High Performance App Marketing 10BIG BRAND STRATEGIES

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Transcript of High Performance App Marketing 10BIG BRAND STRATEGIES

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10High Performance

App Marketing

LEVERAGING MOBILE TO BUILD CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS, DRIVE REVENUE, AND GROW MARKET SHARE

For Mobile App Marketing

BIG BRAND STRATEGIES

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The time for big brands to get strategic about marketing their apps is now. Mobile apps are no longer standalone entities for big brands. What we’re now see-ing is brands integrating mobile apps into their business models and their overall marketing strategies -- to build closer customer relationships and drive business.

It’s no longer enough for brands to just have an app (or a suite of apps) and promote it through traditional channels. Now that brands recognize the impact mobile apps are having on business, their focus is shifting to employ a strategic marketing approach to their apps.

All this means that big brands are starting to treat their apps as more than just another channel – they’re treating them as a business. And they’re getting serious about marketing their apps, by putting the marketing resources behind them and incorporating apps as part of their ongoing strategy.

Top-tier brands like Coca Cola®, Sephora®, Wal-Mart®, and many more are all publically talking about the central role apps play in their marketing strategy. Here, we’ll describe what some of those brands are doing, how they’re doing it, and outline 10 strategic moves brands are employing to get more strategic about their mobile apps.

BIG BRAND STRATEGIES For Mobile App Marketing LEVERAGING MOBILE TO BUILD CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS, DRIVE REVENUE AND GROW MARKET SHARE

With our Hyatt smartphone

app, it took 10 weeks to

launch and three days for us

to do our first million dollars

of revenue. Comparatively,

it took 11 months to achieve

that following the launch of

our mobile website. What

mobile does—especially the

app—is provide consumers

with instant gratification for

what they need, when they

need it, how they need it,

wherever they need it.

— John Wallis, Global Head,

Marketing and Brand Strategy, Global Hyatt Corporation 1

10

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Mobile is quickly becoming the go-to way a growing segment of consumers interact with brands, and apps are rapidly becoming the dominant avenue for this interaction. The stats and predictions are overwhelming:

• Mobile app downloads doubled in 2012 to 46 billion2 • Downloads will double again in 2013, reaching 81 billion, on their way to

310 billion by 20163 • Mobile apps will generate $35 billion in revenue by 20144 and $74 billion

by 20165. • 10% of online retail dollars spent in Q3 2012 were on mobile devices,

and that share is expected to increase to 12-13% during Q4 20126.

Customers expect apps to be part of how they interact with your business. In fact, there’s an entire category of consumers who prefer to do business from mobile apps. In fact, Gartner’s Brian Blau predicts that “by 2016, mobile app use will surpass the use of Internet domain names, making apps the No. 1 way of engaging with brands.7“

But as Coca-Cola’s Tom Daly recently described it, “consumers have never been more connected – but it’s never been harder to connect with them.8 “ –Simply having apps and promoting them through existing channels isn’t enough. To claim space on their customers’ phones, large brands are learning that they have to aggressively market their apps, getting them into the hands of customers before their competitors do.

The Time Is NowEXPLOSIVE MOBILE GROWTH DESERVES DEDICATED MARKETING

By implementing a rich mobile app, Nordstrom can engage and transform customers from occasional visitors to loyal customers by having them download the app for faster, more frequent and higher value experiences whether they are at home, on the go or in a Nordstrom store. In doing so, Nordstrom will drive incremental sales, increase customer loyalty and learn more about consumer’s buying behavior to serve them better in the future.

— Luxury Daily,

November 17, 2011 9

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The client:• Financial services company• $100M+ revenue• Public company (NYSE)• ~15 million active customers• Actively marketing their mobile app for 2+ years• Mid-six-figure monthly spend

The challenge:• Their online user base is shifting to mobile• Smaller competitors were threatening to disrupt their business

How Fiksu helped:• Consistently kept client in the top ranks of the

App Store - ahead of competition

• Acquired millions of users• Kept cost per acquisition below targets

FIKSU CLIENT EXAMPLE: Finance Company Goes Big for Apps

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There are three key lessons to be learned from this client:

1. Effort and execution matter The company runs a steady, continuous campaign, targeting the ideal user across an array of different traffic sources including leading ad networks, social channels, and real-time bidding exchanges (RTB). They also develop high quality creative assets, track their ROI through to the last dollar, and occasionally use a “burst” strategy, putting out an extra blitz of ads to maximize results when needed.

