can reach a wider, more diverse user base by introducing characters of various genders, ages, ethnicities, body types, sexual orientations, socio-economic statuses and more through their mobile app advertising. Developers in 2023 must make sure to include visually diverse characters, and when using AI or recorded voiceovers, consider the accent and tone of the person speaking, being careful to avoid stereotypes or caricatures.

Live-action creatives will continue to expand their reach and popularity

Despite tightening budgets, mobile creatives will branch out and produce more polished live-action creatives to grab users’ attention. Creating live-action no longer requires days of shooting with sets, props and scripts. There are now several affordable ways to create live-action snippets with a tight budget.

Relatable and realistic live-action creatives with the look and feel of user-generated content create a casual and inclusive feel and are therefore particularly impactful for user acquisition. Developers may also work in elements like immersive narratives and character diversity to further strengthen live-action content.

Constructing immersion and providing value will be the next steps after attracting attention

Tutorials in the form of voiceovers alongside visual demonstrations were a huge hit in 2022. This showed us how ads that provide value and assist users in developing their understanding are more likely to succeed. We expect this trend to continue. Complex creatives inspired by new, exciting interactions, such as chatbots, AR/VR elements, gyro, and voice recognition will help to create immersion and incentivise users to go further down the funnel after the creative attracts their attention.

Users will continue to become less tolerant of clickbait and irrelevant ads

Mobile app advertising that forces interaction, makes false claims or sells too hard is becoming increasingly costly to user experience and trust. Developers must be wary of alienating users through poor UX, high ad fatigue due to too many irrelevant or frustrating ads, ads that seem like privacy risks, and other frustrating or seemingly disingenuous creative content.

If you choose to serve ads with content that isn’t as relevant to your app, consider adjusting other variables. For example, try mechanics that align well with user motivations – if a user liked the puzzles in your ads, likely they’ll also like the puzzles in your app.

Marketers will increasingly explore CTV as an additional channel for creatives

CTV has evolved into a measurable, accountable performance marketing channel. While mobile is a strong channel for advertisers and brands, adding CTV to a marketing mix can only extend the reach. With the increasing popularity of both free ad-supported TV (FAST) and ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD), streaming services with specific audiences can allow marketers to run extremely precise ads with tailored campaigns that will lead to great ROI through conversion.

CTV users are used to more story-rich ads, as that’s how traditional broadcast television has operated for decades. Therefore, developers can build ads around factors like narrative, emotional impact, and the devices on which you can experience the app.

Staying ahead of the market

Nothing has become more important to drive success for mobile user acquisition in the past few years than creatives. Of all our predictions, one that is most certain is that they will continue to be fundamental to apps’ success. Whether you’re a performance marketer, data analyst, developer, or designer — being able to anticipate and innovate the next high-performing ad trend is critical to staying a step ahead of the market in today’s increasingly competitive industry.

The post What the future of creative ads looks like appeared first on Business of Apps.

Are you a media buyer looking for new ways to drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition? If so, the Utilities vertical is an area you’ll want to keep on your radar.

With people constantly seeking out technology to make their lives easier, the demand for utility products like VPNs, storage cleaners, and note-taking apps is only increasing.

Following the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns, a growing number of users have shown an increased demand for utility apps and software – which is excellent news for advertisers and media buyers alike.

It’s clear that the Utilities vertical is powerful at driving revenue, so what are the key trends and ad formats that interested advertisers should use?

Well, we dug into the data to find out!

We conducted a 30-day analysis of PropellerAds‘ advertiser data in the Utilities vertical and identified key trends, GEOs, and ad formats that will scale your performance in 2023.

Learn more about these key trends and ad formats below.

Trends in the Utilities vertical

The global utility app market is booming, expected to reach USD 7.8 billion by 2028, with the Google Play Store having the highest share of the market segment at around 60%.

Our data shows that this projected growth is more than just speculation, with increased impressions and clicks in the last 30 days across multiple GEOs.

Utilities growth by impressions

Source: PropellerAds

The United States stands out as the GEO with the highest number of impressions and conversions, with a significant increase in impressions in the past month – +40%.

Switzerland has seen impressive growth, indicating a growing appetite for utility apps in this region – +32%. China and Vietnam are also showing steady growth in the Utilities vertical (21% and 6% accordingly).

Privacy apps are on the rise

Since the introduction of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature and Google’s rollout of the Privacy Sandbox project, privacy and protection have been at the forefront of advertisers’ and tech-savvy users’ minds.

Predictably, the greater awareness of better privacy and protection has increased demand for utility apps that promise to keep users’ data safe.

For example, OneProtect: Ads & Call Blocker, a fast-growing privacy app in the USA, has seen a remarkable rise in adoption, with a 4.5 app store rating and a list of attractive features that privacy-conscious users love.

The bottom line? Privacy-focused utility apps aren’t just useful, but very popular, too.

Effective ad formats for the Utilities vertical

We dove deeper into Utilities vertical data to uncover the optimal ad formats that advertisers and marketers can use.

Source: PropellerAds

Onclick/pop-under and interstitial appear to be the most efficient ad formats for this vertical. With a whopping combined 102M impressions, these formats trend stronger at driving increased visibility among utility users.

Push and In-Page Push ad formats are also showing steady growth in the Utilities vertical, with a combined 4.6M impressions.

Strong ad Formats are UX-friendly

Both onclick/pop-under and interstitial ad formats offer a more positive UX with their creatives. These ads use pre-landers, which are pages that appear before the main landing.

Pre-landers are particularly effective at driving highly-relevant engagement thanks to their creative format. Offering more space for details, appealing visuals, and increased chances to present the offer, they are often irresistible to leads.

Better yet, based on our research, pre-landers generate more relevant engagement and leads compared to other formats. This is because if a lead clicks on a pre-lander it’s highly likely they are interested in the offer. While this makes the user journey longer, it benefits advertisers by helping them reach a more relevant audience, boosting CTRs, and decreasing bounce rates.

As Anastasia Khegay, Senior Account Strategist at PropellerAds puts it, “pre-landers can be incredibly powerful when used correctly. They help to guide users to your offer smoothly, warming them up before a conversion. Pre-landers have great potential in terms of turning a visitor into a lead, especially if you have a persuasive copy and the right settings to successfully drive traffic via pre-landers.”

The future of the Utilities vertical

Based on what we’ve learned, the key takeaways are:

• The Utilities vertical is growing globally, with steady growth in most GEOs.
• Privacy and protection are at the forefront of users’ minds, meaning it’s a good time for advertisers, brands, and media buyers to work in these niches.
• UX-friendly ad formats like onclick/pop-under and interstitial have the power to drive greater traffic with the right approach.

So, the Utilities vertical is a dynamic and exciting area of advertising, with significant potential for those who can effectively harness its power. Based on our data and its current growth, it’s likely that this is a vertical that will only continue from strength to strength. Give it a try!

The post Strategies for media buying in the Utilities vertical appeared first on Business of Apps.

After migrating to the new UA automation tools, more than a dozen of our clients have already been able to scale their operations and develop more complex marketing strategies without hiring additional staff.

But let’s start from the beginning.

User acquisition (UA) managers know how challenging it can be to manage creatives, ad sets, and campaigns across multiple ad networks.

This post was first published on pocketgamer.biz.

You probably have experienced the frustration of seeing your campaigns’ Cost Per Mille (CPM) increase and the number of installs decrease, even after creating new campaigns in other ad networks. And if your app or game is already showing decent results, you may be hesitant to change anything for fear of harming the AI algorithm behind it.

The number of decisions managers must act on to optimize marketing campaigns has exploded, and manually managing them all is no longer feasible.

With the gaming industry expected to grow at a 7.2% CAGR to exceed $200B in 2024, competition is fierce, and the pressure to differentiate your game from others is more significant than ever. This is where automating your user acquisition can make all the difference.

The new set of UA automation tools created by Appodeal has improved the lives of UA managers working at mobile app and game studios.

• AutoBid lets the AI algorithms find the optimal bid and budget for your campaigns in multiple ad networks and get the most out of your marketing spend.
• You can also create new target audiences, test 100 new creatives daily, and find new ways to beat your competitors.
• And all this while keeping your acquisition costs as low as possible.

Keep reading to learn how you can benefit from automating your user acquisition efforts and learn valuable tips and strategies to get started.

UA automation powered by artificial intelligence

There are two ways mobile businesses can automate their UA Campaigns: rule-based and AI-based automation.

Rule-based automation systems require domain experts to implement “IF X happens, THEN do Y” type logic to relevant business problems.

However, rule-based automation has several downsides. It’s unsuitable for different cohorts’ behaviors, leading to sub-optimal performance and diminishing returns in some ad sets. It is also not adaptive to dynamic environments. Some platforms or ad networks can severely impact rule-set mechanisms, and UA managers may need several changes. Spending time on these adjustments can lead to frustration.

If you want to avoid all that hassle, Appodeal’s UA automation is AI-based. You can synchronize your monetization, user acquisition, and analytics data from your growth platform.

By doing so, you can leverage the power of artificial intelligence to process and learn from this data, leading to more effective and efficient decision-making.

Appodeal’s AI-powered platform is designed to handle large volumes of data and identify trends and patterns that might not be visible to the human eye. Appodeal algorithms can learn from historical data and build complex relationships between variables.

Compared to traditional models, the AI-powered platform offers a more effective and efficient approach to data management.

Appodeal’s UA automation tools allow you to save valuable time and resources while gaining deeper insights into your business’s performance.

How to start benefiting from UA automation?

As game studios and app developers continue to compete in the crowded mobile market, AI-based algorithms unlock the possibility to:

• Predict new cohorts’ LTV (Lifetime Value) based on your revenue model.
• Automate the optimum bid to ensure the most installs based on your ROAS goals.
• Allocate the ad budget across your ad networks to find the best distribution channel for your needs.
• Or even detect changes in user behavior and suggest new action points faster than any rule-based automation.

It can be challenging to visualize how these concepts apply to real-life situations.

In the following section, we’ll delve into some actual use cases of how UA automation has helped some of our clients.

Practical use cases of UA automation

Reducing costs and time with AutoBid

At Appodeal, we have trained our AI-based algorithms to detect the ups and downs of the ARPDAU of your ad campaigns.

Once that happens, Appodeal’s AutoBid will quickly update the current bids for that campaign to try to get you closer to your target ROAS.

This happens automatically, without the need for humans to intervene.

Source: Appodeal

The system can make these changes quickly, so you can keep earning money from your ads even if something changes in your users’ behavior.

Also, by automating repetitive tasks such as bid and budget adjustments, we allowed UA teams to focus on more strategic and creative tasks that require human ingenuity.

This, in turn, allows mobile businesses and UA teams to dive deeper into campaign performance analysis, brainstorm new ad creatives, and think more strategically about how we can optimize our clients’ campaigns for success.

Forecasting your LTV for up to 2 years

Sometimes, the top-performing UA campaigns target a small cohort of potential customers.

Still, estimating campaign-level metrics manually can be dull and lead to uncertainty, especially when predicting the LTV of future users based on a small group of recent acquisitions.

UA automation algorithms can help you optimize your targeting strategies.

By taking a more practical approach, mobile businesses can gain valuable insights into user behavior and predict future LTV with greater accuracy. Appodeal allows LTV predictions for up to 2 years in advance. This way, you can ensure that your ad campaigns effectively reach and engage even the smallest cohorts.

In addition, forecasted metrics can help you make more informed decisions about how to allocate your ad spend and maximize your ROI.

A/B Testing a hundred ad creatives per week

At our company, iterating on creative ideas is a never-ending process. When our creative team produces video content, we run tests to determine which ideas perform the best. To do this, we upload everything to an ad network of choice and run the test overnight, analyzing the results the following day.

This approach allows us to quickly identify the winners and losers and communicate the results to our team. We then implement the best-performing ideas into our live campaigns, starting the process anew.

Source: Appodeal

Why do we do this? Well, our creative team can produce hundreds of video creatives in a single week, and we need to test them all to ensure we’re using the most effective ones.

Additionally, manually uploading all of these creatives to several sources for each of our live campaigns would take hours. However, with the help of the Appodeal dashboard, we can accomplish this in a matter of minutes.

Through this approach, we can constantly improve our campaigns and keep our creative ideas fresh and compelling.

Stay ahead of your competitors with UA automation

Let’s face it, manually managing your UA campaigns can be tedious and time-consuming.

However, UA automation has the power to change that. By automating your user acquisition, you free up time and resources to focus on more exciting projects that can lead to further growth and innovation within your company.

By embracing UA automation, mobile businesses like yours gain a competitive edge over competitors. The sooner you adopt this technology, the greater your advantage will be.

Not only will you save valuable time and resources, but you’ll also be able to focus on higher-value tasks that can drive your mobile apps and games forward.

At Appodeal, we’ve seen firsthand the benefits of UA automation. Those clients that have already tested our UA automation tools have been able to scale their operations and develop more complex marketing strategies without hiring additional staff.

The results have been impressive, and we believe that UA automation can be a game-changer for any media-buying department looking to stay ahead in today’s competitive landscape.

So, if you’re tired of spending hours on mundane tasks and want to focus on more exciting and strategic projects, it’s time to jump on the UA automation train. The benefits are clear, and the rewards will come in no time.

The post Scale your mobile apps while saving time and costs appeared first on Business of Apps.

With most of the world’s gaming market now dominated by mobile games, the mobile gaming industry is more diverse and popular than ever. Thanks to GameDNA, AppTweak’s mobile gaming classification, we are now able to uncover more precise and relevant app store insights than store-given subcategories.

AppTweak analyzed the top 1,000 games that drove the most downloads on the App Store and Google Play in the US in 2022. In our latest report, “GameDNA: Mobile Gaming Trends 2023,” we have listed the most popular mobile game genres of last year, which can help developers better inform game business decisions in 2023.

Hyper-casual games drove 25% of mobile game downloads

Download share of the US App Store & Google Play (2022)

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

In 2022, we found that users heavily downloaded easy-to-play hyper-casual games, with this gaming category driving almost 25% of all downloads of the top games analyzed. Action and puzzle games each also held over 10% of the market’s download share in 2022.

The most popular GameDNA subcategory was hyper-casual simulation, with the game Money Rush (6.7M) leading this subcategory in downloads. Stone Grass: Lawn Mower Game (5.1M) was the second most downloaded hyper-casual simulation game, despite only being released in February 2022.

Hyper-casual simulation

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

Although hyper-casual games drove the highest download share in 2022, many hyper-casual GameDNAs held a lower download share in 2022 than in 2021. For instance, hyper-casual shooting, hyper-casual racing, and more hyper-casual gameplays seemed to be less powerful in the market. As a result, hyper-casual games may not be the most stable genre over time.

GameDNA download share in 2021 vs 2022 (US)

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

Word games saw the strongest growth in 2022

Word games also led the mobile game market in 2022. With top games including Wordscapes and Wordle!, word games drove 1.4% more download share than in 2021. Word games could, therefore, represent interesting growth opportunities for game developers.

Top word games in 2022

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

App store visitors are spending more on match games

In terms of revenue, match games drove the highest-grossing revenue share of all game subcategories. In particular, match-blast games experienced the biggest revenue growth of all GameDNA subcategories in 2022, driving 1.3% more in-store consumer spend share than in 2021.

Top match game in 2022

Click on image for full size

Source: AppTweak

Download the Mobile Gaming Market Trends 2022 report by AppTweak.

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In this interview, we talked to Riccardo Fuzzi, Massimo Caroli, and Alessandro Del Grano – founders of MAF, a mobile marketing company based in Italy.

First things first, could you give our readers a quick introduction to your company?

Riccardo: MAF is an all-in-one solution to grow and monetize apps. We offer monetization and user acquisition solutions for advertisers and publishers. Everything we do is based on a clear vision: transforming advertising into discovery.

How old is MAF and how did you get started?

Alessandro: MAF’s story began in 2013 when we created our first app, myAppFree. We created this app because we noticed a gap in the industry. While Android and iOS phones had solutions for app discovery, on Windows phones (which were still popular at the time), there was no such thing. Therefore, we developed an app that allowed users to discover new apps and games. The app quickly gained a lot of popularity, especially in our country, Italy.

The MAF founders

Source: MAF

This was only the start of our journey, and the success of our first product encouraged us to transform it into something bigger. To adapt to users’ wants and needs, we shifted to iOS and Android and developed from there.

Although the app quickly gained popularity and an impressive number of downloads, monetizing it proved challenging. After struggling to find a network suitable for smaller publishers, we decided to take matters into our own hands. In 2016, MAF started its journey as a network, offering a new monetization solution for all publishers worldwide.

During all this time, we remained product-focused and evolved from a single app to an entire network of apps, games, and user acquisition solutions.

You’ve recently changed your company’s name and logo, right?

Massimo: Yes, we’ve decided to rebrand from myAppFree to MAF. It’s not that we didn’t like our old logo and name, but it was too connected to our initial products and not to the whole vision that we are bringing out today. Over the years, myAppFree has evolved and grown, and the new branding reflects this evolution. Today, our new branding aligns with MAF’s commitment to assisting developers in turning their apps into profitable businesses.

Alessandro: Also, as you may notice, we didn’t want to go with a massive name change. That’s why we decided on a shortened version of our previous name, which was already familiar to a lot of people in the industry.

myAppFree to MAF

Source: MAF

What did the rebranding process look like?

Riccardo: The rebranding process took quite some time because we wanted everything to be perfect. Generally, one of the key challenges of rebranding is staying true to yourself while introducing something new. In this process, you need to strike the right balance between the innovation you bring and the heart of what you are.

What are the primary services that MAF offers today, and how do they help app developers to grow their apps?

Alessandro: Our services are split into two categories – for advertisers and publishers.

For advertisers, we offer solutions to acquire new high-quality users at scale. To be exact, we are focused on rewarded formats that encourage users to engage with content. This way, we allow users to discover games and apps and receive something in return. We’re especially focused on targeting, ensuring we match the right app to the right users.

As for publishers, we help them monetize their traffic with our unique ad solutions and technologies. For example, myChips offerwall is a monetization format that allows publishers to monetize traffic both on apps and websites.

All this aligns with our long-term vision to transform advertising into discovery. We started our journey with ad discovery and are now expanding this vision to the entire mobile ecosystem.

Can you share with us any notable achievements or milestones that MAF has accomplished since its launch?

Massimo: I would mention three accomplishments we’re especially proud of.

The first is our products. We started with a single product and now we have not just a network, but a full product portfolio – apps, games, ad formats, and monetization solutions.

The second and most important one is the team. Our awesome team just keeps on growing and we’re constantly expanding our global presence. We’re also proud to be expanding our team in different lines of work. For example, we have recently started our own branch of game publishing.

The third is business expansion. We absolutely exploded as a business in terms of numbers over the last year, and we even received some recognition for it. For example, the Financial Times ranked us among the top 100 fastest-growing companies in Europe.

Overall, everything is moving in the right direction; we’re just putting in more effort to help our business grow even further.

The mobile industry has gone through some big changes lately. Can you describe how MAF managed to adapt and continue to thrive?

Alessandro: Being in the mobile industry for more than a decade, we have a lot of experience with changing and adapting. It’s not a choice – it’s something you have to do to stay alive and profitable.

To keep pace with the demand side, we always listen to what our users are telling us, pay attention to market trends, and try to anticipate future ones.

Moreover, new rules and regulations have had a strong effect on mobile advertising. The latest example is iOS privacy changes. Luckily, for us, this was not a huge change because we work with owned and operated properties, which are based on first-party data that is left unaffected by these changes.

Finally, the industry is constantly changing inventory – every now and then, there is hype about a certain vertical. For example, in recent years, there has been an explosion of fintech, which prompted us to develop our own play-to-earn solutions.

The secret to overcoming all of these challenges is to continuously change, add new products before your competitors, plan ahead, and try to understand what the market needs and what you can offer to fill the voids.

How did you communicate the rebranding to your clients and users, and what steps did you take to ensure a smooth transition to the new brand?

Riccardo: For our clients, we ensured a seamless transition to the new brand. We have simply communicated that we are not changing at the core, but we’re just changing our appearance.

Nothing else is changing – the quality remains at the same high level, and there’s nothing new in terms of ownership of the company or the team. We just wanted an image of ourselves that is better aligned with what we do today.

What advice would you give to app developers and publishers looking to grow and monetize their apps, and how can they benefit from working with MAF?

Alessandro: The #1 thing app developers and publishers need to always keep in mind is their product KPIs. Achieving these KPIs is not just about using the right advertising strategy, but also about adapting products accordingly. For example, if you’re planning to advertise your apps and games with a rewarded approach, you should also build your product in a way that works better with this format.

We have a lot of experience with this, so we help our clients adapt their products, resulting in better ROI as well as retention rates and engagement.

On the monetization side, it’s super important to find profitable ad formats. But not only that, it’s equally important to make sure your strategy is not intrusive to users.

Since our vision is to transform advertising into discovery, we keep developing formats that enhance the user experience. Thanks to this, developers are not just acquiring users to turn a profit but also to strengthen their existing user base. It is critical to shift away from the belief that you must drain your user base and, instead, focus on turning it into a community.

Interested in learning more about how MAF transforms advertising into discovery? Visit maf.ad or get in touch at info@myappfree.com.

The post From myAppFree to MAF: A growth and rebranding story appeared first on Business of Apps.

No longer just a means of transportation, cars today have become a world of their own, where everything is just a tap away. Using connected car solutions, you can operate your car as a personal device. Besides auto manufacturers, app development companies are also seeing a plethora of opportunities in connected car app development.

Looking at the latest stats, we found that in 2021, the connected vehicle market reached $23.6 billion, and by 2026, it’s going to be valued at $56.3 billion with a CAGR of around 19.0%.

So, let’s talk about connected car apps, what they are, how to develop one yourself, and the challenges you will likely face along the way.

What are connected car apps?

A connected car app is a dedicated smartphone app that is connected to a vehicle via a wireless network. It permits users to control their vehicles remotely. Users can use it to lock or unlock their vehicles, start or stop the engine, open the sunroof, turn on and off the headlight, blow the horn, and so on.

Some of the world-famous names in this sector are Renault, Nissan, General Motors, AT&T, and BMW, who have all created engaging and user-friendly connected car apps available on the app stores.

How to develop connected car apps

You can follow any approach to build apps for smart cars. Each comes with its own specific challenges.

Example of a connected car app

Source: Emizen Tech

Apps that run on a smartphone

Unique aspects:

• Such apps are rolled out on handheld devices, not on IVI (in-vehicle infotainment) systems.
• In this approach, your app will communicate with your vehicle via dedicated AI channels.
• Third-party developers can’t access the main functions of cars, such as electronic systems.

This way of developing connected car apps is best for creating safe and convenient in-vehicle infotainment apps. Developing such apps is easier than IVI-based app development. This is because software fits better in a smartphone and because API usage is wholly regulated by an automobile manufacturer.

Example:

• Ford Motor Company

In-vehicle information systems apps

Unique aspects:

• Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) help build in-vehicle information (IVI) systems.
• Mostly, the development projects are outsourced to third-party developers.
• To create a connected car app for users, developers need to integrate the code of current IVI platforms, like Ford Sync System.

The Linux platform can also be considered here as it guarantees a smooth app-making process, but you will not be able to publish the app on the app stores.

Example:

• CarInfo

API-based development

Unique aspects:

• In this case, the mobile connection between a vehicle and an automaker is given a green signal on the production line.
• The car manufacturer is entirely responsible for gathering and analyzing the car data that comes from GPS, engine control units, electronic sensors, and other dashboards.
• Besides, this data makes the app development process simpler.

Example:

• General Motors OnStar

Access to vehicle data through on-board diagnostic systems (OBD-II)

Unique aspects:

• This is one of the most widely-chosen approaches to developing connected car apps. It relies on data accumulated from the onboard diagnostic systems. Currently recognized as OBD-II, this system is a one-way data port that facilitates vehicle data accessibility but is not reliable when it comes to controlling its inner systems.
• The developers can’t access the OEM platform while using this port.
• The data OBD-II stores are the power booster for the connected car app development.
• In this technology, car apps either run in the Cloud or on a smartphone, so the data is accumulated instantly from a gyroscope, GPS, and accelerometer.
• The data stored on this port arrives with a unique opportunity for app developers. They can analyze this data and use it to provide drivers with real-time stats about vehicle speed, engine performance, fuel usage, and so on.

Globally, vendors prefer using the OBD-II to build various useful apps and devices. Using the collected data, developers can craft extremely valuable software products for more accurate car insurance data, extended details on vehicle performance, and more.

Features of connected car apps

Driver monitoring

Cars manufacturers equip their cars with special systems that can be linked with connected car apps and facilitate users’ control of how the car is driven, its speed limits, running hours, and more.

Blind spots and parking

Smartphones’ built-in cameras are very useful when parking a car. The driver can see everything from their rearview cameras, preventing any potential accidents.

Fuel/energy usage

Connected car maintenance apps can help monitor real-time fuel or battery consumption by vehicles.

Digital diagnostics

Connected car apps can also diagnose vehicles’ health digitally. It lets drivers monitor tire pressure and brakes performance and can also send notifications about any potential issues.

If you are looking to develop your own connected car app, consider connecting with an experienced app development company that has the required expertise to help steer your project toward success!

The post How to develop a connected car app appeared first on Business of Apps.

With the total number of app installs falling and the recession scares looming, more and more app developers are becoming laser-focused on performance like never before. Anything that can’t prove its positive ROI gets less attention, and brand activities like influencer marketing are the ones getting cut from the budget. Coincidentally, bloggers never deliver the same cost-efficiency as user acquisition: their CPI is inevitably higher, and all other metrics go up together with the ever-rising CPM. For performance-focused developers, anything that can’t be tracked should be stopped.

However, short-term clenching never helped long-term growth, and branding activities are just one example. Unfortunately, “trust me, this will work” doesn’t always convince one’s colleagues and managers to keep the budgets flowing into seemingly less effective channels. That’s why it’s important to see the full picture and be able to predict the long-term effects of short-term campaigns. Complex attribution models were designed just with this idea in mind, but they don’t always deliver.

Q4 2022 Worldwide download growth

Source: Sensor Tower

Why current attribution models don’t always work

Attribution models try to collect information from several media and data sources and trace back the user from the crumbs he left along the way. With the abundance of ads and ad budgets, customers are always less likely to follow the direct click-to-install pipeline: most purchase decisions are the result of the accumulative effect of several brand touchpoints.

Most attribution models focus on the last touch, usually giving it the full responsibility for bringing in the user and calculating the per-channel ROI accordingly. This approach ignores all the previous brand activity and makes a lot of brandformance media (i.e. platforms that combine both branding- and performance-oriented objectives) like influencers seem less effective. One way to remedy this might be by adding a bonus for any influencer touchpoints: this way you track not just direct but also indirect installs.

Another way to get a more complete customer journey picture might be by implementing a linear attribution model with branding bonuses. This framework gives equal credit to all touchpoints in the customer journey but also adds bonuses for any influencer or branding touchpoints. For example, if a customer saw a branding ad on TikTok, clicked on an influencer’s link, and then made a purchase after seeing an Instagram ad, the model would give equal credit to each touchpoint and bonuses to the Instagram ad and the influencer touchpoint.

However, all these and many other models run into one key obstacle: accurate tracking. With more and more users opting out of tracking on mobile devices and the web, and social media platforms reinventing their ad models every business quarter, a lot of leads and customers may get lost in the ether. This is why at Zorka.Agency we offer models that take into consideration only the 100% controllable data, like the number of installs and CPI.

Such frameworks are ever-important with the growing popularity of brandformance, an approach that renders awareness activities more analyzable and performance-like in their ROI. Seeing more requests for accurate tracking and attribution, we felt like it’s worth sharing one of our influencer marketing attribution models. While it’s just a regular framework that involves some data crunching, we still believe in (and have experienced) its efficacy.

Measuring organic installs growth: Brand boost

A disclaimer before we dig deeper into this attribution model: no framework is all-encompassing or complete. Customer journeys may be sporadic, and with IDFA and similar ad identifiers being severely limited, tracking a user from point Ad to point App is more difficult than ever before. What we propose is a model that at least considers the usually ignored organic boost from the non-performance campaigns and at most provides you with a more authentic CPI that takes this organic boost into account.

With this out of the way, let’s dive in. First, we’ll need the average organic installs (AOI) of your app, net of all marketing campaigns. For some brands with an always-on social presence, this may be difficult to calculate: if anything, the whole point of the brandformance approach is that it positively influences the number of organic installs in the long run. However, a good way to approach this might be to find a relatively promo-free window in your marketing calendar and get an average install count over 20 to 30 days.

Then, we’ll need the CPI of current campaigns. We suggest taking an average cost per install or per action from several UA campaigns to balance out any outliers. For those who want to get extra specific, separate CPIs according to the medium: for example, different metrics for Instagram, YouTube, and banner ads. This way you can track the organic boost within one app or social media.

These numbers represent the current static, against which our brandformance activities will be measured. When you launch the next campaign (and tracking it well goes without saying), separate the direct and indirect organic installs resulting from it. Try separating it into three groups: immediate (up to 6-8 hours after the publication, depending on the media and the bloggers’ viewing statistics), short-term (up to 7 days after the publication), and long-term (up to 28 days after the influencer publication).

Now let’s do some math. First, take the difference between the total organic installs (TOI) over a certain period and the average organic installs (AOI): this will give us the relevant organic boost. Then, divide this number by the number of direct installs (DI), and you will get the brandformance ratio. For example, with 220 additional organic and 840 direct installs, the indirect power of brand and influencer accounts for a considerable 26% boost.

Organic boost formula

Source: Zorka.Agency

An even better way to track the so-called brand residue is to use this model for every channel and media: YouTube, TikTok, banners, and in-game ads. This way you will get more specific and relevant results and will be able to act accordingly. For example, you might want to launch a small UA campaign on TikTok at the same time you have several bloggers hyping up your app organically.

Of course, these numbers and ratios are somewhat suggestive: the real brandformance power lies in lowering (or at least keeping stable) the CPIs over different media, as well as in the marginal growth of organic installs over time. For this, we suggest tracking AOI and CPI over a longer period of time (say, 2-3 months) and measuring whether there are any improvements. Any growth of organic installs will be a sure win, and a fall in CPI (or at least a less rapid growth, compared to the industry average of 12% Y/Y) should be considered the indirect result of your brand activities. Measure these numbers long-term and compare them quarter-to-quarter to track the results of brand awareness campaigns.

Measuring cost-efficiency: Influencer media value

IMV stands for Influencer media value and claims to measure the added value of influencers’ reach. It does so in dollars: that is, how much a brand would have to spend on classical media tools like paid ads to achieve similar results. For example, a post with an IMV of $500 is equivalent to an ad campaign that has been seen by 50,000 people with a CPM of $10 and a frequency of 1. Needless to say, an IM campaign with an IMV higher than its cost should be considered a success.

And while some bloggers actually use an average CPM in their pricing strategies, it’s sometimes even more cost-efficient to work with influencers, especially with the extra niche ones (high-quality audience, more willing to work on a per-click basis) or super popular ones (eCPM is way lower than direct ads).

Even more important (and one of the key reasons the IM continues to grow year to year) is the quality of the audience. Basic ads require a frequency of at least 2–3 for them to be at least recognized later, whereas a blogger’s integration, especially an authentic and creative one, is received, recognized, and remembered better. That’s why the model we use at Zorka.Agency uses frequency alternative as an extra factor, meant to account for audience engagement.

IMV formula

Source: Zorka.Agency

Our IMV model suggests using a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the least active audience (few reactions and comments, lower view depth) and 5 being the most active. Try paying attention not just to the number of likes and comments, but also to the specific mentions of the integration, as well as its tone, positive or negative. Internal video statistics from the bloggers (ERR, view depth, etc.) can also be helpful.

These two frameworks, while often updated and always adjusted to the client, provide a fairly universal way to get the two most important performance metrics from brand activities: how much of the marketing budget dollars the IM campaign allowed to save and how efficient a blogger was in triggering an organic growth in installs. Using them in your daily practice should render the effect of brand activities more visible to the team and the management.

The post Brand power and where to find it: Measuring the effect of influencer marketing appeared first on Business of Apps.

While developing a mobile application, what’s the biggest challenge that businesses face? Users’ data privacy and security! Keeping the users’ data safe is one of the biggest concerns in today’s digital landscape. With the rise of Cyberattacks and breaches, data security management has become mandatory during mobile app development. As mobile application security is at risk today, hackers are trying new tricks and techniques to exploit vulnerabilities in mobile applications.

So, organizations must take the best security measures to keep their applications’ user data safe. According to the research, nearly 50% of organizations’ employees download one or two malicious applications. Also, approximately 40% of mobile apps remain vulnerable to cyberattacks. For this reason, users are more afraid of using a new application and cannot trust it easily. But there is a solution to it.

If you are developing a mobile app, try the following mobile app development security practices to keep your users’ data safe and protected.  

What is mobile app security?

Mobile app security protects the application from external risks such as viruses and other cyber threats by incorporating standard security protocols. These malware and online dangers put financial and other sensitive data at risk of hackers.

In today’s digital world, mobile application security has also become vital. Personal information about users may be accessible to hackers through a mobile security breach. Security protocols are applied during mobile app development to ensure that none of the users’ data gets leaked or misused.

7 Mobile app development practices for securing user data 

Want to build a mobile app that is completely safe and secure? Try the following mobile development practices for enhanced user data security. 

1. Encryption of data & code

Bugs can generate through insignificant coding mistakes or testing oversights. It makes mobile apps susceptible to hacker exploitation. So, using data encryption while creating a mobile app is the best solution.

Code encryption and data encryption are the two types of encryption available. In code encryption, the text is changed into numerical code series. Data encryption, on the other hand, changes data into a form that is unreadable to hackers.

2. Error-free codes

As per professional mobile app developers, approximately 82% of the vulnerabilities in mobile applications are caused due to inappropriate coding practices. It demonstrates that the code requires high security, and mobile app developers should ensure it is 100% error-free before debugging.

Comprehending its architecture is one of the best techniques to safeguard the application or software. You can hire dedicated developers who test the application from different perspectives and ensure the code is safe. It will help you develop a secure application and protect your app users’ data.

3. Ensure high-level authentication

High-level encryption is a must when developing mobile apps. So, create an application that reminds users to periodically change their passwords. Add features like alphanumeric passwords as well. It increases security and adds a layered authentication procedure.

Developers can also add capabilities for biometric authentication or retina scanning. These two features leverage high-level authentication that is virtually impossible to circumvent. Another efficient technique to safeguard the app is OTP (one-time password).  

4. Perform a strong security check

Verifying the mobile app’s usability and security before the launch is mandatory. Finding the application’s vulnerability is the aim. Even after the app has been released, frequent testing is advised.

To achieve a launch deadline, the developer’s team might occasionally test the software even though app vulnerabilities may endanger user security. To ensure perfect authentication and authorization processes, conduct code audits and testing. 

5. Beware of third-party libraries

It becomes easier for developers to code using third-party libraries rather than constructing an application from scratch. Also, there is a tonne of free libraries that make calling specific functions easier. Be cautious when using such libraries, as you could expose your app to security issues.

When it comes to third-party libraries, be twice as cautious. Before incorporating the code into your app, properly test it and examine the library’s many versions. Once thoroughly examined or a new problem arises, many of the largest coding libraries still have security issues. Use several internal controller repositories and policy controls to shield your apps from potential weaknesses in these libraries. These regulations will assist in separating the data layer. 

6. Control data sharing within apps

For developers wishing to transfer data between two or more apps, data sniffing has a lot of promise. Data transfer may be problematic, particularly if hackers figure out how you accomplish it and discover that it is unprotected.

Signature-based permissions can prevent needless interference while transferring data across programs you manage. The apps’ functionality is maintained as these permissions don’t require user action. Instead, they see if the data-accessing apps have the same signature and signing key.

7. Insert secure APIs

Finally, secure APIs are the last method to ensure client data security within your mobile application. APIs are the main method for transferring data between applications, the cloud, and consumers. Developers must guarantee the security of the code when utilizing third-party APIs.

Only allow the necessary applications to access APIs with data authorization. To secure your app’s API – Use a strong gateway or a central OAuth server to securely manage user authentication.

Implementing these strategies above will help you create a secure mobile application and save huge costs during mobile app development.

Final Thoughts

Developing a secure mobile application is just a matter of following the best mobile app development security practices. It helps to prevent vulnerabilities that might affect the application to a great extent. So, all business owners should begin with robust code that follows expert coding practices and explicit function calls. Besides, if you implement the above-mentioned mobile app development security practices, you will run a successful business application while keeping the users’ data safe and secure.

For professional assistance, you can contact a leading mobile app development company. The professionals will help you create a mobile application that is secure enough to comply with data protection laws and regulations.

The post How to keep user data safe in mobile app development appeared first on Business of Apps.

If there’s any hyped topic in the affiliate marketing industry, it’s certainly LATAM revenue in the iGaming vertical.

According to Statista, the GGR of the betting market in Latin America is bound to reach $3.4 billion in 2025 while the gambling industry will make up $4.4 billion according to VIXIO Gambling Compliance’s study.

What’s more, the region is developing and growing fast, 2022 NewZoo Global Games Market Report says that the year-over-year growth in revenue for LATAM is 10% and is estimated at $8.9 billion.

To be even more precise, RichAds ad network’s internal stats show that gambling and betting converted best of all for the whole year of 2022, specifically in Brazil. It also proves the theory that iGaming in LATAM is a promising bundle to pay attention to in 2023.

In the research article, we’ll provide a successful case study of gambling promotion in Brazil on push traffic as well as reasons to test LATAM, launch hacks and creatives approaches.

LATAM and iGaming: Why test the bundle?

As mentioned before, LATAM is one of the most exciting regions in the affiliate industry together with gambling and betting niches. In short, the reasons are simple — huge population, new laws, extreme growth and intense usage of mobile devices for online Gaming.

Not to be unfounded, let’s look at the facts that actually prove all of the aforementioned statements:

• Gaming Innovation Group recently signed an agreement with the leading land-based operator in Latin America, which proves its emerging growth in the future.
• The number of smartphone users in the region is estimated to reach 485 billion by 2025 according to GSM Association. Obviously, this will have a great influence on the number of active players in the iGaming industry.
• In more and more countries of LATAM iGaming is becoming legalized. In 2022, Peru and Chile launched new laws on online gambling and betting activities, which expands the opportunities for their promotion. Brazil is also taking steps in this direction, the market is expanding greatly.
• Last but not least, the amount of digital payments has grown in this region which makes Latin America a tidbit for promoting iGaming offers. BBVA research claims that digital payments increased by 33% and a high percentage of the population (65%) made or received digital payments.

Basically, that’s the main points that prove that iGaming launches in LATAM will be extremely popular in 2023.

RichAds’ insights on iGaming in LATAM

To accumulate as much revenue as possible while driving traffic to this bundle, it’s vital to be aware of all the specifics — GEOs, creatives approaches as well as traffic sources.

We’ve collected all the insights from our experts as well as the latest stats to make the article as useful as possible.

GEOs

We’ve analyzed the best LATAM countries by impressions:

• Brazil — 20.1 million
• Chile — 2 million
• Peru — 2.8 million
• Colombia — 2.5 million
• Argentina — 2.2 million

To learn the exact volumes a day, you can consult a manager or use the Predictor function, it shows the approximate amount of traffic you’ll get on a certain GEO with specific targeting.

Traffic sources

Everybody knows of the prevalence of Facebook, ASO, SEO and Influence traffic when it comes to iGaming. Those are the so-called good old approaches the advertisers apply and get profit while facing several obstacles like restrictions and bans.

In 2023 it’s high time to stake on alternative sources with lower competition and high volumes, this will help to boost the CR and get a fresh audience.

According to the report of 2022, there were 2 ad formats that showed consistently good results for the iGaming vertical at RichAds — direct click and push notifications.

There are several main reasons behind it — no bans and restrictions when it comes to creatives, affordable prices, extremely interested target audience as well as great volumes.

To be more precise, push ads are said to be the proven format at the platform — they’ve shown great results for marketers on iGaming starting from the inception of RichAds in 2018, the CR with the format was skyrocketing, especially during the World Cup.

Source: RichAds

While direct click is quite a fresh channel yet it has already become one of the most efficient for gambling and betting offers.

The mechanism behind it is quite simple — a user is looking for a website, makes a typo and gets redirected to an advertiser’s website. This makes a format really luring as a user’s already searching for similar offers.

We’ve seen these verticals showing high best results on the direct click format almost every month of 2022, so it’s definitely worth trying. Besides, it has the highest conversion rate from registrations to deposits.

Creatives

When it comes to LATAM, it’s crucial to be abreast of the trends and test different approaches as the GEO is very competitive. It’s crucial to know your target audience, for instance, Statista says that the amount of female gamers in Brazil is slightly higher than male ones.

To make the process easier for you, we’ve gathered the approaches to creatives that had the highest CTRs and work for our clients best of all.

• Bonuses convert: This is a universal approach both for male and female audiences and you can never be wrong with it, everybody wants a freebie. Just make sure that the bonuses are relevant to your offer!
• Make your ads personal: Imply that the user is the next winner, and use texts that include a “you” phrase. But do not give empty promises, just a hint that your client has the opportunity to earn a great sum.
• Tell stories about winners: If there’s anything that can make a person believe in his luck, it’s certainly a good story about an ordinary person that made a fortune. Use local languages and region names to make it more plausible.

