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Mobile Advertising – Find the Right Ad Format

January 18, 2017/in Blog/by Pascal Ludynia

Mobile advertising is an important part of your marketing strategy that you should not only keep an eye, but truly focus on.

But what are the best ways to advertise on mobile devices? Which ad formats can you choose? And which mobile advertising trends can you expect in 2017?

What Is Mobile Advertising?

The mobile market is becoming more and more important for marketers. The number of people owning and using a smartphone is growing rapidly.

In 2017, there were already 2.32 billion people worldwide using a smartphone. Because of its growing importance, there are already many marketers who follow the mobile-first- (if not the mobile-only-) strategy.

Mobile advertising is a special form of advertising using special formats, which are adapted to small mobile screens.

There are different types of devices on which mobile advertising is displayed, like

Internet-capable mobile phones or smartphones and
Tablet computers and similar devices (e.g. phablet).

With growing numbers of smartphone owners, mobile advertising is becoming more and more important © ayeT-Studios

Mobile Advertising is a part of mobile marketing. Nevertheless, it should not be part of a traditional marketing campaign: There is much more to it.

Mobile advertising should be looked at from a different point of view, since it is way more complex than plain billboards – with way more opportunities, and therefore also difficulties.

The most difficult part of mobile advertising is to create an ad that the users find interesting and acceptable. A study performed by defacto research & consulting found out that only 14% of the people surveyed would accept a mobile ad that is not personalized, however 30% of the surveyed people would accept a mobile ad that is tailored to their personal interests and needs.

On the other hand, users find it disturbing if the ad is too personalized. They fear being transparent for companies, which leads to suspicion.

Thus, you need to find a balance between personalized mobile advertising and general, professional advertising. Some basic ad formats can be found here.

The main goal of a mobile advertising strategy is to cause interest in your (potential) users with regard to your products and services. However, it is also a tool to remind (former) users of your unique selling points.

But how do you do that while finding the right balance and targeting the right users? Let’s find out!

What Kind of Mobile Advertising Can You Do?

There are a few different types of mobile advertising that you can choose from:

Search
Social
Display
Video

Which category you choose, depends on your product and your target audience. But most of all it depends on where you want to place your ad.

In the following, we will explain the different forms and places of mobile advertising.

Search

When thinking about where to place mobile advertising, you definitely should consider mobile search advertisement, hence placing an ad in search engines, like Google.

When a potential user searches a topic related to your product in the web, your advertisement will appear first on their mobile screens.

Mobile search ads are always text ads.

Google is dominating mobile search ads © ayeT-Studios

Social

Mobile Social ads are endorsements that can be placed on any social media network page, for example on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. This type of mobile advertising can be an ad including text, image or video or it can be product placement.

Most people are using social media on their smartphones, so an optimized mobile ad constitutes a good investment and gives your business great exposure.

Choose a social ad format that matches best with your mobile advertising strategy © Mashbout.com

Do you want to learn more about mobile advertising on social media? Click here to get an overview of social media app promotion.

Display

Mobile display ads are a form of mobile advertising, which includes text and/or image ads. For most people, display ads are commonly known as “banners”.

Display ads are mostly shown on websites of newspapers, blogs or within apps and placed in between the articles.

Display ads (“banners”) combine text and image © marketingland.com

Video

Mobile video ads can be placed on any video distribution channel, for example on YouTube. Here, the mobile advertising could be placed before or within the actual video (the latter as product placement).

Video ads are are also shown within mobile apps, mostly after accomplishing certain actions, e.g. completing a level of a game.

A typical video ad being displayed on a video platform © adage.com

When Choosing an Ad Format…

…your mobile advertising should meet certain quality criteria:

Image Quality
The image layout and quality must be of a high quality and resolution.
Relevance
The information given in the ad should be relevant to the product you are advertising.
Accurate information
All information given in the ad should be accurate and not misleading.
Adult content
Make sure not to create provocative or x-rated mobile ad in order to protect younger users from adult content.

Rich Media Ads – Interactive Ads for a Better User Experience

Rich-Media is a broad term for all display banners that are interactive, animated or dynamic. Companies often use HTML5 technology to create interesting ads.

Rich media ads can be placed on social networks but also as display ads or on a video platform.

Rich Media offers more ways to involve an audience with an ad than with plain text ads or display ads. These kind of ads can cause a stronger user response.

Another advantage is the great possibility to monetize your user’s behaviour and interaction with your mobile ad. You can adjust your ad for your next mobile advertising campaign according to the acquired data.

Standard Banner	Rich Media Ads
Standard banners are simple GIF, JPEG or FLASH image formats. They usually include texts with visuals such as a 2D logo.	Rich media banners are those ads with audio/video components, making them a lot more versatile than a still image.
Small in file size.	Huge in file size, but makes up for it with its versatility.
Less or almost no interactivity. In short, static.	Highly interactive. In short, dynamic.
No other technology can be used with standard banners.	Rich media banner can be synchronised with technologies like JavaScript & HTML.
They have only one interaction point; to be clicked.	They can have many different interactions.

Comparison between standard banner and rich media ads © ayeT-Studios

Criteria for Successful Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is successful when it is creative and unique and encourages the user to engage with the advertised product.

It is also important to consider the target group’s wants, needs and behaviour in order to place the mobile ad on the right page with the right format.

Of course, a mobile ad needs a clear message. Users don’t have much time (and are not willing) to spend looking at a mobile ad while using their smartphone. Therefore, the ad needs to have a prominent place on the page.

Make It Native

It is also important for the advertisement to suit the look and feel of the website it is placed on – it should be native.

Therefore, it should blend in with the social feed on the app or website and appear just like the other posts and not like an ad (but of course, it needs to be labeled as an ad!).

Nevertheless, there shouldn’t be a loss of quality. If anything, the quality of the native ad should be very high.

In total, 25% more users recognize native ads compared to standard banners and 97% of mobile media buyers report that native ads were effective.

These numbers speak for themselves. Native mobile advertising is very effective and should therefore definitely be considered when planning a mobile advertising campaign.

Mobile advertisers can now insert action buttons into their mobile ads © TechCrunch.com

Outlook on Mobile Advertising for 2017

In 2017, there will be some trends that will create more interesting mobile advertising opportunities for companies.

Since mobile advertising is a growing market, more and more money will be spent by companies on effective ads. A total of 60% of Google’s global ad revenue will come from mobile advertising this year. In 2018, the number will even grow to 75%.

Companies will spend a lot on creative and interactive ads. The number of users being annoyed by online ads is growing, therefore the ads are going to be more creative and entertaining to offer users a great experience with the brand.

Users are encouraged more by interactive mobile advertising © ayeT-Studios

Mobile Messaging Apps were the number one trend in the past year. We can expect to see some great ads on Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and others.

Furthermore, companies will invest more time and money in preventing cyber attacks by ad bots or ad fraud.

Something to worry about for mobile advertising is the high percentage of users who are using ad blockers on their smartphones. In the USA 28% of users have installed an ad blocking software.

Therefore, it is even more important for companies to create extremely creative mobile ads that create word-of-mouth-publicity and go viral.

If an ad is viral, everyone wants to and will see it. That is how you overcome the obstacle ad blocker.

Now that you learnt about the basics of ad formats, how about you check out what mobile user acquisition entails? Check out this article and read more about the key elements to gain mobile users.

For mobile advertising, you can choose mobile ad agencies like ayeT-Studios. They will create your personal mobile advertising strategy to yield the best results across multiple channels.

A Beginner’s Guide to Mobile User Acquisition

January 9, 2017/in Blog/by Pascal Ludynia

We all want to acquire loyal users for our apps: They should download, use and keep it on their smartphone for a long, long time. That’s the ideal state. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy in real life.

So, how do you acquire mobile users the right way?

Who Are Your Users?

In order to acquire high-quality users for your app, you first need to understand your users, their needs and their wants. Only if you target them in the right way, they will download your app and keep it on their smartphone for a long time.

To establish a mobile user base even before your launch, you can use your existing network (on- and offline):

- Your friends
- Family
- Former co-workers
- Business partners
- Fellow students
- and many more

Talk with them about your app, inform them about its features and uniqueness. This way, you can start word-of-mouth publicity that might convince other potential mobile users to download your app.

We recommend you to introduce your app to the market via a soft launch in just one or two countries. Like this, you can test which user segment is interested in your app and who will download it. Then, you can do some research on your userbase and ask yourself the following questions:

What are they generally interested in?
What are they searching for on google or in the app stores?
Which other apps do they use?
On which social media channels can you find them?
What are they talking about?
Who are they following?
At what times are they engaging?
How long will they keep your app on their smartphone?

If you can answer all these questions, you can plan your mobile user acquisition the right way.

Mobile users’ approach to finding apps in the U.S. © ayeT-Studios

In addition to that, you can also do some research on their demographic characteristics, like age, gender, marital status, nationality, religion, education, etc.