2. Keep testing and optimizing No matter how good campaign results are, it’s essential to test new ideas and traffic sources. This client uses Fiksu’s optimization technology and performance data to make ongoing optimization decisions, keeping cost-per- acquisition low while finding ideal customers. They also dedicated 10% of their monthly budget to testing new ideas and channels, many of which eventually make their way into the core marketing stream.

3. Find your ideal rank As we’ll discuss, every app has an optimal “sweet spot” in the app stores, and it’s not necessarily “as high as you can afford to stay.” This client has figured out what rank gives them the best ROI and how it changes over time. To get the most out of your app marketing dollars, you need to determine this optimal rank and what you need to spend to stay there.

Some of these lessons may be unfamiliar to marketers new to mobile. But that’s just the start – let’s take a look at how mobile app marketing differs from online and traditional marketing.

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App marketing is an entirely different world than what many experienced marketers are used to in both digital and traditional channels, incorporating different dynamics that require different marketing approaches. Here are some of the differences app marketers are facing. Unfamiliar channelsOf course, brands with large customer bases can drive app installs through traditional customer touch points and promotion. But to quickly reach the massive volumes of app users required for success in this space, marketers depend on mobile advertising networks, such as Google’s AdMob, Apple’s iAd, and emerging sources such as real-time RTB exchanges. Many brands are now promoting their apps through these dedicated app marketing channels because they are by far the most effective way to capture high volumes of new users quickly. But how do you decide which networks to work with? What method do they use for ad tracking? Do you have to integrate SDKs from several networks? How do you deal with all the different reporting formats? These are brand new challenges that marketers need to address to have success.

App Marketing Requires a Different Approach

In the ten days since the iPad’s debut, its TV-show watching app has been downloaded 205,000 times, giving the Walt Disney Co. (DIS) unit a presence on nearly half the 450,000 devices that Apple says it has sold. Moreover, users have watched at least part of 650,000 televi-sion episodes using the app, generating “several million” ad impressions.

— Wall Street Journal, 4.13.10 10

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Targeting challengesDue to both technology limitations and privacy concerns, mobile ad targeting isn’t as sophisticated as what marketers are used to in the traditional online marketing world. Marketers used to precise demographic targeting will have to adapt to new technologies and approaches for reaching those users that can help you achieve the best performance and ROI.

Downloads often don’t lead to usersEven when you succeed in getting your app downloaded, it doesn’t mean the customer will actually use it. Only a fraction of downloads convert into productive users.

According to a recent industry study, more than a quarter of downloaded apps are used only once, and then abandoned.11 If your app marketing generates too many downloads by non-engaged users, your results will take a significant hit. Fortunately, there are integrated tracking and optimization technologies that help marketers identify the traffic sources that drive more than just downloads – but quality, loyal users.

Marketing goals are differentApp marketing also requires balancing an entirely new set of marketing goals – from achieving a certain rank within app stores, to acquiring users that actually use your app, to a target cost-per-install. These are new types of goals for many marketers, and require new measurement approaches.

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Store dynamicsWhere do users search for apps? Overwhelmingly, they use the two major app marketplaces: Apple’s App Store and Google Play. As an app marketer you need to understand and address new dynamics associated with the app stores such as achieving optimal rank, understanding the relationship between ad spend and organic users, and the factors that drive rank in each store.

Organic usersYour app will be downloaded by two types of users: 1) ad-driven users -- downloads by users that are driven from your paid ads 2) organic users -- downloads by users that find your app naturally when

browsing the stores. Organic users are considered to be the highest quality users and there are proven approaches that can help you capture more of them and reduce your overall cost-per-acquisition.

Ad tracking and attributionA key consideration for app marketers is ad tracking and attribution, which is required to reveal what’s working and where to focus marketing spend. Mobile ad tracking presents unique challenges for app marketers because there is no industry standard on the iOS platform, and many of the tracking options have tradeoffs. In addition, some marketing channels and networks only support specific tracking solutions, so you need to understand the range of tracking solutions that’s right for your marketing plans.

Users have now listed 100 million items to its market-place using the eBay app, by taking a picture of the item with their phone and uploading all the data within minutes.

EBay previously forecasted that it would hit $10 billion in revenue on mobile this year. Based on last year’s gross merchandise volume of roughly $60 billion, that works out to 16 percent of the company’s revenue.