Case study: 116% ROI on gambling in Brazil

We’ve conducted a case study together with Gambling.pro to check out how much can actually be earned on gambling in Brazil in just one week.

Important note — this was the first encounter of the advertiser with push ads.

Initial data:

• Traffic Source: Push Ads
• Country: Brazil
• Offer: Lafabet
• CPA network: Gambling.pro
• Goal: Deposits
• CPA: $30
• Period: Jan 15 – 22, 2023

Setting up

As we’ve mentioned, the advertiser never worked with push ads, he used only Facebook for promotion, that’s why he consulted the manager before creating his campaign.

The test began with 1 ad campaign and 5 creatives. Targeting was on mobile devices only.

The advertiser chose CPC $0.03, later the bids were adjusted with the help of a manager using the Micro bidding option.

During the first 2 days, the daily budget was $50, then the advertiser scaled it to $100 a day.

The client also used 2 Advanced Targeting options: Android OS from 6 to 12 versions and turned on New subscribers only. This feature allows targeting users who subscribed to push notifications 7 days ago or less.

Also, the frequency cap was set not to annoy potential clients — 1 impression per user a day.

The advertiser also used his previous experience of working with Brazil and decided to set up a schedule. So, the campaign was run only during the second part of the day: from 12 AM to 12 PM.

Source: RichAds

Choosing creatives

All the creatives were made with the help of the RichAds team — the designer prepared images and texts for free. The main approach was bonuses, that’s the most converting one.

Here are some examples:

• Bónus no 1° depósito de 125% – Reivindique bônus de até R$ 3360!
• Bónus de primeiro depósito – Bônus de até R$ 3360 no seu primeiro depósito
• Bônus no seu 1° depósito! – Reivindique um bônus de 125% de até R$ 3360!
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Optimization

Before optimizing the campaign, the advertiser analyzed the results of the first day of testing.  It’s important to say that first he used the widest targeting options and the campaign was launched at 4 PM Brazilian time on Sunday.

The first day of the test showed that the campaign got 1218 clicks in CPA networks and 1360 clicks at RichAds. Another first day’s result was 23 registrations but 0 deposits.

This helped our advertiser to collect the first optimization data and turn off unnecessary targeting and several traffic sources.

Source: RichAds

After the first optimization, the results got better — the campaign received 1360 clicks in RichAds and 1203 clicks in the CPA network. What’s more, the first deposit appeared right after the optimization on Day 2.

Source: RichAds

After collecting more data, the manager helped the advertiser to add more inefficient sources to the blocklist and set up Automated Rules and Micro Bidding.

Another decision made was to increase the budget up to $100 a day to control traffic constantly and not fly into the red.

Results

As a result, the advertiser got 245 registrations and 36 deposits. The total revenue was $1080, while the profit was $580. That’s quite satisfactory for just a week of testing and an ad spend of $500.

Source: RichAds

He claims that push ads turned out to be more than suitable for promoting gambling, yet expertise is required. The advertiser says that managers were a great helping hand during the promotion and he’ll continue scaling the campaign to get even more results.

In conclusion

Obviously, iGaming in LATAM opens a whole land of opportunities for marketers and allows them to get the highest ROI and CR. If you’re eager to learn more peculiarities on promoting iGaming in LATAM, watch the latest Ads&Grans video on RichAds’ YouTube channel, more hints can be found there.

Join RichAds’ ad platform to launch profitable iGaming campaigns!

The post iGaming vertical in LATAM: Boost ROI up to 116% appeared first on Business of Apps.

Today, mobile marketers are facing continued challenges due to privacy-based changes on Apple, and soon on Android, as well as economic uncertainties. The marketing tactics that worked before and during peak COVID, aren’t delivering the same performance.

This calls for a different game plan.
That’s why now is the time to diversify ad spend in order to optimize performance across channels.

Not long ago, companies gave their marketing budgets to Google or Facebook and watched the cash register ring. But in 2023, that’s just not working anymore. Sure, Google and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and even WhatsApp, still deliver conversions for Creative Clicks’ clients. That’s why we work with these platforms. But at Creative Clicks, we develop broader and more diversified marketing programs to optimize advertising KPIs and achieve maximum Return On Ad Spend (ROAS).

Start with direct mobile inventory procured programmatically

Mobile performance media has slowly risen in CPIs from the early pandemic era to now. The loss in deterministic data from attribution partners has made performance marketers shift and reassess how they drive user growth for their Apps. The “Spray & Pray” strategy from the early 2000s will not survive now that users have more control over the ads that they are willing to see. Therefore, marketers must adapt to the current environment, and optimize their campaigns based on additional mediums.

Fortunately, Creative Clicks has a Mobile Performance division that has not only survived the last decade but in fact, thrived under the circumstances. With a blend of strategies, we believe that success comes when you approach each campaign separately but prioritize transparency and data analytics. We offer our clients the largest network of worldwide mobile publishers, coveted first-party data, a proprietary buying & tracking ads platform that is certified with all major MMPs and a managed service team willing to put in the extra work, so you don’t have to.

Lead generation through a multi-channel approach

At the end of the day, every marketer is seeking leads that convert into revenue. That’s why we begin planning client ad campaigns by analyzing the market and recommending the channels that will deliver leads that convert. Based on Creative Clicks’ 14 years of digital marketing experience through multiple industry and economic cycles across a broad range of verticals, we’re able to find the channels and ad units that deliver leads at optimized costs.

Benefit from first-party data on our owned and operated media

Given the current privacy challenges around first-party data, one of the cornerstones of Creative Clicks’ lead generation offering are the company’s owned and operated media channels. Because we own this media, our clients benefit from access to first-party data as well as years of experience delivering qualified leads across a broad range of content verticals.

Focus on the social channels that deliver performance for each marketer

Though Creative Clicks works extensively with Google and Meta platforms, we run campaigns on all of the platforms. Why? Because different platforms deliver optimal performance for different marketers. For example, though we don’t run campaigns daily on Pinterest, we have achieved strong KPIs for select clients on this platform.

For Creative Clicks, TikTok has been a strong channel over the last 18 months. Because of our understanding of TikTok, our internal creative studio is able to create videos for clients that have been some of our strongest-performing videos on this platform. Our internal teams can deliver strong performance, as we do on TikTok, because we engage with all of the platforms, both as active users and as marketers.

With their broad range of ad solutions and units, Creative Clicks works closely with Google and Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms. Based on our extensive experience, we find the optimal ad units from these market leaders that deliver performance at scale for each marketer.

Audio, influencers, in-game and mobile-first ads that drive performance

In addition to being specialists in all of the platforms, Creative Clicks develops campaigns with audio ads including podcasts, influencers, in-game ads, push notifications and other mobile-first ad units which achieve customer KPIs.

And by integrating the leading platforms as part of a broader campaign, including lead generation and/or owned and operated media as well as other channels, Creative Clicks will be able to deliver performance within your budget, even in 2023.

So if you’re looking for a marketing partner that can enable optimizing performance and achieving your KPI goals in 2023, reach out to Creative Clicks today.

The post Why 2023 is the year to diversify your ad spend on mobile appeared first on Business of Apps.

New research from the growth platform for mobile app and game studios Appodeal shows some of the most relevant trends for mobile app publishers and advertisers for 2023.

The recently released yearly mobile eCPM report provides new eCPM data on rewarded videos, interstitials, and banner ads on both iOS & Android platforms. Get valuable insights into all countries of the world, giving a special focus on the top 18 countries for mature and emerging markets.

This post was first published on appodeal.com.

“The biggest takeaway is that​ ​leveraging seasonality is a powerful tactic to grow your revenue. To keep the momentum publishers need enough flexibility to target different markets, including abilities to test new hypotheses quickly, add or remove ad networks and hop on the opportunities that short-term bring the best value. We found that by getting seasonality right, apps and games can easily make up to a 20% increase,” says Tanya Moroz, General Manager of mediation at Appodeal Stack.

No fortune teller can promise cash in this economy, but if there was ever a time to try a new ad format, geo, or audience segments, if you have not already, now is the time.

5 Key findings from our mobile eCPM report 2023

• Inflation has risen across global markets. With less purchasing power, users may interact more with rewarded ads.
• Privacy changes & restrictions to data granularity have caused a notable impact on the ARPU in recent years.
• For rewarded ads, US and Canada have the highest eCPM in January, March, and December. Japan and Germany show fluctuations in eCPM values throughout the year.
• South Korea, the Philippines, and other emerging countries have increased their revenue metrics on Rewarded Ads & Interstitials.
• eCPMs in specific eastern-European countries have been less affected by the economic conjuncture, compared to their Western counterpart.

US tops the eCPM charts in rewarded video ads

We can observe rewarded video ads going through several fluctuations throughout the year, as revealed in the data. In January, the United States has the highest eCPM value for both iOS and Android devices, closely followed by Canada. In March, Australia takes the lead for iOS devices, while Canada has the highest eCPM value for Android devices. By December, the United States once again has the highest eCPM value for both iOS and Android devices.

The data also shows that France, Germany, and Japan tend to have lower eCPM values compared to the top-performing countries. However, there are some fluctuations throughout the year, as Japan has the highest eCPM value for Android devices in March, while Germany takes the lead for iOS devices. In October, Taiwan has the highest eCPM for rewarded video ads on iOS devices, while South Korea takes the lead for Android devices.

The data also reveals some peaks and dips in the rewarded video ad eCPMs throughout the year. For example, in April, Australia has a particularly high eCPM value for iOS devices, while Germany has a particularly low eCPM value for iOS devices in the same month. However, in December the tables turn for Germany, which has the highest peak in rewarded video ads.

Australia tops the eCPMs charts in mobile full-screen ads

Appodeal’s eCPM Report also shows interesting data for Interstitial Ads. 

Australia showed the highest average eCPM in May for iOS, at $11.68. This was followed by South Korea in October with an eCPM of $14.36. On the other hand, France had the lowest average eCPM throughout the year, at only $4.44 in March.

For Android eCPMs, Canada showed the highest average eCPM in May at $10.69. Meanwhile, Taiwan showed the lowest average eCPM in July at only $7.29.

Interestingly, while some countries showed consistent trends throughout the year, such as Japan and Germany with relatively stable eCPMs, other countries experienced significant fluctuations. For example, the United Kingdom showed a peak in eCPMs in April and then experienced a sharp decline in June.

It is also worth noting that there were differences in eCPMs between iOS and Android devices. Overall, iOS devices showed higher eCPMs than Android devices throughout the year in all countries.

Banner eCPM in mature countries is consistently high

One trend that stands out is the consistently high eCPMs for iOS devices in Japan throughout the year, reaching a peak of $0.26 in March. In contrast, France and the United Kingdom had lower eCPMs for iOS devices, with a peak of only $0.15 in France and $0.18 in the United Kingdom.

For Android devices, there was a notable peak in eCPMs for Japan in March, reaching a high of $0.47. Canada and the United States also had high eCPMs for Android devices, with both reaching a peak of $0.62 in June. However, the United Kingdom consistently had lower eCPMs for Android devices, with a peak of only $0.29.

Australia showed consistent eCPM trends for both iOS and Android devices, with only slight variations throughout the year. Taiwan and South Korea also had similar eCPM trends for both devices, but with slightly higher peaks for iOS in Taiwan and Android in South Korea.

The mobile eCPM report by Appodeal

To help app and game studios boost their monetization strategy during 2023, Appodeal is releasing for the first time the Yearly eCPM Mobile In-app Ad Report, which brings you a complete month-by-month analysis, with the latest eCPM data.

Now that inflation has risen across all global markets, users with less purchasing power may interact more with rewarded ads.  Discover which ad types are bringing the highest eCPMs per country. Then, narrow down your analysis to the platform of choice within your target audience. 

For this first edition of the Mobile eCPM Report, Appodeal has analyzed 18 different countries to give you more accurate data: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, The United Kingdom, and The United States.

A breakdown report to learn how the eCPM Trends perform throughout the previous year, including:

• 18 countries — From all continents (except Antarctica).
• 3 Ad Formats — Rewarded Video, Interstitial & Banners.
• 2 Platforms — iOS & Android.
• +200 Billion Ad Impressions — +100,000 Apps & +70 Ad Demand Sources
• Interactive Infographics — Navigate through the data that matters to you the most

This wide variety of countries will allow you to identify eCPM trends for countries with similar user behaviors. Once you have detected which country resembles your audience more, it will be easier for you to create sound strategies for 2023.

Find out in the original report which markets will most likely bring you growth this 2023.

The post 2023 Mobile eCPM report: How inflation affects ad revenues appeared first on Business of Apps.

A Cloud-driven application is a type of mobile app that is connected to remote servers to fetch and send data, process information, etc. The technology enables developers to build mobile applications synchronized with desktop or web apps, creating a comprehensive environment for users on different platforms. In the post below, you will look deeper into Cloud application development and find detailed app-building instructions.

What is Cloud development?

Cloud-based applications development refers to building mobile applications with a Cloud-based backend. They use the Internet to fetch data from remote servers and use the computing power of dedicated computers. Developing Cloud-native applications requires software engineers to pick, connect, and configure a dedicated server when creating a new app.

Key peculiarities of a Cloud-driven mobile app

Cloud application development foresees the opportunity to create an app that offers outstanding flexibility because of using a remote server to store and process data. The critical peculiarities of Cloud-driven mobile applications are the following.

• Data synchronization: Thanks to using Cloud-based storage, data can be synchronized across multiple devices. Moreover, a Cloud-driven mobile application can share data with web- and desktop-based applications.

• High scalability: By developing Cloud applications, software engineers can create mobile applications that can be scaled up by purchasing additional disk space and computing power.

• Internet connection reliance: Cloud applications can work offline. However, a reliable Internet connection is required to synchronize data.

Cloud-driven mobile app examples

Many mobile applications use Cloud technologies to deliver top-tier functionality. Dropbox, Asana, and Google Drive are the most popular Cloud-driven mobile apps. Cloud technologies are widely applied in many industries, including banking, healthcare, logistics, etc. Feel free to learn more about RX-Photo, a Cloud-based mobile application that processes and stores sensitive medical data on remote servers, facilitating the work of doctors.

These apps enable users to access files, data, and messages saved under their accounts and modify them, having stable Internet access. The information simultaneously synchronizes with web and desktop applications.

Cloud-based app development statistics

The Cloud-based applications development market is about to grow steadily. According to the report prepared by Statista, the Cloud-driven app market will reach the $168 billion milestone in 2025. Cloud-driven app building is just one of the top mobile application development trends. You can learn more by exploring CodeIT’s publication on emerging mobile app development trends.

Cloud applications market size worldwide from 2013 to 2025

Source: Statista

Instruction on building a Cloud-based mobile application

Cloud-based application development implies a lot of crucial stages. You must pick the best technologies, gather a team of software engineers, connect a Cloud server, etc. Below, we’ve prepared a detailed guide on developing Cloud-based applications.

Define project requirements

Preparing a product vision and a detailed feature set is advisable to initiate Cloud application development. It is the initial step aimed at clearly defining what you want to develop. We recommend discovering and prioritizing problems that a Cloud-based application should solve and conducting market and competitor research.

Select a type of mobile application

The three major app types you can develop are native, cross-platform, and hybrid. Native applications are built specifically for targeted platforms like iOS or Android. They are built using frameworks like React Native, Xamarin, or Flutter. Cross-platform mobile apps can work on multiple platforms using a single codebase. Hybrid applications are web apps with an additional layer, enabling them to be installed on mobile devices.

All app development methods have distinctive peculiarities. If you strive to build a secure and scalable mobile app, it’s advisable to consider the native app development approach. Down below, you will find the comparison table of the top tools and technologies utilized to build mobile applications.

Mobile app development tools and technologies

Source: CodeIT

Select a Cloud provider

Cloud-based mobile applications have their backends connected to a Cloud. Also, their databases are stored on remote servers. The most popular Cloud development platforms for Cloud-based application development are Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure. All the platforms offer different rates, services, and toolchains to build Cloud-driven applications. Examine the top Cloud providers thoroughly to select the best one.

Create UI/UX design

Involve a UI/UX designer to create a mockup of your application. The designer should create visual components of an application and prepare a mockup to share with software engineers. It’s also advisable to involve a business analyst to develop a well-thought-out user experience (UX) design.

Develop an app’s architecture and requirements

At this stage of Cloud application development, you should define the tech peculiarities of an app. For starters, it’s advisable to define a Cloud development methodology. The Agile methodology is the most widely used. The other common software development methodologies are Waterfall, Rapid Application Development, and Spiral Model.

Involving a tech expert to define an app’s architecture and data flow is necessary. Create a list of tasks software engineers should complete to build a mobile application. Also, define acceptance criteria for all deliverables.

Hire and onboard developers

If you don’t have a team of software engineers, you can employ in-house developers, hire a dedicated team, or delegate product development to an external vendor. Hire developers with the required skills and Cloud-based applications development expertise. Onboard team members to a project by sharing all the information with involved developers. Also, it’s advisable to install tools for communication and project management.

Create an MVP

At this Cloud applications development stage, onboarded software engineers need to begin completing tasks specified in a backlog to develop a minimum viable product MVP. It is the initial version of a mobile app with basic functionality. Software engineers should also create backend functionality, configure Cloud-based databases, and connect them to the developed application. The MVP should be continuously upgraded with new features released.

Test an application

An application should be tested to ensure that the developed application works smoothly. Quality assurance (QA) engineers must thoroughly examine the increments software engineers deliver and prepare detailed reports on detected bugs. The reports should be passed to developers so that they can fix bugs.

Release a Cloud-based app

Make your applications available to install by submitting them to Google Play and App Store. Feel free to follow the Google Play submission instruction and App Store app submission guide. When an app is reviewed and approved by stores, it gets published. Hence, users can install the developed Cloud-based application on their devices.

Conclusion

The process of building Cloud-driven applications implies nine crucial stages. It’s required to conduct a thorough analysis, pick the best technologies, select a Cloud provider, gather a team, etc. Feel free to follow the Cloud applications development guide to achieve success when creating a Cloud-based application from scratch.

The post How to build scalable and secure Cloud-based mobile applications appeared first on Business of Apps.

Two years ago, we surveyed our network of influencers to gain better insights into compensation preferences. The result was the 2021 Intellifluence Influencer Compensation Report featured in Business Insider, PRWeek, and Social Media Today. Previously, there had been little to no elaborate public reporting focused on influencer compensation, leaving many markers having to resort to the “penny per follower” approach to compensation, which doesn’t translate well across social platforms.

Since that report, inflation has taken off and the economy continues to become more volatile. With layoffs in tech and threats of a recession, we want to revisit the topic to see how things have changed in terms of how influencers are looking to be compensated.

While we love creating fancy bar graphs and infographics with the data, we don’t stop there. Last summer, we implemented a new feature based on the data we received from influencers mixed with internal transaction data: Intellifluence Pricing Guidance. Now, brands have a starting point when setting up their campaign and wondering how much cash to offer influencers. Similarly, when pitching an influencer we will show you an estimated compensation amount. Obviously, there are a lot of variables to consider when coming up with a compensation strategy, but we feel like our Pricing Guidance tool and periodic Influencer Compensation Reports will put you ahead of the game when it comes to what you offer influencers.

Without further ado, here is the 2023 report!

Methodology and social channel focus

The following report contains the results of a compensation questionnaire we sent out to our Influencers based in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom towards the end of 2022. 1,700 Influencers completed the questionnaire, and the graphs show the mean compensation expectations, grouped by follower/subscriber counts.

In this edition of the Compensation Report, we went beyond simply asking what influencers think they’re worth today. We were curious how compensation expectations change in the minds of influencers as they grow their following and become more prominent within different social networks. To that end, we asked influencers on each network what they think they would charge as they grew their followings.

What we found was brands representative and digital marketers aren’t the only ones struggling to establish influencer pricing – influencers find it challenging as well! We see this in the fact that influencers with smaller audiences tend to hypothesize that they would charge a lot more for a post if they had a larger following than the influencers who are actually at those levels. In other words, aspirations run into reality as audiences grow. Furthermore, the survey results for compensation amounts aren’t always linear relative to audience size. When there are inconsistencies, we will point them out.

For 2023, we polled bloggers as well as influencers on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube. Let’s kick it off with bloggers!

Blogs

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Intellifluence was created by a team with deep knowledge and background in search engine optimization (SEO), so it is only natural that the platform includes bloggers. In fact, Intellifluence is now home to over 16,000 trusted bloggers from all over the world and across 57 unique product/service categories.

While some are dedicated bloggers, others are social media creators who also manage blogs, blurring the lines between bloggers and influencers. This is why one of our slogans is: Influencers Drive SEO. There are many ways you can utilize bloggers and blogger influencers to elevate your marketing campaigns. For example, a YouTuber with a blog can create a custom video for you and then embed it in a blog post that they write.

In this year’s survey, we asked bloggers what they currently expect to receive on a per-engagement basis (a typical 500-800 word blog post), along with what they expect to receive 12 months from now, to account for perceived growth and current economic realities. Rather than organizing by follower/subscriber count, as we do with most social platforms, blogger groups are organized by Domain Authority.

Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how likely a website is to rank in search engine result pages (SERPs).

How much cash do you expect to be paid currently for a 500-800 word blog post? Organized by Domain Authority (DA)

DA 1-10: $161.35
DA 11-24: $250.20
DA 25-49: $193.04
DA 50+: $260.15

How much cash do you expect to be paid next year for a 500-800 word blog post? Organized by Domain Authority (DA)

DA 1-10: $250.20
DA 11-24: $269.02
DA 25-49: $292.10
DA 50+: $387.76

Key point: On average, bloggers expect to charge 40.6% more to create and publish blog posts in 12 months compared to what they currently charge.

Most bloggers expect to charge close to 50% more for their work next year, but those who have blogs between DA 11-24 only expect to charge around 10% more.

Instagram

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We are home to nearly 75,000 Instagram influencers, narrowly edging out Facebook influencers. While TikTok has made great gains in short-form video, Instagram continues to boast a loyal audience and is the 8th most visited website in the world with 4.25 billion total visits per month, according to Hootsuite.

The following are the compensation expectations of our Instagram influencers:

Less than 1000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $89.41

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign if you had 1,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $251.76

… if you had 10,000 followers? $1318.79

… if you had 100,000 followers? $7119.29

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $19,950.26

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $497,545.18

1000-9,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $134.69

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign if you had 10,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $491.98

… if you had 100,000 followers? $2424.55

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $13,100.88

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $93,691.29

10,000-99,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $404.41

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign if you had 100,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $2076.70

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $13,591.35

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $82,065.35

100,000-1,000,000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $1022.22

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign if you had 1,000,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $7222.22

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $16,666.67

Key point: Instagram influencers with smaller followings would hypothetically charge much more for a post if they had one million followers than influencers who actually have a million followers.

Facebook

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Trailing just behind Instagram (in terms of popularity) on our platform is Facebook. While it is safe to say that Facebook has lost a little allure with younger people in recent years, the fact remains that 81% of adults in the U.S. have a Facebook profile, according to SocialPilot. Furthermore, Americans use Facebook for 33 minutes per day on average, which puts it ahead of Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter, according to Sprout Social.

The following are the compensation expectations of our Facebook influencers:

Less than 1000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $109.78

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign if you had 1,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $170.52

… if you had 10,000 followers? $977.40

… if you had 100,000 followers? $1605.67

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $15,189.97

1000-9,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $117.07

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign if you had 10,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $257.24

… if you had 100,000 followers? $1508.12

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $9489.29

10,000-99,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $229.74

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Facebook campaign if you had 100,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $789.74

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $7460.52

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $69015.79

Key point: Facebook influencers with smaller audiences rival Instagram influencers in terms of how much they are looking to be paid, but those with larger audiences charge far less than their Instagram counterparts.

Twitter

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You’ve probably been following the news about Twitter over the last year and a half or so. Despite the noise and opinions surrounding this network, one-quarter of American adults use it, according to Hootsuite. When it comes to getting a message or piece of content out quickly, few networks can rival Twitter. Recent changes have expanded capabilities for influencers that subscribe to the service, including a 4,000-character limit that far surpasses the 280-character limit for regular users (I am old enough to remember when it was 140!).

The following are the compensation expectations of our Twitter influencers:

Less than 1000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $61.30

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign if you had 1,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $142.42

… if you had 10,000 followers? $564.75

… if you had 100,000 followers? $3009.12

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $27,555.35

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $2,151,232.86

1000-9,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $78.40

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign if you had 10,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $393.04

… if you had 100,000 followers? $1503.16

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $22,430.00

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $1,648,295.64

10,000-99,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $131.53

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Twitter campaign if you had 100,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $403.64

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $6,107.88

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $41,487.27

100,000-1,000,000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $425.00

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical Instagram campaign if you had 1,000,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $2,433.33

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $10,166.67

Key point: We have seen a noticeable rise since 2021 in terms of what influencers estimate their Tweets/Retweets are worth.

TikTok

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Ah, TikTok. The social network confounds elder Millennials such as myself and continues to make headlines, sometimes for the wrong reasons. In the last year and a half, Intellifluence has more than doubled its network size of TikTok influencers. When it comes to engagement and time spent on the app – TikTok is hard to beat. According to Sprout Social, the average user spends 95 minutes each day watching TikTok videos. Furthermore, these videos have an average engagement rate of 7.11%, which is 6 times higher than Instagram Reels, according to Socialinsider.

Many brands have found TikTok to be a network that demands more thought and creativity, to avoid coming across as too formal or salesy. As marketer Neal Schaffer points out, Chipotle is a great example of a brand that is using TikTok to generate sales in a natural manner: “Chipotle does not bombard TikTok users with countless professional video ads, designed to make your mouth water for Chipotle products. Instead, Chipotle places a focus on being relatable and friendly, featuring fan content, and employing humor to engage with followers and people of all ages and backgrounds.”

The following are the compensation expectations of our TikTok influencers:

Less than 1000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $94.38

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign if you had 1,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $221.86

… if you had 10,000 followers? $884.01

… if you had 100,000 followers? $9513.02

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $42,421.28

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $217,324.40

1000-9,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $160.11

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign if you had 10,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $514.08

… if you had 100,000 followers? $3187.24

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $20,191.33

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $70,426.53

10,000-99,999 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $205.83

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign if you had 100,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $813.16

… if you had 1,000,000 followers? $4368.92

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $31,801.39

100,000-1,000,000 followers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $1244.79

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical TikTok campaign if you had 1,000,000 followers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $4454.17

… if you had 100,000,000 followers? $21,250

Key point: The expected compensation amount jumps exponentially after a TikToker surpasses 100,000 followers!

YouTube

Click on image for full size

YouTube continues to dominate – in fact, it’s the second most visited website in the world, behind its parent company, Google. Almost one-quarter of our influencers have a YouTube channel, and our brands continue to have success acquiring quality video reviews of their products and services.

As we discussed in our last report, the reality is that YouTube content costs more. What’s interesting is this year we saw a dip in expected compensation for creators between 1,000 and 9,999 subscribers when compared to those with less than 1000 subscribers. Most of the feedback we received from YouTubers was reminding brands just how much effort and investment it takes for them to create quality video content for the network.

The following are the compensation expectations of our YouTube influencers:

Less than 1000 subscribers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $202.37

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign if you had 1,000 subscribers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $356.76

… if you had 10,000 subscribers? $1843.84

… if you had 100,000 subscribers? $6597.81

… if you had 1,000,000 subscribers? $45,117.11

… if you had 100,000,000 subscribers? $500,560.42

1000-9,999 subscribers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $169.40

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign if you had 10,000 subscribers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $1235.95

… if you had 100,000 subscribers? $4626.05

… if you had 1,000,000 subscribers? $50,896.67

… if you had 100,000,000 subscribers? $158,171.74

10,000-99,999 subscribers:

As of today, how much cash do you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $555.56

Hypothetically, how much would you expect for completing a typical YouTube campaign if you had 100,000 subscribers? (Enter an amount in US Dollars:) $3150.00

… if you had 1,000,000 subscribers? $12,000.00

… if you had 100,000,000 subscribers? $62,500.00

Key point: Once again, we see influencers with smaller accounts estimate charging significantly more if they were ever to reach the 100,000,000 subscriber threshold than creators with larger subscriber bases.

Conclusion

We have presented you with a ton of influencer compensation data, which we believe will be very helpful, but you may be wondering what to do with it. How much an influencer wants to be paid is only one part of the process. Before pitching an influencer, you want to determine their true value, to ensure you get the most out of the collaboration. Below we provide more articles and resources that will help you as you create campaigns, pitch influencers, and grow your business. As always, we would love to hear what you think of this report, along with any feedback or things you would like to see in future studies!

The post 2023 Influencer compensation report appeared first on Business of Apps.

Today, influencer marketing has become crucial to improve an app’s user acquisition strategy. Influencer marketing plays a vital role in raising brand awareness and improving market reputation. There is a reason influencer marketing continues to get more practical and popular in the digital marketing space.

Marketers believe it is the perfect way to attain and retain your target audience. So, if you plan to scale up your app’s user acquisition strategy, you can leverage influencer marketing. In the 2023 State of Influencer Marketing report, data shows that influencer marketing spending reached a whopping $4 billion by the end of 2022.

In the grand scheme of things, it represents a 20% increase from the last year. The truth is that the majority of digital marketers understand that content that stems from influencer marketing is highly effective for brands. You’d be surprised how fast you get the attention of new users and maintain consistent engagement through influencer marketing.

Google highlights that over 70% of Gen Z find YouTube influencers reliable and trustworthy. Additionally, over 40% of the digital native generation prefers social media over Google Search. In this case, brands can tap into this trust to garner support for a newly launched gaming app.

Why leverage influencer marketing for an app’s user acquisition strategy?

It’s no rocket science how influencer marketing can work wonders for your mobile app’s user acquisition strategy. Here’s the thing – when new users see a familiar name they trust to use a mobile app, it is bound to influence them to use it. Without influencer marketing, brands cannot even hope to render such direct influence on potential users.

The more the influencer engages with a mobile app – the more attraction there will be. Of course, the idea is to boost the conversion rate. Through influencer marketing, new users can see how much the influencer is enjoying and using an app.

Without further ado, let’s touch on what makes influencer marketing effective and how companies and brands can use it to transform their app’s user acquisition strategy. In the age of mobile apps and social media, it is not easy for brands and businesses to stand out in a competitive and saturated space.

Influencer marketing, however, brings a ray of hope that app marketers can use to get the attention of new users. In fact, executing influencer marketing campaigns has become one of the best ways to boost your app’s user acquisition in a short time.

It would be fair to state that influencer marketing is a powerful tool. Brands can use it to expand their target audience reach and consistently improve user acquisition efforts.

Best practices to tap into influencer marketing and boost an app’s user base

Influencer marketing is all about collaborating with “influential” online influencers. These online influencer marketers can communicate your marketing message and bring more authenticity to your campaigns.

Brands are often surprised to find out how fast a marketing influencer can help them build a robust and expansive online presence.

Once you build a wider online presence, you can increase and retain your app’s user audience faster as part of your marketing goals.

Let’s break down the fundamental reasons, benefits, and practices for utilizing influencer marketing so that you can boost your mobile app’s acquisition strategy.

Review budget elements

One of the best ways to tap into influencer marketing to boost user conversions and downloads is to review different components of your budget. Remember, you don’t have to hire an extremely expensive marketing influencer to make your campaigns work.

Instead, review your budget requirements and components and then figure out what type of influencer marketer will help you gain more users right after the app launch. So, make sure to take into account your budget and opt for a local or international influencer that you can hire rather than solely think about hiring famed influencers with celebrity status.

If you want to garner the attention of a local audience, hire an influencer that can help you get the trust of local communities and communicate the core message about your mobile app. As long as the marketing influencer has a big following, you can communicate with your niche.

Pair together your keyword strategies with search traffic to improve your user acquisition from the app store. When it comes to launching a new app and expanding a user base, the key is to improve the initial impression of users So, make sure your app’s quality is top-notch and lives up to market expectations. With this approach, you can also reduce your app’s marketing costs.

Create and roll out value-added campaigns

App stores now have a lot of options for users. It makes it all the more important to create and roll out value-added and effective influencer marketing campaigns. This is how you take your app user base to new heights. You can better develop and execute influencer marketing campaigns by improving your understanding of how social media influencer marketing works.

Once you’re familiar with the influencer marketing fundamentals, you’ll better understand the elements that make your influencer marketing campaign a success. No matter what size and type of mobile app you want to promote, you can depend on influencer marketing to expand your user base. But part of the process is to tailor your influencer marketing campaign to get the attention of a specific audience.

If you develop more than one app in different verticals, it makes sense to get a marketing influencer with a big following. It is the best way to reach out to a wider target audience and execute your influencer marketing campaign successfully.

Figure out “How” you need to collaborate with the influencer

It is not enough to decide to collaborate with influencer marketing – you must focus on a specific stage in your campaign to involve an influencer marketer. You can run a successful pre-launch app promotion if an influencer marketer gets involved at an early stage.

Hire an influencer marketer in the early stages of the app launch to execute influencer marketing campaigns successfully. In the pre-app launch time, the influencer marketer gets more than enough time to find the best ways to increase registration or pre-signs for an app before launch. At this stage, the goal of the influencer marketer is to create a consistent buzz around your app.

Usually, an influencer marketer helps you develop and roll out a campaign during app pre-launch, app distribution, and app post-launch stages. And in each stage, you should be able to count on the expertise of an experienced influencer marketer to expand your user base.

Give influencer marketers creative control

Once you research and assess mobile app influencer marketers, make sure to give them creative control. After all, the influencer marketer you hire will need some creative freedom to come up with new ideas and help you across different stages of app launch to attain and retain a wider user base.

But make sure the influencer marketer runs these new ideas through you before making them part of the app user acquisition strategy. Ensure your brand values and marketing strategy works in tandem.

When you choose a marketing influencer, look for more than their followers. You should also determine whether the influencer understands your values. If things go smoothly, you should be able to measure and track your influencer marketing campaign’s success.

Always seek optimized results

Influencer marketing works as well as it does to expand the app user base because it puts you in a mindset to seek optimized outcomes. You want your core message to get across the board and create excitement way before the launch. Communicate your app’s characteristics to your user base and see how it reacts to the campaign message. Your influencer marketer should be able to see whether or not your influencer marketing campaign needs some changes to get desired results.

Sure, you want to expand your user base to millions of new users. But you have to be realistic and take baby steps in “how” you communicate with your target audience and how fast you increase your audience. The trick is to maintain authenticity and consistency while running marketing campaigns to form long-term relationships. It will make it easier for you to track, measure, and compare influencer engagement at each stage.

Perspective: Leveraging influencer marketing for your mobile app’s user acquisition strategy

Since influencer marketing is an ideal approach to attain and reach out to a new audience segment, you can use it to scale up your entire app user acquisition strategy. In the end, influencer marketing has the power to help you with the mobile app’s user acquisition strategy, raise brand awareness, and improve your overall market reputation.

Influencer marketing ensures the long-term success of an app’s user acquisition strategy. It has to be effective and unique enough to simplify how you connect and engage with new users. Influencer marketing continues to change traditional notions of “how” you engage with existing users, build brand recognition, and improve an app’s visibility.

You can work with marketing influencers to make your mobile apps and marketing channels successful. You can review influencer marketing campaigns and see how so many companies and brands have managed to leverage it for their mobile app’s user acquisition strategy.

When you use influencer marketing, you can expect to gain thousands of new users and increase installation rates. Today, YouTube influencers help brands and businesses launch their mobile apps. In some instances, brands that used influencer marketing to expand the target audience for their mobile app rank at the top within a week of launch.

How to make influencer marketing work for app user acquisition strategy?

What does it take to leverage influencer marketing for the app’s user acquisition strategy? Take a closer look at “your” target audience and then gravitate towards influencers who can help you reach out to your target audience organically.

You may not be aware of it, but influencer marketing gets underreported in the context of an app’s user acquisition strategy. And that’s because measuring and tracking the success of influencer marketing is often not precise.

An extensive report highlights that 30% of mobile app marketers now use TikTok as their primary paid acquisition marketing channel. It is no secret that TikTok interconnects with paid advertising and influencer marketing simultaneously. More and more app marketers want to tap into the marketing opportunities by creating solid TikTok campaigns, building dedicated TikTok profiles, and partnering with influential TikTok creators.

Duolingo is one of the most common examples where the company leveraged TikTok-based influencer marketers to display their app features to a wider audience base. Since this influencer marketing initiative, Duolingo has had millions of more app downloads and continues to leverage influencer marketing to gain more app users and improve its overall user acquisition strategy.

Influencer marketing and mobile app user acquisition strategy

It is vital to see influencer marketing through the lens of user acquisition strategy. A successful mobile app user acquisition strategy should revolve around a combination of methods and influencer marketing should be at the center of it.

In short, if you want to gain new users, you’ll need to make your app’s user acquisition strategy work through influencer marketing. But this requires a lot of agility, objectivity, and transparency. Mostly, you should be able to adapt your UA strategy to changing needs.

Since social media ads on video platforms now create a significant impact, find out “where” and “what” marketing channels your target audiences use the most.

Final thoughts

Ultimately, if you’re rolling out influencer marketing campaigns to complement your mobile app’s user acquisition strategy, you’ll have to see beyond the influencer. Instead, ensure your user acquisition strategy revolves around influencer marketing campaigns to reap the most benefits.

It takes strategic efforts and some professional help to develop a practical mobile app’s user acquisition and build a dedicated funnel around generated results across different stages of the influencer marketing campaign.

Influencer marketing has the potential to transform your user acquisition strategy and help you generate more revenue. It is no wonder influencer marketing has become a valuable investment for businesses and brands that depend on mobile apps.

When you work side-by-side with the right influencers at the right times, it becomes easier to define the goals of your target audience, generate high ROI, track engagement, and optimize influencer marketing campaigns to achieve strategic goals faster.

The post Influencer marketing for app user acquisition appeared first on Business of Apps.

In 2021, Prequel formed its new foundation Venture Studio, our programme to partner with the brightest minds in app development. We’re fortunate that Prequel has been successful enough for us to have the opportunity to offer what we consider a significant amount of funding for development – $10 million – a cash injection we think can really bring out the best from the most promising app ideas.

We think funding coming from an existing technology company makes a lot of sense for those developers who have an amazing idea that has the potential to become a worldwide hit, as long as it can be nurtured, with the right combination of insight and growth.

Of course, starting an app business isn’t just about writing code. A problem shared is a problem halved and we already have talented teams in place to cover the essentials that many newcomers to the industry may initially struggle with – marketing, art, finance, HR, and most importantly, the overall experience of starting a business. And because Prequel is a leading AI platform, we have exceptional technical and R+D ability to offer too.

Generative AI technology is rapidly transforming creative industries, with new possibilities for customized visual styles in personal image content.

We know this because we’ve faced the same challenges when growing Prequel. We started in 2018 with just two founders discussing creative ideas in New York’s Bryant Park, but we grew quickly and our international team now comprises over 200 employees.

In the early days, we found that many of our ideas for growth were held back by a lack of funds, so we couldn’t take every decision we wanted when we wanted. By offering that funding to new app developers, we’d solve this problem for them and help them grow from a seed to a startup. In return, we’d have a way to grow our business portfolio with even more great ideas.

That’s the theory behind our foundation. However, two years on, our funding remains unclaimed. Despite receiving an overwhelming response, no proposal has so far been suitable.

There are lessons here for us to learn from since we remain fully committed to Venture Studio and intend it to be successful. But we also believe we can offer some advice to aspiring app developers too, based on the responses we received.

The app business is an incredibly broad industry. Obviously, the principles of computer science are one of its most critical components – from coding in specific languages to software engineering and UI design.

For most people, learning to code is a relatively straightforward process. Everyone begins with “Hello World” in whatever language they choose. Exercise projects then grow that knowledge, teaching concepts of increasing complexity, diving into more detailed concepts and more capable APIs involving object-oriented design, databases, networking, web technologies and so on until an individual is well equipped to take on all kinds of coding tasks.

Once people become more confident in their coding ability they usually begin to think more creatively. Rather than following the app ideas presented in books or in tutorials, they start to come up with their own design ideas.

But design creativity is equally a learning process that also needs time, effort and diligence in the same way that learning coding does. The very first app plan you have is usually not going to be the genius idea that makes you a millionaire overnight. A vast majority of the responses we received for Venture Studio have been the earliest ideas that many developers come up with.

In this sense, app developers are like artists, musicians and film-makers. Coding is the brush, instrument or camera – the tool with which to become proficient, but few artists create their very best work right after mastering their tools.

Why market research is key

When pitching an idea, it’s not just about showing off your coding skills but demonstrating an understanding of the market you’re operating in. It’s about knowing your users, customers and competitors.

Understanding the needs of an audience is the key difference between an app idea that’s really only a few steps on from a glorified coding exercise, a personal project or a hobby, and an app that is truly ready to compete for customers in a busy marketplace.

The key to gaining that understanding is thorough, in-depth market research. Among the list of considerations is a clear definition of the core features that your app will offer, and how that will drive customers to your product.