By using tracking devices like GoogleAnalytics, Firebase, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Tune or Kochava, you can analyze your users’ app usage, for example the duration of each session within the mobile app or the retention rate.

It is important to understand your users before you start a big marketing campaign. That way, you can target your potential users the best way possible and your mobile user acquisition will be successful.

What Is Your Budget for Mobile User Acquisition?

In order to plan your mobile user acquisition strategy, you need to calculate your budget. First, you should select your key performance indicators (KPI) upon what you would like to achieve with your app.

Which KPI’s are important totally depends on you and your company. Following, we are going to present to you some of the most common calculations that you can use to calculate your budget for your mobile user acquisition strategy.

Cost Per Install

The Cost per Install, or CPI, measures the costs you have to carry for ads that trigger an installation of your app. CPI varies according to the ad formats you use. If you are using non-incent banner ads, you will most likely pay much more for each install than buying downloads via an incentivized offerwall.

Cost Per Active User

The ost per active user measures the mobile user acquisition costs that you need to spend in order to reach users that will actively use your app. Every company needs to define for themselves what active means.

Some companies might say that an active user is a customer who returns to the app at least once a month. In this case, you might also hear the term ‘retention rate’. CPAU is always higher than CPI, since not every install you buy will convert into an active user.

You want to learn more about C-Types? Then take a look at this article.

Average Revenue Per User

The average revenue per user is the amount of revenue each of your active customers (on average) contributes in a specific period of time.

Customer Lifetime Value

The customer lifetime value helps you predict how long your customer will use and generate revenue within your app and therefore, how much the user is worth for your app. It should always be your goal to improve app features that will most likely increase the Customer Lifetime Value of your users.

Most of the time, this translates into improving retention rate, session duration and total usage time per user for your app. If you operate a shopping app, the opposite might also be the case. This means reducing the session duration by, for example, optimizing the check out process once a user added an item to his basket.

This faster check out process might result in shorter session durations but higher CLTV in the long run. So, be aware of what KPI’s you have to measure and improve exactly.
With the CLTV, you can calculate how much of your budget you can spend for a user within your user acqusition process in order to make profit. The CLTV depends on three factors:

Monetization (how much customers contribute to your mobile revenue),
Retention (level of engagement a customers has with your app) and
Virality (sum value of additional mobile users a customer will refer to your app)

Return on Investment

Return on investment (ROI) signifies the profit you make with your app compared to your investment. A high ROI implies that your profit is way higher than your investment. Be aware that you might not only want to measure CLTV against Ad Spending for your ROI but also all other costs of the business you operate – like rent, HR, infrastructure, and so on.

Churn Rate

With the churn rate, you can calculate the number of mobile users that will delete your app in a specific period of time. It is a valuable indication of your mobile users’ satisfaction with your app.

Conversion Rate

There are many different ways to calculate your conversion rate. It all depends on what is important to you as a company and what you want to achieve.

You might want to measure more than just one conversion within your conversion funnel from mobile user acquisition to revenue generated. That way, you would be able to improve your app on a more sophisticated basis.

There are at least two conversions we find worth measuring for almost any type of mobile app:

Installs / Active Users: You can calculate the number of users that installed your app based on your mobile user acquisition campaign and then decided to take specified actions to convert into an active user.
Active Users / User Generated Revenue: You can calculate the number of mobile users that are using the app and then decide to take action and to generate revenue, for example, by offering in-app purchases.

Click here to read a detailed article about the importance of knowing your user acquisition costs.

Tools You Can Use for Your Mobile User Acquisition Strategy

After calculating your mobile user acquisition budget, you can start planning your strategy.

There are many tools that you can use in order to acquire mobile users, but only a few that you really should use. It all depends on your mobile app and which users you want to reach, you just need to find the right mix that suits you and your potential users.

If you want to be successful, you need to adjust your mobile user acquisition strategy to your product and service, as well as to your target group. From time to time, when your app or your target group even slightly changes, you need to adjust your mobile user acquisition strategy and the tools you are using.

If you want to acquire mobile users, you can use free or paid tools to do so. If you choose to use paid services for mobile user acquisition, you can do it in two ways: incentive and non-incentive.

In order to understand the difference between these two, you may want to read the following article.

Category	Channels & Formats
Organic Installs	ASO Web Organic Search
Bought Installs	Ad Networks Facebook, Google, Tapjoy, ayeT-Studios Ad Formats Incentivized Installs Offerwalls Native Ads Banner Ads Interstitials Video Ads Playable Ads
PR / Press	Websites App Review Sites Game Video Sharing
Build Your Brand (Use Your Own Ecosystem)	App-Website E-Mail Social Media App-Cross-Promotion
Influencer Marketing (Paid Installs via Influencers)	Facebook Twitter Instagram and more

Overview of possible mobile user acquisition tools © ayeT-Studios

Optimize Your App Store Appearance

The first impression always counts. This also applies to the appearance of your app in the different app stores.

Potential users will mainly decide whether or not they want to download your app based on the presentation in the app store. If they like what they see and if they find all the information they need, they are very likely to install and open the app.

Therefore, it is very important that you optimize your app’s page to the maximum. How do you do that? All the hacks can be found in the following article.

Run a Test Campaign

As already mentioned before, we highly recommend you to run a test campaign.

The benefits are clear: You can test the success of your mobile user acquisition strategy, find out more about your potential users, see what kind of channels they use, what provokes a reaction, and much more.

Don’t Spoil All Your Features

With every part of your campaign, you should keep in mind not to spoil all of your features at once. It is way more interesting for mobile users to let them know about the different features and possible updates every once in a while.

Use Your Existing Network

As already mentioned before, it is a good strategy to communicate about your app with your family, friends, former colleagues or classmates and thereby create a word-of-mouth publicity.

If a potential mobile user gets a recommendation for an app by a friend, he is very likely to download it because he trusts his friend’s recommendation.

Communicate with the Press

You want people to talk about your app? You should talk to the press first!

Prepare a media kit with all the necessary information about your app and all its features. Be aware to present it in a nice and appealing way to impress the journalist and to stay in his mind so that he will consider writing about your app.

This would be great for your mobile user acquisition, because if journalists write about your app, potential users may read the article and consider downloading your app.

Let Your App Be Discovered

Try to present your app to mobile app discovery platforms. If they like what they see, they might want to present it to their readers. App discovery platforms review, categorize and promote new and yet unknown apps.

This is a great tool for your mobile user acquisition since these platforms only present the apps they believe in and your potential mobile users have a high amount of trust in these platforms.

Make a Mailing List

Email marketing is an important part of your strategy for mobile user acquisition. It is the number one tool for an effective strategy and very easy to use.

Services like MailChimp help you with your email marketing. There, you can maintain a list with all the email addresses, which makes it easy to send the emails to all of your contacts.

Make sure you always send interesting content that will set you apart you from regular spam and that offers additional value for mobile users.

It is also important to always include your contact information and links to your website, the app stores and social media channels.

How effective are common strategies for mobile user acquisition? © ayeT-Studios

Aim for Virality

The second most successful tool for your mobile user acquisition strategy is social media. We recommend that you create your own social media channels on the platforms that matter the most to your potential users, for example Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Social media has a great advantage: It is mostly free of charge. Only if you want to start an ad campaign, you need to invest some part of your budget.

It is also easy to use with a high scope and a great tool to communicate with your mobile users. This way, you can directly respond to feedback or questions and make use of it in your next app updates.

Click here and discover more about social media app promotion.

Work Together with Other Apps

A great way for mobile user acquisition is to work together with other, even bigger app companies and to promote your mobile app within their app.

You can do that, for example, with a banner ad or even a video ad that is displayed when a user opens the app. In exchange, you can also place an ad of your partners within your own app.

Talk to Influencers

Another way of getting people to talk about your app is to present it to so called influencers, for example bloggers, YouTubers or other social media celebrities.

If you get them talking about your app, you have a high chance of reaching a high amount of potential users that are very willing to download your app.

People following influencers have a high amount of trust in them. So, when they recommend an app, their followers will believe that this app is great and download it, which helps you a lot with your mobile user acquisition.

Finally…

…Mobile user acquisition is a process that changes over time and needs to be adjusted according to your success and the number of users acquired.

So, keep in mind to check your achievements regularly and, if necessary, recalculate your budget and rethink your strategy as well as the channels you have used for mobile user acquisition.

4 customer rankings are shown, from 1 star to 4 stars

App Promotion Sites: Let Your App Go Viral

January 6, 2017/in App Promotion Services/by Pascal Ludynia

App promotion sites are one of the key elements to give mobile apps more visibility on the internet. In this article, we will show basic facts about different app promotion sites and how app developers can benefit from them.

Different Kind of App Promotion Sites

There are various services that can be found for iOS and Android app promotion. The same goes for app promotion sites: You will find plenty of websites talking about mobile apps.

