5 Best Practices for Apple Search Ads
Posted on July 3rd, 2024
Are you leveraging Apple Search Ads the right way? Take a look at these recommendations to optimize your paid campaigns and target the right users.
Mobile User Acquisition - New Channels for Acquiring Mobile Users
January 31st, 2015
by Anh Nguyen
COO & Co-Founder at Gummicube, Inc
Clash of Clans and Boom Beach have TV commercials. Candy Crush has tv ads and outdoor ads.
A feature length movie can’t be far off - right?
Mobile User Acquisition in 2015
Between banner ads or interstitials in other mobile apps, and Hollywood blockbusters is an undeveloped mobile user acquisition opportunity that will serve as a huge competitive advantage for creative mobile app marketers in 2015.
Consider the
average cost per install in 2013
was around $1.60 according to Chartboost, and just under $1 per Fiksu. Each is measuring data through their networks - but both show same trend. Chartboost primarily focuses on gaming app advertising and publishers - driving their #s a bit higher. The standard ad was an interstitial ad promoting a mobile game in other mobile apps.
In 2014
, the Chartboost shows a 50% increase in CPI, Fiksu shows 33% increase.
What happened?
Why is CPI increasing so much?
- More competition at the top
- Mobile is extremely under-represented in global ad spend compared to usage
Mobile
Video ads started to be used by top brands and adopted in mobile apps as smart monetization strategy. 2014 was the year Facebook ads became an effective channel for mobile user installs, and the top mobile brands (King and Supercell) started to invest heavily in traditional advertising .
So what about 2015?
Already in 2015 we have our 1st viral hit due to an insanely famous YouTube personality - PewDiePie and the app Crossy Road. Holey smokes - have you seen PewDiePie? It is an animated guy (a real guy who is energetic, not a cartoon), playing video games. And he has more subscribers than the #1 Comedy in the US - Big Bang Theory. If Youtube subscribers and weekly TV viewers are close to similar measurements - then TV is so last decade. PewDiePie has 30m subscribers to his Youtube channel, with original videos released several times a day with 2.5m viewers each. He showed himself playing Crossy Road (around the 2 min mark) and the app hit #1 in the games category in the Apple App Store in 23 countries, hitting #1 overall in 5. Crossy Road may have been a viral hit due to its unique monetization model - but they spent $0 on advertising. Since the best monetizing apps can afford to locate a channel and bid the price up - apps that have are not monetizing as well as games can still find a unique competitive advantage by locating new channels.
Youtube Stars and what else?
Part of the challenge for mobile app marketers in finding advertising partners is the opportunities are everywhere.
From podcasters to YouTube stars, to (gasp!!!) Vine and SnapChat stars. Yes - that's a thing and they are growing like crazy. Let's take a look at the biggest Social Networks, and the fastest growing to get a sense for the lay of the land. Now this graph is limited to only those 18+, so the platforms are familiar assuming you are not a 14 year-old mobile app marketer or investor. Pinterest grew 86% from 2012 to 2014.
Instagram doubled. Considering social networks are communities - finding communities where your app solves a problem or is of specific interest - either by participating or working with a leading personality has worked for many consumer products brands. 
Just to dig a bit deeper, users are everything (as we all know!).
Engaged users are what matters.
For social media - frequency of visits is one good way to measure user engagement and user engagement growth. 
Taking a look at growth
- we see 2014 was Tumblr's year.
Going back 2 years, the fastest growing social network in 2013 was Instagram. 2014 looks like it was Pinterest and Tumblr, with bronze going to Instagram. If those social networks are not fits for your mobile apps, or you know all about the options there and want to get on a new trend...
Early favorites for "Fastest Growing Social Networks of 2015":
Instagram and Pinterest
"Dark" Networks -
Ello and other anonymous networks (is this the end of Snapchat?)
Ello - the growth of Ello
Whisper - or maybe not
Cyber Dust - Mark Cuban wants to take over text
What channel will be your competitive advantage in 2015?
For more - see this Insanely great Slide Deck and Post on Social Media Trends and Stats Better than any advertising campaign as measured by engaged users acquired - app store optimization using modern ASO tools and app store data from Gummicube. Want More Data-Driven, Mobile App Marketing Content?
Similar Articles
Halloween App Optimization - App Store Spotlight
Posted on October 6th, 2023
Ghostly happenings are among us... and in your app listing too? If you aren't leveraging the power of app seasonality to make relevant tweaks to your store listing you're leaving precious engagement and conversions on the table.
App Store Connect Holiday Schedule 2021
Posted on November 8th, 2021
Developers on the iOS App Store should plan in advance of the upcoming Holiday Schedule to allow enough time for apps to get approved during the busy holidays.