A major part of that is thoroughly evaluating your potential competitors to see what features they offer and how they compete with your own idea. What do they do well, and what can your app do that competitors cannot? Why would customers choose your app over them, based on what unique features you are offering?

Are you certain customers really want those features? What is the demand like for those competitors? Will you be competing for those same customers, and is the entire market growing?

Personalization is both a current and evolving trend within mobile graphics applications, so evaluating market conditions is a key consideration when releasing new app features.

You may not be able to offer precise answers, but you at least need to be asking these questions when you’re looking at starting a commercial app business.

What’s more, we’re looking for app ideas that consider the direction of the wider technology industry. The consumer app business is driven by tastes and habits. What are your predictions for technology over the next few years? What new opportunities could there be that your app might be able to take advantage of? You need to consider whether there will be future demand for what your app has to offer, and even consider how your competitors will evolve.

In this sense, the technology industry is no different from any other. These same considerations about market growth, trends and competition are the same for all organisations. Put simply, if you want to compete for market share and attract customers, you need to think about demand.

To be clear, we’re not seeking total perfection from developers who apply to become part of Prequel’s Venture Studio. A mutual partnership is about helping each other, and we’re interested in ideas (and individuals) that show the most potential to reach that next level, but we’re not expecting anyone to be at that level just yet.

Beyond code

We’re evaluating how we communicate our requirements for Venture Studio. Like in a job interview, the candidate that ticks every box in a list of requirements will certainly do well, but to make a lasting impression and stand out, it always helps to have ideas that show you’ve gone above and beyond that list and put the effort in to fully understand the direction that business is going in.

The same advice holds for app pitching – it’s your idea, and you need to really show you have an understanding of how you see it working, and be able to answer questions about it.

Prequel’s Venture Studio and funding are still open, and we’re still seeking great app ideas, so if you believe your project could become the next big thing, we’d be happy to talk to you.

But even if that’s not the case, and you’re not looking at attracting funding quite yet, we hope these tips have been helpful and may lead you to rethink what goes into a successful app business. So let’s all crack on and build some great apps that will continue to change the world.

Prequel would love to hear from you if you’re an independent artist, developer or even both at the same time, with a brilliantly creative idea you’d love to take to the next level. To learn more about Prequel’s Venture Studio foundation visit www.prequel.app/foundation.

The post How to successfully pitch your brilliant app idea and attract funding appeared first on Business of Apps.

High-converting and app-like yet powerful, flexible, and user-friendly. These are just five things that make Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) an exceptional sales tactic that can be optimised to convert users into customers. Moreover, PWAs elevate the web experience of users so dramatically that they have been called the future of e-commerce.

In this blog, we’ll explain exactly what makes PWAs so valuable to businesses and how to embrace this technology in 2023. Read on for why these platforms can win over customers and the impact of a market that’s projected to reach a value of $10.44 billion by 2027 according to Emergen Research.

What sets the PWA experience apart for users

A PWA is a website integration that takes a brand’s digital presence from one that works to one that wows. Let’s start with the characteristics that make PWAs so compelling for users. Most people access a brand’s native digital offerings in two ways: via the app and via their website. Both these options have shortfalls and this is where a PWA shines — all while blending the web-based navigation of a site with the slick user-friendly interface of a mobile app

For businesses, a PWA has the following winning characteristics:

• Works seamlessly across different web browsers and devices
• Doesn’t need to be installed
• Customisability across a wide audience
• No updates, users just refresh the page
• Minimal storage space used
• Easy coding, deployment, and maintenance

For users, a PWA has the following drawcard:

• Speed
• Reliable connectivity that works offline
• User-friendly interface (UI) for an engaging User Experience (UX)
• Frictionless web experience that is smooth end-to-end
• No third-party apps needed
• Secure user information thanks to SSL certificates

The functionality of a PWA keeps people on-page thus increasing the scope for converting users into customers. From Uber and Twitter to BMW and Pinterest, inspiring and robust PWAs have well and truly made their mark with users. The numbers show it as well with Google reporting that installations of PWAs have grown 270% in the last two years.

Why site visitors are more like to buy from a PWA

The main appeal for businesses beyond the advanced features listed above is that PWAs have been shown to have higher conversion rates than both traditional websites and mobile apps. Data from Google Developers ties this conversion rate of 52% to how user-friendly PWAs are. Pages load swiftly, page quality is high, and no functionality is compromised.

Overall, users are seemingly more engaged in a brand’s PWA and this creates a much more effective conversion funnel. The Google web.dv initiative has also reported that AliExpress, one of the world’s largest e-commerce companies, increased their conversion rate for new by 104% with the introduction of a PWA.

Some experts believe the future of e-commerce is PWAs due to how the net for catching customers is widened. Frank Calviño writes for Cross-Border Magazine that, “This is especially important for e-commerce businesses, as it allows them to reach customers on various platforms and devices.”

A PWA has the added bonus of retaining customers: an ongoing challenge thwarting businesses trying to sell through apps. Once forgotten or rejected (read: uninstalled) by a user, it’s near impossible to regain sales ground. PWAs make life easier for users from the first click and it’s this kind of UX that creates long-term customer relationships.

Five ways to build a PWA into a sales strategy in 2023

From here, we’re going to explain how a PWA can revolutionise a sales strategy in 2023. PWAs are a slam dunk from every angle: UX, deployment, affordability, power, and security. It’s a long list of benefits. Making a PWA central to a sales strategy demands planning though it’s neither impossible nor should it be intimidating.

Neil Patel highlights the resource management benefits of a PWA strategy — something crucial for sales — saying, “They were designed with the philosophy of “code once, use everywhere.” ” This outlook signifies a boom time in conversion for businesses who are looking to make a PWA part of their sales strategy.

In this final section of the article, we go through five ways to make a PWA a pivotal part of the sales funnel to win customers over and convert them:

• Introduce as a lean, cost-effective offering
• Consider converting existing apps into a PWA
• Integrate with existing app offering and web-shop
• Promote offline user experience
• Incorporate into an SEO strategy

Introduce as a lean, cost-effective offering

Any sales strategy starts with a budget. The return on investment (ROI) of PWAs is priceless: quick development, cross-platform functionalities, HTTPS support, seamless integration, and low-level maintenance. The best-in-class standard of the PWA should be central in a digital sales strategy in 2023 and not just part of it.

Cost-effectiveness also ties into the ability to swiftly go to market. Moving away from native apps and the limitations of hybrid app development to focus on a cross-platform PWA that works irrespective of the device and web platform is simple. Not having to develop a mobile site is economical, too, and the back-end functionalities are just as powerful. This is the kind of strategy that sets businesses up for sales success.

Consider converting existing web apps into a PWA

Double down on existing business assets while revitalising the user experience with the brand. Taking progressive steps to enhance an existing web application makes the UX that much more convenient and there’s no stress around updates. Making new features accessible to users both online and offline that can be synced in the background are all desirable aspects of the sales conversion process.

In fairness, this is not an entirely straightforward process and will require the input of developers though the potential sales returns are significant. As user retention on apps trends downwards — Statista findings show U.S. Android users uninstalled apps at a rate of 36.4% in 2022 — this is a way to win back customers. Using the conversion engineering options available can work to retain existing customers and convert new ones at the same time.

Integrate with existing app offerings and web-shops

Improve sales results by introducing PWAs to integrate with existing mobile app and web shop business arms. This means levelling up e-commerce or industry-specific offerings in tandem with PWAs. One LinkedIn report measured PWA load speed as 300% faster than standard web pages so even if existing web (and mobile app) e-commerce is maintained, there are multiple ways to pique customer interest.

Communicating to customers how these different sales options work can also help build their brand trust. Without being too technical it’s still possible to convey the value of the different purchasing platforms. This reinforces the message that the business cares about its shopping experience. Cultivating a conversation with customers that’s entirely about how they shop delivers additional qualitative data about what they want and what is or isn’t working for them.

Promote offline user experience

The fact that a PWA works without a stable internet connection or while offline is unequalled when we talk about value. Of all of the features, this is a standout that makes a user’s life easier and lets them complete tasks no matter where they are. Whether online or offline, the speed of the interface and flexibility of access positively expedites the customer’s UX.

For the marketing team, this is an invaluable tagline that helps a brand inject a unique sales proposition into their existing customer pitch. The combination of rareness (a digital platform that’s designed to work offline) with a clear process (that their purchase will be effortlessly completed once they’re online) is irresistible. This exact modus operandi was taken by Starbucks with their PWA: customers can peruse the PWA for the menu and to make selections, then once the internet connection resumes they can ‘go to cart’ and buy.

Incorporate into SEO digital marketing

The final way to boost sales with a PWA is to lean into the SEO functionalities. These platforms are a boon for the digital marketing arm of sales as a PWA can be crawled and indexed by search engines. The diversified business returns for a multi-channel strategy is highly beneficial for all sales phases when it includes the long-term, organic benefits of SEO, an essential part of marketing in the 21st century.

Google was actually behind the first PWA and their algorithm rewards fast-loading web pages — like PWAs — in search result rankings. Through this functionality, a brand’s PWA will be indexed by Google and that builds trust in a site to strengthen SEO. This bolsters an existing strategy for greater business visibility while improving the UX — an obvious win-win for all parties.

Conclusion

The sales objective at this time is to both convert site visitors and retain them. Investing in a PWA should be part of any commercial sales strategy in 2023 and beyond. The numbers don’t lie nor should this be treated as a set-and-forget tactic; a PWA may be convenient but it requires sophisticated conceptualisation and deft deployment for a comprehensively stellar customer UX that is meaningfully sustained over time.

The post Making a progressive web application part of a sales strategy in 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

The advertising market is growing and it’s becoming increasingly clear that new technologies are changing the rules of the game (check out how AI is replacing staff at Zorka.Agency). That is why it’s critical to follow the basic rules of mobile app marketing in order to minimize risks.

So what are some surefire ways for a marketer in 2023 to fail an advertising campaign?

Not calculating unit economics

Starting an advertising campaign without understanding product economics and project payback is nuts. Yet, I’ve come across people doing this quite a few times in my 7+ years of experience as a Head of UA. A client who has just succeeded for the first time, but did not have time to build processes within the company, rushes to launch new marketing activities to attract even more users. Once the campaign is over, they receive a bunch of numbers and have no idea how to analyze them, nor do they understand which result is considered a success and which isn’t.

One should state benchmarks and KPIs before launching any advertising campaign. Benchmarks are set based on existing experience in the market and competitor analysis, while which KPIs you set depends on the current business objectives.

Not testing creatives

Marketing is not about individual taste.

Before you start an advertising campaign, it is necessary to prepare creatives based on specific and measurable indicators, as well as test them in different sources for different audiences. It’s only then that you can decide on the “correct” message that your audience responds to, and scale it.

Ignoring trends and new approaches

Even the most conservative brand has to follow trends to remain visible. Where there are trends, there is reach, and with it the potential for a new audience. Here are a few trends to pay attention to today:

• Broadcast Channels are a new public, one-to-many messaging tool by Instagram for creators to directly engage with their followers. This tool can be used both as an instrument for building a community around the brand and for advertising around the creator’s audience.
• Microsoft presented Bing – a new AI-based search engine that has the potential to change the entire SEO marketing.
• YouTube has added a new time targeting element to its Masthead Ads, which will enable brands to display their promotions in times leading up to key events.

One of the last cases of MacDonald’s on Fifa World Cup 2022

Source: Zorka.Agency

• In the US, Reels creators on Instagram can now accept virtual gifts from fans. To do this, Reels viewers can buy stars, Meta’s internal currency. The mechanism can be the driving force behind a brand’s special projects.

Ignoring new policies and innovations

The modern user acquisition market is designed in such a way that what worked a year ago will no longer work today. It is important to remain flexible and keep up with the latest updates, guides and cases, and test new algorithms.

Understanding the relationship between technology and ad stacking has become the most important skill, especially after the release of SCADNetwork and iOS 14.5 (check out the article for more details). Due to this just knowing about the structure of the site and its algorithms is not enough, you need to understand how attribution and impression tracking work. When launching an advertising campaign, it is important that analysts, developers and the buying team interact closely to meet all the technical requirements of the platform. This applies directly to Meta, but also indirectly to all advertising sources.

Here’s another example of Google’s influence on the advertising market. After the company bans the use of 3rd party cookies, advertisers may lose their usual optimization mechanisms, building end-to-end chains, and measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. That is, they will not be able to track users directly. Learn more on how to manage it here.

Besides, Google recently launched Google Privacy Sandbox, a mechanism that lets users independently disable ads with irrelevant content. After successful testing on Android devices in selected regions, Google plans to expand the mechanism.

Neglecting view-through attribution

Attribution refers to the analysis of the results of an advertising campaign by attributing conversions to ad impressions and clicks. The attribution (i.e. conversion) window is the time period for this attribution process.

Many advertisers may think that view-through attribution is all about buying organic traffic, but that’s actually not the case. As tests show, view-through attribution does not affect how organic traffic behaves in any way. In fact, it is influenced by completely different things.

Let’s imagine a typical user flow: a user has logged into a social network and is scrolling their news feed or playing on their smartphone. In both cases, when an ad pops up, the user will not interrupt the session, because they are engaged in the process. Attribution by impressions allows you to find out what actions the user has taken after interacting with an ad for a certain period of time: whether they went to the company’s website, visited the brand’s Facebook page, etc.

I recommend using view-based attribution as it shows meaningful data and the real results of the campaign.

Ignoring new sources

In recent years, we have seen the growth of the advertising market. New types of sources that are constantly appearing can be split into categories and subcategories.

Do not be afraid of trying something new, you need to test all kinds of sources. When OEM traffic source appeared on the market a year ago, only a few companies started working with it right away. They skimmed the cream off the market: they attracted new users at the lowest rates (like in our e-commerce case). Companies that were less flexible today are forced to catch up.

It’s now worth considering recommendations, one of the subcategories of ОЕМ-sources. These sources are Aura and Digital Turbine. The technology stack of the source is designed in such a way that user flows and attribution windows for these platforms are atypical, which can mistakenly cause mistrust towards them. At the same time, the user’s intent is formed not due to creatives, but due to the time and place of placement of the advertising message.

OEM advertising, or ads in recommendation blocks on new devices, reaches the user when they onboard their phones (Android) or download applications. Studies show that a timely need and pre-installation of applications, in most cases, minimize the risks of a user switching to a competitor, because they have the necessary app from the first day of launching a mobile device.

Despite the challenges and rapidly changing conditions and rules of the game of the digital advertising market, there are certain principles that marketers should follow to minimize the risks of losing budgets and time. Among the most important ones will be the intention to grow and learn new technologies. Be open to testing new traffic source categories and rely on clear and measurable campaign metrics.

The post How to fail an app marketing campaign appeared first on Business of Apps.

With the aid of its App Intelligence and other modules, SocialPeta sorted out the top 20 global mobile apps (non-game) by advertising, revenue, and download in January 2023, hoping to be of assistance to more people in the mobile app industry who try to understand the changing trends of the global mobile market.

The overall performance of global mobile apps in January:

• The dating app Hinge launched advanced features, which attracted Gen-Z and led to surging revenue.
• Meesho, the Indian social commerce app, launched a series of TVCs about “dreams coming true”, which was a good play of sentimentalism.
• Alipay saw a continuous increase in downloads, thanks to a tourism boom during the Spring Festival holiday.
• HERE WeGo, the versatile offline navigation app, appeared on the advertising chart.

Top 20 by advertising

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Let’s check out those new on the advertising chart in January.

The navigation app HERE WeGo had an increase of about 29% MoM in ad creatives on iOS in January. The app is considered one of the most popular offline map apps, with its key features including displaying bus fare, parking availability, and slopes on walking & cycling routes. According to SocialPeta – Advertiser Analysis, HERE WeGo’s release of ad creatives in January was as follows:

• Its advertising covers over 20 countries across the globe, with the United States accounting for 12%, the highest share, followed by Vietnam accounting for 6%;
• It only released creatives on entertainment media for the last 30 days, which was also the case for the last 1 year. Obviously, navigation apps achieve a higher advertising conversion rate in entertainment media.
• Most of its creatives emphasized that it’s “offline free” and different languages were provided for creatives released in different countries.

Image creatives accounted for 95% of all its creatives. One of the efficient creatives was a comparison of an actual driving image and a map route image, implying that the app provides correct and precise navigation.

Source: SocialPeta

The cryptocurrency exchange app Crypto recorded an increase of 933% MoM in ad creatives on Android in January. It’s temptingly introduced on Google Play that you can earn up to 4.5% p.a. on Crypto. According to SocialPeta – Advertiser Analysis, Crypto’s release of ad creatives in January was as follows:

• Over 86% of its creatives were released in the United States, and some of its creatives were released in Canada, United Arab Emirates, and France.
• The advertising media it chose were mainly sports, desktop, and photography media, accounting for 23%, 19%, and 16%, respectively.
• Its creatives were mainly Html, accounting for 99%.
• Most of its newly released creatives were phone screenshots with some words, highlighting how convenient it is to make transactions with a low amount of money on the app.

Source: SocialPeta

The sports betting app Betway Sports recorded an increase of 445% MoM in ad creatives on Android in January. According to SocialPeta – Advertiser Analysis, Betway Sports’ release of ad creatives in January was as follows:

• It targeted the United States market, releasing 98% of its creatives in the United States. It also released creatives in Canada.
• Its advertising media were mainly simulation and desktop media, accounting for 22% and 19%, respectively. But there wasn’t a big difference among all types of media. Probably because it hadn’t decided on its choice of advertising media.
• The 3 most frequent words in its advertising copies were “betway”, “download”, and “today”. And its advertising focused on enhancing its brand recognition.
• Almost all of its creatives were Html. Following an obvious pattern, its creatives were designed to attract users through a combination of contestants for different sporting events and inspirational words.

Source: SocialPeta

Top 20 by revenue

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Apps with outstanding revenue growth on the App Store in January

Match Group’s dating app Hinge was new on the Top 20 chart by revenue. It achieved revenue growth of 44.7% MoM in January, thanks to its new subscription service that offers a higher chance for active users at a monthly subscription fee of 50-60 USD. Match’s spokesman said, “It’s a profitable investment to bet on the fast-growing Gen-Z users.”

Source: SocialPeta

Canva, the online collaborative design app, introduced a special offer for users to save as high as 120 USD in the middle of January. The promotion brought a rise of 25.3% MoM in revenue. And, when ChatGPT was gaining massive popularity across the world, Canva and OpenAI launched Magic Write, a GPT-3 powered AI text generation tool.

Source: SocialPeta

Apps with outstanding revenue growth on Google Play in January

The language-learning app Duolingo offered promo codes for many courses in January, such as a 20% discount on purchases of Spanish courses, a 10% discount on purchases of Korean courses, and promo codes for a discount as high as 40% on some other courses. Its strategy of “small profits but quick returns” resulted in revenue growth of 62.9% MoM in January.

Audible, Amazon’s online audiobook app, achieved revenue growth of 21% MoM in January. The app signed a deal with Plan B Entertainment, for high-profile Hollywood talents, including Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, to create exclusive audio productions.

Top 20 by downloads

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Apps with outstanding growth of downloads on the App Store

Messenger included many new features in January, which was announced by its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in a blog post. The new features, such as chat themes, custom chat emojis and reactions, group profile photos, link previews, and active status, resulted in an increase of 50.8% in downloads.

Spurred by an outbound tourism boom during the Spring Festival holiday, Alipay achieved a 37.2% MoM increase in downloads in January. According to data, there was a 150% YoY growth in the outbound transactions from January 21 to 26, with Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines contributing the most cross-border transaction amount.

 Apps with outstanding growth of downloads on Google Play

Meesho, the Indian social commerce app, held a large-scale sentimentalism marketing campaign in January, during which a series of movies were released. The campaign theme was “You can buy everything and do many things on Meesho”, indicating that common people can realize their dreams by selling or buying goods on Meesho. The campaign was highly effective and brought a 77.4% growth in downloads.

The online video downloader All Video Downloader was released in January 2021 and was one of the 14 best free YouTube video downloaders in 2022. With its 152% MoM growth in downloads in January, the app appeared for the first time on the top 20 chart by download.

Visit SocialPeta to learn more about mobile app industry insights.

The post Top 20 global mobile apps appeared first on Business of Apps.

As the economy shifts, it’s critical to invest in proven channels and strategies to build a successful mobile advertising plan. With that said, 2023 is a good time to consider investing in high-performing ad inventory like rewarded traffic and high-engaging ad formats like playables. Why? Because, combined, rewarded inventory and playables create an enticing user experience — boosting conversions, retention and LTV in the process. You also don’t need an app to leverage playables or rewarded inventory. This means performance marketing agencies can take advantage of both strategies to unlock new pockets of users and generate a higher ROAS.

Learn how to use rewarded inventory and playables to convert high-value users in 2023 below.

What is rewarded inventory?

Rewarded inventory serves ad units that engage users to take a specific action by offering a reward. According to a study by Google, 50% of users reported they were more satisfied with their app experience because of rewarded inventory.

Typically, when mobile advertisers think of rewarded inventory they think of a rewarded in-app video ad that prompts a user to watch a video in exchange for an extra life or a power-up in a mobile game. But, did you know interactive ad formats like playables can be served in rewarded inventory for even higher ROAS? Furthermore, rewarded playables can be used in both an app-to-web and app-to-app conversion flow to unlock new high-value users for both apps and performance marketers that might not have an app.

Source: LifeStreet

What are playable ads?

Playable ads are an interactive ad format that allows users to play a snippet of a mobile game before downloading it. Rewarded playables typically run between 15 to 30 seconds and tend to be more common with mobile game developers that can easily translate their game into a gamified ad. Since users are able to familiarize themselves with what an app has to offer via a playable, users that convert tend to be stickier. The proven value of this “try before you buy” interaction is now being used by performance marketers who don’t even have a game or app.

The value of playable ads in rewarded inventory

Better engagement

Because rewarded inventory entices users with rewards to play a mini-game, rewarded traffic drives better engagement than other inventory types. In 2022, LifeStreet’s playables drove high performance across both app-to-app and app-to-web conversion flows. Last year, playables served in rewarded inventory following an app-to-web flow saw a 29% increase in ROAS and lowered cost per registration by 17% compared to playables running in non-rewarded traffic. Furthermore, playables in rewarded inventory following an app-to-app flow drove a 37% lower CPI and a 2.5% increase in ROAS compared to non-rewarded inventory.

Source: LifeStreet

Better campaign performance

Because rewarded ads drive more user engagement than other ad formats, they result in a higher average return on ad spend. In 2022, the industry average cost-per-install (CPI) for playables was $1.98 (versus the average CPI of $3.79 for other gaming ad formats) — showing that playable ads had the lowest CPI across ad types. LifeStreet’s playables performed even more efficiently. In 2022, we found playables drove an average CPI of $1.19, outperforming the industry’s average CPI of $1.98.

CPI by ad type

Source: Business of Apps

This, in turn, scales performance. Some game studios report a 3.2x improvement in ROAS as a result of playable ads. Game studios that utilize playables have also reported a 40% lower cost per paying user and a 70% lift in day seven return on ad spend.

Higher retention

Whether using rewarded or non-rewarded inventory, mobile advertisers can boost retention rates by 30 to 40% using playable ads. This makes sense as playables create a more engaging user experience, acquiring more engaged users overall. Furthermore, since users have already familiarized themselves with a game or brand before installing an app or converting on a mobile landing page, users that have a higher likelihood of dropping off are already excluded.

Access to in-ad data

In a post-IDFA world, access to first-party data of any kind is a boon. Leveraging playables in rewarded inventory can be a great way for mobile advertisers to maximize access to in-ad data. This data can help apps and agencies track users’ interactions with their ads to better understand their interests and browsing behavior.

For example, let’s say a mobile game developer creates and serves a playable ad that users consistently lose. This could be an indicator that the mini-game should be edited to be easier to play. Furthermore, this information can be used to optimize gameplay in the mobile game the playable is advertising. For example, if the playable was recreating play for an early level in the game, developers might change gameplay to be easier. They could also offer power-ups to help players advance through the level. All of these measures can help decrease user drop-off and increase long-term retention and LTV.

Takeaways

Rewarded ads are ad units that reward a user with an in-app reward in exchange for a specific action. By creating a more engaging user experience, rewarded ads can have a positive impact on conversion rates, retention and LTV. As the mobile economy shifts due to macroeconomic factors and data privacy enhancements, mobile advertisers should consider adding rewarded ad formats to their marketing strategy in 2023.

• The value of rewarded traffic: Rewarded ad inventory creates an enticing user experience — boosting conversions, retention and LTV in the process. In fact, 50% of users reported they were more satisfied with their app experience because of rewarded inventory.
• The value of playables: In 2022, LifeStreet’s playables drove an average CPI of $1.19, outperforming the industry’s average CPI of $1.98.
• Playables in rewarded inventory can be used in both app-to-app and app-to-web conversion flows: When combined with rewarded inventory in an app-to-web flow, playables improved ROI by 1.35X and lowered cost per registrations by 79% compared to playables running in non-rewarded traffic. Additionally, playables in rewarded inventory following an app-to-app flow drove a 37% lower CPI and a 2.5% increase in ROAS compared to non-rewarded inventory. This presents another avenue for brands and performance marketing agencies that might not have their own app to unlock new pockets of users and generate a higher ROAS.

Looking to add playables to your marketing mix?

At LifeStreet, we’ve helped many of our partners achieve higher ROAS by serving playables in rewarded inventory. Get in touch with our team to drive better performance and return for your brand or agency in 2023.

The post How rewarded inventory and playables can drive ROAS for performance marketers appeared first on Business of Apps.

Across the advertising industry, the post-holiday season and the start of the new year are notorious for lower CPMs (the price publishers are paid for every 1,000 impressions an ad receives.) Arriving just after big brands finish their blowout holiday campaigns at the close of Q4, Q1 opens with a quiet period, cheekily referred to as Q5 by some, when advertisers can secure favorable deals at low prices.

While this presents a potential shopping spree for marketers, the seasonal slump demands adjustments from app developers looking to shore up ad revenue.

To weather the slow start to the year, developers must attune themselves to proactive price adjustments, actively grow their pool of network partners, and always A/B test waterfall changes before rolling them out to validate if their optimizations drive real value.

This post was first published on applovin.com.

Combat revenue decreases with proactive pricing adjustments

The stark drop in CPMs from the frenzied holiday season to the slow start of the new year offers app developers a golden opportunity to make rigorous optimizations to maximize ad revenue.

For traditional network partners, this requires:

• Identifying which CPMs in your waterfall are seeing the strongest impression fill and then A/B test new CPMs in that price range to see what drives incremental revenue gains.
• Removing network calls with higher CPMs, but lower impressions from the waterfall as the revenue they generate may not be worth the latency.

By using rigorous testing in addition to embracing the lower CPMs that come with this advertising lull, app developers can make up the difference in their monetization.

Add more bidders to heighten competition in the down period

The start of the year marks a good time for app developers to explore adding more network bidders to increase demand for their app inventory.

App developers should examine the distribution of demand within their ad inventory and add networks that will help close performance gaps. Adding new partners will also increase competition for each impression opportunity, which will naturally improve CPMs and grow revenue.

Partner with networks that have strong demand for the app’s user base, integrating those that can fill in specific geographic regions or ad formats where you have lower impression volume. This fine-tuned tactic requires developers to have a deep understanding of their audience — even as it shifts over time. Incorporating user-level data into your optimization framework will help you find these opportunities and identify ad partners to monetize those users effectively. Remember to always A/B test new networks to ascertain the incremental value they drive.

Make sure ad blocks aren’t limiting monetization

Re-examine any previously placed ad blocks that may prohibit certain brands or industries from being able to serve ads on the app. Consider removing broad blocks on, say, an entire app category, and instead, narrow in on more precise blocks that still maintain app integrity and brand safety.

For example, a classic solitaire app could have banned all card-based game ads to avoid driving users to competitive apps. But what if the ad is for a casual game that leverages card elements, has an entirely different art style and game mechanic, and appeals to different gamer motivations? Is that significantly different enough from the solitaire app that it won’t lure users away? It’s worth testing to find out. Narrowing in on these margins opens up new viable advertising spend for your ad inventory.

Experiment with new user acquisition strategies

While the seasonal slump poses challenges to ad revenue, it’s not all bad for app developers. Lower CPMs mark a great time to double down on user acquisition campaigns as acquisition costs may be lower, which in turn increases your campaign ROI. Plus, it’s a chance to experiment with new performance-driven creative concepts, ad formats, and marketing strategies.

By taking advantage of the buyer’s market in the media landscape, app developers can grow their daily active users — perhaps the most powerful lever for increasing ad revenue.

The post How app developers can optimize monetization to ward off the seasonal slump appeared first on Business of Apps.

The amount of data a single person generates every day is huge. A person with a smartphone produces a great deal of data that has to be stored—the calls, the emails, the social media platforms, the eCommerce transactions, and the list goes on.

Now imagine storing all this data of people living in the world. Astounding isn’t it? That’s precisely where big data comes into play. This blog will help you understand big data analytics for business decision-making. Keep reading.

Data analytics for business decision-making

In business the role of data is crucial. A typical eCommerce company has a lot of information about its customers such as what they buy and how they use its products. Whereas industries like healthcare, banking, and finance will have a tremendous volume of data with many varieties.

With so much data it is not easy to tell which data is important. Big data analytics helps businesses gather and make sense of all their information to see the bigger picture. This can help analysts to make patterns and get insights with the information to make better decisions that meet business goals.

Insights gathered with big data analytics

Below are a few examples of what insights a company can get using big data analytics.

• Customer behaviour and preferences: Understand your customers better. Know what they like, what they don’t like, and what motivates them to make a purchase.
• Market trends and patterns: Identify and analyse market trends to rise with the wave. Know what works when to stay ahead of the competition.
• Operational efficiency: Pinpoint inefficiencies in business operations. Streamline processes to improve overall efficiency and reduce costs.
• Sales and revenue optimization: Optimise their sales and marketing strategies, including targeted advertising and pricing strategies.
• Fraud detection: Prevent fraud in real-time by improving security and reducing financial losses with correct information.
• Supply chain optimization: Find out what can be optimised in the supply chain operation to reduce cost and improve overall efficiency.

6 Types of big data analytics for business decision-making

The following types of big data analytics are commonly used for business decision-making.

• Predictive analytics: To make predictions about future events and trends based on historical data and statistical models. Marketing campaigns, disease outbreaks, weather, and sports are a few among the many examples of predictive analysis.
• Descriptive analytics: It provides a summarised view of the data to understand what has happened. Simple information like website traffic data, engagement reports, revenue per customer, etc. are generated this way.
• Prescriptive analytics: This is used to provide recommendations based on the data. Youtube’s “Suggested for You” videos are one great example of prescriptive analysis.
• Diagnostic analytics: To drill down into the data and find root causes for uncovering correlations like finding why your company’s profit is growing or dropping, what is the reason for a hike in website traffic, etc.
• Social media analytics: Helpful to analyse social media data to understand customer opinions & preferences, track brand reputation and monitor market trends to support business decisions.
• Customer behaviour analytics: To have insights into the behaviour patterns of customers and know who purchased what, when, and where to improve customer experience.

Best practices for big data analytics implementation

Define measurable goals

The first step to using data analytics for business decision-making is having a clear idea of what your outcomes should be. For example, let’s say your business needs to increase revenue by 12%. Is this measurable? Yes. Hence this is a measurable goal.

When you define a clear goal it ensures that everyone has an idea of what the business needs to achieve, work focused on the objectives without confusion, and evaluate the success of the project.

Choose the right technology

Tools used in data analytics for business decision-making are vast to choose from. Knowing your goal can help you in deciding what technology will be the right one to achieve that goal.

Other than that knowing the specific needs like availability, real-time application access, user access, the shape of data (structured/unstructured), integration with the warehouse, and workload profile can help you choose the right technology for desired outcomes

A few examples of big data tools include:

• Hadoop for distributed data processing and storage.
• Apache Spark for in-memory data processing.
• NoSQL databases for unstructured data storage.
• Tableau or Power BI for data visualisation.

Prepare the data

Data preparation is the gathering, structuring, and organising of data. It includes pulling data from internal systems or external sources, preprocessing, profiling, cleansing, and validating.

This step is crucial as it ensures the data is properly formatted for analysis.

Here’s a brief of the data preparation steps;

• Data collection: Gathering data from various sources such as databases, log files, social media, and cloud storage.
• Data cleaning: Removing invalid, inconsistent, or irrelevant data for accurate analysis.
• Data normalisation: Ensuring that data is consistent and conforms to a standard format.
• Data integration: Combining data from different sources into a single source for analysis.

Build a strong data governance framework

Establish a set of data policies on gathering, storing, processing, and providing access to use the data. The common data governance framework includes:

• Data privacy and security: Protecting sensitive data to ensure the privacy of individuals is not violated.
• Data quality control: Confirming the analysed data is accurate and reliable.
• Data access control: Assurance that only authorised users can access and use the data.
• Data retention: Comply with the policies for how long data should be stored and used.

Continuous evaluation

Monitoring the tasks and evaluating the results continuously is an important practice to make sure the project is moving in the right direction to provide the required outcomes. Keep tracking the KPIs such as accuracy, speed, and cost to access the effectiveness of the analytics.

Once evaluated, identify the areas for improvement and make necessary adjustments to keep the analytics effective over time.

To wrap up

Big data analytics for business decision-making is now vital for organisations to gain insights into their operations and make the necessary changes.

The future of big data analytics in business seems bright, as companies continue to generate & collect vast amounts of data and seek innovative ways to use that data to drive growth.

Moreover, advances in technology such as cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are driving further expansion and adoption of big data because these technologies make the process simple.

In the coming years, do expect to see big data analytics continue to play a critical role in businesses to stay ahead of the competition and achieve success in the fast-paced business world.

The post Big data analytics and its use in business decision-making appeared first on Business of Apps.

As TikTok’s user base grows, it’s no wonder that marketers are rushing to the platform. TikTok introduced Spark Ad property in July 2021 as part of the ongoing advertising features development, which allows marketers to promote posts from their own accounts or straight from influencers’ profiles.

We’ll go over the Spark Ads solution in this article, which is an ad display type that allows advertisers to boost native, organic, and effective content. Furthermore, we will focus on REPLUG’s two TikTok Spark Ads campaigns and overall outcomes to show you what to expect in terms of KPIs, cost, and effectiveness.

What are TikTok Spark Ads?

“Spark Ads is a native ad format that enables brands to use organic TikTok postings and its features in their advertising,” according to TikTok. This one-of-a-kind format allows brands to run the following ads:

• Using organic posts made by other creators
• ​Using brands’ own TikTok account posts

The concept is already well-known—in fact, you may recognize it as a “boosted post” and “sponsored content” on other social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.

TikTok Spark Ads

Source: REPLUG

Like anything else in marketing, growth is fueled by testing, so we opted to give it a shot while executing campaigns for two of our clients and advertising their app on TikTok.

What are the differences between in-feed ads and Spark Ads?

In-feed TikTok ads display as users go through their “For You Page.” They can last up to 60 seconds (though videos lasting 9 to 15 seconds appear to be the “perfect balance”). TikTokers can interact with these ads by liking, commenting, and sharing them. On the other hand, these ads can be skipped.

On the other hand, instead of creating a video from zero, Spark Ads allow marketers to promote their existing TikTok videos. Such ads, like In-Feed ads, appear and feel like organic content. This is due to the fact that they are displayed in-feed without interfering with the scrolling sensation.

And yet, unlike In-Feed advertisements, Spark Ads can lead to a TikTok account rather than just a landing page. Because these ads are linked to a genuine TikTok account, viewers may go straight to the initial poster.

The organic post receives all Spark promotional video views, responses, shares, likes, and followers. This applies to the brand’s or the creator’s creative content. Moreover, the in-built Spark Ads’ analytics make campaign ROI evaluation easier.

And last but not least, they can also feature a CTA button that takes visitors to a landing page rather than an account page. Viewers may also click the ad’s music icon to access that song’s audio page if they wish.

Now, let’s start by examining each campaign and breaking it down to see the final outcomes.

TikTok Spark Ads: First experiment

We explored both Spark Ads options to understand how Spark Ads may help our partners’ growth plan.

• Video choice: We picked the best-performing video and promoted it from both our partner’s brand and the influencer’s account.
• Goal: The campaign goal was set to “App Install”
• Timeframe: Three weeks
• Platform: iOS
• Side note: Given the SKAN’s limits on conversion metrics at the ad level, we had to examine additional metrics when determining if Spark Ads was a success or failure for our partner.

Below you can see the metrics we analyzed for this first campaign.

Significant increase in followers and likes

Spark Ads generated about 250% more followers and a 150% boost in likes during the three weeks compared to our previous statistics. Surprisingly, the advertisements did not result in a rise in post shares or comments.

High CPM and CPC

Even though we saw an increase in followers and likes, the CPM and CPCs for the video from the influencer’s account appeared to increase. Although our previous statistics for CPM was €0.80 and CPC was €0.14, the Spark Ad reached over €1.2 CPM and €2 CPC.

However, when analyzing the video promoted from our own brand account, both CPM and CPC stayed within acceptable and decent ranges.

Rise in profile visits and average watch time

Moreover, we also looked at average video view time and profile visits as engagement KPIs. Throughout the test, we saw a big improvement in both measures. In particular, we noticed that average watch duration increased by 20%, while paid profile visits increased by 45%.

TikTok Spark Ads: Second experiment

In one of our most recent experiments, we compared the results of the same video when used as a traditional TikTok Ad—that is, advertising the footage from the client’s TikTok account—and when utilized as a Spark Ad. The outcomes were unexpected.

We discovered that the costs of Spark Ads weren’t always lower in terms of CPC and CPM. Regarding CPC, just one concept had a lower CPC when using Spark Ads (-25%), whereas the others had cheaper CPC (up to 20%) when using standard ads.

TikTok Spark Ads: Campaign results

Source: REPLUG

We found a similar trend with TikTok CPMs, where Spark Ads had reduced CPMs (up to 17% cheaper) on two separate occasions. The good news began with CTR. Spark Ads had a much greater CTR than traditional ads for three out of four concepts (up to 40%).

The advantage of Spark Ads was that the conversion rate from click to install was always greater than regular ads (up to 72% greater install rates). These numbers resulted in a reduced final cost per acquisition using Spark Ads, both in terms of CPI (up to 57% lower) and the CPA, which was 61% lower in the exact scenarios.

The last interesting notice is that the conversion rate from install to install to conversion event was often doubled when comparing the outcomes of Spark Ads to the all-time best-performing non-Spark Ads.

Conclusion

We’ve reached the conclusion of the article, and you undoubtedly wonder if the TikTok Spark Ads strategy can help your app marketing efforts. We have a few notions we’d like to share with you.

According to our extensive testing, TikTok CPMs and CPCs are not always less expensive with Spark Ads. Yet, the final CPIs and CPA are—as a result, we are confident that you should try Spark Ads.

Moreover, it is logical that more comprehensive testing is required before labeling the Spark Ads approach a success or failure. At REPLUG, we think that testing new channels and ideas is the foundation for establishing new possibilities for our partners and, at times, discovering a more profound potential for growth.

Interested in testing TikTok ads to scale your audience and result on a performance-driven basis? Get in touch with us.

The post Are TikTok Spark Ads worth it? appeared first on Business of Apps.

We believe it’s no secret to anyone that retargeting is a really effective way of communicating with any app’s target audience. After all, if a user has already shown interest in the app, why not make this relationship last? You should at least try to win back the users if they leave and keep friendly relations with those using the app on a regular (or not-so-regular) basis.

In this article, we will cover the key points of retargeting through our DSP. Bidease definitely has something to share!

So, let’s go!

How do I start retargeting through DSP?

First, we need to understand what audience we are retargeting, that is, the advertiser needs to hand over their audience, i.e. the users who have the advertiser’s application installed.

At the next stage of integration, the advertiser needs to correctly set up the transfer of all significant events from their app to their mobile tracker and provide us with partner access. They also need to set up an automatic transfer of all installs and in-app events to our platform.

Why do you need this? You need this to run ad campaigns effectively rather than blindly and most importantly, to personalize ad impressions as much as you can. Let us say the user performed action A but not B, or performed both A and B but never made it to action C. Knowing at what stage of the sales funnel the user dropped out, we can gently remind them about the application and forgotten purchase with the most relevant, appropriate and personalized advertising message.

Just as with in-app UA campaigns, retargeting also has a test period.

What about the audience?

As we mentioned earlier, an advertiser’s #1 mission is to hand over all of their audience to us for retargeting. It is very important to correctly set up all significant events in the mobile tracker (providing us with partner access) as well as the automatic transfer of all installs and in-app events to our platform.

Where will your ad be seen?

In general, when running retargeting campaigns, both with and without a model, we seek to make the best use of the inventory at hand while keeping in mind the unique characteristics of the advertised product.

If we see a discrepancy in performance across different traffic sources, we promptly turn off the underperforming ones. Here, we focus on traffic quality: click-to-conversion CR and conversion-to-target action CR. To assess traffic quality, we also focus on the i2c (impression-to-conversion) metric, i.e. the percentage of impressions that led to conversions.

What goes on under the hood?