We’ve summarized the main types:

App review sites
Press release
Websites and communities for startups
Blogs and specialized websites
Websites to contact influencers

Why App Promotion Sites

Apps have become widely used in the field of business, communication, entertainment, and other aspects of the virtual community. According to the data released by the eMarketer, most American people spend more of their time digitally compared to other available media.

The same study also manifested that Americans spend more than five hours every day online and more than two hours are spent using mobile devices (either phone or tablet).

These big numbers increase the possibility of users finding your app in the internet once it is promoted efficiently. With the help of app promotion sites, you can be found by your potential users.

Click here to see other promotion services you can use for your app.

App Promotion Sites For Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

With huge amounts of apps in each app category, the possibility that users choose your app seems unclear. You need to have an effective mobile marketing strategy so that you stay ahead of your direct competition.

There are numerous ways available for your mobile marketing strategy to make your app more visible:

- Generating users
- Social media
- Receiving installs
- and many more.

However, online user prefers to take a peek at app promotion sites to download the app best suited to their needs. On these websites, they can have a short review of the apps and all the information they need.

If you are not sure how to publish your app’s name on such a website, you can choose from various app promotion services. They will help you get your app listed for an affordable fee.

Check out this article for basic information about your app promotion strategy.

App Promotion Sites in Detail

Some of the afore-mentioned types of app promotion sites will be familiar to you. If you are uncertain about each category and its functions, you will find information about them below.

1. App Review Sites

Nowadays, you will find ratings and reviews about nearly every product you can purchase online because customers want to make sure they purchase something that matches their expectations. So, why should this not go for mobile apps, too?

App review sites work the same way: You can put your app on their list and the administrator and his/her team will take a look at your app, its functions, design, and quality of service.

They will then write a genuine review and rating and publish it on their app promotion site. Like this, people get to know in advance what they can expect from your mobile app.

Operating Systems

Some app review sites only deal with apps of one operating system (mostly iOS or Android), so you will get the right audience for potential users straight away. But this doesn’t mean that these app promotion sites are not appropriate for your app promotion.

For example, websites like Pocket Gamer and PreApps offer their promotion service for more than one OS.

App Category

Mobile users mostly look for new apps from a certain category, especially gaming apps are pretty popular and attractive for new users. This is why some app review sites list apps from specific categories.

Your app review will be published along with reviews of direct competitors. However, the amount of apps on this app promotion site will be smaller, and chances of your app being downloaded by potential users is higher.

Reviews having a great impact on customers’ opinions © ayeT-Studios

2. Press Release

With a press release, you can contact journalists, editors, but also bloggers and other influencers of app promotion sites and inform them about your app.

It is hard work to make them talk about your app since they receive press releases every day. If yours doesn’t stick out they will not wast any words on it.

Writing a press release is a balancing act: You want to give all the important information about your app but at the same time you need to keep it short and concise.

In the following, some basic information about this type of text are elucidated.

Text Length

The longer the text, the more likely it is that its recipient loses interest in reading it.

It already starts at the beginning of your text, with a great title and the first few sentences about your app. One page should be enough to cover all the relevant app information.

It is also necessary to talk about your company in a press release. Mentioning it at the end is enough because your app is the focus. If your company already developed well-known apps or has won an award, you should let your addressees know about it.

Structure

Press releases should have a readable structure so your readers won’t be overwhelmed at first glance. Make sure to use paragraphs as well as a font pleasing to the eye.

You can structure your press release according to certain aspects, e.g. description, main app functions, OS requirements, availability, etc. On Apptamin, you will find a graphic example of the structure of a press release.

Phrasing

This is the trickiest part of the text. On one hand, your press release needs to have an advertising touch because you want publicity on app promotion sites. You want to show why your addressees should announce your app to their audience.

On the other hand, journalists expect to read news, meaning an objective article with a neutral style providing data, information, etc.

Combining both styles and finding the best words can be difficult, especially for newbies. Ad agencies that cooperate with app promotion sites will be glad to offer you help in this situation, creating a great press release for your app.

3. Websites and Communities for Startups

There are millions of websites on the internet for each and every topic. Did you create your very first app? Your company is not well-known yet? Then you can take advantage of app promotion sites that are only available for startup companies.

Let your company and/or your product get listed in these communities and publish information among like-minded people.

It’s a great chance to become visible and push past big brands or app developers that are already known among users, their apps staying in the top part of the charts. People who are interested in new products might find your app interesting – whether as potential users or as business partners/investors.

You might also communicate with or get help from other startup companies. Exchanging experiences and information is a great feature of such websites where people with the same vision can create a great community.

For example: Startup Grind is a platform where you can connect with startups from all around the world, and it cooperates with Google for Entrepreneurs.

In 4 years, the number of Tumblr blogs increased above tenfold © Statista

4. Blogs and Specialized Websites

Since the digital world has become number one among all media types, you will find that a lot of people have a website or a blog to post interesting things. Now, you might ask yourself “Why does a blog count as app promotion site?”

Blogs are one phenomenon arising from the digital era, having a huge followership if people are interested in the content that is covered in the blog. If you can have your app mentioned in there, readers will probably be interested in it and will take a look at it, hence the awareness of your app will increase.

The same goes for websites dealing only with specific topics – in your case e.g. mobile apps, smartphones, and the like. These app promotion sites are not only created by private persons but also by companies or organizations publishing articles on a blog regularly.

The Apps World Blog deals with various aspects and news of its industry, while the same-titled Apps World is a global event about the app industry.

5. Websites to Contact Influencers

This special type of app promotion site came up in the last few years and is becoming more and more popular. Influencers are active on social media and have a pretty big followership.

This means they have a huge audience for promotion purposes. It’s an attractive way of app promotion you should consider.

Thousands of influencers are possible candidates for talking about apps or mobile in general. But how to pick the right one? Instead of rifling through the great world of social media, there are websites looking for the best influencers of your product. Buzzsumo.com is one of such app promotion sites, offering several search tools for content research and influencers.

Social media in general is a great way of spreading the news about your (new) app. In this article, you will find more information abour social media promotion.

Consumers trust influencers more than the brand itself © Adweek

How to Approach App Promotion Sites

When searching for app promotion sites you will find a lot of websites offering this service as well as a great number of influencers, blogs, and other website where you can place your app’s name.

Our tip: Don’t rush into app promotion without having drawn up a marketing plan beforehand, including the budget you can spend and types of app promotion you want to benefit from. Otherwise you might get lost.

If you are unsure about how to promote your app the right way, you can expect help from ad networks and agencies that offer this service. They are connected with app promotion sites and create personalized promotion campaigns to boost your app the best way.

For Free or Not For Free

Most of these websites are free of charge and don’t ask you to draw a single penny for the app promotion site.

Regarding app review sites and communities, all you have to do is register with data about your company and your app. This can be a great advantage, especially for those who are on a tight budget. For journalists, bloggers, and influencers, you need to contact and convince them of talking about your app.

However, it is still good to spend money for your app promotion, so you can effectively see better results, faster app optimization, and more app downloads. Some app promotion sites may require you to spend money but this implicates more visibility or a better ranking of your article.

Where Can I Advertise My Apps for Better Promotional Solution?

Advertising networks and promotion agencies provide you with a specialized service, while taking a clear focus on your personal app promotion plan. They offer an effective promotional solution for your developed apps.

ayeT-Studios is an ad agency that offers various app promotion services and is specialized in mobile ad solutions for both Android and iOS.

Which App Promotion Services Can Boost Your App?

December 30, 2016/in App Promotion/by Pascal Ludynia

Although the industy around mobile applications is quite a new one, it behaves like every other business: The product itself has to be as good as possible to be successful! When publishing your app did you think about how to market your app with the help of app promotion services to make it even more popular?

To brave the vast amount of competitors in this industry, you can choose from a variety of app promotion services. They represent different tools you can use to help you to advertise your mobile app.

Navigation

1. Paid User Acquisition	Ad-Networks\|Ad-Formats\|Influencer
2. App Store Optimization	App Name\|Description\|Keywords
3. App Promotion Sites	Review Sites\|Press Releases\|Blogs
4. Building Own Channels	Own Website\|Social Media

What Types of App Promotion Services Are There?

We like to separate the app promotion services into 4 different categories:

Paid User Acquisition
App Store Optimization
App Promotion Sites
Building Own Channels

For each category, there are several full service providers as well as specialized companies offering only sub services of a certain categories.

Let’s elaboarte that statement by looking at an example. Taking a closer look at App Store Optimization shows that nowadays, it is crucial to create a compelling video for your app in order to improve your Play Store entry. Therefore, many companies specialize in app video creation, like wyzowl.com and makewebvideo.com.

App Store Optimization is much more than just creating a video though. You need an app description, an app icon, your app name, feature graphic, screenshots and all of that should be keyword targeted. Hence, video creation is a sub service of App Store Optimization.
If you want to know more about App Store Optimization, read this article!

Taking a Closer Look at the Different App Promotion Services

Now that we showed you a quick overview of the categories, let’s take a closer look at each service category and their sub services.

