Pay per Install

Pay per Install, also referred to as Cost per Install, is a widely used pricing model in mobile advertising.

According to its name for this pricing model an advertiser only has to pay when a user installs his application. Since CPI campaigns intend to increase the number of downloads for an application, it is mainly used as a powerful tool for marketers to improve the app store ranking. This way developers and marketers are able to improve the visibility of their app inside the app store and play store and thus generate more organic downloads. However the ranking algorithm of Apple and Google for the app store and play store have slightly changed. It is now harder to rank and app solely based on CPI campaigns. User behavior, retention and other metrics are now much more taken into account for ranking apps.

Given the fact that an install is much further down the funnel than just a click or a view, CPI campaigns are priced much higher per conversion compared to cost per click (CPC) or cost per million/view (CPM / CPV) campaigns. This statement made ahead is rather a bold and simplified description of the pricing relation of CPI, CPC, CPE, CPM or CPV campaigns, but is meant to calrify that CPI is further down the funnel of generating a paying customer than CPC or CPM campaigns. In reality prices for all different pricing models (CPM / CPV, CPC, CPI, CPE / CPA) are compared on a eCPM basis.