Tips on How to Advertise an App Effectively

After developing and launching your mobile app, the next step on your checklist is to advertise it! To catch your potential user’s attention, this is extremely important. In this article, we want to explain how to advertise an app and introduce some tools that simplify the management process.

Popular Strategies to Advertise an App

In the following, we want to introduce you to the most popular and common strategies for advertising an app. They include free as well as paid tactics and you can decide which one best fits your app and budget.

ASO

App store optimization, also known as ASO, is the cornerstone of advertising an app. With ASO, you can optimize your app and perfect its app store features, relating to both appearance and findability.

By implementing suitable keywords in the title and description of your app, you can increase ranking position in the app stores and ensure that users find it easily.

Furthermore, by designing a unique and memorable icon together with screenshots and maybe even a video, which explains the benefits of your app, you can convince the user to download your app. Learn more about this topic here.

Word of Mouth

Since most people make a buying decision based on recommendations and suggestions of people they know, word of mouth publicity is very important for an app. Make sure, your users are content with your app and encourage them to review or recommend it to others.

You can even give them the opportunity to share it directly with their friends – which leads us to our next point.

Social Media

Social Media is a great tool to connect all users of an app – and alert others who haven’t discovered it yet. On one hand, you can include options for users to interact within the app or communicate with them on Facebook. On the other hand, you can suggest to them to invite their friends and share the experience together – potentially with a reward in return.

Now that you learned about how you can use social media for free, let’s look at a few paid options.

Facebook Ads

Facebook is probably the best choice for advertising an app through social media since it has the widest reach. In 2016 alone, it had 1.71 billion monthly active users – with 56% of them logging in more than once per day. Another advantage is the possibility of addressing users on a personal level since you can aim the ad at a specific target group and their interests.

Twitter Ads

Besides Facebook, Twitter is also a great tool to reach new users. Though the ad placement works similar to Facebook, Twitter has a big advantage: here you can communicate easily with the users who react to your ad.

Influencer Marketing

With so-called influencers, like YouTubers and Instagrammers, you can reach a unique group of users, who follow and trust their idol. You can let them advertise your app to their followers by posting videos or pictures featuring your product. Additionally, you can choose influencers with a significant reach and ask them to review your app.

Search Ads

Both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store offer their own ways for you to advertise an app.

Under Android, you can make use of sponsored Search Results, which are search ads on Google Play. They enable developers to heighten the users’ awareness for their apps resulting in more frequent and easier discovery by users.

With Search Ads in the App Store, developers can place their app above other search results. Keep in mind though, they’re only available in the U.S., UK, Australia and New Zealand. You can create a Search Ad Campaign with Apple’s self-service dashboard and there is no minimum spend or additional costs, unless the user taps the ad. Apple has set a bidding system for this feature, which makes it possible to set a price according to your current budget. You can check out Apple’s website for more detailed information.

Traditional Advertising / In-Store

Of course, you can use traditional methods to advertise your app as well! For instance, your ads can be broadcasted on TV or the radio – which will grant you great reach albeit require a much higher budget.

If you run a store, for example a clothing store, and create a mobile app for that purpose, you can advertise your app locally. This way, customers who visit your shop take notice of your app and may use it to purchase something later on in the convenience of their home.

Helpful Tools for Advertising an App

Now that you received a first impression how to advertise an app, learn how to organize and monitor your campaign with the following tools.

Advertising Campaign Management

The term advertising campaign management combines all steps from planning a strategy to finding the right user segment for the product and addressing them appropriately. More specifically, you approach the general public through advertising in the media, while reaching out to existing users personally, e.g. via e-mails. The last step is to evaluate the results of the campaign.

With different software and programs, like advertising dashboards, advertisers can access their campaigns’ reporting and measure their performance across different metrics and assets. This data helps advertisers to identify optimization opportunities and subsequently to adjust the campaign.

Ad Targeting

Ad targeting, also known as targeted advertising, is a method of tailoring adverts to a specific target group or user segment. Therefore, you analyse the past behavior, demographics and psychographics of your users and create ads according to this data. By doing so, you can address your users and appeal directly to their interests.

This method assists you in finding the right users, who will respond positively to your app and reduce the chance of annoying uninterested users. This also prevents you from investing in ineffective advertising campaigns.

Advertising Dashboard

Advertising dashboards are a helpful tool to measure and supervise the key metrics of an advertising campaign. This indicates where you have to make improvements early on in your campaign. For example, when you detect a poor click-through-rate for some ads, you know that you have to optimize them.

And remember: the sooner you can identify and solve problems with any part of your advertising campaign the better your results in the end. Therefore, constant monitoring of your campaigns is a big part of the success of your app!