1. Paid User Acquisition

Getting as many users for your app as possible is one of the key factors in giving your app a good ranking in the app stores. It is not easy to reach the masses of mobile users, especially if you want to acquire users for free.

Paid user acquisition is an effective way of app promotion to reach out to possible users for your mobile app.

Ad Networks

When choosing an ad network to spread the word about your app, you will find a enormous amount of companies providing this app promotion service. It is important to ask yourself these questions in advance:

How much money can you spend?
In which format should your app be advertised?

There are many different ad formats offerd by ad networks to push your app (you will find a listing of various ad formats further down in the article).

If you’re not sure what kind of ad network you should choose as app promotion service, don’t worry! Even big companies like Google (“Google AdWords“) and Facebook (“Facebook Ads“) act as ad networks for promoting your mobile app.

Both offer app promotion services that are based on a bidding system, meaning the more you spend for your ad, the better it will be placed. This aspect gives you the opportunity to adjust your advertising costs to your current budget, which is an important factor for app developers with a small budget.

Since the mobile market and mobile advertising have increased over the last few years (and it keeps on growing!), some ad networks set their focus on mobile advertising.

Major companies for app promotion services are e.g. ayeT-Studios, Tapjoy and Fyber.

Incent vs. Non-Incent

Another factor within app promotion services is the way you want to attract people:

When offering a reward for downloading and using your app this is called incentivized – it’s the cheaper way to generate users. They will download your app and receive e.g. virtual currency for a mobile game they’re playing in exchange.

On the other hand, if you want potential users to download your app out of genuine interest you can choose non-incentivized advertising in your app promotion service.

The costs for this kind of service are difficult to explain since you want to get ‘loyal users’ for your app. Incentivized app installs themselves are cheaper than non-incentivized, however, you need to consider the retention rate in this context to talk about the real costs for these users.

In this article, you will find more information on retention rates as well as incent and non-incent installs for mobile apps.

Ad Formats

There is a wide range of ad formats, depending on the app promotion service you pick. Before choosing an ad format, you should take your time to think about how you want to present your app to the audience: Design, text and structure of the respective ad can have a deep impact on how users react to your ad.

Here are the most common ad formats:

Banner: It is the founding stone of mobile advertising and improved a lot in the past years. Banners are displayed at some part of the screen, with a standard size of 350×50 pixel. In contrast to the beginning, when users thought of banners being disruptive, they can nowadays be implemented way more effectively in the context. The prototype of web banners was developed really early. Nowadays, banners don’t have to be static anymore, they can be animated, have a sound-layer or even get the information of a livestream!
Interstitial: You could also call it full-screen banner because it is displayed on the whole screen. This way, more information can be provided and users will receive an immediate impression regarding the product.
Video: In recent years, mobile videos have experienced a boost. According to eMarketer, the numbers of mobile video ad budget spend in 2014 doubled in comparison to 2013 – from $720 Million to $1.5 Billion. This progress shows the huge potential mobile videos have when choosing them as app promotion service. Due to the play time of the video, there can be even more context shown to your audience. An option for using mobile video ads in an incentivized way are so-called rewarded videos where users receive a reward for watching an entire advertising video.
Native: This is the modern type of banner where ad components are be displayed. When choosing the right place and structure of the ad, it can be very effective. Users won’t be disrupted and will see the ad as part of the website/app.
Offerwall: This ad format describes a page in an app where different offers are shown to the users. They can choose and complete an offer and receive a reward in exchange. Offer types may vary, from downloading and using a mobile app to watching a short advertisement about a certain product to completing a quick survey. It is always a good idea to scale the size of the reward with the amount of work a user has to put in to fulfill the task.

There will be even more ad formats available for different app promotion services but these are the basic ones, which app developers and publishers should know.

No matter which ad format you choose: Always analyse your app performance and adjust the strategy of the app promotion service you’re using. A well-chosen mixture of various ad formats is the best solution to make sure that you attract many users.

Influencer Marketing

Making your app go viral is a tough task, with millions of other apps competing for new users. That’s why some app promotion companies also offer influencer marketing:

There’s no other place than social media for spreading news online as fast as possible.

A video about your app on YouTube, a post on Facebook reaching millions of fans, or a tweet that shouts out to the followers – there are plenty of people that gathered a great fanbase. So, when selecting this app promotion service you can be sure that these people hear about your app.

Here, you can find more detailed information on this topic.

These formats are used the most for mobile campaigns © ayeT-Studios

2. App Store Optimization

The first impression of a mobile app is important for new users but you can also reach a better ranking with well-designed content in the respective app store. App store optimization (ASO) is a key element when it comes to app promotion services – here are some aspects that should be considered.

App Name

Next to the icon, people will see your app name at first so make sure that it attracts users in the right way. Your app’s name should contain the main keyword and if you have a well-known app or brand,it should contain the brand name. Sometimes, you need to be creative and gather a few ideas to get the best name for your app, or you can ask app promotion services for help.

App Description

A well-written app description can convince the user that your app is just what he is looking for.

App promotion services offer professionally written app descriptions to give potential users a detailed overview of every feature that your mobile app has to offers. With the descriptions provided, it is easy to elaborate the benefits of your app, making a prospective customer in no time.

Keyword Research and Optimization

Companies for app promotion services emphasize effective keyword research and look for the best set of keywords for optimizing your app right way. Through this approach, your app will quickly get a highly optimized and highly viewed profile.

However, make sure that your app description is not overloaded with key words. Otherwise, this could lead to a worse ranking in the app store. A high-quality app promotion service finds a good mixture and makes it appealing to potential users.

App Design and Icon

Great app design and a great looking icon are the basics of app promotion. They are very powerful in convincing people to download your app. Among app promotion services, it is important to create a coherent and beautiful design as well as an engaging app icon for your app.

They are not only creating but also testing design and icons to check out their effectiveness and functionality.

Screenshots & Feature Graphic

When clicking on your app in the app store with their mobile device, the first thing users see is the so-called feature graphic. This image at the top of the page is only available on mobile devices so you need to make sure that you don’t forget this element in your app store page.

The design should match your app, and don’t forget: Mobile devices do not have a very big screen. Hence, make sure you choose an appropriate font size.

The same goes for screenshots: Make sure that they are appealing and do not contain either too little or too much content.

Video

People like watching videos more than reading a simple text because they can get the information without much effort. Take advantage of this feature in the app store and make sure that it is not too long – otherwise it can have a negative effect. App promotion services offer to create beautiful videos of your app, in a high-quality design.

To gain deeper insight regarding ASO, just click here.

Most of the apps are found when browsing the app store © ayeT-Studios

3. App Promotion Sites

Before purchasing a product, people check information, reviews and comments.

Well, the same goes for your mobile app: Starting on your app store page, people will leave ratings and comments about it, which will be seen by new users. There are various other websites where your app can be listed, too.

App promotion services offer to place your app on a website, give detailed information about it, and rate it or leave a comment about it. This can boost your app’s reputation and ranking, too.

App Review Sites

App review sites deal with listing and evaluating apps from the app stores. It is a hotspot for potential users who want to get to know new apps, so you can generate many new users for your app if people find it on such a website.

However, the quality and quantity of articles about apps varies a lot: From very short app descriptions, placing your app with 5 other apps of the same category in one article, to really detailed reviews, including screenshots or even a video about your app to make sure people understand the purpose of your app. App promotion services cooperate with such websites to place your app in there, too.

There are free as well as fee-based app review sites – it is up to you which format you want to use as app promotion service. Mobyaffiliates offers a short list of app review sites for both Android and iOS, paid as well as free. You should take a look at the website first and then decide if you want your app to be presented this way.

No matter what app review site you choose: By this, you will not only gain more media placement for your app but the app can also get a better ranking because of inbound linking from those websites.

Press Release

App promotion services just work online? You’re wrong!

The classical press, e.g. a printed article about your app or your company, may seem as an outdated way of app promotion. However, there are many fans and subscribers who will receive newspapers and journals automatically or buy them. These people are keenly interested in this topic. Especially the audience of professional journals will be interested in its news and articles.

If your app is mentioned in these media you can be sure that the quantity of potential users is way higher than on other channels. Moreover, most printed media is now available on the internet, too. This leads to your app going even more viral because the press release about your app can be re-posted, linked, commented, and liked.

App promotion services can help you publish some words about your app in these forms of media.

Websites and Communities for Startups

There are millions of apps in the app stores and every day new companies are launching more apps. It is hard for them to compete with the big brands for some space for advertising but among app promotion services, you will also find websites or communities only for startup companies. Like this, it is easier for you to push past the big brands and promote your mobile app with equal brand competitors.

The good thing is that people visiting such communities intend to discover brand new products, so if you have just launched your new app this is one of the places to be. You can either register on these websites on your own and pay a small fee (or, if you’re in luck, it is for free) or you can use an app promotion service to get you online.

Specialized Websites and Blogs

Nowadays, there are blogs and websites for nearly every topic, even for techies and people who love mobile devices, gadgets, and apps.

