Mobile presents a wealth of opportunity to advertisers — and it’s no surprise why:
Reason #1: The global reach of mobile is unparalleled — it’s estimated that by 2018, there will be 1.4 mobile devices for every person on the planet.
Reason #2: People are glued to their smartphones — 44% of American cell phone owners have slept with their phones next to their beds because they didn’t want to miss any calls, text messages, or updates during the night.
Reason #3: Mobile bridges gaps between online and offline worlds — campaigns can drive foot traffic to brick and mortar storefronts and ensure that your brand remains top of mind across marketing channels.
It’s this ecosystem that has made Facebook, one of the world’s biggest social media giants, a mobile-first company.
Mladen Raickovic, General Manager for AdParlor
The Landscape
For years, skeptics said that Facebook’s mobile transformation was an unrealistic dream that would never ever happen. But the social media giant proved everyone wrong by developing a truly innovative ad product that drives significant value to its customers. Today, Mobile App Installs are the fastest growing segment of Facebook’s ad product suite — creating a front-running customer acquisition engine through robust targeting features, seamless integration, and global reach.
The AdParlor team has been fortunate enough to see — and be a part — of this transformation, helping advertisers reach mobile audiences with the right message at exactly the right time.
It’s how we’ve helped industry giants like Sobey’s —one of Canada’s largest and most popular grocery store chains — drive tens of thousands of mobile app installs at below-market rates during the most competitive advertising season of the year.
What social media brings to the table is a new, data-rich advertising channel — one that disrupts traditional display and mobile app install models by capturing audiences in the moment, with products that they find compelling.
And now, it’s Twitter’s time to innovate with its new suite of targeting, creative and measurement tools to drive mobile app installs. This ecosystem presents mobile marketers with a wealth of opportunities, across industries. The question they’re facing, however, is how to get started.
As a beta partner, AdParlor was one of the initial launch partners for Twitter’s new Mobile App Promotion product — among the first to explore this untapped advertising opportunity. Here are the biggest lessons that we’ve learned.
Lesson #1: the Opportunity Is Massive
Across advertising clients, AdParlor has continues to hear that acquisition costs are rising.
This trend is no surprise, given that advertisers are approaching their spend with an increasingly sophisticated view of customer lifetime value (LTV) and scaling user acquisition.
Rising price-points equals crowded ecosystems, which means advertisers will need new options to keep growing.
That’s where Facebook has exploded and where Twitter now comes in.
Twitter presents a brand new opportunity for brands looking to attract audiences. As a marketing channel, Twitter is distinct from any other, supporting its own unique user behaviors and needs — which brings us to our next point.
Lesson #2: Testing Is Key
Twitter comes to the table with a unique advertising solution and pricing model. Advertisers who are used to a ‘traditional’ cost-per-install (CPI) model will need to adapt to Twitter’s cost-per-attempt model — rather than paying for installs, advertisers will pay for clicks to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. Optimizing this pricing model requires continuous testing and analysis — a need to evaluate this cost-per-acquisition (CPA) metric on its own merits.
There are many variables that influence the success of a Twitter app install campaign — from composition of tweets to geotargeting, time and dates of campaign launches, and image choices. Advertisers can also experiment with app names, custom icons, custom descriptions — as well as key characteristics such as ratings, price and download buttons.
Through testing, we’ve helped a travel client drive mobile app installs at a CPI rate 13X cheaper than previous campaigns, a music service client drive installs at a CPI rate under $3 in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, and an online retailer achieve a 34% decrease in mobile app CPIs during a three-week test campaign.
#3: Technology Drives Testing at Scale
Given that Twitter is a new acquisition channel, advertisers need to commit to optimizing campaigns to their fullest potential — which means committing to a flexible ad testing budget.
The thing about ‘flexible’ budgets it that they need to yield actionable insights — as quickly as possible. Advertisers need more than instincts and intelligence to make the most out of Twitter as an advertising ecosystem.
Marketers need the technologies that partners like AdParlor bring to the table. Using data and technology, we can help advertisers rapidly and efficiently optimize campaigns toward specific calls – helping them maximize their success, at scale.
Final Thoughts
The Twitter advertising ecosystem will continue to evolve. There are more unknowns than knowns — which is incredibly exciting, as brands have an unparalleled opportunity to drive installs to their mobile apps. Education and experimentation will be crucial to Twitter’s future as marketplace for driving app installs. Listen, watch, learn — and test as Twitter’s story unfolds.
Mladen Raickovic is the General Manager for AdParlor.
AdParlor, an Adknowledge company, is an industry leader in optimizing social media advertising and provides full-service and self-service solutions for Facebook and Twitter.