Just like in UA campaigns, you can use all kinds of manual settings in retargeting. By manual settings, we mean that while the campaign is collecting enough statistically significant data for predictive algorithms to be trained on, we work based on the experience, expertise and logic of our media buyers, continuously analyzing campaign results.

While the information is being collected, we can set the necessary daily/monthly/hourly caps, and use any bid selection tools, look-alike models or predictive models from our previous UA campaigns for this advertiser.

We also do creatives

We have an in-house creative production team that develops creatives for our advertisers. If needed, advertisers can develop their own creatives and send them to us.

Depending on the app, traffic and advertiser goals, we can use native banners, full-screen Interstitials, full-screen videos, native videos and playable ads as well as ad format combinations. As you can see, in-app provides a great opportunity to use all the engaging and high-conversion ad formats.

As we mentioned earlier, personalized ad creatives greatly increase retargeting effectiveness. Our creative production team has extensive expertise in creating various types of ad messages tailored for a specific target action. For example, if the advertiser’s goal is to get more purchases, we will be using a variety of visuals focusing on discounts, promotions and promo codes.

How do we optimize?

If we have a new advertiser who has not yet cooperated with us, we train look-alike models for retargeting campaigns. However, if we have already worked with that client (e.g. run UA campaigns), we train the predictive ones.

Look-alike models are based on the information we get from the advertiser – installs, purchases, and other significant events. To make this data usable for building a look-alike model, the advertiser needs to configure data transfer correctly to avoid errors. There is always a technical specialist on our side supervising the integration process, so there are usually no difficulties involved.

Predictive models are based on the traffic we have already acquired for a particular advertiser.

The main difference between look-alike and predictive models is that the latter uses actual data from the advertiser’s current campaigns. A predictive algorithm analyzes not just an install as such, as look-alike models do, but the entire chain of events that led to the install, allowing for all kinds of additional parameters. Unlike it, a look-alike model only operates conversion probabilities.

Retargeting ad campaigns can be optimized for any events provided by the advertiser. Most importantly, the platform has to get enough conversions for each event in question. A predictive model will need about 800-1,000 actual conversions from current campaigns conducted on our platform, and a look-alike model – about 10,000 conversions of any kind that the advertiser hands over to us upon integration.

Conclusion: Why is in-app retargeting a good solution?

In-app retargeting is an incredibly effective and fairly easy-to-use tool for communicating with users who have previously shown interest in the app. It works well for almost any vertical: e-commerce, gaming, finance, entertainment, food & drinks, travel, taxi, dating and more. Besides, it is quite useful for products that have drained their main traffic sources but still want to keep going at the same pace.

With inventory all over the world, quality audiences, engaging ad formats and flexible targeting options, in-app retargeting is a fast way for advertisers to achieve good results.

The post Return to APP. Making in-app retargeting perfect with Bidease appeared first on Business of Apps.

With a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) mobile app, businesses can manage their relationships and interaction with clients, customers, and sales prospects. The CRM mobile app aims to automate various marketing, sales, and customer service processes, easing it for organizations with customer data management and analysis, tracking sales, and marketing efforts to boost customer satisfaction.

With a CRM mobile app for iPhone or Android, businesses can automate their customer-facing processes, enhance customer satisfaction, and attract growth by offering a centralized mobile platform for customer relationship management.

We have only pulled a single layer; there’s much to explore about CRM mobile apps. This post will put forth varied hacks about how to use a CRM mobile app to boost your productivity, streamline your sales process, and increase your ROI.

Why a CRM mobile app is valuable for businesses

A Customer Relationship Management mobile app is beneficial for boosting productivity. It helps businesses in the below key ways:

Streamline processes

By automating varied business processes, like lead generation, customer support, and sales tracking, a CRM mobile app for Android will free up the time of employees to let them perform more effectively and efficiently.

Accessibility

With such a mobile app, employees of an organization are enabled to access customer data and effectively manage their relationships anytime, anywhere. Even remote workers will benefit from these mobile apps, which will lead to improved overall efficiency.

Better customer data management

A CRM mobile app for iPhone can assist users in easily storing, analyzing, and managing customer data in a centralized spot. This way, they can track customer history and interactions, permitting employees to make well-informed decisions that can let them offer better customer support services.

Improved communication

A CRM mobile app can lead to better communication between customers and employees by offering them a centralized interaction platform. This will also help diminish misconceptions and boost communication quality and speed.

Increased collaboration

A CRM mobile app can let the employees collaborate better by permitting them to share information and conduct better task management with a centralized platform. Besides improving teamwork, such apps also ensure that every user is aiming for the same objective.

By facilitating the employees with everything they need to perform effectively and efficiently, a CRM mobile app can drive business success.

Top CRM mobile apps

Well, there are varied CRM mobile apps worldwide; here, we will talk about the best mobile CRM apps that you can use to catch up with the success of your business.

Hubspot CRM

Best suited for: Small businesses

Hubspot CRM mobile app arrives with an easy-to-use and free CRM platform that assists businesses in managing leads and tracking customer interactions. Also, it provides a simple interface, email tracking, and lead scoring that makes it perfect for small businesses.

Salesforce CRM

Best suited for: All-sized businesses

Salesforce CRM mobile app offers a complete solution for the sales team along with useful features like opportunity tracking, lead management, and analytics. Additionally, it provides robust integration with various other valuable tools and is much more customizable. That’s why it’s a widely used CRM mobile app for all-sized businesses.

Pipedrive CRM

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses

The Pipedrive CRM mobile app is crafted especially for the sales team, which offers an intuitive and simple CRM platform that assists businesses in deals management and customer relationship tracking. It possesses varied essential features, like activity tracking, visual sales pipeline, and mobile integrations, that make it the most preferred mobile CRM system for small and medium-sized businesses.

Zoho CRM

Best suited for: Small and medium-sized businesses

Zoho CRM mobile app arrives with a wide range of essential CRM features, including deal tracking, lead capture, and customer management. Also, it integrates with other top Zoho apps, like Zoho Projects and Zoho Books, which makes it a complete business solution and best suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.

Freshsales CRM

Best suited for: All-sized businesses

Freshsales CRM mobile app, a complete CRM solution for the sales team, holds varied useful features, like deal tracking, lead capturing, and customer management. Moreover, it facilitates integration with other tools, like chat, email, and phone, making it the mostly picked solution for all-sized businesses.

How a CRM mobile app can help close more deals

Tracking leads

Such apps can help businesses in lead tracking and progress monitoring in real time. This will ensure you don’t miss any leads and take timely follow-up actions.

Contacts management

CRM mobile apps for Android or iOS can enable the sales team to better contacts and customer data management in a central hub. This way, they can easily track their customer information, including contact details, purchase history, and past interactions.

Deals tracking and updates

Businesses can help their sales team with deal tracking and updates easily with a CRM mobile app. This way, sales teams can respond faster to customer inquiries ensuring they never miss any beat. By tracking deals, sales teams can make well-informed decisions based on the latest data, increasing the chance of closing deals quickly.

Scheduling appointments

With a CRM mobile app, businesses can assist the sales team schedule appointments and taking follow-ups easily. This way, every appointment will get scheduled, making the sales process run smoothly.

Customer insights

A CRM iOS app emerges with real-time insights indicating customer behavior, like their interests in specific products, how they interact with the company’s site, social media pages, etc. Ahead, the sales team uses these insights to offer the clients informed and relevant recommendations.

Security and reliability

Businesses will find the CRM Android app a useful tool for customer interaction and data management on the go. Besides, it maintains robust security and reliability of the customer data and ensures flawless performance. For example, it helps in data encryption, prevents unauthorized access, takes regular data backups, limits data access based on user’s permissions and role, protects data against breaches, etc.

How is CRM cost-effective compared to traditional CRM systems?

Lower IT costs

A mobile CRM app can help businesses diminish their IT support requirement, as such apps easily manage and update them with no IT intervention.

Lower upfront costs

Compared to traditional CRM systems, you can get such mobile apps at a lower cost, as they don’t need expensive hardware or software installations.

Scalability

CRM iPhone apps are more scalable than traditional systems, permitting businesses to add or even remove users per their changing needs, with no incurring additional charges.

Subscription-based pricing

Usually, various CRM mobile apps utilize a subscription-based pricing model that enables businesses to avoid upfront investments and pays only for what they need.

Increased productivity

Such apps provide access to customer insights and data on the go by offering storage and management from a centralized spot. This way, the sales team performs more efficiently and boosts their productivity, leading to increased cost-saving and revenue.

Lower training costs

It’s easier to operate mobile apps, which demand less training compared to traditional systems, which leads to reduced cost of employee training.

Key takeaways

While wrapping up, let’s just take a quick recap about a CRM mobile app for Android and iPhone. It’s a useful tool for sales teams looking to boost their productivity and drive business success. In today’s rapidly growing business world, such apps ease access to customer details and deal management anytime, anywhere.

Whether you need a comprehensive solution for customer interaction management or a simple tool for sales lead tracking, a mobile CRM app holds the calibre to meet your needs.

So, businesses can come forth to invest in a CRM mobile app to automate their sales processes, enhance their customer engagement, and drive business growth.

Emizentech will meet all your business needs. Contact us for a free consultation today!

The post CRM app solution: A fast and easy way to manage customers on your phone appeared first on Business of Apps.

With the millions of apps available to consumers, it’s fair to assume a vast majority of mobile marketers share a common goal – to outrank competitors in the app store. It’s important to enter the new year with innovative optimizations in place to ensure your app gets the recognition and engagement it deserves from users. For those looking to optimize their app listing and scale user acquisition, investing in App Store Optimization (ASO) strategies is your best bet to carve out a competitive advantage.

Understanding App Store Optimization (ASO)

ASO is essentially the holy grail of any mobile app campaign. It is the process of improving the performance and visibility of an app store listing, with the overall goal of increasing installs, user reviews, and post-install engagement. Advantages include improving your app’s ranking, scaling user reach in all applicable categories, driving high-quality traffic to your app, increasing installs and retention, and much more.

Let’s touch on just a few of the benefits ASO campaigns create for mobile marketers.

Create a competitive advantage

The mobile app industry has seen immense growth over the past few years, with over 5.6 million apps available to users worldwide on the App Store and Google Play Store. This leaves many mobile marketers scratching their heads, wondering what the best optimization tactics are to make their app visible in the crowded marketplace. Here are a few questions you should be reflecting on when re-evaluating your ASO strategy:

• If your app’s market is small or niche, should you explore options outside of the App Store and attempt to attract users through content marketing and SEO?
• Should you be targeting users outside of the U.S. to get ahead of the competition?
• Should you focus on learning what exactly your competitors are doing in order to differentiate your app?

To ensure your app stands out, look into the search terms competing apps are using, as well as keywords your target audience are searching, and utilize them in your app listing descriptions. Keep in mind that app store competition varies greatly depending on market, vertical, seasonality, and more. For example, an investment banking app will have more competition than a niche gaming app. Regardless of the size of the competition, you need to follow the right ASO strategies to create an edge for your brand.

Keyword campaigns

According to Apple, 65% of app installs occur directly after a keyword search. Optimizing around top keywords is one of the most valuable ASO strategies to define how discoverable you are to your audience, and achieve a favorable search rank. App marketers must routinely monitor the keywords competitors are targeting to identify the stand-out words in their niche, focusing on those with high search volume and lower competition.

The Perform[cb] team has decades of experience in driving valuable ASO through keyword research, providing success for our mobile clients. A popular social casino gaming app came to Perform[cb] for exactly this purpose. After intensive analysis, we recommended adding more keywords to their campaign, narrowing in on two high-potential keywords that had the most likelihood of ranking in the top five positions. This created a #1 keyword ranking in the App Store and a 72% improvement in overall app ranking for the gaming marketer.

A/B testing

A/B testing plays a huge role in understanding what will actually result in conversion for your desired user and learning where optimizations should be made to drive user acquisition at scale. Marketers should plan to test various creatives, descriptions, keywords, and highlighted features on your listing and product page to uncover which assets drive the best conversion rate. After implementing optimizations based on A/B testing results, remember to keep a close eye on what sparked an increase in conversion rate. These will be useful insights to implement in future campaigns.

Perform[cb] works diligently with our mobile app clients, utilizing best practices gleaned from decades of experience to create successful ASO campaigns. For example, a leading car insurance app was looking to grow its presence in the highly-competitive car insurance market and attract new users. By strategically testing a variety of partners and rotating out underperforming sources, our team was able to drive a 75% increase in new user acquisition. Perform[cb]’s optimizations ultimately drove this marketer’s app to the #1 spot in the App Store’s car insurance category.

Reduce user acquisition costs

Developing a mix of paid and organic ads can be a match made in heaven. When done strategically, it helps to increase your app’s chances of being discovered while further reducing acquisition costs to save your budget. ASO strategies such as the following have been proven to increase brand exposure and recognition at a low cost:

Rating and reviews

An increase in rating from 4.4 to 4.6 can lead to a 30% increase in CVR. Since 79% of users report they check ratings and reviews before they install an app, the more quality feedback you have, the more likely users are to download.

Creative optimizations

Adding screenshots and taking the time to customize your app’s product page is essential in attracting new users. These can be tailored to specific features, new capabilities, user experience videos, and more, creating greater relevance to your target audience. Visuals are especially useful for ASO as they help convert indecisive users and have been said to be the second most influential factor in convincing users to convert and install.

App store description

Get rid of the fluff and technical terms here. Attention spans are short and people won’t read lengthy descriptions. Instead, focus on the details, including the relevant information about your app’s key features and how they benefit the user. Don’t be afraid to show your app’s personality, but do not overly focus on irrelevant keywords in your description. Keyword stuffing will negatively impact your app’s ranking, so it’s important to focus on relevant content that employs keywords in a logical way.

Apple Search Ads

According to data from AppFigures, 61% of the top apps use Apple Search Ads. Allocate your budget wisely to ensure promotions around your app are displayed on contextually relevant websites that align with your target audience. Apple has been rapidly rising in its share of online ads for developers, now taking up 15% of overall app developer spend on online advertising.

Steady, sustainable new user growth (and retention)

If you want to have a successful app that outranks the competitors and delivers quality installs at scale, you need to prioritize your ASO strategy. Through keyword optimization, A/B testing, encouraging user feedback, and running Apple Search Ads, your app will reach the #1 spot and acquire new users at a lower cost.

Getting an edge above competitors and driving users to install is only the beginning – retaining high-quality users and keeping them engaged is just as important. It’s vital to find an established mobile marketing partner to help craft your ASO strategy. Reach out to Perform[cb]’s team of user acquisition experts to get started.

The post Why should mobile marketers invest in App Store Optimization strategies? appeared first on Business of Apps.

Increasing user acquisition costs, declining budgets, stagnating channels, and an uncertain economy. Navigating these new tides is far from easy.

But one thing is certain- the future belongs to those businesses that make retention their north star. In this blog, we cover three aspects that need to be your top priority this year; app retargeting, ad creative innovation, and demanding transparency.

App retargeting through thick and thin

The first order of business for your app right now is to retain existing users. With users being wary of their spending, it’s critical to communicate your app’s unique value in the new context and stay top of mind.

Numerous examples show the long-term benefits of continuing marketing during a downturn. With fewer competitors actively advertising, it can give you a major competitive advantage.

Retarget earlier, retain for longer

Retention is not a one-time event but a series of engagements. However, most app marketers view app retargeting as a last-ditch effort to retain lapsing users—a problem you don’t have to worry about if you start retargeting early.

It’s retargeting that lays the right foundation for a long-lasting relationship with your users.

It ultimately helps you build an engaged user base, achieve increased LTV, and drive higher revenue, all at a fraction of the UA budget. It’s a goldmine of opportunity that allows you to maximize value from your existing users.

Excel at audience segmentation

A successful app retargeting plan starts with a solid audience segmentation strategy.
In programmatic advertising, RFM analysis is a good framework for segmenting users based on three important in-app behaviors; recency, frequency, and monetary value.

At a broad level, you can do segmentation based on:

• High-uplift potential users: highly engaged users who can be nudged to spend more
• Frequent spenders: repeat purchasers who are willing to continue spending
• Leaky buckets: fast-churning users

While investing in the first two segments maximizes your revenue, investing in the last one ensures that you aren’t wasting your UA budget.

Ad creative innovation

Bet big on new ad creative formats

Advertising during an economic downturn means restricted ad budgets. App marketers might want to continue with the same ad formats that have worked so far.

But there are new opportunities to be seized. Adopting new innovative formats like DCO, Hybrid Ads, and Playables helps you stay competitive. Advertisers who are the first to market with new ad formats/creative direction see more conversions and a higher ROAS.

For example, Hybrid Ads combine different rich media and static elements to create memorable ad templates. With numerous combinations for each ad, you get an infinite number of ad formats for highly specific advertising goals.

Creative testing is the game changer

With shifting consumer sentiments, it’s important to tweak and validate your messaging strategy.

• Creative testing reveals insights into how different user segments interact with different ads. For example, hybrid/rich media ads have multiple tracking links, enabling access to granular data on how users engage with your ad.
• With continual testing and optimization, you can ensure that each element of the ad is designed for high engagement.
• It also helps you shift focus to high-performing creatives. At the end of it, you can be sure that you are being strategic with your ad spending.
  

Demanding transparency

The digital advertising world may seem complex with all its intricacies. But that’s no reason not to demand transparency in advertising. Least of all, during an economic downturn where every dollar matters.

Not sure where to start your transparency journey?

Read on for more.

The post Winning despite the downturn: App marketing in 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

Between the continued push for digital privacy and the economic headwinds, there are a lot of unknowns for performance marketing in 2023. Here are our picks for the performance marketing trends you should keep on your radar this year:

Messaging

In 2022, how many times did you call a customer service telephone number or send an email to customer service? Now, how many times did you message customer service?

Already in 2018, messaging (46%) was the preferred method of contacting a company versus phone (37%) and email (17%). That preference has only increased in the last four years as messaging usage has grown. According to data compiled by Statista in 2022, customer service messaging via WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger grew 62% and 51% respectively.

Messaging is a customer service function, but with customers relying on messaging as a critical communication channel in the customer’s journey, marketers will increasingly be looking for opportunities to build relationships through messaging. That’s why messaging is one of our performance marketing trends for 2023.

When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014, many wondered about the high price paid for the service. However, with the growth of messaging and the strength of WhatsApp as the leading global messaging platform (ahead of Meta-owned Facebook Messenger), Meta is well-positioned in this growing market.

Livestream eCommerce

We wrote about livestream eCommerce earlier this year.

Then over the summer, Meta announced that the company was exiting livestream commerce. Reports from others working with livestream eCommerce indicated that the tremendous revenue numbers achieved in China were not happening in North America or Europe.

But recently, according to Semafor, TikTok indicated that the company is copying what parent company DouYin achieved in China – the creation of a commerce engine generating $400 billion in livestream eCommerce revenue. Semafor also reported that TikTok invited selected US businesses to participate in this initiative. This program lets users purchase directly through the TikTok Shop feature. This initiative should push livestream eCommerce in the US and Europe.

Will TikTok succeed with livestream eCommerce in the US – the country that gave the world shopping on TV – where Amazon, Meta, and Walmart failed? Only time will tell, but if someone can succeed it will be TikTok.

Cultivating long-term influencer-marketer relationships

We’ve written about influencer marketing in the past, but what we predict will be a trend this year is the selection of influencers as brand ambassadors to create long-term and continuous content and ads.

Today, marketers know what works and what doesn’t work with influencer marketing. Therefore, the push for longer-term influencer partnerships makes sense. Prospects usually need multiple impressions before responding to a call to action. Therefore, a continuous relationship with influencers enables users to respond after the third or fourth brand exposure. Longer-term relationships enable integrating a brand organically in an influencer’s feed instead of a one-off post.

Fashion retailer Hollister works with 32 influencers who lead live shopping streams, do account takeovers and create most of Hollister’s TikTok videos.

By building longer-term influencer relationships, marketers spend less time and resources recruiting new influencers while benefiting from deeper and more stable partnerships.

Unified cross-device marketing experience

A user will open an email from a marketer on their desktop in the office this morning and then click on an ad on a mobile website while they’re shopping on their phone during the commute home.

Today, users expect the same brand experience, regardless of the device (and even offline and in-store). Users have become accustomed to watching a Netflix program on their TV and then continuing on their phone or tablet, and they expect the same from the marketers they’ve chosen to buy from.

When marketers have available first-party data, they’re able to better understand their users across various devices to offer a more unified experience.

It’s time to pull creatives out of their device silos to ensure that they’re creating unified and device-agnostic creative to provide users with a unified cross-device marketing experience.

Retail media

One of the growing trends in digital marketing is advertising via retail media. Retail media includes the websites and apps of leading retailers as well as retail-focused adtech vendors like Criteo and CitrusAd, and e-commerce apps like DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats.

Retail media is the digital version of shopper marketing, where marketers buy in-store advertising, including on the floor, the shelf, or end-of-aisle displays. This enables reaching shoppers when they’re in the physical store about to make the purchase decision.

With the growth eCommerce experienced during the pandemic, retail media grew, and with the coming end of the cookie and other privacy-driven changes, coupled with the ability to ‘close the sale’ on the retailer’s website or app, retail media is attractive to marketers.

Interested in understanding how these trends can help you grow your business? Let’s connect!

The post Performance marketing trends for 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

Through active efforts, developers have made continuous advances in their abilities to develop better products in 2022. With improved products and upgraded marketing strategies, the mobile game and app market in 2023 will be featuring innovation and full of challenges. So, SocialPeta published its 2022 Global Mobile Game & App (Non-Gaming) Marketing White Paper, providing insights into global marketing and product globalization.

This white paper of nearly 200 pages comprises two parts: mobile games and apps (non-gaming), which is an integration of industry insights from dozens of companies including Singular, Tenjin, Digital Turbine, Moloco, Storemaven, AdQuantum, Udonis, Mobidictum, Apptamin, and AppROI​​. It provides you with a precise analysis of industry data in 2022 and with forecasts of future trends, based on global mobile marketing data, observation of popular regions, precise channel advertising, advertising budget cost, and popular mobile game analytics for marketing.

Mobile games

Global data overview: Marketing focus switched to high-quality and innovative creatives.

There was an increase of 17.5% YoY in quarterly advertisers and a decline of 16% YoY in quarterly creatives. Over 90% of advertisers released new creatives in each quarter, with an increase of 3.82% YoY in the average number of new creatives per quarter.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

In terms of game genres, casual game advertisers accounted for a bigger share of all game genres, rising by 2.94% YoY. And, there was an increase of about 0.9% YoY in the shares of simulation and casino advertisers.

In terms of creatives, casual game creatives accounted for the largest share of 22.69%, rising significantly by 4.74% YoY.

In terms of regions, North America remained the one with the highest number of monthly advertisers, while HK, Macao & TW and Southeast Asia saw monthly creatives above the global average.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Market analysis by country

American market remained incremental

The overall American market was on the rise. Creatives were updated pretty regularly to have 87% new creatives of all active creatives. Active creatives for casual games accounted for 24.98% of all creatives, representing a significant increase of 5.22% YoY. In terms of active advertisers, there were increases in casual, puzzle, simulation, and action games, with casual game advertisers accounting for the biggest share of 30.28%.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Vietnam: A big rise in casual game advertisers

This year saw 93% of game advertisers with new creatives and only 7% of advertisers without any new creatives, showing a high frequency of updating creatives. There was an 8.83% increase YoY in casual game advertisers, a slight decline in simulation game advertisers, and a small increase in the shares of arcade and action game advertisers. Casual and puzzle games remained dominant with their active creatives accounting for the biggest and second biggest shares.

India recorded the highest but also dramatically dropped DAU.

India had the highest DAU among all countries, accounting for 5%, but also reported the sharpest drop in DAU compared to last year. The Indian mobile game market generated as much revenue as it did last year.

Turkey: The highest share of advertisers with new creatives in Q4

New creatives accounted for only 74% of all creatives this year, an updating frequency far lower than those in other regions. Casual game advertisers accounted for about 29.88%, up 8.63% YoY. RPG advertisers and active creatives both recorded the greatest declines.

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Source: SocialPeta

Trends of creatives

Strategy mobile games: With a little innovation in gameplay, strategy SLGs focused on art and subjects and released “Casual + X” creatives.

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Source: SocialPeta

Casino mobile games: Gameplays were displayed to attract attention and scenes of winning prizes were shown to further intrigue people.

Non-gaming Apps

Global data overview: The number of mobile advertisers rose again, and there was an increase in mobile applications.

Overall, in 2022, the number of mobile advertisers increased by 1.69% compared with that in 2021, among which advertisers accounted for about 76.6% of the total.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

In terms of the monthly average number of creatives, reading, social, and tool applications were still among the top three.

In terms of the types of creatives, video and image creatives held a dominant position, among which reading, entertainment, and tool applications took up over 60%.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Marketing insight into popular regions

North America: Fierce competition in advertising

In 2022, 97% of the advertisers in North America released new advertisements, among which 90% were new creatives. Tool applications increased significantly. The numbers of advertisers and active creatives increased by 1.37% and 6.48% respectively compared with those in 2021.

Southeast Asia: Creatives of tool applications accounted for nearly 25%

The number of tools and financial advertisers increased more, and the active advertisers of tool applications took up nearly 10%. Tools and reading applications had the most active creatives.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Europe: The proportion of active creatives of travel advertisers was slightly higher than that in other regions

In 2022, the numbers of active advertisers and creatives in Europe were both lower than those in 2021, but the number of advertisers who released new creatives showed an obvious increase, among which 89% of them released new advertisements.

Click on image for full size

Source: SocialPeta

Trends of creatives

Tool applications: Baked into daily life. Show products’ advantages by comparison and twist.

Entertainment Applications: All applications have distinct features that can show their competitive edges.

Source: SocialPeta

Social applications: Emphasize the attraction of beautiful things, ideal life, and a broad horizon.

Industry trends

Digital Turbine – User acquisition through traditional methods is getting more expensive and continues to be problematic in its complexity – why are we still expecting users to take multiple hops and steps simply to download an app? Developers should look to solutions that allow consumers to skip the store and have a more frictionless UA experience.

MOCOLO – We expect the average number of creatives used in a given campaign to increase in 2023, with marketers becoming more proactive about fighting and fatigue.

Storemaven – We recommend starting to start thinking with a more data-driven mindset for 2023, with the end goal of maximizing ROI and enjoying higher profits for your business.

Singular – How can app marketers scale their user acquisition in 2023? Singular gathered three key tips to answer that precise question:

• Go beyond D7 campaign performance
• Story-telling is the new targeting
• Pick an MMP that provides you with accurate marketing ROI

Getting the right data the right way right away is critical to mobile user acquisition. Innovation matters. Combining cost and conversions matters. Smart modeling for missing data matters.

Conclusion

The data in this report covers nearly 70 countries/regions worldwide, with over 70 mobile marketing platforms at home and abroad, providing over 1.2 billion mobile marketing creatives. If you want to learn more about the mobile gaming&app industry in 2022 and understand the coming trend of mobile games&apps and the market in 2023, click here to obtain the full white paper.

The post White paper: 2022 Global mobile game and app marketing insights appeared first on Business of Apps.

The mobile app market is quite mature now, which means the major innovations are few and far between. That said, there’s no better way for a brand to cement customer loyalty than by prompting consumers to install a mobile app on their phones. Once installed, the barrier to usage is minimal.

Still, apps are uninstalled at alarming rates; according to one survey, 35% of new app users churn within two weeks. What’s going on? Why are so many apps failing to meet the consumer’s expectations?

This is actually a question the Google Play Store team recently put to the test. Using an assessment framework and scorecard built to evaluate apps, they aimed to help publishers understand what changes could be made to reduce churn.

The framework was based on six categories: app strategy, discoverability, onboarding, engagement, ability to meet a user’s functional and emotional needs, and its ability to deliver data-driven insights for improvement.

More than 100 apps were evaluated – and the findings are alarming. On a scale of one to four, the aggregate score for all apps was 1.9. There are five key areas that deserve more attention and if addressed, will help reduce churn.

Don’t hide your best side

A lot of apps offer great functionality, but a user wouldn’t know it based on the app store experience. One of the problems is the store listing page can be restrictive on its own. You get one page with limited space to showcase an app’s features and speak to all potential users. True, you can hone your message somewhat with A/B tests, but it’s hard to speak to multiple audiences.

A mobile app landing page, on the other hand, provides much more flexibility, enabling you to include screenshots and explain benefits. You can also conduct more robust A/B testing to see which delivers the highest number of installations. If you want to see a great example of a mobile app landing page, check out the Nike App.

And take advantage of Google Instant apps, which let users try out an app before they download it. Google Play Instant lets users try an app while still in Google Play. If a user tries your app pre-installation and likes it, there is a much smaller chance of churn.

Onerous onboarding

On the whole, we’ve found the onboarding process for most apps to be needlessly onerous. Clearly, it’s a turnoff, as Google research found that 25% of people abandon an app before the onboarding is even complete.

To mitigate this challenge, eliminate unnecessary obstacles in the onboarding process, such as requiring the user to register for the app, commit to a trial, select app preferences and so on. Out of the gate, this feels like a huge commitment when most users are still in the assessment phase.

The same is true for system-level pop-ups which can alarm users. Sure, your app may need to access a user’s location, camera or microphone for a certain feature, but don’t ask permission until the user opts to activate that feature. If I’m going to use my PictureThis app to identify a plant, I will understand why the app is asking me for permission to access my camera but I won’t know why it ALSO wants to send me notifications. Provide the appropriate context and ask at the right time and users will opt in more.

People install apps because they want to accomplish a specific task and a specific app strikes them as a quick and easy way to succeed. To eliminate churn, ensure your onboarding process requires only what is absolutely necessary to complete a task.

Don’t be pushy

The industry puts a lot of emphasis on push notifications as a strategy to re-engage users and prompt them to open their apps. But it’s easy to overdo it. Take news alerts. According to an analysis from Press Gazette, 27 publishers sent 2,700 mobile push alerts in a two-week period.

Flooding users with notifications causes churn (just Google “popups” and you’ll see a ton of articles on how to shut them off). There’s an art to knowing when to send an alert in order to keep them engaged.

A smart strategy is to ask your users for permission first. If you’re a marketplace app, enable your users to choose when they receive notifications, such as when an item on their wish list is back in stock or goes on sale. People like customization because it puts them in control of the experience.

Build loyalty into your mobile app

Loyalty points and rewards are compelling reasons to open an app. Right off the bat, McDonald’s offers free fries to users who download the app and join MyMcDonald’s Rewards. To promote loyalty, each purchase they make via the app earns rewards points, which can be used for free meals.

This is the key benefit of mobile apps. Loyalty and mobile apps go hand in hand. Consumers who install a mobile app are more loyal, (and loyalty program members prefer to use a mobile app to manage their loyalty program perks).

Clean up your app

Lastly, recognize when it’s time to get rid of the cruft in your mobile app. It can be hard to prioritize removing things, but the truth is, apps tend to gather a lot of unnecessary features over time, and that can bog down the user experience.

Ask yourself: what would Marie Kondo do? If a feature no longer brings joy to users, it’s time for it to go. It’s never been easier to collect data about app usage, especially with analytics tools such as Mixpanel and Amplitude and in-app engagement tools like Apptentive.

Strive to keep your app simple and task-focused. A healthy app is one that doesn’t look the same after two years because it was thoughtfully maintained and evolved over time.

Churn is the bane of every app publisher, but it’s a problem that can be addressed by taking the time to view your app from a new user’s point of view.

The post 5 Ways to optimize your mobile app appeared first on Business of Apps.

The execution of performance marketing campaigns has changed significantly in recent years due to new policies that protect user privacy. These developments are a good thing for all, though it means marketers must adapt their performance marketing campaigns and strategies in light of the limitations placed on them by privacy-first policies. In this article, we run you through the current state of play and identify areas you can adapt your performance marketing campaigns to thrive in a privacy-first context.

This post was first published on phiture.com.

The state of play

While it used to be the case, as a result of Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA), marketers having full visibility of their campaign performance and full targeting capabilities came to an end with the launch of iOS 14 and the SKAdNetwork. Apple’s example is set to be followed by Google, starting with the privacy sandbox for Android, followed by plans to phase out third-party cookies from Chrome. Amid the wider context of Europe-wide GDPR regulations, the stage is set for a more privacy-centric landscape.

In our experience as a performance marketing agency and consultancy, we see privacy-first marketing campaigns causing two major pain points:

• It’s harder to measure campaign results.
• It’s harder to target users.

In terms of measurement, things seem to be looking up for app marketers, with SKAdNetwork 4.0 offering three postbacks instead of one as well as additional digits available for the source identifier.

Regarding targeting, however, we are beginning to see a shift towards rather less control for marketers. Google app campaigns are a clear example of this, with very limited targeting options. Recently, Meta has introduced ‘smart performance campaigns’. While these changes are not necessarily related to privacy, they are worth keeping an eye on. This trend implies a sharper focus on creative quality over targeting.

So how can app marketers get ahead of the potential problems new privacy concerns are bringing up? Here are our recommendations to better adapt your marketing campaigns in the age of privacy:

Prioritize creatives

Creatives are arguably the most critical component for campaign success, especially on social media ad channels such as Meta, TikTok, and Snapchat.

With so much organic content on social media channels, the battle for attention is fierce. Your ads need to stand out in order to be pushed effectively by the algorithms.

That means you need to prioritize creating top-quality creatives and fully optimize your ad message to score ‘creative hits.’ A creative hit can be defined as a creative that is able to deliver the desired KPIs while also maintaining at least 20% of total ad spend.

Here you can see how to create winning social media creatives for every channel while checking out our guide to systematic reporting on creative hits to ensure continuous creative improvement to your campaigns.

Keep on testing

Don’t leave your campaigns to run on autopilot: always test different approaches and new channels and expand into new markets. Make sure you always keep some budget for testing. This could potentially unlock new growth opportunities beyond your core focus.

Creatives should represent the biggest aspect of your testing. Make sure you diversify your creative approach, take risks, and try out novel approaches.

In order to find creative hits you should start out by testing ‘horizontally.’ This means testing unique concepts first, that is, ideas that are completely new, and different to existing creative concepts. Then test vertically by iterating on the best-performing creative concepts.

At Phiture we use the Persuasion Emotion Trust (PET) model, pioneered by Human Factors, to develop creative concepts – a psychology-driven framework producing more effective and engaging ads.

The model is broken down into three categories: Persuasion, Emotion, and Trust. Each has its own range of sub-tactics and is a great way to kick-start the creative brainstorming process.

There are a couple of important considerations when testing creatives:

• Set a realistic number of tests depending on your available resources and budget. You might otherwise risk overloading your teams, which in turn will impact the quality of creatives produced. Without a definite number of tests, you might also be spreading your testing budget too thin.
• When Setting up your reporting structure align internally on which KPIs to prioritize and create a scoring system that eliminates guesswork. Additionally, decide on which dimensions you’ll be analyzing such as: asset type, conversion tactic, video length and so on. This will help determine patterns and insights when analyzing the results, from a single creative to an overarching dimension.

Some best practice advice when testing creatives:

• Separate your tests from your ever-green (always-on) ads.
• Watch out for creative fatigue (creatives losing their wow factor).
• Be aware that the user’s attention spans are getting shorter, so make the first 3 seconds of your ad count.
• Adapt your creative assets for each channel.
• For short video formats such as Insta Story, Reels, TikTok, or Snapchat, create ads that resemble organic content as much as possible.
• Have a clear CTA.

Prioritize user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) has become an important part of any creative strategy in recent times. UGC is especially relevant for paid social media channels, as a result of the rising popularity of content creators and the rise in popularity of short video format platforms such as Snap, TikTok, and Insta Reels. For reference, TikTok currently has over 150 million active users in the USA alone.

While the benefits of bringing UGC into your paid ad strategy are clear, great user-generated content is hard to come by, and creating a regular pipeline to deliver excellent content is even harder.

Brands aspiring to leverage the power of UGC need to be a bit savvier when building their next creative hit.

Here are a few sources you can look at to source excellent UGC:

• TikTok creator marketplace.
• Collaborating and reaching out to content creators.
• Internal resources. Consider shooting the ad yourself!

Be sure to check out our TikTok stack for more inspiration on how to realize great performance marketing campaigns with this platform.

Don’t underestimate user retention strategies

As acquiring new users becomes more difficult, user retention has become more important than ever. This importance is further heightened when we consider the increased acquisition costs and competition in general.

Creating a mobile app retention strategy to optimize user retention will help increase the Lifetime Value (LTV) of a user and decrease churn.

How to calculate user retention rate?

Retention rate can be calculated as follows: Identify the number of users at the beginning of the time period. Let’s call this number “X”. Identify the number of users who continue to use your product or service at the end of the time period. Let’s call this number “Y”. Calculate the retention rate by dividing Y by X and multiplying the result by 100. The formula is: retention rate = (Y / X) * 100.

This can be achieved by analyzing the user journey from onboarding to conversion and optimizing it by understanding where churn occurs and by reducing friction.

Onboarding is crucial as users downloading a new app are prone to delete it if it doesn’t meet their expectations or if the onboarding process is confusing. Therefore, keep onboarding simple and personalize it as much as possible.

Another excellent source of user retention is to reactivate dormant users. Be smart about what and when to communicate with them, be that via email or push notifications.

Optimize app marketing campaigns for iOS and Android

Make sure you assign enough budget, pass the privacy thresholds, and opt for broader targeting on your iOS campaigns. Concurrently, use your Android campaigns more for creative and audience testing, and apply the learnings gleaned from iOS campaigns here.

Remember, iOS campaigns are prone to experiencing more data delays. So plan this into your testing schedule accordingly. Retargeting is also more limited on iOS, so we suggest testing by retargeting users who are already engaged with your social media content.

Explore blended metrics and organic uplift analysis

Organic uplift represents the correlation between organic and non-organic installs. It is used to measure how many additional organic users are expected to install your app as a result of paid activity.

Blended metrics on the other hand evaluate the total paid and organic results. It is an important metric to look at from a strategic and top-level perspective.

There are a few reasons why looking at organic uplift and blended metrics is beneficial to app marketers:

• Driving paid downloads will likely push your app up in the app store search ranking.
• Difficulties in measurement or attribution. This could be due to privacy-related issues or simply because a channel is naturally difficult to attribute or measure, such as brand campaigns or influencer campaigns.
• User behavior is sometimes unpredictable. The conversion journey of some users may be difficult to follow or measure.

Optimize for customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is a crucial metric that provides a running estimate of how much an app user, on average, is likely to generate in revenue.

It provides a more realistic approach compared to looking at immediate results, which don’t necessarily represent the real value generated and might underestimate the contribution of marketing efforts. This is especially true for apps that rely on long-term revenue streams such as subscription-based apps.

LTV helps with better marketing budget allocation. It also helps set a more accurate basis for cost per acquisition (CAC).
It’s quite important to understand the LTV for different cohorts such as different geographical locations, marketing channels, device types and combinations of these previous factors.

Explore media mix modeling

A Media Mix Model (MMM) is a framework for determining the optimal allocation of media spend across different marketing channels, which works to remove bias and guesswork around the allocation of marketing budgets.

While not a new concept, MMM is gaining traction with marketers looking to improve the efficiency of budgeting and media planning as well as forecasting the impact of future campaigns.

MMM is quite important when taking a holistic view of the marketing channels available. We often look at media channels in silos, while in reality, a user may have multiple touchpoints before finally converting.

Focus on tactical approaches and urgency triggers

In reality, people are not always in ‘buying mode’. They are not in a hurry either and they tend to procrastinate. It’s the same as in a physical shop when good floor staff know when a customer is browsing and when they’re ready to be approached.

It’s all about timing and respecting when and how to make contact with customers. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t create a sense of urgency to move the process along. After all, customers tend to make decisions more quickly when the thing they want has limited availability.

Imagine you’re looking at a flight ticket and you see the following message: “4 seats available at this price”. That creates urgency, and although you know it could be a marketing tactic, there’s still something in the back of your mind that makes you more likely to book right now.

A time-limited tactical offer is a very powerful conversion tactic. Remember, users want a good deal in return for buying right now. It’s all about striking the right price-to-value ratio. Don’t focus so much on the ‘cheap’ aspect, but more on the time-sensitive nature of the offer. You can read more about the dos and don’ts of dynamic pricing here.

Explore growth opportunities beyond paid media ads

Opportunities beyond paid media ads could include: Content Marketing, Endorsement Marketing, Sponsorships and Organic Social Content.

Such growth channels, while harder to measure compared to paid channels, do represent an opportunity to build brand awareness, brand affinity and – if you’re lucky – virality.

When planning your content marketing, make sure you develop a marketing calendar, as this will help you map out your key marketing activities throughout the year. It will also help you to plan ahead of time and avoid last-minute initiatives. Expecting results from half-baked ideas the day of posting is always unrealistic.

Planning at least one month in advance allows you to maximize user attention, as users will be more likely to engage with content related to major events, seasonal content or current social media trends.

The post How to adapt your performance marketing campaigns to thrive in a privacy-first context appeared first on Business of Apps.

Paid user acquisition risks becoming more and more effective, prompting many to wonder: is paid user acquisition dead? There are two possible answers to this question—yes and no.

Yes, it is gone if you still exist in 2019, if you want to believe that nothing changed and execute performance marketing campaigns like nothing ever happened. Moreover, attempting to interpret the data as it used to be analyzed, utilizing the same advertising channels, disregarding the tests.