The chances that you will gain new users are high because blogs mostly have a loyal fanbase who love the same topic as the author. If your favourite author is talking about the app, it can be worth a try.

You can ask the admin or owner of the channel yourself or you can contact a company for app promotion services to do that for you.

For more information on app promotion sites, click here.

4. Building Own Channels

You can also create websites and profiles for your mobile app where you can provide basic information about your app outside the app store. Remember:

The more channels you can be found in, the more visibility you will get for your app.

Website for Your App

It is important to create and optimize the landing page of your app sites. There, people can read all information about your product and your company. If you connect the landing page with other online channels you will increase visibility on the internet.

Social Media Channels

There are plenty of social media channels available and there will probably be even more coming up in the next few years.

It is hard to predict on which channel your app will gain the most users. But make sure that your app is visible on the main social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Depending on the purpose of your app you might also place it in channels like Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and many more.

Also, here you can decide: Do you want to do this on your own or do you want to make it in the most professional way and hire an agency for app promotion services.

Expectations for revenue in digital advertising until 2018 © ayeT-Studios

Where Can I Get These Services

Anyone who is going to release an app should be willing to do the extra work that is necessary for their app promotion.

Almost all people who are likely to purchase your app will not ever get to know about it unless you push it out there. For some app developers, this process is more difficult than creating the app itself.

This is where app promotion services come in to help your app release to a success, no matter if it is for Android or iOS.

Let a company for app promotion services like ayeT-Studios recommend you the best combination of tools.

Below you can find information on our pricing:

Rewarded Advertising	Android (starting at)	iOS (starting at)
CPI	0,07$	0,15$
CPE	0,30$	0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations)	On request	On request
Rewarded Video (CPV)	0,020$	0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM)	0,50$	0,50$

Non-Rewarded Advertising	Android/iOS/Website (starting at)
CPC	0,02$
CPM	2,00$
CPV	0,02$

Various people brainstorming for a concept

Your Guide to Free App Promotion

December 5, 2016/in App Promotion/by Pascal Ludynia

After months of hard work, it is finally here: the day of your app launch. Now you want to introduce your app to the market and convince potential users to download it.

What if you don’t have a huge budget available for promotional tools? One way to avoid a big portion of the costs is free app promotion.

App Store Optimization: Free App Promotion in Google and Apple

The first important service that can be used for free app promotion is App Store Optimization (ASO).

We highly recommend for you to present your app in the app store in a visually appealing way, as well as to use keywords and a fitting description to ensure that your app will be found in the app store.

The amount of apps that float around in the different app stores is huge. In July, 2016, there were 2 million apps in the Apple App Store and 2.2 million apps in the Google Play Store – and the numbers are increasing every day.

It is extremely hard to grabthe user’s attention if you compete with that many apps, which might be interesting for the user, as well.

Therefore, app store optimization is a free app promotional tool that is vital for your success.

Google and Apple are the leading stores regarding the amount of apps available © ayeT-Studios

5 Steps for Successful App Store Optimization

As mentioned before, a great tool to promote your app for free is ASO. There are two main factors that are crucial for successful app store optimization: the findability and the appearance of your app in the store.

Users are more likely to download your app if it is easy for them to find your app and if they like what they see and find it interesting enough to at least download your app and try it out. So, these 2 aspects are a must-do when starting with your free app promotion.

Findability

App name
The first thing that users will see in the app store is the app name. Therefore, you need to find a catchy but unique name for your app that describes its main features or the experience that the user will have with it in the best way possible. Also, you might want to include a main keyword in the name. Be careful, though: too many keywords seem like spam to users, so that they might ignore your app and it would have counter-productive effects on your free app promotion.
Keywords
When using keywords, you need to consider the following three characteristics: relevance, difficulty and traffic. How relevant is the keyword for your app? How difficult will it be for your app to rank for the keyword? How many users search for the keyword?
Your goal should be that your app ranks in the top 10 for all its keywords. In order to do so, you need to select your keywords carefully and monitor them on a regular basis to make sure keywords support your free app promotion. If your app is not ranked in the top 10, you should look for better keywords, for example by using synonyms, searching for good keywords with a keyword tool, or using keywords that your competitors previously used. Also, you can choose words that your users used to describe their experience with the app in the app reviews. This way, you are using your user’s language.
Description
Write a description detailing all of the features of your app and the experience the user will have with it. Be realistic and avoid lying or spinning. The users will eventually realize they were fooled and payback will come in form of bad reviews. Also, describe the app in a lively and interesting way to make the user curious about it. Use some of your keywords in the description without making it appear as spam. A good way to avoid this is to use a maximum of four to five keywords. Make sure to update your description every once in a while when your app is updated and evolves, as well. By this, you will also push your free app promotion.

Appearance

Icon
Beside the app name, the icon is the first thing users will see – so make sure you create a unique and clear icon that stands out. It might help to get the user interested to the point where reads your app description, checks out your screenshots and demo video and finally downloads your app. Do not use words in the icon, just choose a nice and simple symbol that represents the app. Make it easy – the most successful apps, like Facebook, WhatsApp Messenger or Facetune just use one symbol without many details that is easy to recognize. Also, you can use the main character of your app, for example if your app is a game. A good example for that is angry birds where the app icon consists of just one bird. This has a positive effect on your free app promotion.
Screenshots and Demo Video
Screenshots or a demo video can show the user what his experience with the app will be like – a great tool you can use for your free app promotion. Therefore, make sure to include pretty screenshots and, if possible, show a quick demo video of your app. The best screenshots emphasize the app’s sales argument and its unique selling point. A good example for nice screenshots is our app GiftPanda. We show the user everything he can do with our app and guide him through the experience.

Well-designed screenshots presenting your app’s main features are inevitable © ayeT-Studios

Curious about this topic? Check out this article for more detailed information.

App Store Optimization in the Google Play Store

The Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store are the two main players in the app store world. Their interfaces may look similar but they are very different when it comes to app store optimization of the listed apps. This means, it is crucial to plan your free app promotion strategy according to which OS you will launch your app in.

In the Google Play Store, you can optimize your app’s appearance follwing these rules:

Use your main keyword in the app title. The titel cannot be longer than 30 characters.
Include keywords in the description a maximum of 5 times. The description cannot be longer than 4.000 characters.
Set your focus on the meta description (= the first 167 characters) since this will be visible the most.
The keywords are pulled from the description.
Provide screenshots and a short promo video.

App Store Optimization in Apple’s App Store

Here are some important factors you should keep in mind for using ASO as a free app promotion tool in the App Store:

Create a significant app title (you can only use your main keyword if it’s appropriate). The title cannot be longer than 50 characters, but we recommend to use a shorter title.
You can insert your keywords in the keyword field. Use 100 characters for your keywords, seperated by commas.
Not much attention is paid to the App description as it’s given in the Play Store.

So, the main difference between these app stores is the usage of keywords: direct placement (App Store) vs. embedding (Google Play). It’s an important element for your free app promotion.

However, it is important for both stores to choose the right keywords, which you want your app to rank for. A good mixture of relevance, difficulty, and traffic is crucial.

Make sure to give your app an expressive and unique app name, and create high-quality screenshots for your apps.

History of smartphone platform market share (2009-2016) © Statista

Building Your Own Brand

To make sure your app are well known among its (potential) users, you need to build your own brand. It is important for users to recognize your app directly and associate it with the benefit they get from downloading it. Building your own brand is part of free app promotion.

There a many ways of building your brand. Firstly, you should decide on what your brand should be like, what it should stand for, what its design and visual language should look like and how you can create a unique experience for the customers. Once you are sure of these factors, you can start communicating this to the outside world with your free app promotion.

The first way of presenting your brand to the outside should be your own website. We recommend for you to create an informative, but also clear website, which informs users about the features of your app and what they can do with it. It is also very important to include links to the app stores, so that users can easily download your app, if they like the website.

Furthermore, you should include all links to your own web presences, for example to your blog and your various social media channels. This will also have an impact on your free app promotion.

This leads us to the next two steps of building your own brand: Create an interesting blog and be active in social media.

When writing your own blog, you have the opportunity to present your brand, as well as to inform about recent changes in and news of the industry you are operating in. Keep the way you want your brand to look in mind and write the articles according to that scheme. Check the language, the pictures, graphics or colors you are using and adjust it accordingly.

Furthermore, you can create your own social media accounts. Study the different possible channels and only choose the ones that are most suitable for you. It is more important to create good content on some channels than to create bad content on many.

It is also important to know which channels your potential users are using at the moment. You need to get in touch with them in the online spaces they are using now.

If you want to acquire a broad audience with high quality, one way to promote your app is to involve an influencer, who is well known among your potential users. The influencer introduces your app to his audience in an interesting way, for example through a video or a blogpost.

Since the followers trust their influencer and are very willing to listen to him, the chances of them downloading your app are very high.