— allthingsd.com, 9.24.2012 12

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10 Mobile App Marketing Strategies For Big Brands 1. Bring App Stakeholders Together As One Team

2. Put Dedicated Marketing Resources Behind Your App

3. Set App-Oriented Marketing Goals

4. Market Your App On Mobile Media

5. Target Optimal App Store Rank

6. Target Loyal Users

7. Use Optimization Technology To Drive Marketing Performance

8. Choose A Proven Mobile Marketing Technology Partner

9. Test, Learn, Implement, Repeat

10. Establish A Feedback Loop With App Development And Business Stakeholders

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Who owns your app marketing strategy?Is it a centralized marketing department? A marketing team within a business division? Or maybe the e-commerce business? Does your company have multiple apps, marketed by different groups?

It’s not uncommon in large organizations for some controversy to exist regarding who should “own” the app marketing strategy, and often several players can make a valid argument. Try to steer clear of territorialism and unite all of the app stakeholders to work as one team to align overall goals and avoid power struggles. Pulling a team together from different departments and divisions can often be difficult, but it will go a long way towards making your app marketing strategies more successful.

Ideally your organization will benefit from regular, ongoing communications among all the key players, from app development and business stakeholders to you as the app marketer and even to outside partners such as your agency. By bringing everyone together as a team, you have an opportunity to get everyone on the same page and build a successful app business.

1. Bring App Stakeholders Together As One Team

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One Fiksu client demonstrated this approach well. As a large corporation, it would have been easy for them to fall into a trap of having multiple apps managed by various business units. Instead, they:

· Set up a central product group to focus on their apps

· Conducted weekly calls with an external developer, the marketing and strategy people, and their external agency

· Reviewed a six-month marketing calendar. This helped them hit multiple app marketing goals and minimize confusion and surprises down the line.

FIKSU CLIENT EXAMPLE: Major Telecom Services Provider

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Apps are revenue-generating vehicles and deserve dedicated marketing resources. Capturing and maintaining app market share requires marketing resources, just like any other product. It’s no longer enough to simply market your apps at your traditional customer touch points. To build market share, brands must go out and get app users through proactive marketing – and this takes resources.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, marketers currently allocate less than one percent of their marketing budget to mobile advertising. However, based on the MMA’s detailed ROI analysis of mobile, the optimal percentage of a marketing budget to spend on mobile is seven percent, on average, and up to nine percent for brands with higher app involvement.13

Many big brands have started to put the necessary budget and staff behind the marketing of their apps, and those are the two key components. It takes people power to manage the strategy and execution across the many mobile app market-ing vehicles, and as the MMA describes, the scope of the mobile app opportunity also deserves a significant app marketing budget, separate from other channels.

App marketing budgets should also be planned for ongoing promotion. Limit-ed-time “burst” campaigns can quickly boost an app’s rank and drive downloads, but the effects don’t last. To maintain visibility in the app marketplaces and bring in new users on a continual basis, your app promotion needs to be ongoing.

2. Put Dedicated Marketing Resources Behind Your App

The Creative Ideas app allows users to find inspiration and home improvement content where and when they want to interact with it. We are at almost 800,000 issues downloaded.

-- Sandy Culver, Consumer Marketing Director, Lowe’s Home Improvement 14

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As with any marketing program, mobile app marketing programs should be measured against specific, measurable goals. App marketing presents an entirely new range of marketing goals, with different corresponding strategies and tactics.

You’ll most likely wind up with several goals, some primary goals that directly reflect on your marketing successes, and other secondary goals that measure more detailed aspects of your campaigns. What’s important is to consider your goals beyond the obvious goals of rank or downloads, through what you’re trying to achieve for the business after the download, and align your marketing strategies to these goals.

• Rank – Reach (and maintain) a target app store rank, either overall and/or in-category

• Downloads – Generate a certain number of app downloads on a daily/weekly/monthly basis

• Cost-per-download – Stay below a threshold cost to generate downloads

• Loyal user acquisition – Drive downloads from users that make a purchase, use the app repeatedly, or take other actions that support your overall app strategy

• Revenue – Hit targets for revenue generated directly through the app

• Organic user acquisition – Acquire a target number of organic users – those who download the app without paid marketing influence

• Key performance indicators – Post-download user actions: repeat use, clicks, session length, clicks to online store, in-app purchase, other

• Competition – Achieve higher app store rank or more downloads that competitors

• New customer acquisition – Acquire a target number of new customers

• Existing customers – Generate a target number of downloads from existing customers

• Geography – Generate a target number of downloads in key geographies

• Velocity – Meet defined metrics within specific timeframes

3. Set App-Oriented Marketing Goals

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Client Goals• While rank goals aren’t ideal for every brand, this brand-name

fashion client knew that store visibility was going to be essential to acquiring the large numbers of users needed to hit their in-app purchase goals.