No, it is not extinct if you adapt to the shifts and see them as opportunities.

There are three ways to save your efforts and use this change as a chance to scale your paid user acquisition activities—adapting to the scenario along with a holistic and systematic approach.

What exactly is adaptation in this case?

To begin with, adjusting does not imply acting like this lovely puppy, pretending that everything is normal and that the advertising world is not on fire.

Yet, most importantly, adapting implies adjusting our approach to paid mobile app user acquisition, first by viewing it as part of a larger marketing strategy and then by following specific procedures and frameworks that can help solve data and targeting restrictions.

The Growth Rocket Model: A holistic approach

At REPLUG, we saw the importance of reconsidering the approach to paid user acquisition and app marketing as a whole as early as the beginning of 2020. We created the Growth Rocket Model because we believe app marketing success emerges from a comprehensive approach to growth activities.

The Growth Rocket Model

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

The GRM appears as Paid UA is only one piece of App Growth—and, just like on an actual rocket, it must function in harmony with all of the other aspects to ensure a successful journey to space.

This article explains how to use the Growth Rocket Model in detail.

The Paid UA Process: A systematic approach

Viewing mobile app paid user acquisition as a standalone strategy is ineffective. We should also begin utilizing a systematic approach that will enable us to identify difficulties and chances clearly. At REPLUG, we’ve focused most of our projects—from various fields—on specific processes.

We’ve already spoken about the 5-step CRM Process that helped us increase CRM efforts for numerous customers, and in this piece, we’ll go through our 5-step Paid UA Process in depth. Furthermore, we prefer to refer to it as Procework since we regard it as a hybrid of a Process and a Framework.

Our Paid UA Process is divided into five stages. For each of the five phases, we must ask ourselves a series of questions and complete a set of tasks split by area. The five areas are illustrated below.

5-step Paid UA Process

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

It’s worth noting that the final three steps represent a continuous process known as the “Optimization Loop.” In the next section, we will go through each step in depth, outlining the precise questions associated with each one.

Mobile app user acquisition phase: The 5 questions

We’ve designed a series of basic questions for each stage to define the phase’s topic and the actions that must be completed. The questions concerning each of the paid user acquisition processes are listed below.

Setup and Audit

This represents the “golden phase” of each Paid UA effort. When granted a budget to spend, regardless of the amount, it would be impolite to begin spending it without first reviewing previous activities and, most crucially, if we are prepared to analyze success.

Here you can ask yourself the following questions—is tech infrastructure ready to measure success? What are the past activities and types of messaging used?

Strategy

Once we’ve finished the audit phase and have a clear grasp of the current status, we need to move on to the stage where we try to find the best method to spend our money and accomplish our objectives.

Here you can ask yourself the following questions—what’s the message to communicate and the creative strategy? What are the best channels to reach it, and what’s our target audience?

Execution

Once the plan has been created and approved, it is time to launch the campaigns. This is an essential stage since, for instance, the precision of the campaign structure will determine the ability to track performance and improve the paid user acquisition efforts.

Here you can ask yourself the following questions—how do we get the creatives needed? How do we measure success, and what’s the best campaign setup?

Analysis

Campaigns are officially live, we have our first data, and we can begin analyzing. This phase is critical for understanding what worked with the first approach and for beginning to prepare for the future.

Here you can ask yourself the following questions—how are the creatives performing? What are the main results and drivers of those results?

Test and optimize

When obtaining the initial results, it is necessary to begin optimizing in order to achieve (even) better outcomes. That is generally the most exciting stage because there is so much to test in the paid user acquisition field.

Here you can ask yourself the following questions—what cross-functional activities can we optimize? What can we test to improve results?

5-step Paid UA Process: Continued

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

After all, simply asking ourselves a few questions does not suffice. As previously said, some actions must be completed and may be grouped into many categories that are typically consistent across all phases.

Conclusion

The paid user acquisition as a stand-alone campaign is ineffective. We should also implement a systematic strategy that will allow us to identify challenges and opportunities correctly.

As we’ve seen during this article, it’s all about precise planning, observing, testing, optimizing, and repeating the process. Which we refer to as the “magical optimization loop.”

Furthermore, as previously said, each phase relies on the one before it, with the audit stage always acting as the starting point. Nonetheless, it may appear complex at first, but it is not. It’s simply a matter of following the steps and paying attention to the details.

Do you wish to see the complete 5-step process framework for paid user acquisition? Then head to our blog and read the full article by clicking here.

If you have any additional questions or want to scale your app marketing efforts, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!

The post Holistic and systematic approaches to scaling paid user acquisition in 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

Fraud in the mobile adtech world

Fraudulent traffic has always been a major pain point of the adtech industry. Of course, it’s expected that using non-physical data products leaves ample room for manipulation. This is because it entails working at a large scale without the possibility of verifying every user’s existence.

The industry puts a lot of effort into combating fraud, but fraud methods evolve simultaneously and become more intricate to overcome newly developed fraud prevention solutions.

This post was first posted on persona.ly.

The adtech industry’s losses due to fraudulent traffic are estimated to reach $100 billion in 2023, according to Juniper Research—and that number is rising. Industry experts estimate that fraudulent installs account for 31% of iOS and 25% of Android app installs.

The major types of ad fraud in the mobile industry are:

• Click spam or click flooding (fraudsters using MMP links open multiple app store pages on users’ devices without the users being aware, and if a user happens to (organically) install one of the apps, the install is attributed to the fraudster).
• Click hijacking (a more sophisticated type of fraud where fraudsters predict the anticipated install brought by another provider and hijack the click just before the install happens).
• SDK spoofing (fraudsters create an imitation of a legitimate app install emulating real user activity and utilizing a real mobile device, whereas the install never took place).

As a veteran adtech product company with over 10 years of experience, our goal is to provide value and become a partner to our clients rather than just another service provider. That’s why we listen to our customers and proactively address their concerns.

Multiple clients in the APAC region have raised concerns about how much trust to put in the UA costs they have seen from some partners. And while the numbers were strong and keeping the companies’ stakeholders happy, we sensed that something was off as they seemed far from being realistic.

While the amount of click spam has decreased in Western countries, its presence remains strong in some regions, including APAC. The problem is still seen in emerging markets, and the industry should prioritize addressing the issue as it affects multiple stakeholders.

What is click spam?

Click spamming, sometimes referred to as click flooding, is a fraudulent traffic activity that abuses the loophole of the “last touch” attribution model. Fraudsters open multiple app store pages on real users’ devices without them knowing (or seeing the ad or the store page) and attribute an install that might theoretically happen organically in the next seven days. During this attribution window, as long as the “click” from the fraudster’s source was the last one, MMPs will assign the install to the fraudster.

In other words, if a user whose device was abused downloads the app organically while the attribution window is still open, the install is attributed to the fraudster.

How does click spam work?

There are a few relatively simple steps that fraudsters follow to run click spamming at scale:

• Using one of many self-serve (or sometimes a proprietary) DSP (demand-side platforms) that are particularly prone to abuse due to insufficient moderation, the fraudsters purchase the cheapest inventory available.
• The uploaded creative assets contain malicious code that prompts the device to open multiple app store pages (sometimes 20-30 at once) in the background without the user even realizing it. This process is called ad stacking.
• All the clicks from real users’ devices are now attributed to the fraudsters for the next seven days.
• If a user organically installs the app within the attribution window, the install will be attributed to the fraudster.

Click spamming works on assumption, and it targets apps that are likely to be installed organically by large groups of users. These are typically apps that rank high on charts, are top grossing, offer new services, are popular among new device owners, and more.

The scale of click spamming

As click spamming tends to bring the CPI (cost per install) significantly lower than legitimate paid sources and sometimes produces higher engagement rates (by simply cannibalizing the organic traffic where users have high intent of using the app), companies providing this type of fraudulent traffic have higher chances of becoming the main user acquisition partner.

The post The vicious cycle of click spamming appeared first on Business of Apps.

As social media continues to evolve, new platforms and new technologies are constantly emerging and gaining popularity. As a result, advertisers must stay on top of trends and adjust their campaigns and tactics accordingly. Running a multi-channel campaign is not a new concept, but it requires careful consideration to ensure that each platform is utilized to its full potential and harnessing new technologies to keep you ahead of the game.

While it’s possible to use the same creative concept across multiple platforms, some aspects of the ad will need to be adjusted for each one. For example, a static banner that works well on Google or Facebook may not be as effective on a dynamic platform like Snapchat. Therefore, it’s recommended to have an overall concept that can be adapted for each platform.

TikTok, with its over 1.1 billion users worldwide, is the latest and most popular platform to take the social media world by storm. The platform has its own unique style, rules, and culture, and campaigns that have worked on other platforms may not be as effective on TikTok. Advertisers must be willing to experiment and adjust their campaigns to fit the platform’s style in order to drive engagement and avoid low CTR and conversion rates.

Another example is BeReal – an upcoming social media platform that focuses on authenticity and connecting people based on shared interests and values. The platform is designed to foster meaningful conversations and real-life connections, unlike other platforms that prioritize likes and followers.

For advertisers, BeReal presents a unique opportunity to connect with users in a more authentic and meaningful way, using the genuine power of our CGC (creators-generating- content) community, with real creators with different passions, from different regions speaking different languages. For example, a brand that sells eco-friendly products could create a BeReal community for users who are passionate about environmentalism and sustainability. This community could be a place for members to share tips and ideas, participate in virtual events and meet-ups, and connect with like-minded people. The brand could also work with the creator to build a community to promote its products and get feedback from users. While advertising on the platform is still banned, many brands have figured out how to use the authenticity of the platform using real people and influencers as brand ambassadors- creating their own creatives and content in real time.

2023 global buzz is all about AI tools, helping different sectors use the technology for their own private and business needs. For marketing needs, an AI marketing tool can help advertisers and marketers work better with multiple creative assets under a single campaign in several ways:

Optimizing creative content

The AI marketing tool can analyze large amounts of data and identify which creative assets perform best for a particular campaign. This allows advertisers to optimize their creative assets and improve the overall performance of their live campaign.

Automating ad placement

With an AI marketing tool, advertisers can automate the placement of creative assets across multiple platforms, channels, and devices. This ensures that the right creative is delivered to the right audience at the right time.

Personalizing content

AI-powered tools can analyze user data and personalize creative content to deliver a more relevant message to each individual user. This can increase engagement and conversion rates.

Identifying patterns

An AI marketing tool can analyze data from various platforms, channels, and devices at once to identify patterns and trends. This allows advertisers to make more informed decisions about their campaigns and optimize their performance moving forward.

Automated testing – better A/B testing

AI-powered tools can automatically test different variations of creative content and optimize a campaign’s performance accordingly. This can save time and effort for the advertiser and increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.

To avoid ad fatigue, it’s important to refresh creative specs on a regular basis and test different strategies to see what works best with different demographics. This is where albert.ai by Zoomd comes in, an autonomous marketing ally. By using albert.ai ongoing insights and statistics, advertisers can understand their audience and make informed decisions about their social campaigns. Avoiding creative fatigue not only maximizes the media budget but also increases the chances of converting new users.

The post Social media advertising in 2023: Navigating the latest trends and technologies appeared first on Business of Apps.

There can never be enough time, money… or traffic. Any digital advertiser would agree with this statement — after all, traffic is king in this industry. And when it comes to getting more traffic, most would probably turn to the same solution, increasing bids. However, that’s not always possible (or effective).

Fortunately, there are quite a few alternative ways to boost your numbers. Of course, all of them are meant to drive only high-quality traffic to your platform: methods like botting are out of the question if you truly want to see your profit grow.

Let’s take a closer look at the top 3 methods for increasing your traffic volume without raising bids from Dasha R, the head of CPM and RTB at Adsterra.

Tweaking your targeting

Adjusting your targeting is one of the easiest ways to increase your traffic. There are three main ways you can go about this: straight up adding new audiences, checking whether your settings are up to date, and trying other types of traffic.

Reaching out to new audiences

When it comes to getting higher numbers, trying to reach new audiences is probably the easiest and most straightforward way to do it.

Here’s an example: imagine you’re running a simple banner campaign. You have done your tests and know that iOS users respond to your ads the best. However, that doesn’t mean that Android or web users won’t convert well. You don’t have to go all out but it can be a good idea to set up a new campaign with a lower bid and new targeting settings that could connect you to fresh audiences.

Of course, this method requires some initial investment — doing new tests can not only be costly but also time-consuming. However, it has the potential to give you access to larger volumes and higher conversion rates in return.

Adjusting your existing settings

It is not always possible to reach new audiences. Sometimes, you will have already reached out to all available avenues, other times it’s simply not worth it. In cases like that, it could be a good idea to re-check your existing targeting options.

Here are a few tips on how to optimise your targeting settings:

• Check whether you’re up to date on the latest trends when it comes to platforms, OS, and browsers. Although we rarely see any new platforms pop up and take over any significant portion of the market, existing ones often get borderline campaign-breaking updates.
• Use custom bids and give some publishers you have previously blacklisted a second chance. Lower the bid and see if they can still drive some traffic.
• Don’t set your targeting too tight, especially if your campaign is no longer brand new. For example, many advertisers Adsterra has worked with found that disabling language targeting once their campaign has grown a bit can help to boost traffic significantly.

Trying new traffic types

If you’ve exhausted your optimisation options, you could always try going for new traffic types. After all, the more options you have, the higher your traffic volume will be.

You can explore mainstream and non-mainstream traffic types by cloning your existing campaigns. As long as the type of traffic you’re going for is allowed by both your platform and ad network, it should be fair game.

Creating new creatives

Although adjusting your targeting settings is a great way to boost traffic, it only goes so far — and may not even be applicable for your campaign. In that case, you can try going for more creatives, and, subsequently, more tests.

The digital marketing industry is incredibly competitive. Trying something new is one of the best ways to drive more traffic to your campaigns and take it away from your competitors. The easiest way to do this is to routinely update your existing banners, pre-landers, and so on. Keep an eye on your stats and see which ones haven’t been performing that well lately.

Of course, just like when it comes to targeting, optimisation and updates can only take you so far. “A lot” doesn’t even come close to covering how many ads there are online. Even a person using an ad blocker will likely run into several dozen of them each day — so, naturally, people can get ad fatigue. The best way to combat it is to introduce brand-new creatives.

At first, you might try using similar creatives types — for example, if you like quizzes, you can go for similarly interactive and eye-catching lottery creatives. If you know native banner ads generally work well for you, check out live chat ads, which can also seamlessly blend in with the rest of the platform.

If you’re running your campaign on a CPC payment model, you will only be able to get as much traffic as a particular creative’s CPM will let you — there’s little room for improvement.

However, there’s a trick to boosting your CPM and thus your volumes. When you add more fresh creatives to the mix, they may show an increase in CTR, leading to new CPM being calculated.

Experimenting with frequency

One of the reasons why your conversion isn’t as high as you’d like it to be could be intense competition. Dealing with this issue isn’t easy, and it requires some experimentation — and tweaks to your frequency settings.

In some cases, it could be useful to have the same user see your ad twice in a single day at random times. Sometimes, it is important to show the ads at specific times of the day — in the morning before users go to work and in the evening when they return home, for example. Other times, you will only want to show your ad once a day.

• A great way to switch things up is going from the 1/24 (1 ad per 24 hours) frequency model to 1/18. That will make it so only the most active users will see your ads. This type of frequency could be beneficial if you use incredibly eye-catching creatives, as those hyperactive users usually tend to have a high degree of ad blindness.
• If you use incredibly unobtrusive native ads like Adsterra’s Smartlinks or Direct Links you can try removing the cap altogether. After all, they do not suffer from the same issues as their flashier cousins regarding ad blindness, and often involve a rotational system of creatives. The more creatives you use, the more value and traffic you will be able to gain from 0/24 capping (the zero signifies the absence of any cap).

Adjusting your frequency may not be very effective if your campaign is not yet well-optimised or if your creatives are lacking — that’s why this method was mentioned after the first two.

Bonus tip: Talk to your manager

Finally, here’s one extra tip: don’t be afraid to ask your manager for advice. This is probably the easiest and least expensive to boost your profit!

Most ad network managers, including the ones at Adsterra, have been professionally trained to help you to make your campaign as successful as it can be. Managers will also usually have a thorough understanding of the market as a whole and the current trends — it’s their job after all.

Final thoughts

Overall, boosting your traffic is all about 3 things:

• Diversification
• Optimisation
• Branching out

Bids are just one tool: do not think that you are limited to them when it comes to boosting your traffic.

At the end of the day, increasing your profit is all about combining different strategies. Don’t forget to do proper testing after every change you make, though — otherwise, how will you be able to tell which changes actually boosted your traffic and which ones are just eating through your funds?

Register with Adsterra here.

The post 3 Ways to boost traffic without increasing your bids appeared first on Business of Apps.

Generation Z is still young, but these youngsters are already perfectly able to consume and buy and, what’s even more important for businesses, to change the entire consumption landscape. Yes, they do it right now while you think about how to get their attention and loyalty for your brand. Famesters is an influencer marketing agency dealing, among other things, with Gen Z consumers and influencers, as well as Gen Z-oriented products every day, so we can see it with our own eyes and know how to go with the flow. Here, we are going to share our insights with you.

Key points

• Gen Zers prefer social media even over search engines to research brands and products.
• Gen Zers appreciate information, and influencers are the best assistants for your brand to give it to them in a variety of ways.
• Gen Zers make buying decisions based on recommendations from content creators on social media.
• Video is the most preferable and engaging format for Gen Z consumers.
• Gen Zers prefer to buy from socially and environmentally conscious brands that are promoted by influencers with similar values.

The main thing you need to learn when aiming at Gen Z’s love and money is that your young, fresh target audience does not tolerate slowness, obsolescence, and lagging. What you will read in this article is true and will stay true for some time, but not forever. To be up to date and choose the content that will actually bring zoomers to your doorsteps, you have to monitor the ever-changing situation or, what’s way better, become one of those who lead the changes.

The first fact that will help you grab generation Z is: forget what has been a tradition in marketing and has been working for years before. It’s the time of creative, original individuals and authentic content now. Not the “everyone will watch them anyway as they’re everywhere” ads.

The second fact is: the content creators that can and will become your most powerful assistants for Gen Z attraction are already out there. You just need to search for them wisely. So what will help you do that?

Social media influencers are your providers to Gen Z

Gen Zers are informed consumers. But where do they get the information? What platforms do they prefer to use when researching a brand or a product? Some search engines like Google come to mind first, then you may think about companies’ blogs and sites with official information. All these are wrong. Zoomers’ research concentrates on social media platforms.

58% of Gen Zers have made a purchase based on a recommendation from a content creator on social media. You can compare the figures: 46% of Gen Xers and 38% of Boomers have done so. With this, influencers have become the key to success when it comes to marketing to Generation Z.

Almost half (47%) of them use YouTube to search for opinions and details before buying. Instagram (29%) and Facebook (21%) come next. Nearly 40% of Gen Zers use TikTok and Instagram instead of Google to search for things – this is what Google itself has found out.

So, this one is simple: if generation Z is your target audience, you know where to find and reach it. The young are very active on social media: 64% of them use social media apps several times a day, which is more than the overall indicator of 47%. Moreover, 54% of zoomers spent 2+ hours on social media, which is a lot and definitely enough to learn about at least a few brands and products, especially when their favorite content creators speak about them.

One of the key points of Gen Z influencer marketing is giving your target audience honest and transparent information, showing and explaining your product. Social networks and social media influencers are the best assistants that allow you to do so in different ways and formats.

Video comes first

Remember the days when bloggers like LiveJournal ones could be counted as celebrities and actually impacted consumers’ opinion? Well, these days are gone. Gen Z prefers video over all other content formats. Even photo-oriented Instagram creators start lagging behind, and Instagram itself tends to favor video over simple pictures, trying to make a worthy competition to TikTok.

“The unique thing about Gen Z is that while millennials have grown up with social media, Gen Z has grown up with video-first social media,” says Nick Cicero, vice president of strategy at Conviva (streaming and social intelligence). This gives the influencers who create high-quality authentic video content all the trump cards. It’s not surprising that all the biggest Gen Z influencers have a TikTok or a YouTube account – or both.

When selecting influencers for your marketing campaign targeted at Gen Z, be sure to recruit those who concentrate on video making. And even if your target audience is on Instagram, which is traditionally considered being for photos, turn to videos – including Reels and Stories – anyway. Videos are reported to be the most engaging type of content on Instagram: they generate an average of 150 comments, while carousels and single-image posts generate 80 and 65 comments, respectively.

And when looking wider, you can see that the platforms that are video-oriented like TikTok and YouTube have a higher engagement rate for influencers on average:

Average engagement rate of influencers

Click on image for full size

Source: BuzzGuru

Reputation and context matter a lot

Let’s imagine a situation. You have a cool product for Gen Zers and are preparing an influencer marketing campaign to promote it. You have already found an influencer on YouTube who creates content for the country you need and has a high engagement rate and a stable video posting schedule. All the metrics and data are fine, you are ready to make a data-based decision.

But you shouldn’t. Not before you check the content and the creator themselves considering the present context: it’s not uncommon for famous social media users to be known for controversial opinions, harsh words, radical statements, etc. You know, Kanye West still has millions of followers on Instagram (and had millions on Twitter before being suspended), but do his words resonate with any brand’s and audience’s values? Balenciaga and Adidas don’t think so, having dropped him.

The point here is: the coverage and engagement are not everything that is important. Gen Z is very sensitive when it comes to ethics and ongoing political and social events, as well as environmental situations. This one is pretty stable, unlike many other marketing trends for Gen Z that change rapidly. This generation actually cares about what’s going on around them and where people, especially influencers who are public figures and have large audiences to listen to them, and brands, especially large corporations, lead it.

So, when you collaborate with an influencer, they become your company’s face for a while, and consumers begin to associate you and your product with the promoting influencer. Brand ethics and corporate responsibility are of high importance for Gen Z, so your chosen influencer’s ethics and overall reputation matter, too, and can ruin the entire campaign – or help it get the good hype.

Want to learn more about how brands, content creators, and consumers interact? Feel free to contact Famesters. We can help you get insights and build an influencer marketing strategy to win the hearts of Gen Z. Also, here we share a white paper we use ourselves. It’s a global report on the state of influencer marketing in 2022-2023 made by BuzzGuru – a mine of data and insights that will help you select the right influencers for Gen Z and others, like millennials, Gen X, and boomers.

The post All you need to know about content creators to grab generation Z appeared first on Business of Apps.

How would you feel if we told you that you could no longer use your favorite analytics tools? Well, for around 90% of apps out there, you can’t, or at least not in a way that is compliant with the GDPR.

Most apps are not collecting data in a way that is GDPR-compliant. The entities producing these apps seem to largely see the regulation (or any regulation) as a hindrance, something to be worked around, not talked about openly.

When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on May 25th, 2018, it was a game-changer in terms of the degree of control it gave consumers over the way that companies collect, store and process their personal information. It shifted the responsibility to app owners to achieve and maintain GDPR compliance.

It also unequivocally changed the concept of consent. It went from something that could be tacitly assumed by dint of the fact that an individual had not opted out of giving permission for their personal data to be collected and used, to a scenario where the consumer must actively be informed and opt in.

GDPR app permissions

Clearly, this impacts digital marketing in general and app GDPR compliance in particular, especially where app permissions are concerned.

It is no longer acceptable for an app owner not to pay attention to what third-party SDKs (i.e. marketing tools) installed on the app are tracking about their users. Apps cannot track a user’s location or IP address, or other types of data that could lead to identifying a specific user, without their explicit consent.

But a study by Usercentrics in October 2022 found that most apps reviewed are not GDPR-compliant, more on this later. In this post, we will share what you need to do to ensure your app is GDPR-compliant. This will help you gain the trust and respect of your users by being open and transparent with them about the personal information the app collects, and for what purposes.

The GDPR rewrote the data protection rulebook, taking the onus away from consumers to ask companies not to collect, store and use their personal data, and placing it firmly in the hands of businesses and app owners to seek the consumer’s permission to do so.

But the way many app marketers are going about things is counterproductive, resulting in many users refusing to share their personal information. Without it, app marketers’ ability to run retargeting campaigns and evaluate the performance of their marketing campaigns is significantly reduced.

A recent case study from Blinkist found that setting up consent banners incorrectly could lead to a €300,000 revenue loss. According to a Sensor Tower report, 2022 was the first year on record that app store growth slowed to a halt, with Apple’s introduction of its ATT framework identified as the main cause.

It’s time for a change of perspective. Consent is not an obstacle to a thriving app business; it’s a necessity and presents a great opportunity. By being open and transparent with your customers about what personal data you want to collect, why you wish to do so, and what value the customer gets from the process, you gain their trust and long-term loyalty, which ultimately has a positive impact on the bottom line.

In a 2020 study of 1,000 North American consumers carried out by McKinsey, around half of the respondents said they were more likely to trust a company that only asks for information relevant to its products and that limits the amount of personal information requested.

Other reports back this up. A study from AdPushUp found that 80% of respondents would be more likely to buy from companies that they believe protect their personal data. Another from the IAB found that 85% of consumers globally want to deal with companies who are more trustworthy with their data. And another from Appsflyer found that 85% of consumers are concerned about privacy.

Consumer privacy

Source: Usercentrics

So when you are asking customers to share their personal data with you, ask yourself if you really need it. If you don’t, then don’t ask them for it.

Recital 42 of the GDPR, Burden of Proof and Requirements for Consent spells out in crystal clear detail that the responsibility for ensuring that the consumer is able to give their consent freely, and the extent to which it is given, lies firmly with the entity seeking the consent.

App GDPR compliance – the status quo

So what is the current state of mobile app GDPR compliance? To find out, in October 2022 Usercentrics carried out a European app industry report, looking at 250 apps across five popular categories, to see how they fared in terms of GDPR compliance.

What we found does not make for reassuring reading: 90% of the apps studied failed to achieve GDPR compliance by tracking users without their consent. The highest level of noncompliance was among Gambling apps, where 100% of the apps investigated were found to be non-compliant. Even in the best-performing category, Food, only 16% of the apps investigated were found to be GDPR-compliant. Clearly, the level of GDPR compliance in apps is much lower than it should be. Other, more extensive studies have delivered similar insights. In a study of one million apps carried out by Appvisory, 76% of the apps investigated failed to comply with the GDPR’s requirement to obtain user consent before tracking personal data.

Another study of two million apps, carried out by the University of Oxford, found that only 10% were GDPR-compliant. The same study found that, on average, apps transfer personal data to 10 third-party companies.

This should be a cause for concern for app owners everywhere. At a basic level, it shows a complete disregard for their users’ data privacy. How can any app hope to earn the respect and trust of its users if it tracks them without their permission and shares their data with other companies with whom they have no relationship whatsoever?

The people responsible for enforcing regulations have shown they are serious about it, issuing several large fines. In November 2022, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, was fined €265 million for breaching European data protection laws. In December 2021, dating app Grindr was fined US $7.1 million by Norway’s data protection authority for passing user data to advertisers without users’ consent. The French data protection authority, Commission Nationale de l’informatique et des Libertes (CNIL) has made clear its intention to focus its regulatory attention on mobile apps.

So how does the GDPR impact mobile app marketing?

The increased scrutiny and enforcement of the GDPR by data protection authorities means that mobile app marketers have to take user privacy and data collection seriously. They must be 100 per cent transparent:

• What data does the app collect?
• How is the data collected, stored and processed?
• What purposes are the data used for?
• How can consumers opt out of data collection (or withdraw consent later on)?

The GDPR stipulates that it must be as easy for a consumer to refuse consent, or to withdraw it in the future, as it was for them to give it. But rather than seeing all this as a negative thing, app marketers should see it as a positive. It presents them with an opportunity to gain the trust of their users by being completely open with them about the data they want to collect, their reasons for doing so, and the value exchange.

The ways in which data is collected are also important. If you want to make your app GDPR-compliant, there must not be any pre-filled information. App marketers cannot assume, for example, that the user self-identifies as a man or a woman, even if they know their name. Consent for data use cannot be checked off by default, either. Actions like these are called “nudges” or “dark patterns” and are frowned upon and illegal in some jurisdictions. Consumers must be free to populate all fields in any form they are asked to complete with the app, without the app pre-populating any fields on their behalf.

App marketers must respect user privacy at all stages of the app lifecycle, especially when they are in the process of building the app. This is called “privacy by design”. At this stage, the app developer has a blank canvas to work with and can ensure that the design of the app, including any instances of data collection, ensures that the user’s privacy is respected. When it comes to the GDPR and app permissions, if you take this to the extreme in the most user-centric way possible, you can incorporate privacy settings that enable a user to see what data is collected for many purpose categories to a granular degree. For example, App Performance and Analytics; Messaging; Personalization, Functional, or Essential. Within each of these, the app user can access all the instances of data collection that the app would like to invoke and switch each one off or on.

By giving the user this granular ability to opt in or out of multiple data collection instances, you will gain their trust, and this will help the bottom line. According to a 2022 study by Google and Ipsos, providing a positive privacy experience can increase your app’s brand preference by 43%. The same study also found that users are twice as willing to share their personal data with a brand they trust.

It’s a virtuous circle: be open and honest with your users about what data you want to collect and why. This will help gain their trust so that they are more willing to share their personal data with you, and more likely to become long-term customers. Having access to this data will then enable you to continue to run remarketing and re-engagement campaigns. It will also enable you to attribute installs accurately to a particular campaign and to build predictive models for building a strong user acquisition strategy, supported by whatever mobile analytics tools you rely on.

How a consent management SDK can help with privacy compliance

You know why your app needs to be GDPR-compliant, so how do you achieve that? Here, many app marketers have found that a good consent management SDK can help. It can be easily integrated with your app to automate all data privacy compliance tasks, freeing up the app marketer’s time to focus on the business of developing and optimizing great user experiences.

Consent management SDK

Source: Usercentrics

The Usercentrics Consent Management SDK is designed to address complex compliance issues automatically, so your app can continue to thrive. It uses industry-leading technology that balances data privacy with the app marketer’s desire to grow their app business. With support for iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native and Unity, the Usercentrics SDK offers a flexible approach to solving data privacy compliance for mobile apps and can be integrated into your app in less than an hour. Seamlessly integrate consent requests into the overall app experience, leveraging features such as our lean banners that reduce the visual impact of a consent banner while enabling you to achieve privacy compliance.

Conclusion

App GDPR compliance should not be seen as a nice-to-have or something to look at when all other boxes have been ticked. It should be the first item on the app developers’ to-do list when they start working on the wireframes of the app.

Studies of the mobile app economy show that CRM and lifecycle tactics are becoming more important than ever, which will require an increased focus on user retention and remarketing campaigns, for which user data is vital. Several recent studies clearly show that consent is key to user acquisition and retention, yet many apps fail to see this as an opportunity to build customer trust, avoid large fines, and grow their app business better by being compliant with data privacy regulations.

In other words, consent is becoming a clear competitive advantage, and those who evolve first and draw up better data strategies for their companies will profit in the long run. The internet economy is moving towards end-user consent, as evidenced by Google’s introduction of Google Consent Mode, and server-side tagging as a response to the widespread deprecation of third-party cookies.

Having a functional consent solution that enables full compliance for your app is likely to result in higher acceptance rates from users, which means more consent and more high-quality data. It’s time for a change of perspective. Consent is not an obstacle to a thriving app business, it’s a necessity and a great opportunity for app marketers to get ahead of the game.

The post App GDPR compliance: How GDPR affects mobile app marketing appeared first on Business of Apps.

Influencer marketing – the Holy Grail to transform mobile app marketing campaigns

Influencer marketing is a practical way to attain and retain a specific target audience. If you want to expand your app user acquisition campaign, you can tap into influencer marketing. Remember, influencer marketing can more than just help you increase user acquisition – it improves your market reputation and raises brand awareness.

A report notes that influencer marketing spending hit over $4 billion in 2022, a 20% increase from 2021. Most marketers now understand that influencer-produced content works wonders for brands and allows them to increase engagement and garner the attention of more users.
Let’s touch on what makes influencer marketing so powerful and how brands can use it to boost their app’s user acquisition campaign:

Why tap into influencer marketing?

Influencer marketing has become a dedicated practice of working with online influencers to spread your core marketing campaign message and bring more authenticity across campaigns. A social media influencer has a solid online presence, and you can leverage this influence to fulfil your marketing goals, including expanding and retaining the app user base.

Whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube, influencers are available and accessible in different styles. Most companies collaborate with influencers to achieve their app campaign goals and accurately cater to their target audience.

With the rise of social media and mobile apps, it has become more difficult to stand out. Influencer marketing has become one of the most powerful tools to reach out to a bigger audience and take user acquisition to new heights.

Who should you hire an influencer?

Opt for the most credible, authentic, transparent, and trustworthy influencers to develop and roll out effective campaigns that resonate with potential users and the target audience. It is an effective way to increase downloads and achieve your user acquisition goals.

With the right influencers, it has become possible to position your app as an authoritative content source. If you want to see your new app become the best and get on top of the list by capturing the needs of a diverse audience – the last thing you want to do is dependent on a standard campaign.

Create and execute value-driven campaigns

The fact is that there is an increased volume and noise in the app stores, which makes it even more important to leverage influencer marketing to create and execute high-value and effective campaigns to boost the app user base.
Part of the process is to understand the fundamentals and mechanics of social media influencer marketing. It’ll help you understand how to ensure the success of your campaigns. One of the highlights of influencer marketing is that it allows you to promote different types and sizes of apps.

If a company develops multiple apps in different verticals, you can get a famous influencer with a massive following in your target market and successfully execute the campaign. You’d be surprised how fast you can reach out to new users through an already-built trust and authenticity by the hired influencer.

Here are some essential tips that can help you leverage influencer marketing to drive more downloads and increase user conversions:

Consider budget elements

You don’t have to get the most expensive influencer to develop marketing campaigns before, during, or after the app launch. So, review your budget and see what type of influencer would fit in your budget. If you’re low on a marketing budget, there is no need to hire international influencers or celebs.

Instead, opt for the local influencers who have built trust with local communities and can help you get the word out about your app. If a marketing influencer has massive followers and can cater to your niche, then it warrants your consideration.

Determine the stage at which you want to collaborate

It is crucial to figure out the stage you want to collaborate with a famous influencer. The best stage to work with the influencer is pre-launch app promotion. It is the best time to involve an influencer marketer to create and execute effective app promotion campaigns.

In this stage, the influencer works to get more pre-signs or registrations for your app before the final launch. The goal of the influencer here is to build a huge hype around an app game. You can develop and execute your influencer marketing campaign in three different stages:

• Pre-launch app promotion
• App roll-out
• Post-launch app promotion

Research and review mobile app influencers

Once you have enough information about the influencer, research how they perform on TikTok, Twitter, or Instagram. Make your research and review process as strategic as possible. For instance, you can focus on app influencers who have a fundamental grasp of SEO and app development.

You can use paid sites to find a wide range of app influencers. Also, choose a suitable influencer platform to reach out to more people. For instance, if you collaborate with a macro influencer, there is a good chance that the influencer has a high volume of followers on multiple platforms. But practically, most influencers use one platform to build their dominance.

Give influencers creative control

You want the influencer to feel free to innovate and come up with new ideas. Also, ensure the influencer is consistent with your current marketing strategy and values. So, when choosing a solid influencer, look for more than just their follower count and see whether the influencer aligns with your unique values. Finally – make sure to measure and track the success of your campaigns.

Ensure optimized results

If you want to get optimized campaign results, communicate a core message to the influencer and raise your expectations. For instance, talk about the basics of the game or general app, its history, and why you’re excited about it. You should also communicate the attributes of your target audience and talk to the influencer about whether you may need to change your core campaign message.

If you get the “right” influencer, you can count on them to find the most trending app marketing tactics. Promote co-creation, run cross-channel marketing campaigns, and ensure long-term influencer partnerships to stay consistent and authentic.

Keep a close eye on the engagement rates of influencers

When hiring an app influencer, check your influencer’s engagement rates. For starters, check how many comments and likes your influencer can get based on their following. But make sure to communicate your app advertising tactics and goals to the selected influencer.

Final thoughts

It’s simple – when potential users see someone that they trust using a particular app, it influences their action to check out that app, which ordinarily wouldn’t have been possible. Google states that 70% of the young generation views YouTube influencers as trustworthy, which is highly effective for gaming apps. So, when an influencer engages with the app – it is bound to increase conversions since people can see that the influencer is enjoying the app.

If you’re running influencer marketing campaigns as part of your user acquisition strategy for apps, understand it is more than just about the influencer – it is about the strategy you create around your campaign. Through a performance marketing agency, you can count on flawless and practical strategy and build a funnel based on the results of every stage of your campaign.

The post Harnessing the power of influencer marketing to boost your app’s user acquisition campaign appeared first on Business of Apps.

For app developers and owners across all operating systems, almost any app is, foremost, the source of income. For this reason, they need to choose the right strategy, one of the most efficient of which is monetization via digital advertising. It allows you to keep your product free of charge for the users and, at the same time, make money by selling your inventory to advertisers.

Formats of digital advertising

There are a lot of different formats of digital advertising that can be used to monetize your application successfully. The most common ones are:

• Video
• CTV
• Banner ads
• Native ads
• Audio
• Rich media

Each ad type mentioned above is efficient in-app monetization, and you can choose the ones you want to use for your product. We, in turn, would like to draw your attention to the most rapidly developing formats – video and CTV ads.

Video ads: Advantages and types

Here are some features that make video advertising extremely popular:

• Much higher CPM than in other ad formats
• Wide target audience coverage
• Visibility, as it is easier to process visual information
• Memorability – videos are four times more memorable than texts

These days, many video ad types can be used for monetization purposes. In our opinion, the most promising are:

• Out-stream ads – video ads for tablets and mobile phones that are placed outside the video player and are played automatically with the sound off
• In-stream ads, which are played as short video clips within Facebook and YouTube ad units. The videos can be played before, during, or after the primary content. By the position of the clip, these are divided into three types: Pre-Roll (before the video), Mid-Roll (in the middle) и Post-Roll (after the video playback)
• Interstitials – full-screen ads that cover the application or website interface and are often used in gaming applications when, for example, users move to the next level
• CTV (Connected TV) – ads displayed on TVs connected to the Internet or on other devices using the TV screen as a display for video content viewing (smart TV, gaming console, Apple TV, etc.).

CTV ads: Advantages

Why do we single out CTV ads? In comparison to all the other ad types we have mentioned, CTV advertising is the most confusing for most users. It is often mixed up with OTT advertising; however, these are two different things. CTV ads are only displayed on TVs and game consoles via the Internet, whereas OTT ads can be watched on large screens, mobile phones, and tablets. And this is not the only difference.

Now, let’s talk about the advantages of CTV advertising:

• Reaching TV viewers whom advertisers do not otherwise reach without traditional TV ads
• Precise targeting
• Measurable results
• Very high video completion rates
• You can reroute your CTV viewers to all their devices, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones

Important: 71% of CTV viewers use their mobile devices to search for the preferred content while watching TV, thus providing the advertisers with a perfect tool to establish connections with their target audience.

CTV in numbers

According to statista.com, as of November 2022, 92% of American households were covered by CTV programmatic advertising, whereas the number of CTV users was more than 110 million among Gen Z and millennials. The total advertising budget spent on this type of advertising was 18.89 billion USD in the same year, and 4.7% of all advertising budgets were allocated to CTV ads.

CTV prospects

CTV advertising has significantly simplified access to new video services on TVs worldwide. It is a powerful platform for advertising innovations and content promotion and a new source of detailed viewing data.

With the development of digital advertising, CTV targeting has all the chances to reach a very high precision. You won’t have to spend money on the coverage of all the viewers if you want to present your product to your target audience.

How to monetize mobile apps with the help of video advertising

All progressive tech market players (webmasters, owners, developers) use SSPs for monetizing purposes. These are supply-side platforms that everyone with an app that complies with the basic platform requirements can join and start making money.

How to start monetization right away?

Adsgard SSP has maximally simplified inventory sales. You can now cooperate with the top advertisers without any mediators and sell your ad slots quickly and for the best price, as we understand their value. We, in turn, guarantee the high quality of the displayed ads, which are organically embedded into your product and do not interfere with user experience.

As an Adsgard partner, you are in complete control of the monetization process; our team performs all the menial and routine tasks.

How to monetize your app with the help of video ads or other types of programmatic advertising? It is very easy – just fill out a brief online form on our website and start your partnership with a reliable SSP.

The post Which ad format generates the most revenue for app owners? appeared first on Business of Apps.

The past holiday season has likely been a blur for many marketers, apps and E-commerce brand leaders. You carried through a robust merchandising strategy, delivered without shipping delays, optimized your engagement and marketing budget, rolled out creative and inspiring campaigns, acquired new holiday shoppers as customers, and engaged with otherwise inactive customers.

Now that the holiday rush is over, it can be tempting to bet on discounts to maintain momentum and attract new customers to keep the sales rolling in. However, acquiring new customers can be expensive, and relying on discounts can eat into your profit margins and hinder your ability to meet future revenue goals.

This post was first published on moengage.com.