Another thing is to work together with the press: prepare a mediakit and a press release and distribute it to the most important journalists. Pitch your app to journalists and try to convince them to interview you and talk to you about your app.

Free App Promotion Sites

Free app promotion sites are almost self-explanatory: These sites place reviews and tests of your app on their site or on sites of other companies, who are willing to promote your app. The people you reach this way are usually already interested in new applications and are therefore more likely to download your app.

But keep in mind: Not all app promotion sites offer their service for free.

Channels that are definitely for free are app promotion forums or forums that concentrate on new apps. There, you can present your app to a high quality audience.

You will find more information about free app promotion sites here.

More Tips for Your Free App Promotion

There are various ways to promote your app without paying a single penny. We offer a well-elaborated concept for app promotion – just click here.

As basics, you should keep in mind the following aspects for your free app promotion.

First impression
It counts a lot. Your app needs to leave a good first impression on the user. Since there is a lot of competition in the marktet, users might choose any other app instead of yours if they are not satisfied with the first impression of your app.
Keep an Eye on Competitors
Keep a tab on your competitors, check their policies and marketing strategies. Follow the ones that are most suitable for you, they give you an idea about improving your free app promotion.
Directly Present Your App to Potential Users
Get in touch directly with your potential users through different blogs, websites and forums and present your app to them. Join different groups on Social Media and let the members know about your app. Make use of hashtags in an attempt to make your app go viral. You can also create your own hashtag to further boost your free app promotion.

Distribution of how mobile apps are discovered the most © ayeT-Studios

Word of Mouth through Personal Contacts
Your family, friends, and other contacts on social media can be of great help in free app promotion. Share your app with them and ask them to download and forward it to others.
Loyalty Programs
Create loyalty and referral programs. The users will market your app through word-of-mouth publicity and encourage others to download it. Even if they charge you some amount of money or demand incentive or bonus points, these costs will still be less than paid app promotion.

Below, you can find information on our pricing:

Rewarded Advertising	Android (starting at)	iOS (starting at)
CPI	0,07$	0,15$
CPE	0,30$	0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations)	On request	On request
Rewarded Video (CPV)	0,020$	0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM)	0,50$	0,50$

Non-Rewarded Advertising	Android/iOS/Website (starting at)
CPC	0,02$
CPM	2,00$
CPV	0,02$

A young man is pointing at the wall behind him where various elements are shown to rocket your success

The Best App Promotion Strategy for Your Business

November 17, 2016/in App Promotion/by Pascal Ludynia

How extensively you can boost your ranking is influenced by various factors evaluated by the algorithm of the respective app store.

One key factor is the number of installs – the more people have installed the app, the higher the algorithm will rank your app.

In this article, we present different app promotion strategies and how you can combine different types of installs in such strategies to make your app rank as highly as possible.

Installation Types: Incentivized vs. Non-Incentivized

There are different app promotion strategies you can use to increase the quantity of installs for an app. You can buy installs and choose between incentivized and non-incentivized ones, meaning:

- Users will either receive a reward for installing your application (incentivized) or
- they will download your app out of true interest and won’t get rewarded (non-incentivized).

Both types have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Incentivized Installs: Exchanging Installs for Rewards

In general, you can choose between two app promotion strategies when driving incentivized installs for your app. One of them is based on the amount of installs generated in a certain time whereas the other one considers loyalty of your users.

Burst Campaign

With this app promotion strategy, you can give your application a real push to increase its ranking in a short period of time.

This will lead to a higher ranking, which means more visibility in the charts. If users search for certain apps, the chance that yours will be displayed among the search results will be higher.
As a consequence, you will receive organic installs as well, which is an important factor for your app.

Loyal User Acquisition

This type of app promotion strategy stays in competition to campaigns based on non-incent installs and consequential costs per loyal user. One main factor influencing this concept is the so-called retention rate. In the chart below, you can see some numbers regarding retention rates of users, so you will better understand this term.

Days	Users keeping the app	Retention rate
1	100	Day1-retention: 10%
3	50	Day3-retention: 5%
7	10	Day7-retention: 1%

Example for retention rates (Day 0 = 1000 downloads) © ayeT-Studios

Advantages and Disadvantages

As mentioned before, one advantage is the mass of installs you can receive very fast and the resulting boost of ranking. Another important factor you should keep in mind are the costs you need to spend for each kind of install:
The CPI (= Cost per install) for incentivized installs is way cheaper than an app promotion strategy only based on non-incentivized ones. The downside of incentivized installs is that users might download and install your app only for the reward, resulting in less user engagement, lower lifetime value and smaller retention rates.

According to mobyaffiliates, who refer to a study by Fiksu, 57% of users from non-incent installs converted to “loyal users” in contrast to 24% from incent installs. (It is not stated clearly what a ‘loyal user’ actually is – this set of data might define it as users with a Day3-retention.)

How ayeT-Studios Improves User Retention

To counteract these factors, one app promotion strategy at ayeT-Studios is the so-called high-retention install. With this special high-retention service, users have to keep an app for at least 3 days before receiving a reward, which leads to much better results for customers and their app promotion strategy.

Retention Rates for high performing apps by app category © ayeT-Studios

Non-Incentivized Installs: When You don’t Reward Users

The advantage on one side is the disadvantage on the other: Since users won’t receive a reward for installing your app, you have more costs in order to receive the same amount of installs compared to an incentivized campaign. If you just started your app business, this could take a big chunk of your marketing budget if you mainly base your app promotion strategy on this element.

Additionally, you won’t be able to get huge amounts of installs in a short period of time.

But it’s worth it. Users will interact and use your app because of their true interest, which is a good basis for a loyal user base and a huge advantage for this type of app promotion strategy.

Either… Or?

Now the most important question needs to be asked: Which type of install will be suit your app promotion strategy more?

Can you choose a method where you will only deal with the benefits and leave the drawbacks behind? The answer is:
Take advantage of both of them. This mixture of rewarded and non-incent installs will let your app promotion strategy shoot up and your app will climb up the charts.

2 Steps to Success

It seems to be common practice to start app promotion strategies with incentivized installs, which won’t take long to deliver results and leads to a higher top chart position of the app.

The next measure is to receive non-incentivized traffic to increase user engagement and enlarge user retention. In this part of your app promotion strategy, you don’t need big amounts of installs as you probably did before.

Dividing your promotion strategy into these 2 parts will cause your app to rank higher in the charts regarding various key factors.

Why You Need an App Promotion Strategy

It might not seem obvious for some app developers or marketers to implement a certain promotion strategy. There are many advantages when running such promotions.

For example, you can get a vital amount of downloads in a short time frame, where most of the installs arise from other sources:

1) Organic installs due to the ranking in the Play Store
2) Recommendations of users (mostly via a referral system integrated within the app)
3) Media-driven attention, leading to users searching for the brand directly

Is There a Plan C?

Is this the only choice app developers and marketers have when planning an app promotion strategy? Or is there an option available which can bypass disadvantages and give a mixture of the advantages in one bundle?
In fact, there is the option of incentivized installs based on Cost Per Action (CPA). By this, you can persuade many users not only to install your app but also to engage with it at the same time.

It’s killing two birds with one stone – for little cost. The type of action can be anything realistic that won’t take too much time, otherwise users are not interested in achieving the respective goal:

- Registration
- Reaching a certain level
- Completing a tutorial
- and many more

These are actions users can and will accomplish in order to earn a reward.

Conclusion

There isn’t one formula for the perfect app promotion strategy when buying app installs. Results are still dependent on your app as well as users who are getting in touch with it.

According to the category your app belongs to, your game plan can change in comparison to other apps.

But if yours is developed properly, appeals to your major user base, and fulfils all conditions and functions it offers – then buying installs as your app promotion strategy will create a proper user base and lead to future organic traffic.

If you are not sure how your app promotion strategy should look like: Don’t worry. There are many mobile marketing companies available that will give advice about possible solutions.

ayeT-Studios is an experienced company in this business and offers a personal customized app promotion strategy to give you the best results, no matter if you have an Android or iOS application.

A man holding a tablet, above it are different social media concepts

Social Media App Promotion – Make Your App Go Viral

November 17, 2016/in App Promotion/by Pascal Ludynia

App stores are crowded with millions of apps, which make it hard to let your app standout.

A good app promotion strategy is a good way to start – but another part of the effort can be shouldered by marketers and influencers who make sure the product reaches the audience.

Social media app promotion combines the far reaching access, that a social media platform may provide, with the classical basics of marketing.

Why Social Media?

Advertisers and developers may jointly decide which platforms would reach a target audience in the most effective and rapid way.

However, making sure that the promotion and marketing of the appl is convincing enough to compel people to click and explore further is another task that advertisers find themselves mulling over.

The mechanics of social media app promotion primarily focus on making a client’s product stand out amongst the rest – and convincingly build an advertiser’s own reputation in the process.

Major Platforms

At the moment, 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels (see Brandwatch). The term ‘social media‘ condenses quite a number of channels and platforms into a word that does not quite capture its magnitude.

