An offerwall is a plugin within an app or webpage that consists of simple tasks for users to complete. These tasks include actions such as watching an ad, downloading a new app or even committing to a specific in-app event. Upon completion of a task, users are then offered a reward or bonus whether it is in-app currency or points that accumulate towards monetary gain, for instance, PayPal cards or Amazon Gift Vouchers.
This makes an offerwall into an excellent advertising tool, as you can post your app on an offerwall and receive exposure to a very large multitude of users. Another term given to advertising with offerwalls is ‘rewarded engagement’, as users are rewarded for engaging with your app. As a result, you can expect much higher install and engagement rates. Therein lies the benefit of offerwalls.
The Benefit of Offerwalls
Increased Engagement
The traditional effect of running advertisements via offerwalls is increasing visibility, awareness and organic users – but a newly understood effect of this method is that it also leads to increased in-app engagements. Offerwalls allow users to earn rewards for completing a task within your advertised app, the more time they spend in your app, the more exposure they gain to the unique value your app can offer them.
Consider the following fun fair example; you are offered an incentive to go to a fun fair. Normally, it would take all sorts of targeted advertisements to get you to try out this fun fair, but now that you’re being offered a reward to do so, you head in and try a few games. After a couple of interactions you realize that the fair is actually quite fun, so you tell your friends and family about it, perhaps even return at a future date yourself to try out new rides and games. Rewarded engagements in offerwalls work on the same basic principle of prolonging users’ exposure to an advertised app enough for them to get a real taste of it by engaging with it. Thence, Increased in-app engagement is a direct result of offerwall advertising.
Improved Visibility
By incentivizing users to install your app (at the least), you achieve a large burst of installs in a short period of time. This effect is reflected on the App/Play Store as your app works its way up the charts based on total installations. Even if a user uninstalls your app, they will still count in your total install metrics. By moving up the charts, your app is infinitely more likely to be viewed organically by users browsing their respective stores – this is how offerwalls manage to increase your app’s visibility.
Organic Uplift
In addition to simply increasing visibility, a direct result of boosting your app’s position in the store is that more and more users will download your app without it being advertised to them. Offerwalls allow your app to cast a wide reach over non-paid users, and a long-term effect of running offerwall campaigns is the uplift in your organic installation rate.
What do you Need to Run an Offerwall Ad?
One of the best things about launching your app advertisement on an offerwall is that it does not require the same creative-intensive processes as other campaign types.
To run a campaign with an offerwall, you will need:
App Icon
One may assume with reasonable confidence that if you are advertising an app, you have a bona fide icon in place representing it. This same icon will be used to promote your app on an offerwall, followed by the prompts for end-users as well as the value of the reward they will earn.
Tracking Link & Targeting
Naturally, as with any mobile campaign, you will want to follow analytics and check campaign performance per market channel. The same stands true for campaigns with offerwalls; with a tracking link plugged in, you will be able to view the clicks, installs, post-install events and other user-behaviors attributed to users acquired via the offerwall.
Additionally, you will need to specify which geo-location you wish to run your ads in so that the offerwall campaign can be more effective in targeting your desired audience segment. You can target continents, countries and even cities.
Bid Details
Another detail that sets offerwall ads apart from other traditional methods of user acquisition is that the cost per install (CPI) or cost per action (CPA) bids for offerwall campaigns are far more reasonably priced. While a performance-based user acquisition campaign might cost you $1.5 per install, you can run a well-performing offerwall campaign at $0.5 per install even. You will need to enter your bidding details as well as the expected number of installs per day; you can set a total budget or end date for your campaign as well.
Offerwall Prompt
One of the main aspects that can even determine the success or failure of your offerwall campaign is the call to action (CTA) prompt that you will provide to your end users in the offerwall. You will need to precisely and concisely explain what you expect your end-users to do based on your campaign strategy; it could be as simple as “Install and open the app” to a longer prompt based on how far down along the user journey your conversion event is. An example could be: “After installing & opening the app, sign up and verify your email address” or “Register your account on the app and purchase an item worth at least $20”.
When to Advertise with Offerwalls?
Offerwall advertising has proven to have a myriad of diverse use-cases for user acquisition, though they can be narrowed down to X times you should consider running your ads on offerwalls
When New to the Market
Simply running brand building ads will not be enough to create awareness of your presence in the market. By running ads through offerwalls, you improve your exposure to millions of users in a short span of time and also end up boosting your install rate. Users are more likely to install your app when they see that it has been installed by hundreds of thousands of other users as it exhibits trustworthiness.
When your Customer LTV is Dropping
Offerwalls are a great way to keep users engaged with your app. By offering rewards for completing tasks, you can confirm that users will complete that in-app event. By doing so, you can try hooking new users in by incentivizing them to invest time and even money in your app. For instance, a betting app can incentivize users to deposit a small amount of money in their account to bet with and if they find the experience better than competitor apps, the price of the initial incentive was worth it as you increase the LTV (Lifetime Value) of your customers. More engagements mean expanding customer LTV and retaining them as well.
When Competitors are Crowding You
There are more than 3.3 million apps on the Google Play Store alone, which should highlight how hard it can be to stand out with so much competition. Looking at mobile analytics tools, it is easy to tell when there are shifts in your category and if your app is falling down the ranks, it might be time to run campaigns on offerwalls. Boosting your install rate will counteract the tactics of your competitors and catapult your right back into the eyes of your potential organic customers.
After Optimizing your User Journey
If you have received reviews highlighting the need for change in a particular user journey within your app, you can implement the change first and then consider activating your offerwall campaigns. Imagine an app with a badly planned layout that confuses users and an unoptimized interface which results in high bounce rates due to unsatisfactory experiences. You can run A/B tests to ensure your app is ready to house an influx of users; a positive UX (user experience) can result in an uplift in 5-star reviews from these new users, and unfortunately, vice versa. This brings us to the next point.
When App Reviews aren’t Promising
Being registered on any store with mediocre reviews can be a slow death sentence for any application. Having a low review score can often be a deterrent to users that might have initially considered downloading an app. A sure-fire way to fix this would be to have a team chalk out the main issues highlighted negatively in these reviews and, once fixed, run ads on offerwalls to have new incoming users review the app positively.
It is not recommended to incentivize users to simply offer your app 5-stars because a) This is not an in-app trackable event and more importantly, b) it’s unethical. However, you can have in-app popups to ask users to review the app if they’re having a good time; the burst nature of offerwalls will ensure the sheer volume of positive reviews the app can receive.
Conclusion
The point of an offerwall is to achieve hypergrowth and boost in-app engagement rate. If these are part of your intended goals, it is highly recommended to include them in your marketing strategy. AppSamurai’s inventory boasts of the top offerwalls around the globe, so you can save tons of time and effort simply by signing up to the AppSamurai and let our dedicated specialists and AI-optimized engine help you achieve your user acquisition goals.