Lucky for you, there is an immense opportunity to capitalize on post-holiday sales and stretch your success. And it doesn’t require you to bet on discounts, nor does it need you to spend time guessing how to attract new customers. Sounds implausible? We know. But there is a proven approach you can use to generate more sales and beat your competition without reducing the price of your merchandise. The answer lies in how you engage with your current customers.

Customers want to hear from you even after the busy holiday season

Despite the busy shopping season being over, customers still want to hear from businesses like yours on an ongoing basis. According to a consumer study by MoEngage, 39% of consumers in North America and Europe prefer to receive weekly communications from brands. Therefore, there is a substantial opportunity to engage with your customers post-holidays to nurture relationships that drive them to buy more.

Click on image for full size

Source: MoEngage

When it comes to those engagements, personalization matters. And consumers can tell the difference between emails or push notifications containing their first name versus something more thoughtful like product recommendations that are provided on their preferred channel based on previous interactions or past purchases. In fact, 26% of the same consumers surveyed expect brands to personalize communications based on previous purchase history and 21% by interest.

Click on image for full size

Source: MoEngage

4 Tips for long-term success

• Maintain your momentum post-holidays and tap into your existing customer base to capture more sales.
• Identify new post-holiday behaviors (repeat purchases, increased spend) and target customers with personalized messaging.
• Don’t rely on discounts by default. Increase your ROI by implementing innovative retention strategies.
• Use machine learning and real-time customer data to guide post-holiday promotional strategies.

Top brands’ strategies to adopt

MoEngage’s new post-holiday guide is meant to inspire you to get started by showcasing examples from brands that have unlocked the secret to maximizing post-holiday sales. It all comes down to intelligent segmentation and personalization:

• Find out how Whole Foods switched one-time buyers to repeat buyers with relevant content.
• Discover how Avon created an emotional response by rewarding a small segment of loyal customers with freebies.
• Check how Expedia gains the trust of new customers by making a great first impression during onboarding.

In all, it’s important to remember that generating revenue after the holidays is not about how much you can discount – it’s all about how to deliver value to your customers and build strong, lasting relationships with them.

Download your post-holiday guide here to get all the answers you need.

The post How to minimize discounts and maximize post-holiday ROI appeared first on Business of Apps.

As a mobile marketer, ARPU (Average Revenue per User) is up there with LTV (Lifetime Value) as one of the most important KPIs to track for your app. It’s a key metric to work on to optimize app subscription revenue.

First off, what is ARPU? It’s the average amount of revenue generated by each active user of your mobile app over a specific time period. It’s similar to LTV in that it’s a way to calculate the value of your users, but instead of measuring the value of a user over their entire lifecycle, ARPU measures it over a set period of time.

Average revenue per user

Source: App Guardians

To be profitable, mobile apps need to constantly stride towards increasing average revenue per user. This is easier said than done — mainly because increasing mobile ARPU is dependent upon your business model.

This post was first published on appgrowthnetwork.com.

To get you started, here we’ve outlined some strategies to help you increase mobile app ARPU with the freemium and paying user segment for the 4 key app monetization models outlined below.

Subscription and freemium monetization model

For apps with a subscription and freemium model, the main goals are monetization, retention and increasing the overall CLV (customer lifetime value). Many apps in the health & fitness, education, lifestyle, entertainment, business, and productivity categories fall into this bucket.

Most subscription-based apps either offer a paid tier (monthly and/or annually) for access to a fixed set of features or multiple subscriber tiers that offer more features for a higher monthly/annual cost:

One-tier mobile subscription plan

For mobile apps with one paid tier, like Calm, the goal is to get users to sign up for a monthly subscription or, ideally, an annual plan. For users who are already monthly subscribers, the goal is to get them to upgrade to an annual plan.

Strategies to gain more annual plan sign-ups:

• Offer the annual plan at a discount (e.g. 1 month free or the equivalent).

Paying less per month when signing up for an annual subscription is now a benefit users are not only used to seeing but is one they’ve come to expect.

The important thing is to communicate this savings/value clearly and succinctly. This 30% off deal from Calm is attractive and compelling. The dark background in their brand colors is clean and uncluttered and their carefully-selected blocks of white draw the user’s eye to the most important information: the discount and the CTA button.

Annual subscription discount example from Calm app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

• Offer a limited-time discount to a paid subscription after the free trial period.

Ideally, after a free trial period, users are so hooked on your app that they become instant subscribers. But if they’re not, they most likely need an extra nudge or incentive to pull the trigger. Offering a compelling discount that clearly communicates a sense of urgency with an expiration countdown, as we can see in the Madfit app example below, is an effective tactic to explore.

Limited-time subscription discount example from Madfit app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

Multiple-tier mobile subscription plan

For mobile apps with multiple subscription tiers, like LinkedIn, the goal is to get users to sign up for the most expensive package possible and, ideally, for an annual plan. For users who are in the lower subscription tiers, the goal is to get them to upgrade to a higher tier.

Strategies to increase upgrades to higher-priced tiers:

• Upsell monthly users to the annual plan for their current tier by offering a discount on the annual plan (e.g. 1 month free or equivalent).
• Upsell lower-tier users to a higher subscription tier by offering a free trial of that higher tier for 14 to 30 days.

Getting users to sign up for a subscription plan with the highest price tag is challenging. It’s essential that users see the value in order to have this happen. The good news is that even lower-tier subscribers are still paying customers and, hopefully, already love your app. Giving them a chance to experience what more they could be getting with a free trial is one way to convince them to upgrade.

In this example from the LinkedIn app, the benefits of each tier are listed clearly and lead with a CTA to try a free 1-month trial.

Tiered subscription example from LinkedIn app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

In-app advertising monetization model

You’ll find most apps with in-app advertising monetization models in categories like games and news. The main goals of apps with in-app advertising are to acquire as many users as possible organically and to retain those users over time to increase CLV (customer lifetime value).

In-app advertising example from BBC News app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

Strategies to add an additional revenue stream for an ad-supported app:

Monetize by offering users ad-free subscriptions (while free users remain monetized via ads).

Many app users don’t mind sitting through ads as long as they get to use an app for free, but for many, it’s a distraction and annoyance they’re willing to pay for to avoid.

For example, the Reddit app has a Reddit Premium option that offers ad-free browsing plus other benefits for just $6.99/month (with a 29% savings for an annual plan). For frequent Reddit users, the low cost to receive these benefits is worth paying for.

Ad-free browsing with premium subscription example from Reddit app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

In-app purchase monetization model

In-app purchases are common in many mobile apps, especially for those in categories like games, simulation, adventure, and entertainment (e.g. Minecraft, Roblox, Candy Crush) where they monetize by offering virtual goods and collectables. The goal is to create virtual goods that are irresistible and have perceived value. In other words, these goodies need to enhance the user experience enough to be worth the associated cost.

Strategies to increase purchases of digital goods in-app:

• Test different price points for the purchase (e.g. charge $0.99 to access a new level versus $1.99).
• Merchandise-relevant purchases within the user experience.

The key is to continually merchandise these irresistible virtual goods within the overall user experience. Don’t make the users go to a specific section of the app to purchase, as this will disrupt the user flow and minimize the “spur-of-the-moment” purchase effect.

One way to do this is to have the right pop-up appear at the right time, as seen in this example from Coin Splash. It’s a low-cost, high-return offer that a new user can easily click on to purchase, or quickly close out of.

In-app purchase example from Coin Splash game app

Click on image for full size

Source: App Guardians

Transaction fee monetization model

Some mobile apps rely on a transaction fee to monetize — apps like Paypal, Doordash, and Uber. The goal of these apps is to make the user experience extremely simple, easy to use and, most importantly, provide utility.

Strategies to increase ARPU:

• There are no major tricks to increasing ARPU for this category, but the most important thing is to retain users, which requires making the app ridiculously useful and convenient.
• Experiment with lowering transaction fees to incentivize higher usage rates.

When working on app revenue subscription optimization, focusing on specific areas — like increasing ARPU — is critical to moving the needle in the right direction. As with all mobile marketing strategies, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, as the approach will be different depending on the type of app monetization model.

If this sounds challenging, it’s because it can be! Our app growth specialists at App Guardians, the mobile marketing agency division of App Growth Network, are experts at helping app teams identify and tackle their toughest subscription revenue optimization and monetization challenges. Get in touch with our specialists today for a free consultation.

The post Strategies to increase ARPU for 4 key app monetization models appeared first on Business of Apps.

Influencer marketing is getting stronger than ever – and the industry attracts more and more money. Experts predict that in 2023, the industry will reach $17.4B. What’s also pretty impressive is that its average annual growth rate was 46.9% from 2016 to 2022.

Influencer marketing industry growth

Source: BuzzGuru

But who pays and earns? What brands are the biggest contributors? BuzzGuru has analyzed the influencer marketing landscape, gathered the data of the most popular mobile apps mentioned by influencers on YouTube, and is ready to share the results of the research with you. We also have found some curious insight, care to see?

So, here are the top 10 mobile apps that spent the most money on YouTube to promote with the help of influencers in 2022.

Mobile apps with the largest influencer marketing budgets on YouTube in 2022

Source: BuzzGuru

Binomo

Our list starts with an app from a category that can be named one of the most trending. Although some experts say that cryptocurrencies and the hype around them have died in 2022, Binomo is a trading platform that definitely thinks otherwise and invests in influencer marketing on YouTube generously. Although the app allows not only crypto, but other assets too.

2331 YouTube channels mentioned the app, which resulted in 6726 mentions – almost all of them promoted the trading platform. It cost Binomo 8.5 million dollars in 2022. Let’s see if such type of an app will make it through 2023 with the same or larger budget. It will be an indicator that might tell whether trading is really that profitable.

SeatGeek Tickets

Fan communities are the ones that simply have to be targeted by marketers. We all know how invested and engaged fans can be. And in addition to it, it seems like fans had really had enough of all the COVID lockdowns. They want to see shows and games live, and SeatGeek Tickets is the app that decided to help them.

SeatGeek Tickets is basically an event ticket search engine. It was mentioned on YouTube 1256 times in 2022 – almost all the mentions were promotional. The app had to spend 10.5 million dollars to achieve such numbers.

Genshin Impact

Genshin Impact is a fantasy RPG game which also appears to be gacha – this is its monetization strategy. The app is already well-known and loved in the gaming community, although there were a few scandals around it.

Perhaps it’s unavoidable and comes along with popularity. And perhaps the scandals got Genshin Impact a bunch of mentions on YouTube among the overall 2838 it got in 2022. Only 1516 of them were ad ones, so it’s clear that the app gets a lot of free attention on social media. Or is it really completely free? Considering Genshin Impact spent 12.1 million dollars on YouTube influencer marketing, it just had to repay.

Onefootball

Football (the English one) is one of the most popular sports on YouTube, according to BuzzGuru’s research. And Onefootball is not simply an app to watch the game and read the news about it. Onefootball also provides its users with some data and statistics of 200 different football leagues that can be useful for those betting on sports. Although betting promotion is prohibited on YouTube, the data cannot be!

The app was mentioned 41447 times on 635 YouTube channels in 2022. The overall budget was estimated to reach 12.8 million dollars.

Voot

An Indian video and streaming service simply had to appear on the top list (spoiler: it’s not the only one here) as the majority of YouTube users are from India. It has 467 million active users, which is almost twice as many as there are in the US.

Top 10 countries by number of active YouTube users

Source: BuzzGuru

In 2022, Voot got 37474 mentions on YouTube channels, and almost all of them – 37468! – were ad mentions. Well, this is how it always goes with social media: first, you have to pay, and then the users will repay you with their attention and engagement. Voot decided to spend 16.4 million dollars on YouTube in 2022. We’ll see where it gets the app in 2023.

Weverse

Surprised to see a Chinese app while YouTube is officially banned in China? Well, it seems like the ban can’t stop the fans – and the brands that want to promote where their target audience is. Weverse spent almost 17 million dollars on influencer marketing on YouTube in 2022.

Weverse is a kind of social network, a space for fan communities. It’s only logical it appeared on our list as fan communities are on the rise recently: experts even distinguish a separate marketing direction – fan-based marketing. And Chinese fans are a real power: they influenced the pop industry and celebrities so much that the Chinese government even had to ban celebrity-ranking to save the idols!

FOX Sports

YouTube users love sports – well, at least they love to watch them – and FOX Sports decided to make use of this love: it got 5654 mentions.

According to BuzzGuru research, YouTubers are mostly keen on wrestling, MMA, and basketball. English football comes next. FOX Sports is a comprehensive sports resource that covers multiple sports, which makes it attractive for YouTube users. Although it’s not the sports resource that had the most mentions in 2022 (ESPN had 57.2 thousand mentions), it’s the one that spent the most money – the estimated budget was 18.8 million dollars.

ZEE5

Another Indian video and streaming service that we have foreshadowed earlier on the list. ZEE5 was mentioned on YouTube 32048 times, and 29227 of the mentions were for promotion. The app spent approximately 22.3 million dollars to get such numbers.

If you’d make a list of the most mentioned apps on YouTube, ZEE5 would definitely be on it, too. Indian brands know where their target audience is, and YouTube is one of the crowded places, good for advertising. As time go by, we might see even more competitors like this spending more money on influencer marketing on YouTube, as the number of its users in India only grows.

PUBG MOBILE

An ever-popular Battle Royale game that keeps users engaged. PUBG MOBILE was mentioned on 846 YouTube channels, which is approximately twice as many as in 2021.

It may seem that the number of channels is not that big, but the influencers are definitely loyal to the game, as it has 9266 mentions, 8383 of which are ad ones. This indicates that PUBG MOBILE is more likely to work with tested influencers who have already performed well and build long-term relationships with them.

RAID: Shadow Legends

The absolute winner, this year, the “RAID: Shadow Legends” mobile app managed to defend the championship title on our list. In 2021, the game was also the #1 with the largest influencer marketing budget on YouTube. In 2022, it spent almost 30 million dollars on influencer marketing.

RAID was mentioned on 2560 YouTube channels. The overall mention count was 9036, and 8149 of them were ad mentions. According to BuzzGuru’s AI, it’s the best score among the apps in 2022, and also RAID managed to beat its own record of 2021. Seems like gamers stay pretty keen on gacha and really appreciate the fantasy setting of the game.

Want to learn more insights about influencer marketing, top brands promoted on Twitch, benchmarks and trends for the upcoming year? Download the full Ultimate Influencer Marketing report for free.

The post Top 10 mobile apps with largest influencer marketing budgets appeared first on Business of Apps.

With the launch of Custom Product Pages, Apple has taken away one of the biggest frustration for app marketers in the iOS ecosystem—conversion rate optimization (CRO).

It’s been a little more than a year since the launch of CPPs, and we can say, with no doubts, that these have been one of the most interesting releases Apple has made in a long, long time.

Custom Product Pages (CPP) offer the possibility to personalize product pages to align with either the search entries in the App Store or the creative and call-to-action seen in an advertisement on Facebook.

In fact, CPPs were only available for Search Ads at the release, which was still great, but within a few months (mid of August), this option also became available for Facebook campaigns. While we anxiously wait to get CPPs for other channels, at REPLUG, we have been extensively using this functionality for our clients’ campaigns, gathering learnings and interesting results.

Why are custom product pages valuable for app marketing activities?

CPPs enable marketers to direct traffic from an ad (either Search Ads or Facebook) to a customized Store product page with creatives that are consistent with the ad itself.

In CPPs, app marketers can customize the following:

• Screenshots
• Preview videos
• Promotional Texts

Illustration of what a CPP looks like

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

With CPPs, we are able to align our ads messages with our creatives and audiences. Although very “basic,” it took Apple quite a while to give us this option, and now it’s time for us to collect the fruits of it.

What are the advantages of using Custom Product Pages for our app?

The advantages of using CPPs for our app marketing campaigns are several, and although they might be obvious for some, it’s still worth spending a few moments sharing them here below. Below you can see the main advantage that we have experienced.

Showcasing specific features or products of our app

Many apps offer more than one feature/service. Most importantly, each feature or service might appeal to a different subset of users, especially when deciding whether to download the app.

For example, for an app that offers audiobooks, podcasts, news, and book summaries, we could test different CPPs that focus on each product with different images and CTAs.

Speaking to different demographics

With the same idea in mind, we can also customize CPPs to speak to different demographics, enhancing the ad relevancy and possible conversions from impression to install.

That can be relevant for many verticals. We have experienced so far that it leads to quite strong results for shopping and eCommerce apps, dating, and health and fitness apps, where we could create CPPs that appeal to women and men.

Leveraging seasonality

Too often, we have been forced to update our default product page screenshots because of a specific period of the year (Black Friday, Christmas, New Year, etc.).

Although this might not be a major issue after all, Black Friday is a promotional moment for all users. CPPs now offer us the possibility to segment the message on the Store for different types of users. This type of promotional segmentation increases the chance of conversions.

A/B test different visual assets

Although Apple offers a Product Pages Optimization (PPO) feature, CPPs could help us test visual assets more quickly. The PPO functionality is interesting, but if you have ever used it, you know it’s not as strong as the Google Play counterpart.

For this reason, using Custom Product Pages to test visual assets could be an interesting alternative for many marketers.

Disclaimer: When thinking about using CPPs for A/B testing purposes, we need to be aware of two things:

• Like any A/B test, we need to change only one variable at a time
• Paid traffic is different from organic traffic, so we need to analyze the results with particular attention

Improving the effectiveness of offline campaigns

Take this a step further and implement the unique CPP link into a QR code on a billboard and start measuring how many offline users convert with a customized product page built exclusively for that offline campaign.

CPPs’ advantages are many and different. These stated above are probably the most interesting from our perspective.

CPPs

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

The bottom line, however, is that CPPs help us improve the relevance of our ads. For too long, we had put up with the limitations of the App Store, and now we have a real chance at improving the conversion funnel with a personalized experience for our users.

How REPLUG leveraged CPPs to improve the conversion rate of our paid campaigns

At REPLUG, we have been testing CPPs extensively for our partners as part of our approach to scaling acquisition activities. As shown in our paid user acquisition framework, in the 5th phase, “Optimization & Testing,” CPPs are crucial in finding cross-functional opportunities to reduce acquisition costs.

After dozens of tests run in the last 12 months in different verticals, we have gathered some exciting learnings that we want to share here below on how to leverage CPPs for app marketing activities.

Target the right audience or USP with the CPP

Showcasing the same product or service used on a Facebook ad on the CPP screenshots is the most basic yet effective way to facilitate user conversion. But what about targeting our desired audience not only with relevant ads but also with relevant screenshots on the CPP?

As seen among the advantages above, CPPs can help us speak to different target audiences more effectively, addressing their needs directly.

For one of our partners, InvoiceASAP, a leading invoicing app in the US, we decided to implement this type of testing with CPPs, addressing different audience verticals, with a combination of ads optimization activities, as well as creative optimization, for both ads and Store screenshots.

With this simple, yet effective optimization and testing strategy, the cost per acquisition decreased by 24.5% on average across all audiences.

InvoiceASAP real example of a custom product page by REPLUG

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

Align user-generated content with CPPs

Another exciting learning that our paid user acquisition team gathered by running CPPs in combination with ads was that we could take the personalization experience to a whole new level when using UGC ads.

Specifically, we tested this for another partner of ours, in the dating space, ODXClub, for whom we had been spending a significant budget on user-generated content ads on paid social channels, including Facebook and Instagram.

Our paid user acquisition specialists were already testing audience personalization with CPPs (i.e., showcasing different male and female screenshots).

However, as we wanted to align the characters used in the ads also on the screenshots, we engaged with the best-performing content creators and got the approval to use their photos on the screenshots.

Just by showcasing in the screenshots a real person, the same that users were watching in the ads, the conversion rate increased by 56.2%, resulting in a cost per acquisition 33% lower compared to the same ad redirecting to another app store page.

ODXClub real example of a custom product page by REPLUG

Click on image for full size

Source: REPLUG

Design CPPs for a group of keywords in Search Ads

The last interesting learning that we got from these 12 months of extensive testing is that also, with Search Ads, we can achieve great results thanks to Custom Product Pages. One of our partners in the fitness and health space provides a variety of products and exercises tailored to different needs.

Our team addressed the need to create dedicated CPPs that would appeal to a different group of keywords targeting a specific type of exercise, such as abs, chest, and glutes exercises, and keywords focused on losing weight and improving body shape.

With this type of test, we managed to increase the IPM considerably, but most importantly, the cost per subscriber, as the ad relevancy increased drastically.

Conclusion: Decide on your target and optimize

Custom Product Pages are, without a doubt, a valuable tool for app marketers. However, like anything else, it is up to us to make the most out of them. We can either choose to use them in the most basic way (which is still effective) or creatively test new ideas to improve results.

CPPs solve a major problem for us marketers, especially on channels like Facebook, where the user intent to interact with ads is low. With this solution provided by Apple, we can now address our audience needs better and improve the overall ad experience, effectiveness, and conversion funnel.

Are you looking to integrate custom product pages in your paid user acquisition strategy? Get in contact with Luca Mastrorocco, REPLUG co-founder and head of growth, at luca@rplg.io.

The post How we leveraged Custom Product Pages to improve the conversion rate of our paid acquisition campaigns appeared first on Business of Apps.

App usage and engagement metrics can help brands and marketers understand their consumers’ entertainment, lifestyle, media and purchasing habits. But these metrics need to go beyond superficial data and show the detailed app choices people are making when it comes to time spent on their mobile devices. With legislation, privacy concerns, and ecosystem restrictions becoming increasingly stringent, obtaining this data can be harder than ever.

What are the number of apps people use on a weekly basis?

But you still need to know how your app is really measuring up – beyond the number of downloads. Using our proprietary Retro methodology, which facilitates the sharing of account-level data, we found that individuals aged 16-25 spent nearly 45 hours on their iPhones on a weekly basis. With our focus being on engagement, our data also shows that individuals are only actively engaging with 42 apps per week, indicating that the stickiness of new apps may be relatively low. So while downloads can be into the billions, an average user only has a handful of apps on their phone, and the number of apps they engage with regularly is even smaller.

Where does Gen Z prefer to shop?

Having access to mobile and account-level data can show you much more about your audience than you may realize. You can not only see how your audience is interacting and engaging with your app, but you can see which other apps are taking up their attention and time. For example, our recent App Life Report showed that while the Apple App Store and Amazon app still dominate the shopping scene, SHEIN continues to establish itself with nearly 28% of individuals ages 16-25 using it on a weekly basis – 1.9 times more than the average listed shopping app. This warrants closer examination by competitors who don’t want to lose the Gen Z market share to this increasingly popular shopping app.

Women are breaking gaming gender barriers.

If women are a core part of your audience, then some of their surprising mobile behaviors should be taken into consideration. While TikTok dominates several categories when it comes to engagement, it is even more profound for women. We found that while TikTok is used by 67% of users aged 16+ for approximately 9.8 hours per week, 81.6% of women aged 16-25 engage with the platform even more extensively, clocking in at 12.6 hours per week.

Gaming is a whole other story, as game apps are breaking down the gender barriers, with women gamers ages 16-25 playing Roblox about 4.7 hours on their iPhones weekly. This compares to 3.3 hours for men ages 16-25, indicating the popularity and growth of iPhone devices for gaming among women.

When we layer this gaming insight with other data that shows how much people are spending on purchases inside gaming apps (more than $17 monthly), we have some powerful reasons to look again at women in the gaming space and market to them appropriately. In fact, our data shows that, based on total in-app spend, 14 of the top 15 vendors (excluding subscriptions) were gaming publishers.

Engagement is more than just eyeballs and downloads.

While many app developers may be apt to congratulate themselves on the number of downloads alone, it is clear that we need more information and data to really understand the success of any singular app – particularly amongst its competitors. It is critical to understand active engagement with an app, as well as insights into what other apps audience members or potential audience members are using.

Another key metric that speaks to engagement surrounds notifications. Are your messages getting through or are they being silenced by users? Our data found that community-based gaming and messaging apps are still leading the pack when it comes to average weekly notifications: Messages (199), Snapchat (149) and Discord (134) are out front. Interesting up-and-comers to monitor include Telegram (94), and Twitch (54).

Just to add one more layer to the engagement metric, it is also important to examine what we call “purposeful” or “priority” engagement. Purposeful engagement can be gleaned by looking at which app individuals first use when they pick up their phone. We found that among the 16-25 age group, Snapchat was far and away the leader here – it was the first-used app 118 times per week. Among the 26+ crowd, Messages led the app pack at 119 times per week.

Music tastes vary as much as audiences do.

Did you know males are more likely to use Amazon Music than women, and women are more likely to use Spotify or YouTube Music than men? These are just some of the types of insights you can glean from the right behavioral data. We took a closer look at listening habits and found that men spend approximately 33 hours (every 30 days) streaming audio content via the Musi app, whereas women are spending about 30 hours on Spotify. A majority (more than 85%) of audio content is being consumed passively – in the background – as opposed to on-screen on the iOS platform.

Why is this important? Audio is rising again as a lucrative vehicle for capturing audience attention. In fact, a recent study by Audacy found that audio listeners plan their days around their audio listening with three-quarters (74%) of listeners surveyed consuming audio during their “daily rituals” and 40% of listeners planning their day and activities around audio content. Deeply understanding things like audio consumption and behaviors when it comes to music apps can help brands better reach audiences, and plan media spends.

Where to find your hidden behavioral data?

With an increasingly fragmented media and digital life landscape, understanding how individuals engage with their devices, apps, services and media has become ever more challenging. Brands are turning toward hidden behavioral data and trends to gain a competitive edge and better engage with their customers and supporters.

The post What the right app data can tell you about your audience appeared first on Business of Apps.

The Work From Home and Hybrid Work era has changed not only the users’ daily habits but also the way they look at mobile apps. The opportunity to work from anywhere in the world with a minimum of technical means requires the developers to create new features. This has allowed people to complete most of their tasks using special apps instead of coming to an office. For example, since the beginning of the pandemic, scanning apps have greatly expanded their functionality and target audience. Matt Svetlak, the VP of Product at iScanner, BP Mobile (AIBY Group), has analyzed the trends in such apps and is ready to share them.

Scanning apps are turning into super apps

3–4 years ago, a good scanning app could only convert a photo of a document to PDF. But the need to work with documents from different locations without always being able to transfer PDF documents to a computer resulted in a variety of new features: editing, signing, merging, and splitting PDFs, adding text, annotating, etc. In fact, a scanning app can fully replace a laptop. Now, you just need a smartphone to make all the necessary changes to a document. Moreover, many apps have an elaborate system of file storage, which is very convenient when working with large volumes of documents. While the trend mostly relates to the development of document editing, some developers can offer users photo editor features.

Special scanning modes are being created for the users’ tasks

Developers constantly study the needs of the audience and analyze what types of documents users scan most often and what problems they may encounter. Consequently, they develop scanning modes for common document types, which helps define document borders faster. For example, the most common scanning modes now are full-size format documents, passports, ID cards, business cards, book pages, and even room scans with dimensions. Furthermore, since the beginning of the pandemic, the demand for QR-code scanning has not decreased.

Neural networks are enhancing document quality

Developers train AI, which helps improve the quality of document processing significantly. A neural network helps remove creases, curves, fingerprints, and many other distortions that just a year ago could have made the document unusable. This way, scanning apps are beginning to outperform stationary scanners in cases where it is difficult to get high-quality scans of certain types of documents, such as books and magazines.

In general, the use of AI in mobile apps is becoming more and more accessible now. Many developers use the common solutions provided by Apple and Google for their products and implement them in their apps. At the same time, the major market players can afford to develop their own algorithms based on common solutions that will handle the specific tasks of users better.

Popularity of smart features is growing

AI-based OCR (optical character recognition) is a modern tool that allows you to select text from a scanned document and edit it. Smart document naming is another feature based on neural networks. The feature gives users hints on how to name documents while saving them. Thus, the user saves time and doesn’t think about the tasks that AI can handle.

Apps are becoming more customizable

Customizing apps to your own needs is becoming the norm today. First and foremost, users need apps to include the features they use on a daily basis. In order to meet this demand, developers offer quick access to frequently recurring actions and other ways to easily automate small tasks. The user can also preset folders for different types of documents and enter and save data (addresses, details) to quickly fill out forms, such as resumes and cover letters.

Widgets are becoming increasingly commonplace. With the help of widgets, users can access to the main functions of an app on the home screen.

Today you can customize not only an app’s features but also its design. The possibility to choose between a dark and light app theme makes the user feel that the app is designed specifically for their needs.

Filters for document improvement are becoming even more diverse

Nowadays, a lot of attention is paid to filters in scanning apps. Right now, they mostly solve the issues of increasing the contrast and brightness of a document, but in the near future, filters adapted to the needs of the content creators may appear. For example, it will be possible to create a document background with visual effects using special filters.

The times when scanning apps were used solely for business purposes are gone forever. Now, according to surveys and reviews, more and more users are scanning notes, drawings, books, and recipes. The change in scanning purposes entails a change in user expectations.

Ads are disappearing from scanning apps

The publishers that aim at establishing long-term relationships with their users are going ad-free. They understand that ads are unacceptable for such types of tools. Generally, a scanning application is used to solve urgent tasks when every minute or second counts. In this case, ads can cause a user to miss an important deadline.

Users are invited to participate in product development

The style of interaction with app communities is changing. Nowadays, many teams are trying not only to listen to their users and develop the app according to the feedback they receive but also to give the users an opportunity to actively participate in product development. For example, users are invited to share photos of handwritten text. At iScanner, we ran the HandWriting Challenge, which helped train the AI and improve the recognition of handwritten text in users’ documents.

The post 8 Scanning app trends in 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

As we begin an exciting new year, we look back at the most popular shopping apps of 2022. Thanks to AppTweak’s new AppDNA feature, we can break down app store categories into more comprehensive classifications that better match an app’s intended purpose. For example, apps in the Shopping category can range widely from fashion apps to grocery, marketplace, retail, home design, etc.

In this article, we will focus on the most downloaded apps in the Shopping category by AppDNA.

Most downloaded fashion apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

With over 24 million downloads so far, SHEIN is the most downloaded fashion app on both the app stores in the US in 2022. SHEIN is a fast-fashion e-commerce platform offering affordable apparel for women, men, and kids. The app particularly saw an incredible 13.5M downloads by Google Play users in the US market.

Shop follows with 15 million downloads on both Google Play and the App Store. Shop, initially a shipment tracking app developed by Shopify, also features brands on their app, allowing users to stay connected with their favorite brands in one place. Temu and Cider also make it to the top 10 fashion apps on both stores, reaching more than a million downloads in 2022. The Chinese app Temu launched recently, witnessed immense popularity among US consumers just in its first month after launch. This steady and incremental growth led the shopping app to climb to the top charts in the US on both the app stores.

Interestingly, with more than 6M downloads on both the app stores, GOAT emerged as the most popular go-to online marketplace for high-end sneakers and accessories in the US. Whereas, PatPat is the only app for kids and baby clothing that makes it to the top 10 in the fashion AppDNA on both the app stores.

Most downloaded marketplace apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

OfferUp (6.4M downloads) and Etsy (6.9M downloads) are the two most downloaded marketplace apps on Google Play and the App Store respectively in the US so far in 2022. Both are online marketplaces that connect sellers with buyers but offer different goods. While OfferUp allows people to sell and buy electronics, clothing, and cars, Etsy focuses on handmade or vintage items and craft supplies.

Mercari, a Japanese e-commerce company founded in 2013, ranks #5 on the charts. Soon after its release in the US in 2014, the e-commerce app quickly rose up in the top charts and secured its position alongside other online retail giants like Poshmark and eBay.

Additionally, many popular local marketplace apps such as Craigslist, Marketplace, and 5miles continue to dominate the top charts on both app stores.

Most downloaded furniture apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

The Home Depot ranks #1 on both Google Play and the App Store in the US, securing an incredible 10M total downloads so far. Founded in 1978, The Home Depot is the largest home improvement retailer in the US. The app, which caters to people worldwide, offers a wide range of building materials, home improvement, lawn, and garden products, as well as provides DYI ideas, installation, repair, and other services.

Lowe, Wayfair, Overstock, and IKEA are other popular furniture apps in the top 10 that stand out among competitors in the industry. Some of these top-selling furniture apps use augmented reality (AR) modeling to help users get a realistic view of how the decor and the furniture will blend into the entire home design. Bed Bath & Beyond, Ashley HomeStore, HomeGoods, and Home by ShowingTime also witnessed major downloads in the US top charts for their affordable stylish furnishings and home decor products.

Most downloaded retailer (B2C) apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

It is no surprise that the online retail giant Amazon Shopping tops the list as the most downloaded retailer app on both the app stores in the United States, surpassing a record 27M downloads in total in 2022 so far.

AliExpress and Wish are not too far behind in the charts, both securing more than 5M downloads respectively on the app stores in the US. While AliExpress is a Chinese online retail platform that offers products to international online buyers, Wish is a US-built mobile shopping app that is home to millions of items from around the world.

Among the top retail apps, GameStop and Academy Sports + Outdoors are the only two gaming and sports merchandise apps that have made it to the top charts.

Most downloaded sneakers and streetwear apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

In the sneaker app market in the US so far, Nike: Shoes, Apparel, Stories kicks this list off, drawing a total of 13.5M downloads across both app stores. Nike SNKRS continues to lead the charts with its one-stop-shop app, allowing users to explore, buy, and share the most sought-after sneakers and apparel.

Adidas, StockX, Stadium Goods, and Foot Locker follow hot on the heels in the sneaker and streetwear top charts. StockX, as the name suggests, serves as a stock market where buyers place bids and sellers ask for prices. Besides specializing in sneakers, the StockX app offers the latest streetwear, accessories, and handbags. Stadium Goods is another go-to platform for a great sneaker catalog, streetwear brands’ latest collection, and vintage tees.

Most downloaded wholesaler (B2B) apps in the US in 2022

Source: AppTweak

Business-to-business (B2B) marketplaces allow buyers and sellers to meet in one digital space. Alibaba.com, the leading platform for global wholesale trade, tops the B2B marketplace list with a sweeping 10M total downloads across both app stores in the US in 2022. This Chinese-based company serves millions of buyers and suppliers around the world.

In the list of growing B2B marketplaces in the US app stores are DHgate, Wholee, and Faire. DHgate is another global Chinese B2B marketplace selling a variety of Chinese goods – from electronics and clothes to other wholesale consumer products. Securing the fourth position in the top charts is the retail giant Amazon Business offering a user-friendly shopping experience via its app. Nihaojewelry is the only wholesale fashion jewelry app that has made it to the list.

Interestingly, the new app TapMob.io has also secured its place in the top downloaded wholesaler apps in the US. TapMob helps connect influencers with brands and major app companies by enabling them to choose from a variety of advertisers who resonate with their brand and instantly generate revenue by creating video ads.

The post Most downloaded shopping apps in 2022 appeared first on Business of Apps.

The moment a startup starts scaling quickly is almost always an exciting time for everyone in the company. It feels like the payoff for all the hard work and late nights: recognition, a global consumer base, and money in the bank. It’s only natural that businesses in this position want to sit back and rest on their laurels for a moment. As appealing as that sounds, however, don’t give in to the temptation to do so.

There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook for entering global markets, and it’s all the more unpredictable if the metrics you’re collecting don’t give proper insight into the source of the growth or how to maintain it. Use this vital time at the early stage of development to do a thorough audit of your data analytics and insights. The metrics you collect, sort, and analyze now will play a significant role in the future development and growth of the company. The tools are already out there. It’s just a matter of having the right data strategy and the right data stack (or tools) in place to drive actionable insights.

Recognize metrics for a startup vs. an established company

The basic processes of analyzing app metrics tend to be largely uniform across startups and established companies. What differentiates companies and their data is how they use it, and how they use it is determined by their end goal. Early-stage startups tend to focus a lot more on growth and onboarding new users. In contrast, established companies with existing user bases look toward the goal of monetizing different aspects of their platform and user retention. Outlining a clear end goal will allow the team to collect only the necessary data. As a startup becomes more established, its goals will change and the data collected and analyzed should alter to support those goals.

Established companies have the advantage because they have years’ worth of data. They can compare benchmarks and analyze trends by comparing year-on-year stats, whether that is yearly revenue targets or even year-on-year growth. Startups, on the other hand, are often starting from scratch with little to no data available. Startups should already be collecting the data with the goal to compare benchmarks in years to come in mind, but they also must get creative with what little data is available now. You can also compare against some external competitor benchmarks, although this can be difficult to find at times.

If global statistics are unavailable, regional data could be measured and compared as benchmarks instead. Outline the company’s fast-growth markets and use those as benchmarks to measure the startup’s progress toward success. These metrics will unlock other insights as well, which we get to later on.

Be proactive in implementing methods to collect data

Work from biggest to smallest. The key to being able to highlight quality takeaways from the data is to understand the overall objective of the data collection. Based on this, the relevant data can be gathered, structured, and analyzed to drive insights while having measurable KPIs in place.

Look into programs that provide detailed analytics that is specific to app stores and the associated user bases. Many methods of analyzing metrics require proactive efforts and organizing, not just skimming over the key metrics after the fact. For any startup, deeply understanding user behaviour should be a high priority. In order to analyze user behavior, data can be collected by implementing third-party solutions. Mixpanel is an example of a business analytics service company that specifically looks at user interactions on web and mobile applications. Amplitude is another service used by thousands of digital disruptors like Instacart, DoorDash, and PayPal, to provide insights into who their users are and what actions lead to retention. For monitoring performance metrics, utilize Datadog or Grafana. Datadog is a SaaS platform, whereas Grafana is an open-source web platform that focuses on the visual side of data, enabling users to create charts, graphs, and dashboards.

Some of the data collected can come by the petabytes. In this case, seek out a data warehouse to not only process this data but to acquire new insights as well. AWS Redshift allows businesses to write key user and transaction-level data in its structured cloud-based data warehouses. Visualization tools, like Tableau, can help make dashboards so KPIs are accessible to a wider group of people in the startup, driving better decisions throughout the organization.

While analyzing app metrics may not be the top priority from day one, any insights that can be gleaned will have a drastic effect on decisions made down the line. What products should be developed? Which key areas show the greatest potential and should be the focus? And who is your core customer? Be proactive in implementing the necessary data collection methods, however, the key is using the right data management tools to segment, analyze, and unlock the answers you are looking for. Find the necessary data management tool dedicate to your desired goal.

Monitor regional differences to drive product innovation

If your app has users in multiple countries, analyzing and comparing user behaviours, expectations and competitive dynamics by country can uncover some interesting insights and differences that can lead to successful product innovation – or even alter the business strategy entirely. While each application will have different user behaviors, goals, and partnerships that will need honing in on, there are measurable metrics that will play a key role in future decisions about the application. Set KPIs and begin comparing the stats week on week, month on month, and so on to unlock answers that will drive fast growth.

For example, our data analytics have uncovered that messaging app users in the APAC region like to use stickers more than users in the CEE markets. This is due to different cultural preferences in each region. Tracking the engagement of this product over an extended period enabled us to understand its usage per region. Network strength also showed the number of days users were active or performing a specific activity during a specific time frame. So when using this metric to look at our sticker product, it told us what time of the day users most often incorporated them into messages. During holiday periods? To say hello? Or goodnight?

Track new registrations and installs each week and month on a very granular level to determine how quickly the app is growing in each region. Stronger user growth observed in one region compared to others can indicate either favorable product market fit in that region, different competitive dynamics, or a potential tailwind (e.g., smartphone adoption) that could be capitalized on by reallocating resources to unlock further growth. Track the negative metrics as well. This could entail monitoring app churn. How many times is the app uninstalled or an account deactivated? When did these events happen? Did an update of the UX result in a vast number of people leaving the app? Look at the number of referrals and invites from other users. If this number is low, consider implementing incentives specific to a region or securing a local partnership that will slow the current decline in user activity.

When taking all of the above into account and understanding these key metrics for each region, you can piece together a story of who your key customer is, and that may be different for every market. Users prefer localized content, so the content shared should differ accordingly. This insight can improve marketing campaign effectiveness, optimize products by showing local content as the default or generate more focused partnerships to bring additional content to users.

As startups expand and grow geographically, it is important for all regional teams to align on metric definitions and measurement units, as well as what source the data is being collected from as these factors can alter the results drastically if all are different. Inefficient decision-making would be inevitable if the APAC team was measuring a marketing campaign’s success one way and the EU team was measuring it differently, resulting in non-comparable Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) findings. If there are a lot of cases where this happens, it could lead to organizations and leaders losing trust in the data and making more gut-based decisions.

Analyze metrics in a privacy-first way

There are a variety of tools that enable companies to collect data and analyze app metrics. While these are all valuable, it is unnecessary and potentially damaging to the core business to indiscriminately collect data without a real goal in mind. Data collection itself isn’t the problem, but how you choose to use it can be. That being said, if you don’t have a valid business reason to collect the data, don’t collect it. Too often businesses are collecting every piece of data from their users simply for the sake of it.

Collecting data metrics doesn’t require sacrificing user privacy. Metrics that share valuable data can still be collected while complying with regional privacy regulations like GDPR. Be transparent with users as to what data is being collected and keep them informed about any changes. Analyzing key metrics can have a drastic effect on any startup’s decision-making process, and play a significant role in its future growth.

The post A startup’s guide to analyzing app metrics for fast-growth global markets appeared first on Business of Apps.