For an advertiser focusing on social media app promotion, he/she needs to sort and sift through a vast collection of platforms and choose which one would best suit a product for its marketing.

Facebook

is by far the largest and farthest-reaching social media platform. By the second-half of 2016, Facebook had amassed 1.71 billion monthly active users – with 56% of them logging in more than once per day (according to FIPP).
There are 2 main promotion strategies:

Advertisers can choose to use a Facebook feature to their advantage by creating a page. But this may pose the risk of not having the reach nor impact a client may want for their product.
Sponsored or paid advertisement on Facebook allows the site to advertise to users directly: This strategy provides a more forward and personal approach, as most marketing is filtered to a user by assessing his/her interests.

So, it is one of the top channels if you want to go for a social media app promotion campaign.

Google+

does not boast the numbers that Facebook or Instagram do, but it does allow the very vital link to the Google search engine. A paid ad can allow a marketing attempt to reach the user as soon as they type in a few words into the search engine.

Google processes nearly 3.5 billion searches on a daily basis, which makes Google+ a very compelling choice for social media app promotion.

Twitter

has a penchant for allowing products and content to go viral almost overnight.

For the more savvy promoters, this platform could open a range of possibilities. Twitter not only offers a wider audience, which is simpler to access, but also offers the added benefit of interpersonal communication with the consumers.

Many consumers take Twitter to directly address large franchises and companies with their queries and complaints, and often provide quick, individual replies. This makes the Twitter audience one that could allow most efficacy when running social media app promotion.

Instagram

is more than a battleground for celebrities competing for more followers:

It is the largest visually-oriented social media network. Of the 500 million monthly active users, many have made successful careers out of posting pictures featuring products as a form of paid promotion.

For the promotion of an app on Instagram, some advertisers may hire users with significant followers and reach, and have them get the message across. It has proven to be remarkably effective and popular for social media app promotion.

YouTube

is a rapidly growing channel for entertainment and networking, and has established itself as one of the most effective ways to promote various products and applications.

Popular YouTubers with millions of active followers can base videos on paid sponsorships, and even give reviews of the products they are asked to showcase.

All promoters would agree: This is the one platform that is more suitable for social media app promotion than most in terms of its impact and delivery.

Who Provides Social Media App Promotion?

Advertising networks and agencies like ayeT-Studios operate to provide this service, while others solely focus on social media app promotion.

These mobile marketing agencies offer advertising solutions and structures so that any creator’s application is able to reach the appropriate audience in the most effective way.

They offer promotion and installation for both operating systems Android and iOS, engineering their services in a way that generates the best results.

What About Pricing?

Prices vary from one region to the next, and also on how far the client wishes to push their application up the charts.

Social media app promotion hinges on visibility, and the more determined creators can find themselves up to $200,000 short in pushing their app to the top 25 charts.

In the UK the same may cost $30,000, and in Thailand $10,000.

The costing boils down to a system of CPI (Cost Per Installation), with Facebook and Twitter proving to be the easiest on the pocket, settling at $3 CPI.

Pricing depends on the scale of the marketing, and ultimately how far a client wants the reach of the campaign to extend.

What You Should Consider

App developers may decide to carry out their own social media app promotion to save money. However, this may not prove to be as effective as desired. Professional agencies take it upon themselves to provide an encompassing service because they know which platforms to target at what point in time.

When looking for a suitable service or agency for your social media app promotion, it is important to know the available budget. From there, an agency can be judged based on how far their reach extends, how credible their services are, and what sort of time and efficiency projection they provide.

Outlook For This Service

Any conscientious creator would want to thoroughly look into the past projects and details of an agency, alongside their success rate in terms of promotion and installation. Generally, however, these agencies tend to have a solid base in terms of providing the kind of reach a developer is looking for.

A number of online reports have deemed influencers via social media promotion as the undisputed promoters of tomorrow. Agencies are adapting to provide more visually-based promotions, with images and videos becoming more prevalent than text-based ones.

With the vast amount of cyber traffic in the past few years, social media app promotion has become a universally-acknowledged force to be reckoned with, minting prime results by carefully targeting audiences worldwide.

Social media app promotion is one part of the service that ayeT-Studios offers. They provide personal mobile app promotion to achieve best results – for both iOS and Android apps.

mobile game promotion: two women having fun playing a game on their smartphone

Effective Tools for Successful Mobile Game Promotion

November 17, 2016/in App Promotion/by Pascal Ludynia

If you are a developer of mobile games, we are sure you know one thing: There is a huge amount of games out there! Anyways, in order to be successful you have to do a solid job at mobile game promotion.

Firstly, you need to know exactly how much money you can spend on marketing tools. The best way to calculate your budget for your mobile game promotion is to have a look at

Cost per Active User (CPAU),
Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and
Lifetime Value of your User (CLTV).

With these three numbers in mind, it will be easier for you to plan a marketing campaign that suits your budget.

Key Figures for Your Mobile Game Promotion Budget

In the following, we will explain some of the numbers that you need to be aware of to calculate your mobile game promotion budget.

Cost Per Active User

The Cost per Active User measures the cost to acquire an active user for brands who market their apps. In this case, every company needs to define for themselves what active means.

For example, some companies might say that an active users is a customer who returns to the app at least once a month. In this case, you might also hear the term ‘retention rate’.

You will find more information abour retention rates in this article.

Average Revenue Per User

The Average Revenue per User is the amount of revenue each of your active customers (on average) contributes. It can be used to calculate the budget for your mobile game promotion (together with the Cost per Active User).

Lifetime Value

The Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) indicates the user’s worth. With this information in mind, you can calculate how much you can spend for one customer in order to make a profit.

The CLTV depends on three factors:

Monetization (how much do customers contribute to your mobile revenue),
Retention (level of engagement a customers has with your app) and
Virality (sum value of additional users, which a customer will refer to your app)

Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is the value that measures the monetization:

Paid Mobile Game Promotion

Now that you know your numbers and how to spend your ad budget most efficiently, you should know more about different types of paid mobile game promotion.

Incentivized vs Non-Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

There is a great difference between incentivized and non-incentivized app marketing, but both can be used to promote your mobile game.

Incentivized app marketing consists of rewarding users with something in exchange for downloading and trying an game or engaging with an app.

Non-incentivized app marketing, on the other hand, is marketing that convinces the user to download and try the game without any reward for it.

Basic information about incent and non-incent installs for your app promotion can be found here.

Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

Typical rewards of your mobile game promotion would be upgrades on the game, discount codes, virtual currency within the game, coupons or other giveaways. This kind of marketing will deliver many downloads for a very small investment.

On the other hand, as a marketer, it is very important to analyse the exact costs to acquire an active user. You can expect retention rates to be much lower compared to non-incentivized campaigns. So make sure to take that into account when calculating your CPAU.

Non-Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

With non-incentivized mobile game promotion, users decide to download the app out of interest. Non-incentive app marketing could be banner ads through ad networks, advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, an app review on a blog or even offline promotion.

With this kind of marketing you can reach a particular group of users that is naturally interested in your product.

Pricing for that kind of mobile game promotion is much higher than for incentivized mobile game promotion. Even though you can expect high quality traffic and a higher retention than for incentivized campaigns, please make sure to calculate the CPAU.

In the end, higher prices and higher retention can amount to the same CPAU or even be worse than for incentivized campaigns.

To reach a humongous amount of users and to have a high-quality user base a mixture of both ways of marketing could be the key.

No matter which tools you use for your mobile game promotion: authenticity is essential. After all, your marketing measures should fit your game in order to contribute to a successful marketing campaign.

10 Effective Tools for Successful Mobile Game Promotion

Now that you have set up your marketing budget, it is time to think about different ways to promote your mobile game. We have gathered 10 tools that might strengthen your mobile game promotion strategy.

1. Create a Landing Page
  To inform the user in the most optimal way, it is essential to create a landing page with the game’s essential information. In addition, you should include a download link of the game so that the user does not have to leave the website to download the app. This could lead to a potential loss of users. Furthermore, you should make it easy for your user to tell friends about the game by including a sharing option on different social media channels.
2. Optimize Your Presence in the App Store
  A cost effective way of getting more downloads is to optimize the game’s appearance in the different app stores. You can start by creating an eye-catching app icon and by giving the app a short and creative title. Furthermore, you need to add an informative description. (For Android, it must contain your keywords; but be careful: If you use too many keywords it might appear as spam, which you definitely want to avoid. The App Store offers a separate keyword field to put yours into.) Finally, to show users what they can expect from the game, you should include great screenshots that show all features of the game.
  