• Their app was new, so they set an achievable rank goal of top 30 in their category. Based on their research and comparative data, they knew that getting into the top 30 would help them generate large numbers of users cost effectively.

How Fiksu Helped• Using a combination of Fiksu’s centralized media buying

and optimization technology, they were able to achieve a rank between 20 and 30 within weeks

• And they’ve maintained it to this day, over one year later.

FIKSU CLIENT EXAMPLE: Leading Fashion Retailer

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Some brands with large customer bases are confident that they can drive a lot of users simply by promoting apps through their existing customer touch points, such as stores, web sites, or traditional mass media channels. However, many marketers have found that promoting their apps through these channels is no longer enough.

Brands are now committing an ongoing portion of their overall marketing spend to promoting their apps where mobile users are: mobile advertising networks and real-time bidding exchanges. Advertising on these dedicated mobile media channels is the fastest way to build and sustain a large user base.

It’s true that most users find apps in the app stores – but discoverability of any one app among thousands of competitors isn’t something you can count, no matter how well-known your brand is.

The impact of mobile ad buys cannot be underestimated. Apps with high app store rankings and market share are almost always backed by continuous marketing in the form of paid media buys through mobile advertising networks and real-time bidding exchanges. These dedicated mobile channels enable brands to achieve an initial rank boost then maintain that rank over time to drive discoverability and installs.

4. Market Your App On Mobile Media

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In addition to advertising on mobile channels, marketers have learned that working with several ad networks, rather than just one or two, increases their success by up to a factor of ten. This multi-network approach helps marketers reach their largest potential audience, guard against audience saturation, and maximize ROI by identifying opportunities for lower acquisition costs. There are different types of dedicated mobile marketing vehicles from which to choose:

Ad Networks: Aggregate traffic from publishers like mobile web sites and apps that display ads.

Incentive Networks: Provides a reward to a user that downloads and engages with an app. Otherwise known as an ‘install’. Apps with good initial engagement mechanics can obtain new users at a low cost. Examples of incentive networks include FreeMyApps and SponsorPay.

Premium Traffic: Web and app publishers with their own ad serving capabilities and sell inventory direct to very large buyers or aggregators. Examples include Pandora, The Weather Channel, and Twitter.

Real-Time Bidding Exchanges: A rapidly growing advertising channel where high-speed, automated technology runs auctions on an impression-by-impres-sion basis. (See next page.)

We launched an iPhone app in the United States about a year and a half ago. It is now processing around 15% of all the WesternUnion.com transactions that go out from the US. Europe will be the next area where we roll this out.

— Gregg Marshall, Global Head of Sales and Business Development, Mobile Transaction

Services, Western Union 15

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The Emergence of Real-Time Bidding Exchanges One of the more rapidly growing developing ways app marketers are accessing mobile media is through real time bidding (RTB) exchanges.

Real-time bidding gives marketers an effective, cost-efficient way to target precise audience segments -- one impression at a time. RTB achieves this through online auctions that work in the same manner as bidding on AdWords.

RTB systems auction media inventory on a per-impression basis: every time an ad slot becomes available due to a user opening an app or mobile web page, an RTB exchange makes that impression available for bidding. Advertisers are given highly granular targeting data to programmatically evaluate the impression and generate a bid for the impressions. The exchange delivers the ad to the auction winner within milliseconds. This provides advertisers with the ability to reach high-value prospects at the cost they’re willing to pay, rather than purchasing bulk impressions.

Real-time bidding offers one of the most cost-effective ways to identify, target, bid on, and buy impressions based on specific acquisition goals and at a target cost. Buying media impressions through RTB exchanges helps app marketers: • Access highly targetable traffic for better performance • Drive high-value users • Achieve substantial cost efficiencies • Realize higher marketing ROI

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Client Goals• A large ad agency worked closely with Fiksu to deliver for their client

– a multi-billion dollar manufacturer of some of the world’s leading consumer devices.

• The client had only a few weeks to acquire a large number of app users globally, in 13 different languages.

