Nowadays, the new thing in the mobile marketing agenda is how a deadly sin is to get benefit from burst campaigns. Everybody talks that it is dead but we do not agree. Here are the reasons to advocate the advantages of burst campaigns for indie developers and app owners.
NOTE: The thoughts mentioned in this article not valid to boost campaigns that are driven by bot and fraud traffic. As a company, we don’t support any fraud and bot traffic.
Newly Launched Apps’ Chances to Be Found Is Decreasing
There are about 4 million apps in the App Store and Google Play as of today. And hundreds of new apps are launched every single day. Developing an amazing app that solves your audiences’ exact problem is just a beginning for a long way of competition. Let’s say that you have an iOS navigation app, which is in the least popular category in the App Store according to Statista. Here is the huge list of iOS navigation apps. Whichever the category and popularity of your app are, you should handle a harsh competition to pass your competitors and get found by your audience. If you want to do it organically, you have to create a long-term marketing strategy. At that point, burst campaigns give you an amazing chance to reach your audience without wasting time and effort.
Ranking at the Top of Any Category Is Harder Than Ever
How many daily downloads do you need to rank in your app’s category? Here is an example. Below, you can see a US-based news app. For a 7-day campaign for the United States to ranked at top 10, they need 29.311 daily installs. For Top 50, the estimated daily download number needed is 6175.
This is just an example of a specific category in a specific country. If you have a newly launched app, it will be harder and harder to rank even top 100 in your app’s category. This needs a long-term and heavy effort. After all, there is no guarantee that your app will be liked by your users when you reach them as a result of these efforts.
Organic Uplift Proves That Burst is Not All About Poor Quality Users
When it comes to burst campaigns, the main drawback is the poor quality of the acquired users. However, app owners should know that increasing the category ranking of an app is not the main aim of burst campaigns. Their main aim is to increase the category ranking in order to increase the visibility of an app and increase the organic downloads accordingly. So you don’t only have users coming from media buying, but also the ones coming after your rank is increased. If your app is good enough for your potential users, you have a big chance to be stick in the rank you reached after the burst campaign. And this difference between your pre-campaign rank and post-campaign rank shows your organic uplift. Our analysis also shows that paid traffic through App Samurai has a day 7 retention of %3 to %8 which is also more than acceptable for boost campaign traffic.
Here is a perfect example. Below you can see an organic uplift example from leading travel company having an extensive brand portfolio in Turkey. During the burst campaign, their daily installs reached to 1197 from 203! After the campaign, daily organic installs increased to 600 from 203! And that means a 295% increase in daily downloads.
It’s Not About the Budget, It is About Your Investment Plan
Burst campaigns give you a chance to see the potential of your app in the eyes of your users. The money you spent in a burst campaign doesn’t only brings new users, but also shows you if it worths to invest more or not. It is much better to invest some money in the beginning than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars without knowing whether it will succeed or not.
It is a Chance to Test Your App with Real Users
What real users think about your app determines the destiny of your app. Your friends and family can help you see the important bugs and issues with your app but it is not enough to find out whether your potential users like it or not. It is obvious that competition is harsh and acquiring users is harder than ever. Under this circumstance, finding what your real users think about your app is hard because you don’t acquire enough users. Burst campaigns help you acquire new users who are willing to give feedback about your app. You can also watch them by tracking in-app events to learn where they left your app or what is their session duration. You can take in-app actions to improve your app’s quality by analyzing those valuable feedbacks.
What Else Can Be Better Than Knowing What Your Competitors’ Are Doing
It is always the easiest way to say that “If I were you”. It is the same when it comes to competition. Think for a second. What happens if you have a chance to simulate your competitors’ position in your category? You will have an amazing chance to think and act like your competitors and see the opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths coming from being at the top! This is not a small thing to consider: This is what you need to do to know your next steps and the only boost campaigns give you this chance in the short run in order to be in your competitors’ shoes.
It Is Just Part of a Whole Marketing Strategy, Not the Strategy Itself
Seeing burst campaigns as the only mobile marketing strategy that an app developer should take into account is just the easiest way to see its negative sides. Yes, burst is a mobile user acquisition strategy but an app developer should also consider the other main metrics like app retention, LTV, and engagement rates. A successful mobile marketing strategy is not only about user acquisition even if it is an important one. This is why burst campaigns should be seen as a part of a marketing strategy, not the whole strategy itself.
What Happens If Somebody Tells You That You Can Go Viral
We all know that there is no such thing as one-night success. It is all about the efforts you made for hundreds of hours. Yes, you created an amazing app by allocating a huge effort, time, and money. Now it is time to present your precious! However, as we talked along this article, competition doesn’t allow you waking up as a Top 10 app in some morning. But, wait. Why not? Why not your app becomes the next PokemonGO if it is qualified enough for this? Well, burst campaigns give you this opportunity. By ranking at top via burst campaigns, you can have a chance to go viral.
Well, it is of course up to you to choose using burst or not. However, it absolutely isn’t dead! When it is created according to best practices, it will be one of the most powerful savers of mobile marketers and indie developers. And it seems like this power will continue for a longer time.