  Mobiles Games are the Most Popular App Category by Impressions © ayeT-Studios
3. Use feedback
  A great way of constantly improving your game is to ask for feedback from users in the app store or on your social media channels. By using users’ experience with the game, you will be able to adjust your game and think about factors you have never noticed before. It is also important that you respond to user feedback so that they will feel valued. Another way of using feedback for your mobile game promotion is to present your app through startup communities or app review sites and ask for opinions.
4. Be social
  In order to get people to talk about your game, you need to give them a space to talk. You could either create a forum for users to discuss the game or open a game-related group in different social media channels. There, users can share their experience, their achievements, and some tips and tricks to enhance their performance. If possible, also integrate social media within your game so that your customers can share their achievements directly through the app on social media.
5. Be visual
  Users like to consume videos rather than plain text. Consequently, introducing your game with a video is always a good idea. A video offers various ways of presenting your game, for example as a preview or a short demonstration – there are no limits. You can share the video on numerous social media channels, for example YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.
6. Include Influencers
  Influencer Marketing is a great way to make your game more visible in the internet and to attract many potential users. You can let a YouTuber play your game in a video that will be published on his channel, or you could let a blogger test the app and review it on his/her blog. Either way, many users will become aware of your game due to influencer marketing. We at ayeT-Studios can help you find the right social media influencer -> click here!
7. Make Potential Users Interested
  Offer users an incentive in order to make them interested in your game. You can do that by offering giveaways or coupons – everyone likes goods for free.
  
  Minutes spent per session by games (Android & iOS) © Adjust
8. Promote Your App Offline
  Next to promoting your game online, it is also crucial to do so offline. You could, for instance, collaborate with game stores. By placing a QR code, stickers or posters on windows traffic light posts, you’re raising awareness for your game.
9. Prepare a Media Kit
  Public relations is also a part of mobile game promotion. Of course you want to be prepared for the press, in case they take an interest in your game. Hence, you should arrange a media kit that includes all the relevant information about your game. For example, an app summary guide, a press release, great screenshots of your game, a design collateral, great videos, founder bios and some nice pictures.
10. Apply for Awards
  A mobile game promotion tool that will make your game interesting not only for users, but also for the press is to participate in app awards. The coverage of the award, as well as reviews of the different apps will also raise awareness for your game, which will lead to an increase in app downloads.

ayeT-Studios is an ad agency specialized in mobile ad solutions and offers customized mobile app promotion for both Android and iOS.

App Promotion: Everything You Need to Know to Do It Right

November 16, 2016/in Blog/by Pascal Ludynia

App promotion will reach the potential consumers in many different ways and places, online and offline. What your app promotioni strategy will look like depends on your budget, your app and your company in general.

Where Should You Promote Your Mobile App?

The two wheres for mobile app promotion:

Where as in which platforms?
Where as in which services to use?

iOS vs. Android

If you developed your app both for Android and iOS, on which platform should you start promoting your app?

It depends on your budget! If your budget is plenty, you might start with both platforms. If you are on a limited budget, you should decide on what kind of customers you want to attract.

Keep in mind that iOS app promotion is more expensive than Android app promotion. Additionally, keep in mind that iOS users are willing to spend more money for apps than Android users.

On the other hand, you need to consider that only 12,5% of all smartphones use iOS whereas Android stands for more than 80% of the market share.

Which Services Should You Use?

There are quite a few service providers that can help you get off to the right start. In order for you to spend your money wisely, you should first consider where you need professional help the most.

User Acquisition Through Ad Networks

In order to push your app in the app store you can consider buying downloads for your app. There are two ways of doing that: Non-incentive and incentive.
Ad networks make sure that the product being advertised and the publishing site fit together, resulting in an authentic advertisement.

ASO

An app promotion tool that can easily be used is app store optimization. Many companies underestimate the effect of a visually and contentually appealing app store appearance.
Nevertheless, users are more likely to download your app if they see a nice app icon or read an accurate description. Things you can optimize are:
· App name
Find a catchy and short name with some of the keywords included.
· Icon
Create an unique and clear icon that stays in the user’s mind.
· Keywords
Use keywords that are relevant and create traffic on your app store page. Read your competitor’s app description and use similar keywords.
There are many ways to find better keywords: Synonyms, keywords of your competitors, and keywords used in your app’s reviews.
You can take advantage of keyword tools that will help you find the right keywords.
· Description
Write a detailed description of all the features of your app. Depending on the OS, you have to use keywords (Android) or not (iOS).
Regarding Android: Don’t spam your description with keywords – you should only include your keywords up to 4 or 5 times.
· Screenshots
Make sure to include pretty screenshots of your app. The users want to get an overview of all its features. The best screenshots emphasize the app’s sales argument.

Building Your Own Brand

To make your app well known among potential users, you need to build your own brand for the app.
You can do that by creating an informative website that tells users what the app can do, why they should use it and how they can use it.
Of course, you should also include a link to the app store and your contact information.
This leads to another important step: Create your own social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube.
The benefits can be found here.

App Promotion Sites

Another way of promoting your app is to advertise on app review sites. However, be careful: Sometimes this is a free promotional tool, but you could also pay for it.
Furthermore, you can promote your app in forums that shine a light on new apps. There, you can reach a group of people that are very likely to be interested in your app.
In addition, you can also write press releases about your app and send them to the relevant media institutions in hope that they will review your app in an article.

How Should You Promote Your Mobile App?

Before planning your app promotion campaign, you need to set up your budget. To calculate your budget, you have to know different operating numbers.

Two very important key figures are the Cost per Active User (CPAU) and the Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV). With these numbers, you know what it costs to acquire a user and you know his/her worth for your app.

Further information about the most important key figures can be found in this article.

Paid App Promotion

When first starting your app, you can’t be sure about your apps key metrics:

What is your average retention rate?
How much will an active user really cost you?
And how much money will he/she generate on average in his lifespan?

There is only one way to find out! Lead users into your app, quick! Let’s put ASO, PR and all the nice design stuff aside for a second and focus on paid app promotion.

There are two ways of paid app promotion: the incentive app promotion and the non-incentive app promotion. Even though these two ways of promoting your app are very different, both can be used at the same time.

Incentive App Promotion

If you make use of the incentive app promotion, you will reward users for downloading and opening your app. Typical rewards could be giveaways, discount codes or game upgrades.

The incentive app promotion is an affordable way for new app providers to advertise, even if you are restricted by a small budget. You can even set a budget for a specific length of time and when the funds have been used up, the campaign stops and you will be notified automatically.
Incentive app promotion is a tool to reach a humongous amount of potential users. Nevertheless, it is crucial to know that many users might only install the app to receive the award and delete it shortly after.

Therefore, the retention rate will be much lower compared to non-incentivized app promotion campaigns. This is an important information for calculating your budget.

Non-Incentive App Promotion

When a user decides to download an app out of interest, it is called non-incentive app promotion. Typical tools of non-incentive app promotion are banner advertisements, app reviews, social media marketing, influencer marketing or even offline promotion.

Non-incentive app promotion reaches an exact group of users that are already interested in your kind of app.

Compared to incentive app promotion, the amount of users being reached is relatively small, but the users are more likely to continue using your app, hence the retention rate will be higher compared to incentive app promotion.

In order to reach high-quality users and a huge group of users, a mixture of both incentive and non-incentive app promotion is the key.

What Are the Best Ways to Promote an App?

There are plenty of ways to promote your app. What kind of app promotion you choose depends on your app, your company and the market you operate in.

It is always a good idea not to focus too much on only one way of app promotion, but instead to combine different tools to reach as many potential users as possible.

Furthermore, it is important that you develop an authentic app promotion strategy.

Of course, your budget always plays a big role as well. Hence, you should always compare the CPAU for every channel to check if the chosen channel is worthwhile and necessary for your campaign. Likewise, it is important that the costs are lower than your CLTV.

If you want your app to be successful in the crowded market, you will need a great app promotion strategy. AyeT-Studios can you help you plan such a campaign, customized for your specific app and your needs.

Your Guide for Successful App Promotion

Nevertheless, if you want to plan an app promotion campaign by yourself, the following graphic shows an overview of all the things to consider.

A smartphone being hold with application icons coming out

iOS CPI Promotion Campaigns Now Available

September 12, 2016/in Company Updates/by Pascal Ludynia

Today’s mobile market place is clearly dominated by two giants: Google and Apple.

As for Apple, there are 4 times as many iOS developers as there are Android developers; iPhone app development has become a very lucrative business. However, the iOS market is a rough terrain to find app users in.

However, we have worked hard and we found the courage to finish this project for our app promotion service.

Incent iOS Installs – Making Your Way up in the App Store

Advertisers and app developers will now be able to generate iOS CPI promotion campaigns.

As usual for iOS applications, it is required that the app needs a third-party tracking SDK integrated by one of our partners:

Appsflyer
Tune
Adjust

Like this, you can start a promotion campaign for iOS apps and receive high-quality installs.

We are also able to create boost campaigns for your iOS CPI promotion to give your apps a real push to the top of the App Store.

Start Your CPI Promotion Campaign for iOS Apps now!

If you have any questions or comments about our service, please reach out to one of our Account Managers or email support@ayetstudios.com.

Stay tuned for further improvements at ayeT-Studios!