How Fiksu Helped• The agency worked with Fiksu to market their app

across dozens of ad networks, RTB, and direct publishers, with a goal of driving high volumes of usage during a worldwide marketing push.

• The result: hundreds of thousands of app downloads ahead of their deadline and under their CPA target.

FIKSU CLIENT EXAMPLE: Global Electronics Manufacturer

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Mobile media advertising will drive users to download your app. But it’s just as important to reach users who are browsing the app store for new apps – and the way to do that is to get your app into the top of the store rankings. If you’re not near the top, you’re not likely to be seen, never mind downloaded.

Rank is all about acquiring organic users

Organic users are those who install your app through natural discovery while browsing the app store, as opposed to those that are driven to the app by a paid ad. Organic users often become higher-value users – but in the rank-driven environment of the app stores, paid users have an important role to play beyond their individual value.

As we’ve pointed out, high rankings are key to being discovered by organic app searchers – and one critical factor in ranking is total download volume: the more downloads you get, the higher you rank. And that’s where paid users come in.

Paid mobile advertising continually drives more downloads, which raises your app’s rank and visibility within the stores, so it can then be discovered by organ-ic users. This is called “organic lift” and it should play a central role in your app marketing strategy.

5. Target Optimal Store Rank

The mobile app is probably our first aggressive initiative aimed at strengthening loyalty among current and potential new guests. We wanted to deliver an extension of our brand experience and give people a reason to engage with the Denny’s brand.

— John Dillon, Vice President of Brand Marketing & Product Development, Denny’s 16

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Because rank is so critical to obtaining organic users, one method of achieving higher rank quickly is to conduct a burst campaign with an incent network. A burst campaign concentrates advertising spend over a short period of time to quickly drive a high volume of downloads. When done correctly, a burst campaign results in a prominent ranking in the App Store, causing a spike in organic installs. Once the campaign is generating a substantial amount of organic downloads, you can dial back the spend to just the level necessary to sustain your download numbers.

Optimal rankTo capture organic users most efficiently, it’s important to think in terms of optimal rank, rather than simply highest rank. This is because there is a point of diminishing returns associated with rank. For example, an app may get more organic users at rank 5 than at rank 10 – but the cost of maintaining rank 5 might more than offset that advantage.

Marketing platforms such as Fiksu’s use algorithms to determine an app’s optimal rank by monitoring the relationship between ad spend, rank, and organic downloads, then optimizing campaigns to deliver the rank that drives the most organic users at the most efficient cost.

As you develop your user acquisition plan, think not only in terms of download numbers, but also in terms of number of organic users. As you track your advertising program, you will be able to track your organic lift and optimize to it.

We now have planograms for every store in our app, so we know every item that’s on a shelf by store and where it’s located. You can create a shopping list in the app and there’s a button that with one click, the items on your list appear on the store map, which is a representation of the store.

— Rich Lesperance, Director of Digital Marketing and

Emerging Media, Walgreens 17

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• A multinational media organization went from treating their app as a loss leader to expecting ROI results – and achieving them.

• With both Android and iOS apps, they attained a top ten ranking in their category with their initial app marketing efforts.

• However, over time they realized that even though they had the budget to stay top 10, their overall campaigns were more effective when they targeted ranks in the low 20s.

FIKSU CLIENT EXAMPLE: Multinational Media Corporation

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As you run your advertising across mobile ad networks, you will also want to think in terms of “loyal user” acquisition – not just downloads.

A loyal user is a user who takes actions that lead back to ROI. For example, a loyal user may be one who: • Uses the app repeatedly • Clicks through to your online store • Downloads a coupon • Makes an in-app purchase • Places an order • Registers for a service or newsletter

Whatever the conversion metric is, it is loyal users on whom you build your app business.

A download, or even an app launch, doesn’t mean that you have a loyal user that translates into a business result. Data shows that many users abandon an app after one or two uses, and that high download numbers are often just part of a high churn rate. To truly drive business from your app, loyal user acquisition is more important than driving large volumes of downloads. And there are technology solutions available that help you identify and target these loyal users.

6. Target Loyal Users

Starwood has seen a 300 percent increase in mobile booking revenue generated this year compared to the same time last year, per the hotel chain. “This data is a serious indication to the future of booking travel.

