Proven App Marketing Strategies for Social Apps
- 1. Making your social app a whopping success
- 2. • Joined InMobi in Dec 2011 • I drive user acquisition & monetization for App Developers • Early Stage Investments in Clean tech Space • Product Manager in a clean tech startup • Carnegie Mellon (2009) & IIT Mahak Sharma
- 3. Introduction to InMobi • Largest independent mobile ad-network , reaching 691 million mobile consumers across 165 countries • 850 employees, 25+ nationalities, 17+ offices globally • 65K+ requests/sec at peak load; 100TB data generated/month • 500+ engineers across US, IN, JP
- 4. • Social apps rank 3rd in terms of revenue & 6th in terms of downloads on the app store • Messaging and dating apps emerge as winners • Emerging asian social app giants from Korea, Japan & SEA • Top social apps differ markedly by country/segments • Developers employ new monetization strategies for social apps Exciting times in the social networking category…
- 5. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition 3.Driving up your App Store ranks Agenda
- 6. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 7. Challenges with user acquisition Multiple channels to choose from : Ad networks, Press, Social, review sites… Difficult to measure & predict ROI at launch : Tracking & Attribution across channels App Discovery : Over 1.8 million apps, 300% growth, fragmented app stores, multi-screen behavior Quantity Vs Quality
- 8. The science of User Acquisition Cost of acquiring a new user & expected ROI at that time • Costs can vary over time , so timing is critical • ROI tough to predict at the time of launch, but estimates are good to have Efficacy of each marketing channel highly dependent on app & optimizing across channels can get very tactical • Detailed analytics are critical • Continuous optimization & monitoring essential for success • Important to monitor organic downloads from each channel Early user =Higher LTV • LTV & Cost of acquiring user inversely proportional to time at which user is acquired • LTV of earliest users is the highest and the cost of acquiring early users is the lowest • Overtime, cost of acquiring every new user increases
- 9. Pre Launch Marketing • Participate on forums with similar topics to drive awareness and buzz • Monitor reviews of competing apps to find gaps; pre-empt and promote your differentiating features • Create a pre launch page to generate interest with images, screenshots, details about app functionality, social media links and newsletter sign ups • Claim your social media accounts - twitter, facebook, pinterest. Try & engage with your target audience • Record a demo and create a sneak preview of the app, teaser video • Tap into your network and drive email sign- ups
- 10. Pre-launch marketing example – http://nizoapp.com
- 11. • Turn your early users into advocates. Interact with loyal users, give them badges, stickers, virtual currency etc. • Encourage users to create FB groups • Use notifications to solicit feedback • Facebook: - Create a fan page, create a FB link within the app to let users like the fan page - Post three-four times a day, run contests and sweepstakes & create an app page - Twitter contests, dialogues to collect feedback and complaints. vLeveraging social media for acquiring users for your app
- 12. App landing pages • Important to note - A lot of discovery still happens on desktop! • Mobile friendly – large imagery UI • Desktop users - Clean Background - Use Google Analytics - Large CTA (Test it!) - SMS or QR is best for tracking - Get users to share the landing page - Capture emails “Sign Up for Newsletter” • Mobile users - Well designed – realism with high polish - Smart app banners for iOS Unnamed Social App (One of the top 25 in app store) • 15% traffic from desktops (mostly social networking sites) at the time of launch • Higher conversions with SMS compared to all other ways Example
- 13. Great app landing page example –foursquare.com
- 14. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 2. Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition 1.Social Marketing 101 ` 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 15. Advertisers Publishers DSP’s & Agencies RTB Ad Networks – Incent/Non Incent Emails/Press Social Networks The app advertising ecosystem is extremely complex Courtesy: Luma Partners llc
- 16. Paid User Acquisition strategy for social apps • The marketing mix changes considerably over time • User acquisition channels for social apps are very different from that of gaming • Important decisions to be taken before starting the campaign : • Target Audience • Countries and platform to launch into • Some ideas for monetization & predicted LTV of the user • Total marketing budgets and app lifecycle • For social apps, we recommend starting a focused/local campaign- use the virality within your target audience to position and grow the user base • Using a combination of Social marketing channels and ad networks provides the best volume & quality • App Store rank has a huge impact on organic downloads. Organic users tend to have higher loyalty
- 17. Marketing mix can change considerably overtime 10% 5% 40% 5% 10% 5% 60% 0% 35% 25%
- 18. High Quality and Organic downloads should determine your marketing channel Conversion Rate How to choose between different marketing channels for a social app?