We have all heard of why Q4 or the ‘Golden Quarter’ is the biggest time of the year for retailers and marketers, with key events like Christmas and Black Friday representing lucrative opportunities for marketers to achieve a higher return on advertising spend (ROAS). This is in spite of CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) and CPCs (cost per clicks), which tend to be higher in Q4 than during any other period of the year.

However, with CPMs tending to drop from Christmas Day, and typically staying low until the first or second week of January, this period has become known as Q5 – or the ‘hidden quarter’ for digital advertising. It’s important for mobile marketers not to lose sight of the Q5 opportunity, as this has become a valuable period to capitalise on.

There’s snow time like Q5

Q5 is a notable period of increased mobile device usage as we consider the fact that more people are enjoying more downtime indoors during the holiday season. As such, they will turn to smartphones and tablets to seek out new forms of entertainment. In addition, the latter part of December is still considered a key shopping moment, with consumers looking to make purchases during Boxing Day sales – which have come to represent a key retail peak on the calendar.

Christmas Day itself also typically sees the gifting of mobile and tablet devices which inevitably gives rise to new device activations that mobile app advertisers should leverage. Downloading apps is one of the very first things consumers do when getting a new mobile device, which is unsurprising, given that 42.5 million UK adults use apps on their smartphone or tablet devices. This presents a prime opportunity for mobile performance marketers, given there’s a large audience actively seeking out new apps during a period when CPMs and CPCs are at their lowest.

Making the most of the low media prices during this time will provide increased ROI, compared to Q4. Brands that may have exhausted their budgets during end-of-year campaigns and peak commerce periods, such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday, may find relief in networks offering discounted prices.

Mobile advertisers should take full advantage of this time period to ensure their brand is top of mind by making their apps easily visible and discoverable in app stores. As many brands hone in on the pre-Q4 surge, this is the perfect chance for a wider variety of apps to invest in and acquire new, high-quality users at scale in a less competitive environment without breaking the bank.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for apps

While consumers are found to actively seek out entertainment during the last period of the year, a large variety of apps also stand to benefit from Q5. As this is typically the time of year when people are motivated to catch final sales and plan for the new year, apps ranging from entertainment, health and fitness, productivity, and retail should strike while the iron is hot. Brands that are aware of and lean into new year’s resolutions may also find they can attract a larger audience that is already inspired to make purchases.

In Western Europe, CPMs remain low from Christmas Day until mid to late January, which means there is a great opportunity for retail and e-commerce apps, such as food and alcohol delivery and ridesharing to drive downloads. With retail sales having risen significantly in January 2022, retail app marketers should make the most of this time to acquire high-quality users at scale.

Gaming apps are also particularly well-positioned to reap the reward in Q5, as app users increasingly turn to games on their mobile devices as a source of entertainment. Between October to December 2021, 60% of UK adults were found to be downloading and playing games on their mobile devices, and separate research revealed the number of hours spent in mobile apps in the second quarter of 2022 was approaching one trillion globally. Gaming app marketers should tap into this existing user base to drive in-app purchases in Q5.

Taking advantage of Christmas-chine learning

Of course, the approaches outlined above are not exhaustive, but merely provide a starting point on how app marketers can draw on Q5 to its full advantage to boost impressions, downloads, and visibility.

Data and machine learning can go a long way in ad targeting during this period. It can draw from a brand’s existing first-party data to measure the relationship between user characteristics and behaviours automatically. From here, app marketers can gather more valuable insights to inform their ad strategy, such as whether an app user clicked an ad or installed an app are all vital to ensuring that the Q5 opportunity can be maximised to its fullest potential.

Leveraging automation and advanced machine learning (ML) can enable advertisers to make the most of their budget – working smarter without spending more. Rather than serving ads for complementary products that consumers already planned to add to their shopping carts, ML can detect signals in real-time, helping to personalise and predict their shopping trends and habits, which in turn exposes them to items they did not realise they needed.

It’s a holly jolly Q5

App marketers who want to continue in their advertising strategy after the busy holiday season are highly encouraged to participate in this highly lucrative time period to attract new users and boost ad revenue. Q5 is not the time to sit back and forego the opportunity to boost app visibility.

While it may be tempting for UA teams to pause most or all of Q4 budgets due to high CPMs, this may be a mistake as media prices are lower during the post-holiday season, which, as highlighted above, would provide rewards ripe for the picking.

Given the time of year, consumers’ motivations also tend to change quickly. They are also likely more receptive to different ads, particularly those they would typically dismiss. This is, therefore, the ideal time for app marketers to experiment and introduce diversity in their creatives. Not only should UA teams be leveraging creatives with different messaging and visuals, but they should also get innovative with running various creative formats. For example, higher-impact assets should be paired with videos and playables with banners and interstitials to ensure maximum effectiveness.

A consumer looking to populate their new devices with apps have different priorities than one at any time of the year, making Q5 optimal for testing and understanding how effective different channels and integrated campaigns are at attracting target audiences without needing to make a large dent in budgets.

The post Q5: The most wonderful time of the year for performance advertising appeared first on Business of Apps.

Metaverse, a combination of two words, was first used in Snow Crash, a science fiction novel published in 1992. The word dictates a landscape where one can perform any regular activity with a virtual presence (basically a 3-D model of self, known as Avatar). The scenario might seem blurry right now, but when we imagine the Metaverse, it covers education, games, entertainment, meetings, tours, and everything you can think of. The term became more familiar when Facebook changed to Meta at the end of 2021. Let’s explore everything about the Metaverse and better understand the same.

What does “Metaverse” actually mean?

Two words contributing to form the Metaverse are Meta and Verse. Here, “Meta” is a Greek word that means beyond something. At the same time, the other word, “verse,” refers to the universe. So, the concept focuses on visualizing a space beyond this universe’s reality. A goggle headset is an entrance to this new verse which takes your digital avatar into the new world. The same is the process for your colleagues, friends, and the people you plan to meet in Metaverse.

Think of it this way. We have already witnessed sports games, meetings, video games, video calls, and more on your screens. But, it is all 2-dimensional till now. Metaverse, on the other hand, is going to transfigure this experience into 3-dimensional reality, so we feel ourselves as the internal part of a landscape. Let it be a sports match, professional meetings, hangout among your friends, or anything else, and the Metaverse will consist of everything that our real universe does.

Expected is that Metaverse is going to be the entire next step to the Internet. The only difference is that the Internet introduced a new verse, and the Metaverse will take us inside that world. So, Metaverse cannot be imagined as a competitor of the Internet; instead, it is imagined as the upgradation of the Internet.

How it all started

As we interpreted, Metaverse was first termed in the science fiction novel “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson in 1992. The novel talked about a 3-dimensional virtual space where humans could interact and wander with their virtual avatars. The users used goggles to enter the new world.

In 2011, Ernest Cline created a science fiction franchise, Ready Player One, which portrayed a shared VR landscape called “The OASIS.” The novel was released in 2011 and the film “Ready Player One” was released in 2018, entirely based on the novel. The second novel in the series was released in 2020. The novel and movie depict 2045 when the world faces global warming and an energy crisis. So, a VR landscape is a primary escape from the real world. The new world has been portrayed both as an online role-playing game as well as a virtual society.

Even in 2003, the online multimedia platform “Second Life” is also considered the first experience of Metaverse, where the users were invited to create their avatars and meet their friends in a virtual space. Popular video games like Habbo Hotel in 2000, World of Warcraft in 2004, Minecraft in 2009, VRChat in 2014, and Fortnite in 2017 are also said to be witnessing the metaverse experience.

Current scenario of the Metaverse

It wouldn’t be appropriate to say that we have explored a plethora of advancements in this metaverse landscape as we are still in the beginning stage, heading toward the development stage. If we have to talk about a physical entity working continuously on a new concept, nothing but Facebook deserves the title. The company changed its name to “Meta” at the end of 2021 with the vision of a new space where billions of users will roam around with their digital avatars, doing the regular stuff. Not just meeting and chatting around, Mark Zuckerberg aims to develop the Metaverse as a completely alternate universe where one can do shopping, meet friends, hold meetings, go to the workplace, and everything else.

Zuckerberg is investing significantly in the concept to transform it into reality. An investment of $10 billion in compulsory hardware of the idea was observed in 2021. It was the first time that Meta has talked about their spending on hardware, as until now, it accounted for a very tiny proportion of the company’s spending. The $10 billion investment for metaverse hardware is ten times the company spent on buying Instagram in 2012.

Having the numerical statistics, let’s explore the experience in this new world.

Future scenario of the Metaverse

We are not future dictators, but we are technological experts. So, rather than analyzing the stars, it will be easier to guess the future by analyzing the current trends and progress of companies working on the concept. Have a glance at what we might be doing in Metaverse within the coming 1 or 2 decades.

Metaverse real estate

You might be busy buying land in Houston or Phoenix, but some people are buying land on Metaverse. You might wonder how one can purchase land in a world that doesn’t even exist physically. So, let me tell you, the price of land in the Metaverse is nothing less than the price in these cities. So, the question here is, what will one do after buying land in the Metaverse? The answer is that you will do the same thing you do with the land in real life. One can build a house, office premises, outlet, or farmhouse to chill in the Metaverse.

Purchasing and selling are done via NFTs and cryptocurrencies. There are two reasons for purchasing land on Metaverse. The first has already been discussed (building a house, workplace, or anything), and the second is an investment. The land in the Metaverse can bring your massive returns. Let’s give an example to prove the solidity of the statement. Land, which costed around $1000 two years before in the Metaverse of Sandbox and Decentraland, will now cost you about $13,000. No stock, physical property, or mutual bond would have given such returns.

Metaverse gaming

When we see a metaverse dedicatedly to gaming, it can be observed that the concept is not very new. Several games for over a decade have provided the metaverse experience to audiences. Games like Roblox and Fortnite have already attracted users with their new concepts. Still, when we see the future of gaming in the Metaverse, you can be in the middle of a battleground, shooting the enemies with your machine guns and experiencing each bullet passing by you. At the same time, while jumping from a cliff, your heartbeat will go faster.

Metaverse entertainment

Grabbing the first row in the concert by your favorite singer might be challenging in real life but not in the Metaverse. Virtual shows have already been in place, but the future might take the craze to the next level. You may see different artists performing on the Metaverse, and distance will no longer be a factor to restrict your attendance at the concert. However, music and dance concerts and entertainment also refer to amusement and adventurous parks. It will not be a big deal that you will be riding a roller coaster with your friend from your couch in the living room.

Metaverse fashion

Not only the hypothesis but authentic brands like Tommy Hilfiger, Roberto Cavalli, and Etro have been seen investing in the metaverse fashion. Possibly, you buy the same hoodie for your avatar in the Metaverse, which you wear in real life.

Metaverse education

When COVID made it impossible for academicians to conduct offline classes, the Internet significantly brought them online. Metaverse can take the update a step ahead, where the lecturer and students will gather in Metaverse, with a proper classroom setup and knowledge exchange.

Conclusion

Just like the Internet changed the world’s view, Metaverse will implement the change on an even more significant level. However, we can only expect the revolution after a decade or two; still, it is not too far when we all will meet in the Metaverse and remember the things we used to talk about in virtual space. We have been living in the same world for crores of years, and now exploring an entirely new space will be full of excitement and a new adventure for us.

Emizentech will meet all your business needs. Contact us for a free consultation today!

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As is already evident to anyone who is in contact with the mobile advertising world, optimizing video creatives for formats on mobile devices improves the user experience and the main KPIs of the brand.

Improving the advertising experience through the use of formats adapted to the device, causes ad exposure and interaction to last longer, directly influencing effectiveness.

So that you can get the most out of your campaigns, in this blog post we share a series of good practices that you can perform in your video ads.

How users consume videos

Considering that there are many aspects to optimize in ad creatives, for practical reasons, we will focus on how to create a narrative and describe some design practices.

Once you have the general concept of a video ad in mind or even sketched it out, it’s time to think about its structure.

First, examine the historical data of your user acquisition campaigns. That will help you identify which network and location generate the most traffic. There’s a big difference in the way people consume messages when they appear on platforms, like YouTube pre-roll, Instagram Stories, or Facebook Feed.

• Feeds: To stand out in the feed on FB or Instagram, use creatives that quickly communicate your message or grab people’s attention in seconds.
• Non-skippable mid-roll or pre-roll: A short 6-15 second video is recommended to keep your audience engaged. Sound (music, SFX, or dialogue) can be effective.
• Skippable mid-roll or pre-roll: Most viewers will see a 5-second ad. A 15-30 second ad will reach only 10% of people or less. Try to get your message across before the skip button appears.
• Stories: This is a fast-growing format that can be sequenced to create a more engaging and engaging narrative. Quality isn’t that important, but music presents a great opportunity.

It’s clear that each ad placement demands different attention from viewers. Your ads must respect and reflect the differences in the channels to maximize their impact. Because attention peaks in the first three seconds, users often move on soon after, so you need to communicate your main message instantly.

Best practices for creating video ads

Here are the best practices for creating mobile video ads on Instagram, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and Audience Network.

Create short videos

Create videos that are 15 seconds or less to make sure people watch until the end. Videos that are 15 seconds or less are also eligible for Facebook and Instagram Stories in-stream placements. If you want to use a video that wasn’t made specifically for mobile, crop it.

In general, it is recommended that videos be short, but there are locations that support a longer duration. The Instagram feed and Audience Network locations support videos up to 120 seconds, while the Facebook feed, Marketplace, and Messenger home locations support videos up to 240 minutes.

Get attention quickly

Make sure the most attractive part of your video is at the beginning to grab the attention of your viewers. We suggest you do it within the first 3 seconds.

Use videos in portrait or square format

Most people hold their phones vertically. So choose a vertical or square aspect ratio that takes up as much of the screen as possible. Use 4:5 vertical video ads.

Show your product or brand message at the beginning

Just as you need to get attention quickly, it’s a good idea to show off your brand identity right away so people will see and remember it. If you’re using a video you already have, edit it so your product or brand appears in the first 15 seconds.

Design videos that can be watched without sound

People choose to watch videos without sound in many situations, such as in public places. Use text and graphics, and include subheadings whenever possible.

Try visual techniques that wow users

Think time lapse, slow motion, split screen, 3D elements, etc. Test what content works using different motivators to spark new ideas. But don’t get stuck using a style you’ve used before. Our advice is to iterate and be innovative.

Try a call to action

Try to create a call to action that is connected to the motivator your ad is targeting. This could be “Upgrade your troops and win” for a strategy game, “Help her” for a mysterious hidden object game, or “Order with free shipping” for an e-commerce app.

Below you will find a table with the dimensions of the most frequent Facebook and Instagram video creatives:

Source: Rocket Lab

Video creative best practices for google ads

We share some points to integrate into your ads, as a recommendation to highlight the key elements of your app.

• Use navigating hands: Presenting an app “in use” helps consumers understand its value. By showing hands navigating the app, the viewer can understand exactly what is happening. The same principle applies to augmented images, where you can, for example, add graphic labels to describe the functional benefits.
• Engage with viewers: After your video ad’s opening sequence, add emotions, show a plot, and develop the story to engage your audience.
• Design to be seen: Make your app or game bigger, highlight key elements of your app’s UI, clean up unnecessary elements, and increase contrast.
• End with a call to action: Each ad must have a specific CTA.

Google recommends working with influencers, celebrities, and CGI (cinematic) ads if they perform well on Youtube pre- or intermediate placements. Game-focused ads, AR games, and vertically-targeted ads are most effective on the Google Display Network.

Because Google offers a wide variety of ad formats and placements, there’s a simple rule to follow if you’re looking to scale your campaigns: produce as many formats as possible for all videos. By doing so, you can unlock more inventory and give Google’s algorithm a chance to find the best users whenever they are.

Below you will find the dimensions of Google static and video ad creatives:

Source: Rocket Lab

Conclusion

Once you’ve developed a concept for your ad, think about the context in which people will engage with the message you want to convey.

It’s worth remembering that the first five seconds are decisive, determining if it will lead to action. Your narrative should be the opposite of what is used in TV commercials. The most important message should come first, after which you can develop the story.

You must accept that the average user will pay little attention to your ad. We know that no one watches an ad from start to finish with full concentration. Therefore, you should keep the visuals clear, simplify the interface, enlarge important elements, use illustrated buttons for finger taps, and communicate only one message per ad.

Once you’ve produced an ad and it shows potential during initial performance testing, clone it across all dimensions, lengths, and formats to unlock the largest possible inventory and acquire the best users.

Once you’ve optimized your content with these recommendations, you’ll need a trusted partner to help you drive your video ads to get quality viewers. For this, it is important to choose a company that specializes in mobile app growth that guarantees that the right audience will see your ad.

The post Best practices for mobile video ads appeared first on Business of Apps.

You know that your Android app needs to be fast, responsive, and crash-free if you want to rank well in the Google Play Store. But what you may not know is that there’s a new way to track your app’s health and performance, and it’s called Android Vitals.

What is Android Vitals?

The Google Play Console provides app developers with a variety of tools and insights for improving their apps. One such tool is the Android Vitals dashboard, which includes data on app stability, crash rate, render time, and more.

The Android Vitals dashboard can help you identify and fix stability issues in your app, improve render time, and reduce the crash rate. You can also use the data in the dashboard to compare your app against industry benchmarks and competitor apps.

How does Android Vitals affect App Store Optimization?

Google’s Android Vitals is essential for app developers because they measure an app’s quality. The Android Vitals include statistics on app installations, crashes, ANR rates, and more.

If your app has a high crash rate, for example, it will be penalized by Google and will rank lower in the search results. Android is the most popular OS in the world. Over 2.5 billion users across 190 countries are now using Android. So, monitoring your Android Vitals and ensuring your app runs smoothly is important.

You can find the Android Vitals for your app by logging into the Google Play Developer Console and selecting your app from the list. The Android Vitals are listed on the right-hand side of the page.

How to optimize Android Vitals for App Store Optimization

When it comes to optimizing your Android app for better store rankings, the Android vitals are the most critical factor to focus on. The vitals cover CPU, memory, network, and disk usage, and you need to make sure that they’re all in good condition if you want to see your app succeed.

There are a few ways to optimize the vitals on your Android app. One is to ensure that you’re using the latest version of Android Studio, which gives you access to the latest tools and features for monitoring your app’s performance. You can also use profile data to find and fix any performance issues in your app.

Another vital thing to remember is that you should always test your app on various devices. This will help you identify performance issues that may not be obvious on a development device. And finally, make sure you’re following Google’s best practices for optimizing Android apps. Following these guidelines ensures that your app is up to par with the competition and performs well on all devices.

Regardless of the reason for getting an app developed, you need to ensure that it is tested in all ways. Even if you run a WordPress blog and want your blogs to be read through an application, your app needs to be bug-free.

Tools and resources to monitor and diagnose Android Vitals

There are multiple tools and resources available to Android developers to help monitor and diagnose issues with Android vitals. The Android Developer Portal provides documentation on Android vitals and best practices for improving them.

The Google Play Console also has a section dedicated to Android vitals, where developers can see how their app is performing and identify areas of improvement. In addition, the Play Console offers a Vitals Dashboard tool, which generates a report with insights and recommendations based on data from the past 90 days.

Other tools that can be used to monitor and diagnose issues with Android vitals include the Android Studio profiler, the Qualcomm Snapdragon Profiler, and the Unity Editor Profiler.

Tips to improve performance and enhance user experience

Here are some tips to get you started on the path to a better-performing app:

• Test your app on a variety of devices, including low-end devices, to get an idea of how it will perform in the wild
• Use a tool like Android Studio’s profilers to identify performance bottlenecks in your code and address them
• Pay attention to the Android vitals metrics and strive to keep them in the green zone
• Keep an eye on your app’s crash rate and strive to keep it as low as possible
• Make sure your app uses the latest Android SDK versions and support libraries
• Use Proguard or a similar tool to minify and optimize your code for release

Common issues and solutions with Android Vitals

There are a few issues that commonly pop up with Android Vitals. Here are some solutions to common problems:

The crash rate is too high

Check for any crashes that may be caused by 3rd party libraries. If you’re using an older version of Android, make sure to update to the latest version. Google will penalize your rankings when/if your app crashes at least once a day or multiple times in a given day.

ANR (Application not responding) rate is too high

Ensure your app is not doing CPU-intensive work on the main thread. If you have any blocking calls, move them to a background thread.
An app can be forced to close by users. You want to stay away from this circumstance as much as you can. Users will be irritated that their app experience was cut short, especially if they were working on a crucial job like making a hotel reservation.

Tuck wakelocks

Check for any wakelocks that may be held for too long. Try using a wakelock liberator library to help with this issue.

Excessive battery usage

Make sure you’re not doing any unnecessary work in the background. If you need to do work in the background, use a JobScheduler.

Wrap Up

You now understand the importance of Android Vitals in App Store Optimization. Paying attention to these critical points can significantly impact your app’s success. Keep in mind that optimizing your app for the Android platform may require a different approach than optimizing for iOS. With the right tools and the proper knowledge, however, you can make your app stand out in a crowded app store.

The post Importance of Android Vitals in App Store Optimization appeared first on Business of Apps.

To build your game’s audience in today’s increasingly competitive market, it’s critical to scale your user acquisition (UA) campaigns. But, with Apple’s IDFA changes and an uncertain economy restricting advertisers’ ability to accurately measure campaign performance, predicting ROAS and scaling your UA has become more challenging than ever.

In this article, we suggest ways to optimize your UA strategy for enhanced scale and user lifetime value (LTV) by working with trusted DSP partners.

The value of DSPs in today’s market

With nearly 478,000 games available today on the Google Play store (up 6% from Q1 2022), the mobile gaming marketplace is more competitive than ever. Furthermore, Apple’s IDFA changes have diminished the measurability of mobile marketers’ campaigns, making it harder for them to optimize their ad spend to compete.

How can game developers confront this? By working with DSPs that have privacy-compliant, first-party data and innovative machine-learning models to enhance UA campaigns.

Here’s why DSPs are particularly well-positioned to use privacy-compliant signals to scale UA campaigns in today’s mobile marketplace.

DSPs have unique data to build custom models

DSPs can leverage data science and bidding technology to scale UA campaigns. These capabilities have gained even more value since the near-deprecation of the IDFA. With less campaign measurability, using technology to stretch the privacy-compliant data that is available as far as possible has become critical.

To do this, advanced DSPs create custom models that use a game app’s data to build campaign strategies tailored to their specific needs. For example, an advertiser might determine that when a player reaches Level 10 in a game, they have a higher likelihood of becoming a payer. If the advertiser then passes this Level 10 data to their DSP partner, they can create a model with custom “level-reached” signals that can be used to more accurately predict the likelihood a player will become a payer.

To take advantage of a DSP’s data science capabilities, remember that the more data you feed into your models, the more the models can do. As long as the data collection methods are adherent to compliance restrictions, there is no such thing as ‘too much data’. Never underestimate the value of passing as much data as possible to your DSP partner.

DSPs have access to a large inventory of apps

One of the key advantages of DSPs is their access to a wide array of apps across the mobile ecosystem. This access can be critical to an app campaign’s success as it unlocks the potential of finding high-quality users in new and existing apps that an app hasn’t purchased in before. To tap into scale, an app has to tap into a large inventory of apps, which game developers can do through DSPs.

DSPs can help find new pockets of inventory

The first step to scaling a game effectively is doing the appropriate groundwork. This groundwork includes analyzing your target audience and being deliberate with your exploration. DSPs might have access to an immense volume of apps, but this doesn’t mean they’re buying in all of them. To scale, DSPs can create a custom exploration strategy that identifies high-quality pockets of users in specific apps across the mobile ecosystem. From here, they can test out spending an app’s initial campaign budget to build an effective pool of users from which to train their data models.

The future of UA

As we look forward to what’s to come in the ad tech industry, here are some changes to keep in mind as you scale your UA strategy.

Continued enhancements to user privacy

Eighteen months after Apple launched iOS 14.5, and with the deprecation of GAID (Google Advertising ID) and tracking cookies on the horizon, user privacy is a clear priority. Further policy and regulatory decisions will determine where the industry goes next, and the extent to which advertisers have to sacrifice the efficiency of their UA campaigns to adhere to compliance restrictions.

Despite the scope of the privacy changes mobile advertising has already experienced, advertisers should be conscious of future regulation. They should also be prepared for future restrictions by collecting as much first-party information as they can and investing in growth strategies that are not dependent on device-level signals.

The rising value of creatives

While the deprecation of the IDFA has resulted in less measurable data, the arena in which advertisers continue to maintain a strong level of control is over their creatives. By designing a large range of engaging creatives — and continuously testing them to ensure optimal performance — advertisers can give their UA campaigns a competitive edge.

The need for contextual signals

The most profound impact that advertisers have to prepare for going forward is not knowing an individual user’s potential LTV. This will greatly affect marketers’ decision-making abilities when it comes to scaling their UA, as there will be a greater degree of uncertainty over a specific channel’s potential profitability. To confront this, partnering with programmatic DSPs that can use privacy-compliant data points to execute contextual targeting will be key. Contextual targeting matches ads with impressions to accurately predict the probability of an engagement. It helps advertisers determine the most cost-efficient amount to bid for each impression and also iterate performance over time.

The sky’s the limit

As the saying goes: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” While building and managing the custom solutions needed to scale UA campaigns might have been efficient pre-iOS 14.5, in today’s increasingly competitive landscape, it’s not. This is where the value of independent DSPs that can build effective campaigns from advertisers’ performance data and spending information comes in. In the new world of privacy-compliant UA, working with DSP partners you can trust will be key to successfully scaling your game.

The post How to scale your UA strategy appeared first on Business of Apps.

Users across the world continue to shift more and more attention from their big flat screens to small phone screens. With the average person spending at least 3 hours a day on their mobile devices, if not more, this creates ample opportunity for mobile app marketers.

With every new year comes new opportunities, trends, and channels for mobile marketers to diversify their app’s omnichannel marketing strategy. While Q4 tends to be labeled as the biggest user spending time of the year, apps in top verticals including food delivery, e-learning services, and finance know that Q1 is a close second in driving record-high monetization. Let’s hone in on how to maximize ROI for your mobile app in the new year.

Connecting with users through video

Mobile video consumption continues to increase by 100% every year. Who wouldn’t want to watch a quick video rather than read lengthy fine print? By incorporating video throughout your media mix in Q1, app marketers can build a sense of connection with potential users, further drive engagement, and motivate a qualified install. Don’t be afraid to test video creative across various high-performing media channels, such as social, OTT, and native. This could entail product reviews on TikTok, short promotional videos through Apple TV or HBO, and eye-catching video animation ads.

It’s essential for mobile marketers to test and optimize around different messaging, video creatives, CPI payouts, and time of day to learn what drives the highest engagement from their desired users. Perform[cb]’s proprietary technology delivers advanced capabilities to A/B test various campaign deliverables, analyze what drives higher conversion rates, and automate offers to only use the top performing creatives moving forward in the app campaign. Reach out to our team of user acquisition experts to learn more about how you can reach untapped audiences through video in the next year.

Increase installs through social media

Did you know over 50% of users across the globe scroll through social media on their mobile phones in search of new products, services, and apps, and 40% of Gen Z look to the channel for brand research over Google? Mobile marketers must not ignore the surplus of user acquisition potential during the “New Year, New You” months. From Facebook and Instagram to LinkedIn and Twitter, and the latest advertising holy grail, TikTok, social media is one of the top distribution channels to drive increased user acquisition and post-install activity for app marketers.

By proactively testing ads across various social channels ahead of Q1, app marketers can accurately plan KPIs with plenty of time to make optimizations for maximum ROI. Popular marketers with Q1 seasonality, including E-learning and language learning apps, see huge conversion spikes in the new year as consumers look to learn a new language or pick up a new skill. Learn how the world’s first language learning app, Babbel, saw a 130% increase in orders YoY with top-performing publishers, including social, ahead of Q1 with Perform[cb].

Whether you’re an app in the e-learning, health and wellness, or financial services vertical, Q1 will be here before we know it. Learn how you can prepare your user acquisition strategy to stand out from the New Year crowd.

Unlock untapped inventory with iOS and Android

While, in general, iOS generates more revenue and user engagement, Android has a greater market share, so it’s crucial mobile marketers target both traffic channels to scale user acquisition throughout Q1. Push notifications are essential in retaining qualified iOS and Android users and encouraging them to make post-install engagements. Enable push notifications to share valuable information with users, such as promotions, new services or features, purchase and subscription notifications, and more. Q1 is the time when consumers re-evaluate their subscription services, so offering competitive promotions and information through notifications is vital in the new year. Discover how a leading entertainment app saw a massive increase in untapped Android users just one week after running a push notification campaign with Perform[cb].

It’s important for marketers to utilize Apple’s tracking solution, SKAN 4.0, to avoid missing out on untapped iOS inventory ahead of Q1 seasonality. SKAN 4.0 provides improved granularity in campaign dimension reporting, making it far easier for marketers to identify sources and have greater insights into conversion values. In order to remain compliant with Apple’s ATT while driving iOS traffic to your mobile app, mobile marketers should consider working with a trusted media partner, such as Perform[cb]. Learn how Perform[cb] proprietary technology optimizations delivered additional tracking capabilities to its mobile clients amid increased SKAN traffic, providing incremental installs and growth.

3, 2, 1… Happy New Year!

Whether you’re looking to acquire qualified installs or drive increased post-install engagement, diversifying your media mix and partnering with the right outcome-based marketing partner is paramount to Q1 campaign success and user acquisition at massive scale.

Ready to scale your mobile app with our team of user acquisition experts? Let’s get started.

The post The importance of diversifying your mobile media mix for Q1 seasonality appeared first on Business of Apps.

As any marketer will tell you, we are simple creatures at heart – we all just want to be seen and to feel understood. Yes, even by companies.

The latest data shows that 63% of smartphone users are more likely to buy from companies that offer recommendations that are relevant to them. This is why personalised app marketing is now a must-have, not a nice to have.

This post was first published on yodelmobile.com.

What is app personalisation?

App personalisation is the process of creating a customised user experience tailored to a specific audience through product design, messaging and engagement.

The idea of personalisation isn’t new.  It was back in 2000 when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said “If we want to have 20 million customers, then we want to have 20 million ‘stores.’ Our mission is to be the earth’s most customer-centric company”. Over 20 years later, personalised app marketing is expected in almost every industry there is – and is an expectation for mobile app users.

But it can be an overwhelming prospect to start treating every single customer as an individual – does your future involve penning an individual missive to each every time you want to send them a marketing message? Not at all. Technology can step in here, saving you time while creating a tailored message that reaches the right person with the right information every time.

Why personalise your app marketing?

Given the technology available, it’s unsurprising that 71% of people expect personalisation as standard and  76% of people feel frustrated when this doesn’t happen. Thankfully, mobile app businesses have the data at their fingertips to answer customers’ demand for tailored marketing.

The sophistication of the market means that there are three main levels of mobile app personalisation that can be achieved.

• Reactive: This is the most basic level of app personalisation. It involves simply pulling a user attribute to personalise communication, for example using their first name in the opening of an email (user attribute), or welcoming them to the service on completion of registration (event data).
• Proactive: Combines reactive app personalisation with external data, such as active offers, your latest blog post or product recommendations.
• Individualised: This one is the gold standard of app personalisation as it’s the most sophisticated level of personalisation you can implement. One way of doing this efficiently is by utilising dynamic data based on user attributes or event data. For instance, the event might be a ‘show watched in last 7 days’ by streaming app users. Dynamic content will ensure to serve each user an image in email comms from the show they have streamed to personalise the experience.

Personalisation types

Source: Yodel Mobile

What is dynamic content and why is it important?

Dynamic content, in short, is any digital type of content (images, text, videos) that changes based on user in-app behaviour, interests and preferences.

The advantage of dynamic content is that the heavy-lifting is done by the technology, not by the person deploying the technology. So, in the previous example, rather than creating a marketing automation campaign for each TV show so that each customer receives a relevant email, one campaign is created, and the relevant piece of content is pulled in automatically.

Dynamic content can take the form of:

• Imagery such as including a picture of a pair of shoes left in the cart
• Text such as “are you still searching for the perfect shoes?”
• Customer data such as using location (and weather) to inform the messaging – “here are five snow-friendly shoes you’re going to need in Manchester this week” (the possibilities are endless)

And of course, the desired outcome of dynamic content is increasing brand loyalty and customer engagement. When German social network XING nudged customers to add more contacts to their network by dynamically adding the names of people they might know, contact requests increased by 18%! In fact, communications judged as relevant and useful can create lasting customer loyalty and drive revenue growth by 10-30%.

Challenges of personalised app marketing

But what if your product has a long list of potential user segments?? Take a job site app that caters to a broad userbase in the creative industry – that means the app is going to be used by graphic designers, copywriters, strategists, art directors and more. Creating a campaign for each segment will mean that everyone will feel great about the marketing they receive, but it’s a lot of work to set up, monitor and iterate on them.

How to solve them

The answer is to find commonalities between your segmented groups.

In the example above, users might have one of hundreds of jobs, but they’re all likely to fall into either looking for full-time work, part-time work or freelance work. This means you can set up a campaign on this basis (“Four must-have resources for creative freelancers” etc), drastically reducing the time required.

To make this a reality, your data needs to be organised in a way that makes this possible. That means identifying as many customer attributes as possible, in order to provide yourself with multiple campaign options.

How to set up personalised app marketing campaigns

Ensure you’ve got data fluidity

We’ve already covered data from a lot of different sources. You’ve got user attributes, event data, product data and perhaps even external data, such as weather or local services. In order to use it all effectively, this needs to be centralised using your product analytics tool and fed to your CRM tool for execution.

By doing that, you’ll be able to get a good overview of your users and start to draw conclusions regarding how they should be segmented.

For example, in our previous job board use case, is it worthwhile to segment users based on their age? Possibly, as it might affect the kind of roles they go for. Does it make sense to segment them based on what operating system they use? Probably not.

Make sure your data is relevant

How often you refresh the data you have depends on the type of communication you want to send. An abandoned cart email is only of interest to a shopper for a few hours after they browse. The fact that someone watched a particular show is probably useful for a maximum of seven weeks after the event. Your time period will depend on your app vertical and your users’ behaviour.

Map out your app lifecycle

Generally, this will follow Activated user -> Engaged user -> Monetised user -> Retained user. Turning an Activated user into a retained user is the goal of each app marketer as it ensures sustainable growth. Once you’ve mapped and defined each of those users for your app specifically, you can start to understand what your user cares about, what data is relevant to that stage, and how it can be used to move them toward the next stage.

For instance, if an engaged user has viewed three different items over 14 days, those products can be used as dynamic content in an email to push the user to convert.

Activity levels also matter. You might notice that activated users use the app less frequently than monetised users, so you need to bear that in mind when you’re deciding on the frequency of your communications – a ‘light’ user is likely to feel harassed rather than loved if you contact them too often.

Design your campaigns

Now comes the chance to design your multichannel campaigns, based on the way you’ve segmented your users and the dynamic data available to personalise your messaging.

As with all experiments, you should start with a hypothesis – “Love Island fans are more likely to subscribe to an ad-free subscription when a new series starts streaming” – in order to maintain your focus on the validity of that assumption. From there, you can iterate to produce a stellar mobile app marketing campaign that pushes users through your sales funnel effectively.

Steps to app marketing personalisation

Source: Yodel Mobile

Conclusion

We’re living in a data-rich world, and businesses have access to more knowledge than ever before regarding their customers. However, this is only useful if it’s managed in the right way – overwhelming amounts of unorganised data is just noise. This makes perhaps the most important step in personalised app marketing that of ensuring data fluidity. Harness the knowledge you have about your customers, and the potential for truly individualised messaging is endless.

The post Maximizing your app’s potential with personalized marketing: The why, what, and how appeared first on Business of Apps.

RTB, or real-time bidding, is one of the best instruments for optimizing your digital advertising campaigns. It is an effective tool that benefits both advertisers and publishers — however, it often comes with the cost of driving poorly-converting, low-quality traffic.

Adsterra, an experienced and well-established global ad network, is aiming to challenge this notion and bring high-quality traffic to RTB. Let’s take a look at how we do this and why and how you can benefit from it.

Who can benefit from premium traffic reselling?

Why change something that isn’t broken, you may ask? After all, RTB is already pretty effective and brings substantial profits to all who use it. However, we decided to take it one step further to help boost publishers and advertisers’ campaigns by serving unique, high-quality traffic.

Although unique and clean traffic can benefit anyone, here are the types of platforms that can get the most out of working with Adsterra’s RTB service:

• Networks with typically niche traffic that are looking for high-quality ads in the streaming, entertainment, video, software, and iGaming verticals
• Platforms who are looking for an intelligent DSP solution that can deliver high payouts
• Ad networks that send high volumes of pop-under traffic from direct publishers
• Networks that have thousands, if not millions, of undemanded impressions from direct publishers
• SSP platforms that want to get higher payouts for the traffic they’re sending

Adsterra has one of the highest CPM rates on the market, with social traffic for niche ads reaching up to $55 per 1K impressions. Our unique approach to RTB lets website owners monetize up to 100% of their traffic and provides advertisers with a cost-effective way to reach billions of users.

How does Adsterra’s RTB platform work?

Adsterra’s real-time bidding platform is designed to:

• Match campaigns with their targeted users with 20+ targeting settings
• Provide a truly global ad coverage in 248 GEOs
• Provide high payouts for any tier traffic from 1M daily

Unlike many other RTB platforms, Adsterra’s platform doesn’t serve their users “scraps”, instead, it sorts through the impressions and clicks, leaving only the high-quality ones. We use a combination of AI algorithms and manual checking to fight low-converting and bot/proxy traffic.

How does Adsterra match ads with user traffic?

Adsterra uses unique in-house algorithms to make sure that ads will be relevant to end users in order to maximize their conversion rate. Our aim is to balance out the cost-reward for both advertisers and publishers, providing the maximum possible payout for each specific traffic slice in any given GEO.

Now, let’s take a look at an example of how an SSP network might interact with Adsterra’s RTB service.

Adsterra acts as a fully-fledged demand-side platform (DSP) that accepts traffic from supply-side platforms (SSP). This is done via endpoints, which are put on the servers of our SSP partners. The endpoint, provided either as an API or integrated manually, is typically installed relatively quickly. Once that’s done, Adsterra’s RTB starts working its magic.

How Adsterra’s RTB platform works

Click on image for full size

Source: Adsterra

• The first step begins before the user loads onto the website of a publisher. Before they see its contents, their data already gets transferred to a publisher’s ad network.
• The SSP platform then routes that data over to Adsterra, sending out a bid request.
• Adsterra’s DSP processes the request and uses 20+ parameters to find the best ads for that particular user.
• After that, the auction for this user’s ad view begins. It is held on the SSP’s side and awards the bid to the highest… well, bidder, which means their ad will be shown to the user.

This whole process only takes a fraction of a second.

Final thoughts

At Adsterra, we are always looking for new partners to join our platform and become new SSP traffic providers. Here are some bonus benefits you can get for joining Adsterra:

• A dedicated manager that will guide you through every step of the onboarding process and will be available to give advice at all times
• Thorough and detailed stats
• Automated weekly withdrawals
• High demand from CPM, CPC, and CPA campaigns

If you want to boost your campaigns or elevate your network to a new level, join Adsterra’s RTB platform here.

The post RTB and premium traffic reselling: Who can benefit and how appeared first on Business of Apps.

The digital advertising sector, like virtually every other industry in Europe currently, is experiencing vast changes. From the deprecation of third-party cookies by some major browsers to the changes in consumer behaviour that characterize our post-pandemic world, advertisers and brands are being forced to adopt an agile, adaptable approach to reach their audiences.

At the recent Virtual Programmatic Day event hosted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, a panel of experts in programmatic advertising, including the head of Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) Business Development, discussed the past year, and shared their thoughts on the shape that they believe digital advertising will take in 2023.

All agreed that 2022 had been a rollercoaster. Starting with optimism as workplaces re-opened, the preoccupation of advertisers then was about reaching consumers once again in an office environment. What became clear very quickly, however, was that the hybrid approach was here to stay and instead of reverting to using one or two devices, consumers could be found on multiple devices and in multiple places.

“Users now are spread within smart scenarios not just on different devices but across multiple channels, too,” said a panellist from Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads). “The user churn rate of a single platform is too high, and we know that users are more likely to buy a product if they have been impacted on several channels. At Huawei, we have adapted our offer to incorporate personalized ads not just on laptops or tablets but on smartwatches or audio devices, and within news feeds or on the Assistant or Search pages for example. This allows advertisers to reach users in micro-moments and reinforce their engagement during their daily digital life.”

Trends in measurement and personalization

The IAB panel acknowledged that the challenges of ‘cookie-less environments’ together with the current economic climate had caused advertisers uncertainty. What emerged over the past year, however, was a greater focus on measurement and metrics, a trend they see extending into 2023. While one expert felt that there was no longer a single view of the customer, all agreed that the way forward for brands was relevant, contextual ads that would automatically be more personalized.

Following a year of change, the panel felt there was more to come in the year ahead, but that brands were better prepared. One panel member pointed out that because of economic and technology flux brands had developed an appetite for a more holistic approach.

“We must move away from the notion of third-party data and get used to working with consent platforms that instead give us user-aggregated data and offer more holistic options to advertisers and brands,” the head of Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) commented.