— luxurydaily.com, 12.12.12 18

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Optimization is one of the most critical components of your app marketing program. This is because mobile ad targeting is not as sophisticat-ed as what you’re used to when working with traditional marketing vehicles. As you plan your mobile media buys, there are limited targeting criteria to help you determine which ad networks will cost-effectively deliver the largest number of downloads, which will drive loyal users who spend money, and which will merely consume your budget.

This is where optimization technology comes in. With optimization technology, you can gain detailed insights into the marketing sources that are delivering on your goals. Whether that’s driving loyal users, min-imizing cost-per-download, or attaining optimal rank, optimize lets you zero in on those outcomes during the campaign. An optimization solution will help ensure that your ad spend is focused on the marketing sources that are delivering the results and ROI you’re seeking.

The best optimization technology employs intelligent algorithms that evaluate thousands of targeting com-binations. That can include variables such as networks, time of day, device, operating system, geography and more. Those algorithms also depend on having a mas-sive database of historical outcomes - billions of events - to best predict how to allocate future efforts. This level of detailed optimization can’t be done manually.

Plan your optimization up front.Too often, app marketers treat optimization as an after-thought. As programs run and they see that they’re not getting the results they had hoped for, they scramble to figure out how to readjust their mobile ad spend.

Not all optimization is created equal.When evaluating marketing technology partners, you’ll encounter the term “optimization” used in many different ways. For maximum value, it’s important to look carefully into exactly what an optimization solution really provides.

7. Use Optimization Technology To Drive Marketing Performance

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Characteristics to seek in an optimization solution 1. Provides automated optimization As your campaigns are running, automated optimization technology feeds performance data into an optimization engine automatically, and uses algorithms to optimize media buys based on the best price/performance results. Report-based solutions simply tell you which ad networks are performing the best, leaving you to analyze large amounts of data and take action to adjust your buying plans across multiple networks.

2. Optimizes on post-download events Rather than optimizing based on download data, the solution should be able to track post-download user events, such as the loyal user events we described in strategy #6. This helps ensure that media spend is allocated to the sources that are truly driving business results.

3. Integrated with ad tracking and attribution

Data obtained through ad tracking software or network dashboards isn’t immediately actionable, due to the manual nature of the data analysis. They don’t build in any algorithms that make optimization decisions, such as what media is most cost-effective, how to bid, or how to manage volume and budget.

Unlike manual reporting-based methods, an integrat-ed approach allows you to take advantage of more detailed data and respond immediately to cost or volume issues. Automated decision-making about what media is most cost-effective, how to bid, and managing bids and budget yields significantly more cost-efficient results.

There are five characteristics to consider when choosing an optimization solution:

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Characteristics to seek in an optimization solution 4. Enables Broad Media Deployment The optimization engine is integrated with ad networks and real-time bidding exchanges to enable optimization across your entire media buy simultaneously. It can also identify new media sources that are highly likely to perform well.

5. Provides Store OptimizationThe optimization engine monitors the relationship between ad spend, app rank, and downloads, and optimizes to achieve the rank that delivers the most organic users at the lowest cost.

For more information, read Optimization for Advanced App Marketers.

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As you get strategic about your mobile app marketing, you’ll want to partner with one or more vendors that provide technology solutions for app marketing. Traditional advertising agencies may have considerable expertise in user acquisition and brand marketing, but as we’ve described, mobile marketing demands very specific expertise and technology.

Coca-Cola executive Tom Daly recently emphasized this idea, saying that one of his main goals for 2012 was finding and connecting with the best partners for mobile marketing. He mentioned that mobile marketing is a different skill set than digital marketing, and that his focus then and now was on finding partners who know how to really collaborate so he could “invest in the best” and execute on his vision for mobile.19

MillerCoors Director of Digital Marketing Steve Mura echoed the point, describing how you need the right partners to help you win in the mobile space. “We need someone who lives and breathes mobile,” he said, both for technology and for mobile media management.20

8. Choose a Proven Mobile Marketing Technology Partner

Mobile sales continue to rise sharply—up by 46.9%—and now account for 18.5% of total online sales.

— Nick Dutch, Multimedia Manager, Domino’s Pizza Group 21

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One of the reasons these big brand executives are so eager to find partners for their app marketing is the range of technologies and skills required to succeed with mobile marketing:

• Centralized media buying – Partners that provide one central point of contact to buy mobile media from numerous media sources.

• Ad tracking and attribution – Software that tracks, measures and reports on marketing performance, and also attributes user actions back to the original marketing sources.