- 19. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps: App marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition ` 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 20. Top rank can increase your organic downloads by up to 10x Install velocity No. of installs Uninstall rate Ratings & reviews • The biggest influencer of your appstore rank • Can be increased by 10 times through intelligent and targeted social marketing • For hitting top 25 in social category in the AppStore we need upto 7000 installs a day in US and about 3000 installs a day in UK • Cut down budgets from marketing channels which deliver users of poor quality - contributing negatively to your rank • Lower weightage but important to monitor this channel effectively to incorporate feedback and update users of changes
- 21. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps: App marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition ` 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 22. “50% of marketers feel that tracking and attribution is a big concern they face in mobile advertising” Extremely important to track up to installs and beyond Impression Clicks D/L Registration 100% 2% .06% .012%
- 23. Extremely important to track up to installs and beyond • Accurate attribution can significantly improve cost of acquisition per user through price optimization • Conversion Based Pricing • LTV Based pricing • Budget Optimization across networks and publishers Dynamic CPCFixed CPC N = 80 campaigns % Inventory Reachable
- 24. Extremely important to track up to installs and beyond • Multiple technologies – ID-based tracking, Android Referrer, Digital Fingerprinting , HTML5 Cookie • You can make a choice depending on the launch platforms, countries and your advertising objective Device Finger HTML Accuracy High Low High User experience High High Low Drop offs Low Medium High Inventory accessibility Medium High High Global compatibility Low High Medium
- 25. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps: App marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition ` 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 26. Category US UK Australia Canada China Japan Korea Indonesia Thailand Games Medium Medium Medium Medium Low High Medium High Low Entertainment High High High Medium Medium Medium Medium Medium Low Social Medium High Low High Low High Medium High Medium Chat/Messaging Medium Medium Medium Medium Low High Low Medium Low Gambling High High Low High Low High High Medium Medium Dating High High High High Low Low Medium High Medium Which country & platforms to launch into? • Vietnam, Thailand & Indonesia – lower costs of acquisition, medium to high ROI • Japan & Korea – ROI better than US in communication apps but localization challenges exist • Best platforms to promote – Android Smartphones, iPhone, iPad, Android Tablets – decreasing order
- 27. 5.Do you know your user lifetime value? 6.Taking your social app global 4.Tracking conversions effectively 1.Social apps: App marketing 101 2.Tips & Tricks for Paid User Acquisition ` 3.Driving up your App Store ranks
- 28. What it takes to launch in China , Japan & Korea ‣ Local translation can increase downloads by 128% and revenues by 28% ‣ Cute cartoons & Android premium handsets likely to perform better ‣ Target older audience ‣ Maximizing interactive experience through mobile features increases chances of success ‣ Localized apps are downloaded much more and generate higher revenues App Store Fragmentation & Device ID issues ‣ Google Play payments doesn’t work in China. All Android revenues are from third party app stores, hence partnering with 3rd party stores is key ‣ Feature phone penetration in Japan is very high, and fingerprinting is key to improve scale 1 2 Localization & App behavior
- 29. • Focused Audience targeted campaign on Facebook & Ad networks • NHN Line’s implant in Psy’s Gangnam Song • Line beats What’s app in Spain • Retargeting users with ‘competition’ apps Successful Campaign techniques used in the past