Olivier Bernard, VP EMEA-Russia of App Annie, outlines how to make the most out of your mobile ad spend and ensure your business app is a success
In the ever-changing and competitive world of mobile aps, small and large companies are finding it challenging to manage the cost of marketing and advertising budgets. App store data, advertising analytics and keyword optimisation tools can all help an app marketer understand how an app is doing in terms of revenue and download, ad spend and allocation, and where their app is appearing in search results. Once they have these metrics in-hand, and also understand how their app compares to that of competitors, they can determine where to invest in order to accelerate the app’s performance.
Below are four tips that will help you get the most out of your precious mobile ad spend:
Plan ahead
Launching an app requires months of planning. It is important to do your due diligence; competitor analysis, keyword analysis, organise PR outreach and above all, determine your marketing strategy and paid ads budget.
If your app is available internationally, be sure to gather insight into which are the best app stores for each country and consider entering less crowded marketplaces in emerging markets. By looking beyond the traditional app stores and less mature markets you’ll improve the chance of your app getting noticed, therefore improving the likelihood that its usage will eventually become more widespread.
Become an ASO expert
Making good use of App Store Optimisation (ASO) is the key to promoting an app successfully and getting it noticed. ASO tools help identify where your app ranks in an app store based on the keywords/terms users use to find you, as well as identify keywords used by your competitors.
Remember to also keep track of branded keywords too – the search words or phrases that include the name of the app or a variation of it – and the ones related to your app. While the former enables you to look at your app name’s strength, the latter will help you to acquire new users.
Engage with paid ads
To acquire more app users in a fragmented app economy, more often than not, a paid mobile advertising campaign will be necessary. However, spending money on ads will not automatically yield new users. Careful planning is required, as is continual monitoring of the campaign to ensure the ads being placed are having an impact and delivering ROI.
Unfortunately many mobile advertisers make mistakes when it comes to assessing a campaign’s success by looking at how much it costs to acquire each new user using Cost Per Install (CPI) or Cost Per Action (CPA). Also, many rely on assumptions about which kind of campaign or targets will work for their app, rather than testing what campaign types will actually generate a significant ROI.
The effectiveness of a campaign should really be judged on how much value the user will bring in the future through Return On Ad Spend (ROAS). Monitoring campaign ROAS, Lifetime Value (LTV) and Daily Active Users (DAU), as well as retention rates, is much more valuable than focusing on revenue alone because, at the very least, it’s a predictive metric that helps measure the true success of your app. Measuring LTV also helps marketers know where to concentrate and maximise their marketing spend. This helps avoid wasting time and money chasing after customers who won’t stick and instead allows you to focus on keeping loyal users.
Manage advertising analytics in one place
As many marketers will know, there is a vast amount of information that needs to be collected to evaluate the progress and success of an app’s marketing campaign. Many publishers will have a person dedicated to this task who will spend hours collating this information from various different sources into a giant spreadsheet. Given the importance of the task, and the time it takes to complete, it is wise to invest in an analytics tool, which will consolidate the information from various sources automatically into one easy-to-read dashboard. Tools like this will not only save time but improve your understanding of user values and customer attribution models, helping direct which markets to pursue, platforms to prioritise, and other critical strategic decisions to make.
The online services above, such as keyword optimisation and advertising analytics tools, can help you make better marketing decisions and ultimately make your app visible to more customers. By planning, monitoring and continuously evaluating your campaign, will ensure your app is a success.