• App usage analytics – Software that tracks and reports on how your app is being used.

• Optimization – Technology that uses algorithms to optimize your adver-tising to the marketing sources that deliver the best price/performance.

If your agency manages your app marketing programs, you may want to explore with them the subject of partnering with a high performance mobile app marketing platform provider to help them drive results for your business.

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As marketers, we often rely on extensive testing of promotional strategies, messaging, creative, and other aspects of our campaigns and programs before launch-ing them on a grand scale. The same holds true for app marketing, but it’s more important in the app marketing world not to fall into the trap of “analysis paralysis” over long periods, because the market moves so quickly.

Because mobile apps are a relatively new space com-panies can easily fall into the test and retest trap. What marketers need to understand is that the opportunity is large enough and happening fast enough that it’s more important to get out there in the marketplace rather than to test and refine marketing programs over extend-ed periods. You don’t want to get stuck in test and learn mode because the market is developing so rapidly: you need to be getting results now, before you may know the perfect approach.

It’s okay to test and learn what does and does not work, and to then make adjustments. That’s a key component of the optimization described in the previous section. As you see what works best you can then start to scale and refine your campaigns. But don’t wait for perfection before you dive in.

Build testing into your budgetIn addition, as your campaigns and programs are running, it’s important to devote a percentage of your budget to testing new media sources. There are dozens of excellent media sources on which to promote your apps, and there’s no way to know which will perform best without testing.

From ad networks, to premium web and app publishers, to RTB exchanges, you may be missing out on potential opportunities to improve price/performance and identify highly productive users if you don’t test new sources on an ongoing basis. Identifying new media sources also helps you avoid potential audience saturation when advertising for long periods of time.

Media testing is also useful in identifying up-and-com-ing sources before they become mainstream, while their costs are relatively low, and helps you remain more competitive by taking advantage of newer sources before your competitors.

9. Test, Learn, Implement, Repeat

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You can do a great job marketing your app but, at the end of the day, if the app doesn’t provide value to your users and doesn’t work well, the app will not be successful. In addition, even the most widely adopted app must be updated regularly in order to provide new motivations for users to engage with it. Marketers are in a unique position to gain insights to improve the app, as well as the business impact of the app.

App marketers can add strategic value to the app busi-ness by establishing a formal feedback methodology with both the app business stakeholders as well as the app development team. Set up a monthly or quarterly feedback session with the stakeholders and review your findings and recommendations.

There are a range of ways you can provide feedback:

Metrics reporting – You can study metrics regarding app downloads, store rank performance, cost-per-download, organic lift, media source performance and other marketing metrics to provide insights that can help guide decisions.

App landing pages – A good feedback loop can help optimize app store landing page components, including screen shots, app descriptions, ratings, and even your icon.

App consistency - If your company has multiple apps, and particularly if they’re managed by different groups, your input can help ensure consistency across them, including logo usage, cross promotion, and overall user experience.

Ad testing – You can conduct testing in new geographies to help the team make decisions on launching in new markets.

Conversion rates – You can track app usage and conversions to see if an app is generating the desired user engagement and ROI.

You can be highly successful at marketing your apps and getting them downloaded, but if they’re not used, all that great marketing doesn’t matter. By establishing a marketing feedback loop with the business and development teams, you can make an impact beyond just promoting the app by contributing to the app development and business direction.

10. Establish a Feedback Loop with App Development and Business Stakeholders

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If your apps are strategic to your business, they should have the backing of a formal marketing plan. Here’s a marketing template that you can customize to match your particular situation.

Checklist: Developing a Mobile App Marketing Plan

App Marketing Plan Template1. App name

2. Platforms (iOS, Android, etc.)

3. Marketing goals (Rank, organic users, downloads, cost-per-download, loyal users, revenue, other)

4. Key performance indicators (Clicks to online store, in-app purchase, session length, repeat usage, other)

5. Geographies (Countries in which to run marketing programs.)

6. Marketing channels (Mobile ad media, PR, social media, display ads, search engine marketing, emails, etc).

7. Mobile media channels (Mobile ad networks, incent networks, bidding exchanges, etc.)

8. Media plan (List ad networks, timeframe, cost structure [CPC, CPI, etc])

9. App store landing pages (Components, creation, responsibilities)

10. Marketing attribution and optimization strategy (What is the strategy, technology usage, responsibilities)

11. Ad network SDK integration with apps (Requirements, responsibilities)

12. Outside vendors (Ad agency role, partner selection, technologies)

13. Localization/translation (Languages, vendor)

14. Measurement and reporting (What is being measured, how, frequency)

15. Budget

16. Timeline

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High-Performance App Marketing For Big BrandsIs your company taking a strategic approach to mobile app marketing? Fiksu invites you to learn how we’re helping big brands build big app businesses with our award-winning mobile marketing solutions.

