User acquisition for mobile apps has become a real challenge. People love to use apps and discover new ones, research says. As you can see below, 90% of the time on mobile is spent in apps! Expected number of app downloads in 2017 is 268.697 billion! What do these numbers mean? It is simple, actually. People download apps, and they will continue to do that!
This consumption brings together an app mass in app stores. This means, to get a slice of the cake, tens of thousands of apps are continuing to be developed in every category. And this means competition.
Paid user acquisition is a solution to exclude these risks and get to be found by your potential users in app stores. Competition is not the only reason to benefit from paid user acquisition. Here are some convincing reasons to use mobile ad models.
Decrease User Acquisition Cost
Acquiring a new user is highly relevant with the lifetime value of a single user. LTV (lifetime value) is about how much a single user costs. If your user acquisition cost exceeds the lifetime value, it indicates something went wrong with your profitability. If the lifetime value of a single user exceeds the user acquisition cost, now it is time to breathe a sigh of relief!
Paid campaigns help you decrease your user acquisition cost, thanks to paid downloads. You can bring organic and engaged users with the help of paid users, which increases your category ranking and your downloads!
Increase Category Ranking & Organic Downloads
One of the most important aims in mobile ad campaigns is to increase your organic downloads by increasing your visibility in your app category via paid downloads. As you take paid downloads to your app, your visibility increases, and organic users download your app.
Above, you can find the results for an ecommerce app. After an ad campaign, the customer ranked Top 5 in Shop category and acquired 5X the new users during the campaign. These improvements increased the revenue by 3X!
h2>Meaningful Data Before Localization Investment
Localization is a powerful tool to get more downloads by expanding your potential users, globally. However, for implementation, it is a time consuming job, and this makes it risky to decide whether to localize your app. Paid user acquisition is an effective way to test to see the potential in your target countries. Create a campaign in these countries and see the tendency of your potential users to use your app, according to the number of organic downloads coming from the campaign.
Viral Growth
Fueling app growth is nearly impossible if you are waiting for your app to go viral, with no marketing effort. According to Gartner, through 2018, only 0.01% of mobile apps will be financially successful! This means 99.9% of mobile apps will not reach success, because they are not visible in their category. Being in this 0.01% needs a smart effort, besides time allocation. Paid user acquisition is an amazing way to let your app go viral, thanks to increase in category ranking.
Possibility to Test the App with Real Users After Launch
User feedback is crucial for the future of an app. An app owner or an app developer must test the app with real users to get effective and constructive feedback. Friends and families are a good start to test the app, but not always enough. This is why you should see what your real target thinks about it. Reviews are precious to see results, and if you do not get enough downloads and rank higher in your category, it is almost impossible to reach this aim. With paid user acquisition, you can rank your app higher and see what others think about your app. After launch, it gives you an opportunity to make your app visible to your target audience and listen to their real feedback, before your first update.
Key Metrics for Prospective Investors
Your app as a smart enterprise will most probably be like one of the competitors’. If you want to persuade investors to invest in your app, your starting point should show them the potential of your app. Paid user acquisition helps you find the key metrics to present. These metrics might be return on investment (ROI), retention rate, organic downloads estimation, and positions in critical keywords, during and after the campaign.
Finding the Right Growth Formulas Before Big Ad Investments
Even if you have a budget for ad investment, it might be a disappointment if you don’t get the ROI you imagine. To avoid this risk, you can consider creating a campaign with a small budget to see the results before a big investment. This also shows you the reactions and feedback of your customers to make your app lovable to potential users, before promoting it with a big budget.
CONCLUSION
Paid user acquisition provides 3 opportunities in brief: Budget Management, Growth Hacking, and Loyal Users.
- Localization test, pre-investment projection, and decreasing user acquisition costs help you to manage and use your budget smartly. You can also find the key metrics, like ROI, for prospective investors.
- Viral growth and increase in category ranking and organic downloads help your app reach the target audience.
- Because you give a chance to your app to be found in app stores, your new organic users become an amazing source to improve your app, and this brings loyal users with higher retention rate.