An example of this is the Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) platform. It is now one of the main drivers of advertising client growth and will become more relevant to brands and advertisers in 2023. It is powered by both third-party and first-party data that supports three forms of advertising (AppGallery, Display and Search Ads) and covers the entire Huawei user funnel.

Huawei has increased the number of advertisers it is working with by nine times in the past two years because of the platform’s ability to deliver innovative ad experiences. The Huawei panellist said: “Users demand new experiences on the devices they are using every day in their digital lives, and this affects how advertising is received. We can offer image recognition that enables real-time item search and shopping; we use augmented and virtual reality together with Internet of Things hardware to devise new ways to display ads; and we even provide voice recognition and smart translations to improve online shopping experiences.”

Sustainability will drive change

In the new year, Huawei advertising partners will benefit from the company’s ability to retain users through deep, multi-touchpoint interactions across all smart devices and localization services, but the company recognizes that sustainability, which was an area highlighted by the IAB panel, also matters greatly to its advertising partners.

Huawei believes technology can contribute to a better, more sustainable world. We are facing changes on the supplier side (traffic side) to technologies such as header bidding, which reduces latency and improves the efficiency of platforms, websites, and apps. 5G will also improve data exchange and latency which again will improve sustainability. Moving forward, 5G will become essential to the value proposition and the sustainability credentials of any digital advertising platform.

Sustainability emerged as one of the priorities in an IAB poll which took place among the organization’s members following the panel session. When asked what the main priority for the programmatic industry would be in 2023, the option ‘solutions for third-party cookies’ was selected by 29% of the audience and ‘emerging channels’ by 20% but ‘sustainability’ was the choice for 13% of those that voted.

How to move the needle in 2023

As the IAB panel discussion found, there are many challenges for advertisers and brands when it comes to reaching and engaging with customers. Selling services and products online means competing not just with other brands in their own domestic markets, but internationally too, and this has had an impact on the user acquisition cost. The preference for using multiple devices and channels is creating churn, which introduces problems with increasing user retention, and it is harder than ever to create long-term, successful partnerships.

For Huawei, these challenges are seen as an opportunity for innovation. The company is present in more than 170 countries, and it has efficient ways to reach users, particularly in Europe. Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) not only serves multiple devices and multiple channels as explained above, but it incorporates Huawei’s app store, AppGallery and the display network, plus Huawei’s own search engine Petal Search. By using the vast ecosystem behind the Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) platform and the support packages that Huawei puts in place, advertisers are reducing the loss of users by 10%.

By aggregating data from all the traffic that Huawei generates through its platform, devices, and IoT-connected ecosystem, Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) is set up to deliver huge efficiencies and lower the cost of media buying for advertising partners in the year ahead. This is why from its launch outside China in 2020 more than 2000 advertisers in more than 200 different industries have joined the platform which has also attracted 360,000 publishers.

Huawei set out to differentiate the Petal Ads (formerly HUAWEI Ads) platform from others and the results it is achieving for advertisers speak volumes. In an uncertain world with economic challenges ahead in 2023, it looks set to be the partner of choice for advertisers and brands who want to reach a mass audience on whatever device they are using with the most relevant and personalized ad experience.

The post Industry experts predict these top trends will shape digital advertising in 2023 appeared first on Business of Apps.

To maximize their revenue through unique, brand demand, two prominent mobile app developers added PubMatic’s OpenWrap unified auction solution to their monetization stack. It was easily integrated into their current mediation layer through the OpenWrap SDK Interoperability solution.​

This post was first published on pubmatic.com.

The story behind the success

With the need for incremental revenues, mobile app publishers are increasingly looking for partners that can bring them quality brand budgets. Such demand not only diversifies yield compared to performance demand but also helps retention by not prioritizing pushing consumers out of their current app experiences. In-app bidding solutions optimally deliver these results by helping maximize revenue, operational efficiency and user experience.

The solution: PubMatic’s OpenWrap SDK Interoperability

To deliver revenue through unique brand demand, two prominent mobile app developers added OpenWrap to their monetization stack, easily integrating it into their current mediation layer through the OpenWrap SDK Interoperability solution.

As a result, both publishers saw strong revenue and eCPM benefits across ad formats: rewarded video, interstitial and banner. In banner specifically, the publishers experienced triple-digit percentage jumps in eCPM compared to eCPM they received from their popular mediation solution.

Check out our free App Monetization Playbook today and learn how to put innovative technology solutions to work for you.

In a nutshell

Click on image for full size

Source: PubMatic

The post How these app developers increased eCPM 575% appeared first on Business of Apps.

The concept of crowd anonymity is becoming much more relevant in the 4.0 version of SKAdNetwork—but why is it so important? What factors define the level of anonymity of a conversion?

In this article, we clarify all the latest updates regarding crowd anonymity in SKAdNetwork, including:

• What is crowd anonymity?
• What’s the role of crowd anonymity in Apple’s SKAdNetwork framework?
• How is crowd anonymity in SKAN 4.0 different from previous versions?
• What are tiers in SKAN 4.0?
• What is the privacy threshold for each tier?

This article was first published on jampp.com.

What is crowd anonymity?

Crowd anonymity is a system that determines the level of privacy assured to an app user based on the number of installs generated in a mobile marketing campaign.

What’s the role of crowd anonymity in Apple’s SKAdNetwork framework?

Earlier this year, Nikhil Varma from Apple’s team explained that “when the install count is low, we take extra steps to protect privacy by limiting the trackable information sent back. As the count scales up and the user’s uniqueness starts to blend into the crowd, we send more data back. Finally, as the count reaches the highest tier, we are able to send the most data back while still preserving privacy.” Simply put, the more installs the campaign generates, the higher the crowd anonymity; and, therefore, the more campaign data you will receive.

How crowd anonymity works

Source: Jampp

How is this different from previous SKAdNetwork versions?

In previous SKAN versions, Apple relied solely on privacy thresholds. If the campaign generated enough installs to meet the privacy threshold, you would get a postback with a conversion value. If the campaign didn’t meet the privacy threshold, you didn’t get a conversion value.

In SKAN 4.0, there are different “levels” of campaign insights that advertisers can receive based on where the campaign stands from a crowd anonymity standpoint. To determine the level of data granularity each postback will get, Apple introduced four different groups or “tiers”.

What are the tiers of crowd anonymity in SKAN 4.0?

In SKAdNetwork 4.0, tiers represent different levels of crowd anonymity based on attribution volume.

There are currently four tiers (Tier 0, Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3). The following image illustrates how tiers work. The stars represent a user’s uniqueness and how poorly or well they blend in with the crowd.

SKAdNetwork 4.0 tiers

Source: Jampp

At the lower end of crowd anonymity, there’s Tier 0. In this case, the install count is low and therefore doesn’t meet the privacy threshold. As a result, you’ll get:

• The source identifier with two digits
• No conversion values in the first postback
• No further postbacks

Tier 1 also sits at the lower end of crowd anonymity, but with enough installs to meet the privacy threshold. In this tier, you’ll get:

• The source identifier with two digits
• The coarse-grained conversion value

At the higher end of crowd anonymity, we find tiers 2 and 3, where user anonymity blends in with the crowd.

In Tier 2, you’ll get:

• The source identifier with two, three, or four digits in the first postback
• The source identifier with two digits in postbacks 2 and 3
• The fine-grained conversion value in the first postback
• The coarse-grained conversion value in postbacks 2 and 3

In Tier 3, you’ll get:

• The source identifier with two, three, or four digits in the first postback
• The source identifier with two digits in postbacks 2 and 3
• The fine-grained conversion value in the first postback
• The coarse-grained conversion value in postbacks 2 and 3
• The source-app-id (for in-app ads) or source-domain (for web-to-app ads)

What is the threshold for each tier?

Apple hasn’t disclosed what are the specific values required to meet the privacy thresholds or to fit a specific tier—and it’s unlikely that this information will be made public. At the moment, Apple has confirmed that the threshold is associated with the count of installs or conversions generated; and that the higher the volume of the campaign, the higher the tier you’ll be classified into.

TL;DR?

Source: Jampp

Get started with SKAdNetwork 4.0

We understand that the latest changes in SKAdNetwork add a new level of complexity to iOS campaigns. At Jampp, we’re working together with our customers to test, iterate, and better leverage these updates. If you want to keep learning about what’s new in SKAdNetwork 4.0, contact us or access more iOS 16 content.

The post What is crowd anonymity in SKAdNetwork 4.0? appeared first on Business of Apps.

It’s been a tough year for the mobile games market, with revenue for Q1 and Q2 2022 down compared to the same period last year. This is the result of a number of different factors, ranging from a tough economic market fuelled by COVID and the cost of living crisis to inflation and IDFA changes.

Apple’s Tracking Transparency policies (ATT), which were introduced in April 2021 and required app and mobile game developers to seek permission from users for their tracking info, have also contributed to a fall in revenue. With many mobile game studios unable to access the same levels of tracking data they rely on for user acquisition and revenue from in-game purchases, iOS revenue fell by 35% between April 2021 and February 2022.

How have mobile game studios responded to falling revenue? By doing what they do best: being creative and adapting. In this case, that means shifting their efforts to leveraging IP from well-known franchises to attract new players and grow their revenue, according to Newzoo’s report on IP-based mobile games.

Out of all the mobile games released in 2021 that made it into the top-100 download chart, Soccer Super Star is the only one not based on an existing franchise (excluding hypercasual games). This demonstrates the overwhelming demand for IP-based mobile games and proves that the mobile game market is full of opportunities for IP holders and licensors.

With that in mind, we wanted to summarise this latest report and explain some key findings that app developers will find interesting.

Leveraging strong IP is one of the most successful ways to boost user acquisition in mobile games

Before we dive into the findings from the report, it’s important to highlight that it only focuses on IP-based mobile games rather than the hundreds of IP-based limited-time collaborations and events that take place in mobile games every month, and the analysis excludes hypercasual games, which naturally attract high downloads. That said, it clearly shows that leveraging strong IP is one of the easiest ways that mobile game developers can boost their user acquisition.

Harry Potter is just one example of a major franchise that’s proven a huge hit with mobile players. Harry Potter: Magic Awakened was the ninth most-downloaded game in 2021, according to NewZoo, with Harry Potter app titles attracting over $1 billion in combined player spending. More impressive is that Harry Potter: Magic Awakened is only available in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. 91% of its revenue comes from China alone, according to Newzoo, highlighting the popularity of Western IP overseas.

IP-based mobile games attract higher spenders

The Newzoo report also suggests that IP is “an effective tool for publishers and developers to attract higher spenders in mobile games”. Big spenders, players who spend more than $25 per month on mobile games, are 2.84 times more likely to download a game based on an IP universe that they like in comparison to small spenders (players who spend less than $5 per month on mobile games).

The report also asked big, small, and average spenders (players who spend between $5–$25 per month on mobile games) to select the biggest motivations for downloading a new mobile game. Gameplay was a high motivational factor across all three spending demographics, but big spenders rate a game’s good storyline, setting and theme as being the biggest motivational factor for downloading a new game (22%), in comparison to 18% of medium spenders and 18% of small spenders.

While hypercasual games often appear in the top-100 chart, we know that they don’t tend to focus on strong storylines, settings or themes. And as a recent report from Sensor Tower has found that 60% of global player spending in mobile games comes from mid-core games, we suspect that we’ll see plenty more IP-based mobile games popping up in the mid-core market in the future.

Western IP-based mobile games get more downloads but Eastern IP-based games make more revenue

While Western IPs such as Harry Potter, Disney, Marvel and Cartoon Network attract more downloads globally, Eastern IPs generally perform better in terms of revenue. Marvel, Cartoon Network and Disney were the three most popular mobile game franchises by download in 2021, while Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, Marvel and Romance of the Three Kingdoms were the three most-successful franchises by revenue in 2021. And while all ten of the most downloaded franchises were Western, only five Western franchises made it into a top-10 position for global revenue.

As for why certain Western franchises are finding success in Japan and China over others, a lot of this is down to localisation efforts and having the motivational drivers of the target market’s player in mind when these games are being developed from the ground up. As an example, Disney’s top-performing mobile games by revenue, Disney: Twisted Wonderland and LINE: Disney Tsum Tsum, are monetised around gacha mechanics, which are more popular in Japan.

It’s important to note that localisation doesn’t just mean localising a game in the literal sense of translating it for a different market. Developers may and often do make stylistic changes to a game’s art style and characters so it’s more appealing to a new market, especially if the game is launched under a new name (which often happens in China due to the country’s strict game publishing laws).

While the name stayed the same, many of the characters in Mobile Legends: Bang Bang were reskinned in new designs for the game’s release in China; Newzoo highlights ‘market fit’ as one of the key factors determining the success of IP-based mobile games.

Speaking of market fit, app and game developers should always consider preferred playing styles and game genres if they’re considering working with an IP. Character-heavy games such as the two Disney titles mentioned above are a natural fit with gacha mechanics due to the various ways that characters can be monetised with new cosmetic designs, while Eastern audiences tend to be more interested in games with a rich narrative, such as Three Kingdoms, one of the most popular franchises in China based on historical literature.

What makes an IP-based mobile game successful?

Various factors contribute to the success of IP-based mobile games, which the Newzoo report splits into three main criteria. These are:

Market fit

• IP scale: What’s the longevity of your collaboration? If it’s successful, how do you envision the collaboration evolving over time?
• IP relevance for target audience: Will your target audience engage with the IP you’re collaborating with? How will they respond to it?
• Demographic to genre fit: What’s the demographic of your target IP, and is it a good match with your game genre? Blending a horror IP with a survival horror game will work; mixing a children’s IP with a first-person shooter probably won’t (unless you’re Fortnite!)
• Market saturation or competition: Are you creating something original or just rehashing what’s already been done? If your target IP has previously collaborated with a mobile game, what can you do differently?

Game design fit

• Mechanics fit: Do your game mechanics lend themselves to the IP? As an example, Pokemon Go’s AR capture and collectable mechanics are a natural fit with Pokemon.
• Theme fit: How do the themes of your target IP fit with your game? Again, we can look to Pokemon Go here: the franchise’s focus on adventuring and exploration is perfectly reflected in the game.
• Tone fit: Is the tone of your IP reflected in the game? Do they work well together?

Business

• Monetisation: How will you monetise your IP-based game or collaboration? How does the IP lend itself to monetisation opportunities? Can additional characters, worlds and items from the IP be introduced into the game as IAPs?
• Launch: How are you going to build up to the game’s launch? Build a roadmap to launch.
• Marketing and distribution: What marketing channels will you use and which marketing channels does the IP own that can help you promote your partnership?
• Market dynamics: Are you launching your game during a busy calendar? How do your IAP prices compare to other games? What’s the current reception to your target IP like across other mediums?
• Community management: How will you maintain hype post-launch and keep players updated with future updates? Which social platforms will you use, and who’s managing them?
• Retention/LiveOps: How will you address the inevitable drop-off in users after launch with future updates? How will you stagger content releases and how far in advance are you planning?

Market fit involves a lot of research, and app developers and mobile game publishers should work with experts with a wider knowledge of licensing to ensure any IP they’re interested in targeting is the right fit for their game and its audience.

Working with one of the major franchises may be out of your target budget, but there are plenty of franchises that aren’t as recognised as Disney or Marvel but still have global recognition. Just make sure there’s room in the market for the type of licensed app or mobile game you’re developing, and make sure the IP you want to partner with is the right fit for your target audience.

This is where gameplay mechanics come into play, too. Suppose you’re partnering with an IP on the basis of wanting to target younger audiences. In that case, developing a violent first-person shooter doesn’t make much sense, especially if you’re trying to push the game in Japan and China. Leveraging a good IP should provide you with a couple of options regarding gameplay mechanics, including meta elements of your game outside of the core experience.

Depending on the IP you’re licensing, there may be wider opportunities for collaboration with other media from that IP. As an example, if you’re launching a game or app with a well-known manga, has that manga been adapted into a TV series or movie? If so, when was the last release? Are there any upcoming releases or major anniversaries you can jump on? Always be aware of wider marketing opportunities.

There are various ways you can monetise your game or app, ranging from in-app purchases of cosmetic items to subscription-based plans such as battle passes that offer players and users additional content for a set payment every month.

In most cases, LiveOps calendars are one of the biggest opportunities that game and app developers have to monetise. Utilising IP in a limited-time event or collaboration as part of LiveOps is also an excellent way for existing games and apps to experiment with IPs before building a new game or app from scratch.

In the post-IFDA and ATT market, IP-based mobile games and IP collaborations are only going to get more popular. If you’re planning on incorporating an IP into your game, make sure you’ve considered how your game or collaboration meets all of the criteria above.

Once you’ve got an idea of what you can offer to rightsholders, you’ll need to compile all of this information together into a licensing proposal to get IP rights holders excited. You can find more information on how to make a good licensing proposal here, but if you’re still struggling to find the right IP match, you might need a helping hand with our licensing matchmaking platform. We’re more than happy to talk you through that, just get in touch.

The post What mobile developers can learn from Newzoo’s report on IP-based mobile games appeared first on Business of Apps.

“Why?” is the main objection to the statement “you need to start working with a mobile publisher”. It’s time to reveal the truth. In this article, the mobile non-gaming publisher Union Apps uncovers how a mobile app publisher may be useful to your project at different stages of operation and how you can make the most out of your app by working with one.

The benefits of working with a publisher at different stages of your product growth

Your app is at the development stage

If your app hasn’t even passed the soft launch stage yet but already has its prototype, the help of a publisher will surely not be excessive. At this stage, the publisher will:

• Give you money for the development and revision of your project before it is published globally
• Share the main funnel retention benchmarks with you
• Consult you on the current app trends in your category

If your publisher sees huge potential in your product, they may even acquire a part of your development company at the pre-soft launch stage. Since there is a lot of money to be spent on the project, it’s easier to not just invest in the project, but in the entire team right away. Usually, publishers acquire 10-40% of the company’s assets, but the optimal percentage is no more than 20%. In this case, your dev team still has power in the decision-making and you don’t risk losing interest in your product. You could use this money for your product development and the support of your team. This should be enough for 8-12 months.

App development stage

Source: Union Apps

Your app went through the soft launch stage and even started to earn little by little on organic traffic, but hasn’t profited yet

What the publisher can help you with here:

• Initial marketing audit

The publisher will give you recommendations on how exactly to improve your app. They will advise you on increasing your user lifetime value (LTV) and speeding up the payback period. They will also analyze your marketing funnel and confirm how ready your app is for scaling. Additionally, they will help you to create a product strategy and roadmap with user research and a data-driven approach.

• User acquisition testing

There will not be high volumes of paid traffic — yet. However, this amount of traffic will be enough for the publisher to test creative hypotheses for you, try out different traffic sources, and conduct some analysis of the launched ad campaigns. Moreover, in some cases, they build predictive models based on your user acquisition campaigns to define your paid user LTV.

• Product growth strategies invention

Your product already has some aspects to analyze and determine growth points. Mostly, it is something to do with marketing and paid UA. Therefore, the publisher analyzes it properly and invents several growth strategies specifically for your app that will drive your conversions.

Soft launch

Source: Union Apps

You have made a hard launch and already earn on your app

A hard launch stage is the stage of the publishing process in its traditional understanding. This is when a publisher makes improvements (but not ultimate changes) to your product and finds your shortcut to millions of dollars in revenue.

Normally, at this stage, you and your publisher have already tested the waters of figuring out how to work together and managed to get on well. As a full-service provider, a publisher gets inside the development team and grows the product with the developer.

Having started working with a publisher at this stage, the app founders can continue to develop their product conceptually while all the technical routine falls on the publisher’s shoulders. Your app starts to grow dramatically thanks to the publisher’s marketing, ASO, and influencer marketing teams. The publisher also entirely takes over all the marketing processes and the invention of unique product hypotheses for your app. Moreover, they implement their vision and increase user activations along with user retention, so you no longer have to worry about your marketing funnel.

If your app already actively works all over the globe but still does not make sufficient money, then your publisher will be happy to conduct a product audit for you and give you recommendations on how to increase your LTV.

Apart from all of this, the publisher also invests funds in your project for you to keep working freely until reaching the revenue and to recoup their investment many times over.

Hard launch

Source: Union Apps

How much and when exactly will your app earn with a publisher

The question that interests every developer is — “When and how much will I earn from this cooperation?” As always, there is no template, as each case is unique. But on average, you will start earning in 3-12 months, whereas alone, without a publisher, you will achieve such results in 2-6 years.

As for the amounts that the publisher will help you earn, we are talking about seven-digit numbers in dollars. This revenue would guarantee you could pay your team salaries and constantly improve the app. How much exactly you earn depends on the experience and capabilities of your publisher.

The publisher has already taken its lumps and gained an understanding of where and how to develop the product to earn loads of money. This significantly reduces the number of developer errors and unreasonable marketing spending. The publisher understands when and how much to invest in advertising, how to raise marketing metrics at different stages of the project’s life cycle, and which traffic sources are the best for one project or the other.

And remember, your profit is fully dependent on how much you spend on marketing. If you don’t have spare money for marketing and only manage to make ends meet, then this is where your publisher can help you out by giving you money for ad campaigns. But there is a trick you always have to keep in mind: the more you spend now, the later you’ll make a profit.

For example, you have been running user acquisition campaigns by your in-house marketing team, spending $1,000 monthly. The plan is as follows: you acquire paying users with the cost of a monthly app subscription. That is, CPA = $10 and Subscription = $10. This is a risk-free strategy, but it isn’t likely to help you reach a sufficient profit. The money earned wouldn’t even be enough to support your team.

You realize that you want to start making money on your app, and not just maintain its existence. Here comes the publisher. The publishing team calculates that users live in your app for approximately 3 years and their average LTV is over $100. This means you can safely acquire a user for $60, and earn around $40 on him but with a delayed effect.

Growing your app with a publisher

Source: Union Apps

This means that you will earn your first profit from one user after about 7 months: in 6 months the user will be paid off, and in the seventh, you will earn your first $10. And here we aren’t even speaking about the monthly scaling up that your publisher provides you.

Feel the capacity? Typically, dev studios rarely come to such conclusions on their own. They simply don’t have enough expertise in paid user acquisition and an extra budget that can be carelessly spent on advertising without expecting profit this very second.

Summing up

It’s really hard to be successful when you run a mobile subscription-based app. If you succeed, it sometimes may take years. The publisher will make your springboard to cash flow shorter and steeper, whereas your work will become much less hard and “painful”.

There is a huge number of mobile publishers working solely with games. However, there’s a world of difference with non-gaming publishers. There are only a few publishers across the globe that deal with non-gaming applications, one of which is Union Apps. If you are looking for ways to monetize and scale up your subscription-based app, just reach out to us.

The post Boosting your mobile app: do you need a publisher? If so, why? appeared first on Business of Apps.

Last year, Netflix announced the launch of their internal game studios, with several mobile titles already being a part of the services. The media giant bought three gaming studios in Finland, including Next Games for $72 million, and established an internal games studio in Helsinki, making the city its European gaming hub. Marko Lastikka, a recent executive at Zynga who worked for the Farmville franchise, was invited to head the studio.

Netflix strives to take a leading position in the mobile gaming industry, and they chose Helsinki for a reason. According to the company, Helsinki is a mobile development cluster and the heart of the gaming industry with more than 50 active studios on site. Let’s see what makes Finland such a great entry point for the mobile gaming market, both developers and publishers.

Finland is the fastest-growing market in the global gaming industry

The Finnish gaming industry has deep historical roots. The first game developers appeared here back in the 70s and 80s. Major studios have been opening since the 1990s, including big names like Remedy (Alan Wake, Control) and Housemarque (Returnal, Nex Machina).

Today, the Finnish gaming market is considered one of the fastest-growing in the world, increasing by a whopping 9% in 2020. Offices of the biggest gaming studios in the West are located here, among them Rovio (AngryBirds), Supercell (Clash of Clans), and Seriously Digital Entertainment (Best Friends). Finland is the home of several iconic titles, like Remedy’s Max Payne, Housemarque’s Supreme Snowboarding, and Sulake’s Hotel Goldfish (later Habbo Hotel).

Here are some stats to drive the point home:

• From 2010 to 2022, the Finnish market’s CAGR was 37%.
• In 2021, net sales volume exceeded 3 billion euros.
• 2020 brought more than €500mn in profit for the market.

What contributes to this growth? There is a range of factors that made the sustainable development of the gaming industry in Finland possible over the decades:

The Finnish Government actively supports the industry.

The Finnish government promotes the industry’s growth by sponsoring startups and small game studios. Programs like Entertainment Finland and TEMPO were introduced to help the Finnish gaming industry grow by €50 mln in 2020 despite the worldwide pandemic.

The Finnish game dev market is highly concentrated and diversified:

• There are 260 game dev studios in Finland today, with an annual turnover of 2 billion euros in 2020.
• The development studios are based in several cities like Tampere and Oulu, with Helsinki being the largest gaming cluster in Finland.

Support for the game dev industry by the state forms a healthy infrastructure for sustainable business growth. Gaming is the highest profitable industry in Finland that brings taxes like no other: in 2021, the income tax of the mobile game developer Supercell alone amounted to 153 million euros. The company became the largest corporate taxpayer in the country. As a result, Finland is the country with the highest gaming industry income per capita.

Mobile app development is the focus

Since the release of the App Store in 2009, Finland has been focusing on supporting and investing in app development startups. Mobile game dev has been on the radar for a while since then, and for a good reason: the development costs for a smartphone title are ten times lower compared to an AAA title, but the revenue generated is much higher.

The Finnish mobile game dev market is booming. This growth is driven by a number of factors, including the continued success of top gaming companies, and the increase in the number of startups founded in Finland (over 40% of the Finnish gaming industry). It is easier for small mobile game studios to find investors for product development. Compared to PC or console, mobile games could be made and launched quickly with relatively fast development cycles, low development costs, and reasonable marketing budgets.

Finland already has some top names

Finland may not be the first country that comes to mind when you think about gaming, even though the local developers have proven their talent: the Finnish minds behind the Angry Birds have hooked millions of users worldwide, spawning several games, animated feature films, and becoming a full-blown pop-culture phenomenon.

Other titles like Badland, FlatOut, Legend of Grimrock, Lucius, Outland, Stardust, Snake, and Clash of Clans are also well-known on the market and generator a well-deserved buzz (and revenue).

Finland is also the birthplace of the mobile brand Nokia which had a significant impact on the development of the global mobile device market. Back in the late 1990s, Nokia was the first to release a mobile game on its devices — Snake. Talk about an industry benchmark!

Finland is the country with the highest density of mobile devices and active mobile internet usage

Around 98% of gaming content in Finland is produced for export. That’s because the local market is relatively small, even though it is still attractive for testing and launching new gaming products. 97% of Finns are internet users, and 90.58% use mobile internet daily.

Mobile gaming audience in Finland

Source: Zorka.Agency

More importantly, more than half of the country’s population (2.8 mln) regularly plays mobile games, with 69% of players making in-game purchases. All this makes for a quickly reachable and perfectly engaged mobile game test audience.

Finland is a European cluster for mobile gaming

The restrictions caused by Covid-19 accelerated the gaming industry’s growth. However, even after the pandemic, the gaming market and the number of players continue to grow. This is driven by the following factors:

• Development of online services and innovations in the hybrid monetization field
• The transition of console and PC games to mobile devices
• Development of more immersive and complex mobile titles
• The lower acquisition cost of a mobile player compared to a PC one, etc.

Finland finds itself in an even better position. Gaming and app development industries here are booming:

• A high density of mobile devices per capita allows for the testing of products on a smaller user base with better performance results.
• High activity of users, who actively make in-game purchases and play franchise-based video games
• The steady growth of the gaming audience with quicker adoption rates of new titles

The Finnish mobile gaming market is the perfect place for game studios with a welcoming government, a developed market, and an audience with high purchasing power. It offers a great platform for testing mobile games and the latest game development technologies.

With this in mind, Netflix’s choice of Finland as its mobile games development hub is not surprising. The question is, what are you waiting for?

The post What makes the mobile gaming industry in Finland as attractive as never before appeared first on Business of Apps.

The way we play video games is constantly changing. Writing lines of code to play Commodore 64 games and blowing into NES or Mega Drive cartridges are concepts that now sound alien to an entire generation of gamers.

Video game developers have had to evolve and adapt as they keep up with new trends and technologies, whether that’s the growing popularity of mobile games and digital content or developing software for the latest hardware.

As someone who grew up with a love for video games, moving into the industry from a student to a developer seemed like a natural progression. 20 years ago, we founded the game development studio, Nordcurrent with my husband Michail and his brother Sergej. Over the years, we’ve developed and published games on the Gameboy Advance, PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii and mobile devices, some of which have become major franchises and gone on to sell millions of copies.

As you might expect, we’ve picked up plenty of lessons and learnings from watching the video game industry evolve over the last 20 years. We’ve had to adapt and stay on top of the latest trends to remain competitive, but more importantly, make great games that resonate with players.

The transition from physical to digital

One of the biggest changes we’ve seen in the industry is the move away from physical game formats to digital.

With the exception of gaming mobiles such as Nokia’s N-GAGE (RIP), mobile games have always been digital and purchased or downloaded from app stores. The mobile industry continued to pursue distribution while Console owners picked up the latest games or pre-owned copies from gaming stores or online retailers. At the same time, digital distribution services such as Steam were growing in popularity for PC players.

The console market eventually caught up. Digital marketplaces such as Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network Store started to take off.

At the same time, the rise of smartphones presented an opportunity for developers to enter a brand-new market on an even playing field. The potential success of games on digital platforms was unknown, but unlike previous generations, the barriers to entry were removed. It was an exciting period that we knew we had to capitalise on.

Before this transition, Nordcurrent and many other developers felt that breaking into the market was always extremely difficult. For a game to make an impact, there needed to be a huge amount of resources backing it, or it had to be a well-known property to capture the attention of publishers and make it into the market.

With these requirements removed, the move from physical to digital disrupted the industry, allowing games to take on new, ambitious, and inventive ideas.

I remember the move to digital with fond memories and recall how straightforward the digital market was compared to competing in the console space. Typically, games could be distributed without complications. Developers had two options: free-to-play or pay-to-play; Free-to-play games would include ads, and pay-to-play games would not.

Nowadays, the digital market is more convoluted as there are greater barriers to entry. Unlike when the transition from physical to digital happened, developers must now adhere to previous market expectations and have a budget for the following sections for their game to be successful:

• User acquisition
• Marketing
• In-game analytics

The rise of mobile games

Mobile games have become a significant part of the video game industry and account for more than half of global gaming revenue. Their popularity continues to skyrocket as the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo grow their presence in the mobile game market. The various monetisation channels available through mobile games make them easier to monetise than most PC and console games.

Originating in the mid-90s, mobile games were primarily seen as a way to entertain people on the go. Now they’re an essential part of the gaming ecosystem, with more people playing them than console games. The rise of mobile games is not just due to the convenience of playing them on your phone but also because they are cheaper, more accessible, and offer a greater variety of gameplay compared to PC and console titles.

Our first major success on mobile was 101 Games, a title we ported from Nintendo DS and Wii – although we did make some changes to make the game more suitable for a mobile audience.

This mainly involved adapting the game to cater for the needs of casual gamers who could pick up the game and enjoy it without an experienced gaming background. The simple and engaging gameplay ensured that a wide variety of audiences could participate and play the title. The success of 101 games inspired us to pursue the development of other casual games, which led to the invention of the time-management cooking sim Cooking Fever, which has now surpassed over 450 million downloads.

Evolution of gaming audiences

Although there’s still a misconception amongst some gamers that mobile games aren’t ‘proper games’ (the growing rise of mid-core titles from major publishers begs to differ), mobile games are a very important part of the industry. If we look at the market, almost all of the successful companies in the gaming industry make mobile games, and the gaming industry is now more inclusive and accessible than ever as a result.

The success of many mobile games can be attributed to the fact that they resonate with a large demographic of players that consider themselves gamers but don’t have hours to sink into console or PC games. Many mobile gamers want something casual to enjoy that they can play in their downtime to relax and take with them wherever they go.

If we look at Cooking Fever as an example, players by age are similarly split between groups of 18-24, 25-45 and 45+, and female players comprise around 70%.

Importance of LiveOps for successful mobile games

Gaming is now a service-based industry. Video games today are not just played; they are experienced. In the past, video games were mainly about gameplay and graphics, but now there’s a growing demand for new content to be added to a game after its release, often known as LiveOps.

This has also led to new ways of monetizing games, as new content is made available through in-app purchases, which often make up the bulk of revenue for mobile games. Players’ expectations have shifted, too; there is a greater demand for developers to create new content to keep the players engaged, whether new characters, levels, story missions or items.

We often compare the gaming experience to the film industry: users are actively awaiting the launch of a new update on the game, so they can quickly consume the content within the first week and then await further content updates.

Now, we’re much more proactive in our content approach as we understand there’s a need to continuously provide users with additional content that is engaging and provides great value.

This is a move away from our traditional development cycle pre-mobile, which was very front-loaded, and the games would include the full spectrum of content attached. Now, the development team is constantly analysing the game’s success and seeking new opportunities to improve the game. This is no longer something that happens in mobile but also in console and PC games.

Ultimately, mobile games and apps have been at the forefront of this change, and a lot of the adaptations made to AAA console/PC games post-launch have been taken from lessons in the mobile market, whether that’s battle passes, in-game collaborations or unique events.

The prominence of collaborations and influencer marketing in video games

Often, it isn’t enough just to make a great video game. That video game needs advertising and promotion to find the right audiences, and influencer marketing and collaborations are now an essential part of advertising strategies for many mobile game companies.

Influencers can also provide mobile game companies with a way to reach new audiences. But when I’m talking about influencers, I don’t just mean traditional influencers with massive followings on social media platforms – we are also the community of our games.

Beyond the traditional social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, audiences of video games traditionally keep the game alive through community discussions, whether on Reddit or Discord.

One of the vital lessons we’ve learned in our time as game developers is to support and engage with the communities around your titles. The insight they provide is an opportunity to understand how your games are performing and what, if any, changes need to be made to keep them happy.

We consider the players of our games experts within their fields as they can pragmatically suggest updates, features, and collaborations, which are directly sent to the development team for feedback. This collaborative approach is essential to our approach moving forward as a studio.

In addition to looking to influencers and our community to improve our games, we’ve also embraced collaborations with other brands in recent years to grow the reach and appeal of our titles. This has involved partnerships with global brands, including Coca-Cola, Hard Rock Cafe, and FC Barcelona.

The mobile game market is known for utilising branded collaborations in its LiveOps, and we believe we’ll only see more collaborations as brands look to grow their presence in gaming spaces into the future.

What’s next for Nordcurrent

After 20 years, we’re still operating as a family-owned business based in Vilnius and have now published over 50 games for various platforms. Our notable success is Cooking Fever, which has led to dozens of cloned games and a whole sub-genre of cooking games. With two studios in Ukraine, and a new one in Warsaw to help employees affected by the war, we now have over 250 employees and will continue to grow our team as part of our mission to create amazing games that are enjoyable for all.

Nordcurrent creates games loved by millions. To learn more about our games or join our team’s mission to make the best games in the world, visit our website nordcurrent.com.

The post Lessons and learnings from over 20 years of video game development appeared first on Business of Apps.

It doesn’t matter what kind of product you develop or what the success criteria are. For some, the latter might be to figure out the unit economics. For others, they are to create a strong user community with a high retention rate. In any case, it’s important to understand whether you’re going in the right direction and what steps to take at different stages.

This guide is designed to help analyze app metrics. It will give you a clear insight of how to measure the success of customer acquisition and monetization by the AARRR framework (also called pirate metrics). It was prepared on the basis of our home workout planner app HitFit.

The AARRR framework

Source: Aiby

We match the metrics we need to analyze with appropriate funnel phases to understand what the focus should be.

Acquisition

This metric is the primary interest of marketing specialists, but there’s something product developers can learn from it too:

• Ad CTR – As the marketing team tests different ad concepts, there’s a great opportunity to understand what a product lacks and what the users are interested in based on the CTR.
• Store conversion – Look at the first promo screenshots in the store. Change the positions of the screenshots with different features to figure out which combination performs better. Monitor your competitors’ screenshots also.

Activation

Onboarding

Find the moment the users abandon the onboarding. It often indicates areas where they are experiencing problems. Perhaps you ask unnecessary or incorrect questions? For example, in fitness apps, it’s better to ask about target areas rather than problem zones. Remember that onboarding results should not be measured in terms of what % of the users finish it. Look at the conversion to purchase or activation in the first target action.

Build the user onboarding

You can do it with the help of Amplitude or Mixpanel. Pay attention to the steps the users take after the first target action. This is an excellent signpost for working on the features aimed at improving retention. In our product, we relied on the user actions after purchasing to understand whether we should have worked with a workout (activation) right then, or whether there were any bottlenecks.

Here’s an example:

Source: Aiby

In the first block, write 100 as the number of users. And then, also write the number of users in each branch. So, with the help of division, it’s possible to calculate the conversion percentage immediately.

Retention

Find and analyze your core feature—the one that keeps the users coming back to the app. This is neither a base feature nor a wow/a-ha/satisfier one. This feature should have a high level of both activation and retention. Otherwise, the high-retention feature you bet on might be only relevant to a small group of the most loyal users. In our fitness app, we identified the content that activates and retains the user best and are constantly working on it.

“Onboarding screens are one of the best places for A/B testing. Display a small feature demo on the onboarding screen and let the user interact with your product. If a feature is complex or takes a lot of time, it’s better to try other ways to communicate value. For example, giving a choice of favourite artists in a music app is a good practice. But forcing the user to complete a workout is not,” explained Dima Khritankov, VP of Product at AIBY Group.

To maintain interest, reward the user for the actions taken:

• Don’t give the game away at once. A good example of getting trophies is PlayStation or Xbox games, where the reward description exists but is hidden.
• Immediately involve the user in a series of actions, similar to the challenges in Apple Fitness+.
• Reward the user unexpectedly. But don’t make it an achievement system. Otherwise, the users who want to earn all the achievements will hate you because they won’t know what to do.

Create rewards according to the user’s value:

• Social rewards. These could be likes, views, and reactions.
• Hunting-gathering rewards. Here we can give out gems that open secret levels or puzzles by collecting which the user can reveal hidden knowledge.
• Personal rewards. They celebrate skills, competence, or a completed action. Use certificates and medals in this case.

“After the user gets a dopamine dose and expects the next reward, ask them to invest in your product. The investment usually takes the form of asking to provide a combination of time, data, extra effort, social capital, or money. The investments should make the user experience more interesting and valuable,” added Dima Khritankov.

Revenue

Revenue is in last place in the classic AARRR framework. But for most businesses, it seems more logical to place it above Referral. This step allows you to understand whether your efforts are bringing in a proper income. For a business model to work well, increase the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or LTV) and decrease the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). A good LTV to CAC ratio should be at least 20%. The formula is (LTV-CAC)/CAC)*100%.

Using the subscription-based app monetization model on the Revenue step, pay attention to the following metrics:

• Subscription conversion rate – the higher the conversion, the cheaper the CAC is, and the more revenue we get.
• Subscription retention – if you offer a free trial subscription, it’s important to keep an eye on the trial conversion → first payment. Nothing shows how much the users like your product better than their willingness to pay after the trial period.

Referral

Referral is the act of turning your users into your ambassadors and, at the same time, it’s an amazing opportunity for the product to grow almost for free. Track of NPS to measure product satisfaction and the desire to share the product.

A Viral coefficient is another noteworthy metric. It is an indicator that shows the average number of users attracted to the app by one person. Not all products are viral; for example, messengers aren’t. But for almost every app, you can develop the means for product sharing:

• Refer a friend and get N days of Premium for free
• Gift certificates for your product
• Add watermarks with the app logo and name when the user shares images

Track referrals by using special links or “How did you find out about us” questions on the onboarding screen. The viral coefficient of two means that one person brings in 2 more users. To have exclusively organic growth, the viral coefficient must be higher than 1. In general, any referral program will help the product grow. App Store and Google Play reviews also can be considered referral metrics.

After the work is done, you will have a more thorough product knowledge. Put the insights and weaknesses you have found in the AARRR funnel again and answer the question of what you want to take on first. Focus on one area of ​​the metric at a time. Of course, sometimes you need everything at once. In that case, make releases with different sets of metrics (for example, install-trial in one, trial-paid in another, and retention in the third).

The post How to analyze mobile app metrics with the AARRR framework appeared first on Business of Apps.

From education to pure entertainment, Schell Games’ goal has always been to provide interactive VR experiences that can appeal to every audience. And as the company prepared to release I Expect You to Die 2 in 2021, the marketing team knew it needed to execute a strategy that directly reflected that mission. 

Schell Games set its sights on social media content creators to generate awareness and build hype for its latest release. With a budget of $50,000, the team set four ambitious KPIs for its influencer marketing campaign:

• A CPE of less than $1.00
• Over 1 million impressions
• Over 1 million creator video views
• Work with at least 30 creators

A winning campaign executed in 3 phases

Schell Games planned its campaign in three phases from June to December 2021.

The “pre-launch phase” focused on building brand awareness and leveraged content creators to demonstrate gameplay from the original game and generate buzz for the upcoming sequel. Schell Games measured success during this phase based on video engagements and audience sentiment.