Fiksu Mobile App Marketing PlatformThe Fiksu Mobile App Marketing Platform is used by businesses worldwide to remove the complexity from app marketing and drive exceptional business results. The Fiksu platform combines centralized mobile media buying with advanced attribution and optimization technology, to help marketers acquire large volumes of quality, loyal users, with outstanding marketing ROI.

Centralized Media Buying from the World’s Largest App Media InventoryThe Fiksu Platform is tightly integrated with top mobile media sources, for centralized buying from the world’s largest volume of mobile app media inventory. Fiksu provides access to 95% of the world’s - iOS and Android mobile inventory.

Campaign Planning and ImplementationFiksu’s experienced service team provides ongoing support from app marketing experts with strategic knowledge, deep experience, and the resources to help you achieve marketing campaign excellence. Fiksu provides numerous services based on your needs, including: strategy and planning support, advertising program development, and campaign execution.

Agency SupportFiksu partners with advertising agencies to provide access to the Fiksu app marketing platform, along with expert support in a range of areas based on your agency’s requirements, including campaign planning support, access to mobile media sources, optimization technology and more.

Fiksu Mobile App Marketing Platform

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FootnotesPage 2 1 CMO One-to-One: Hyatt Builds Loyalty With Integrated Marketing - eMarketer

Page 32 eMarketer, Paid vs. Free Mobile App Store Downloads Worldwide, 2011-2016. September 11, 20123 ibid4 http://www.growthink.com/content/10-incredible-mobile-marketing-statistics-every-entrepreneur-must-know5 http://www.eweek.com/mobile/apps-marketing-and-the-cloud-gartner-predictions-for-2013/ 6 http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Blog/The_Imminent_Mobile_Commerce_Avalanche7 http://www.eweek.com/mobile/apps-marketing-and-the-cloud-gartner-predictions-for-2013/8 Mobile First Look, 1/17/13, “Coca-Cola: Mobile – the closest you will get to your consumers”9 http://www.luxurydaily.com/nordstrom-builds-cross-channel-engagement-with-interactive-mobile-app/

Page 610 http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/04/13/abc-sees-success-in-ipad-app/

Page 711 Source: Localytics, July 2012

Page 812 http://allthingsd.com/20120924/ebays-mobile-momentum-100m-app-downloads-100m-items-listed/

Page 1213 MXS: Mobile’s X% Solution, Mobile Marketing Association, August 2012.14 eMarketer, “Lowe’s Crafts Creative Ideas for the iPad,” June 7, 2012.

Page 1615 eMarketer, “Western Union’s Mobile payments App Finds Its Niche,” October 16, 2012

Page 1916 eMarketer, “Denny’s Serves Up Loyalty with Launch of Mobile-Local App,” July 12, 2012

Page 2017 eMarketer, “Walgreen’s Mobile Tactics Include foursquare and Store-Inventory App,” November 5, 2012

Page 2218 http://www.luxurydaily.com/starwood-boosts-mobile-booking-by-extending-spg-app-to-android/

Page 2619 Mobile First Look, 1/17/13, “Coca-Cola: Mobile – the closest you will get to your consumers”20 Mobile First Look, 1/17/13, “MillerCoors: Why mobile is a key social medium for the nation’s No. 2 brewer”21 eMarketer, “Mobile Sales a Bigger Slice of Digital Revenues for Domino’s in the UK,” November 12, 2012”

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Fiksu is used by 30 of the 50 highest-grossing app publishers to achieve exceptional app marketing results:

• 60 percent reduction in media costs

• 300 percent increase in loyal user acquisition

• Downloads generated to date - 860 Million

• Loyal users to date - 390 Million

Fiksu, Inc. 101 Arch Street, Suite 304Boston, MA 02110Phone: 855-463-4578Email: [email protected]

Fiksu, Inc.32 Percy StreetLondon, UKW1T 2DEPhone: +44 (0) 207 193 0512Email: [email protected]

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High Performance App Marketing

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