M O B I L E U S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N

T H E U L T I M A T E G U I D E F O R

I N D E XTHE ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR MOBILE USER ACQUISITION

1 . W h a t I s M o b i l e U s e r A c q u i s i t i o n

2 . H o w T o M e a s u r e T h e S u c c e s s O f M o b i l e U s e r A c q u i s i t i o n S t r a t e g y

3 . O r g a n i c M o b i l e U s e r A c q u i s i t i o n A n d H o w T o U s e

4 . P a i d M o b i l e U s e r A c q u i s i t i o n A n d H o w T o U s e

5 . I n t e g r a t i n g P a i d A n d O r g a n i c M o b i l e U s e r A c q u i s i t i o n S t r a t e g i e s

W H A T I S M O B I L E U S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N ?Mobile user acquisition is the act of gaining new users who are convinced to use your mobile app. It doesn’t happen by itself, so the strategies you follow are important. Choosing the right time and using the right tools will take you where you imagine to be.

Today, there are more than 2.2 million apps in App Store and more than 2.8 million apps in Google Play, says Statista. Your first goal as an app owner or an app owner candidate is making your app be able to be founded and downloaded easily. In this massive app marketing landscape, it is not easy to be noticed without doing some vital improvements and optimizationsfor your app. Therefore, in this eBook, we will inform you about the vital actions and how to use them in your marketing strategy.

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There are several metrics and KPIs you need to track for deciding if you are on the right path in your mobile user acquisition strategy, or not. We know that install rates and number of installs seem like the most important measurements for the mobile user acquisition but evaluating user acquisition strategy needseven more substance.

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Customer Acquisition Cost is calculated by dividing total costs to the number of new customers. It is the price for convincing users to download your app. Your goal as an app owner should be keeping CAC as low as possible. In order to use CAC for measuring the success of your mobile user acquisition strategy,you better be aware of it does not only rely on obtaining new users, but also the value they add to your app.

Lifetime value is the average value of a user over the life on the app and we are already familiar with it. Evaluating users based on their lifetime process is a serious progress. If you set your goals based only on quantity of your users without considering their quality, get ready to lose the most of them soon because an acquired user doesn’t mean a ‘convinced user to use your app consistently’. So you should pick your moves wisely and maximize LTV of yourapp users by following the best practices.

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O R G A N I C M O B I L EU S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N A N D H O W T O U S E I T ?

Organic traffic refers to the users gained by unpaid channels. Organic users download your app as a result of their search, not immediately after seeing an ad. And the most critical start to boost organic traffic is focusing on your ASO and SEO. Also, using freetools such as social media and email marketing is a great idea. There are several ways to provide organic traffic, yet, the most efficient techniqueis to use a combination of all.

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O R G A N I C M O B I L E U S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N A N D H O W T O U S E I T ?

Social media channels are not only significant for mobile apps but also many other businesses. However, we will just focus on why they matter for your mobile app. Efficiency of them is determined by how well you use them. A good social media expert posts regularly, from time to time gives rewards to her followers, joins groups and shares related content, takes feedbacks into consideration, and benefits from various platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Quora are some of the social media channels that you can use. So, don’t limit yourself with only one!

Social Media Channels

O R G A N I C M O B I L E U S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N A N D H O W T O U S E I T ?

It’s a great idea to apportion your efforts between different ways. Social media marketing is not the only way of getting organic traffic. You can also make a smart use of ASO, SEO, and email marketing. To learn more about these tools, you can check our related blog posts.

Additionally, you should also take care of your app’s ranking because the higher it is, the more visibility your app will get. Then, this will turn into a loop which is consisted of organic traffic and higher app rankings.

Benefits of Getting Organic Traffic

Organic channels have a great potential to provide you a remarkable growth. Users acquired by organic channels have better quality. Organic traffic will decrease your CPI. Since you get more users but your cost remains the same, your CPI decreases.

Other Organic Traffic Tools

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You know what going viral means, right? It can be the best thing that you can do in your marketing strategy, therefore; you should welcome every opportunity to become viral. There are lots of ways to do that and one of them is using user generated content. There can’t be a better place thansocial media channels for UGC, just ask people their opinions and ideas on a related content to your app, then wait. People love sharing ideas, but more importantly, they love to see that you respect to their ideas! If you managed to create word of mouth, nobody can be a competitor of you. Lastly, don’t forget that you always have boost campaigns to grabthe chance of going viral, which we will mention soon.

Get social,grab the chance of going viral.

P A I D M O B I L E U S E RA C Q U I S I T I O N A N D H O W T O U S E I T ?A paid mobile user acquisition strategy not only provides you a better rating but also organic traffic in a long term. The most important thing to consideron paid advertising is that you should use multiple paid tools. By doing so, you will increase the number of acquired users. Facebook and Google can be the examples of paid tools. Yes, they cost overrun but we already know that, so no worries! In this part, you’ll learn how to acquire users without overspending.

Promoting your app is a long process. Even after organizing how your ads will work, you will wait for a while to reach your goal and to see their positive effectson your app.

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One of the most important things to determine in your paid strategy is your ad’s bidding system. There are too many bidding options such as CPM, CPC, CPI, CPA, and CPV. What distinguishes them is the action they charge you for. As App Samurai Team, we support that the handiest and the most cost-effective bidding option is CPI for mobile user acquisition, since it is only charged when someone clicks to the call-to-action on yourad and install your app, no other irrelevant costs on you. After remindingyou the bidding strategies for your campaign, now let’s dive into the campaign types.

Focus on CPI rather thanother bidding options.

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First campaign type we want to mention is the acquisition campaigns.In order to run an acquisition campaign, you should have high quality visual in applicable sizes. According to our experts, the highest performing and the most common size is 1200x628 pixels. Now, let’s examine the display ad formats for running an acquisition campaign.

Some people argue that banner ads will be broken up soon but from our perspective they will be around for a perceivable future for unignorable reasons.

Completing the screen with your ad has a significant effect on the people for an obvious reason; they can’t focus on anything but your app. The most important thing to pay attention for interstitial ads is not causing interruption. By placing them between organic activity deduction points, like after a completed level on a mobile game, you can avoid interruptions.

Acquisition Campaigns

Banner Ads

Interstitial Ads:

They are the easiest ad type to apply because they are compatible with almost every device we are using today. Even people ignore clicking on them, they gain brand awareness subconsciously since the ad remains on the screen all the time. It is the cheapest ad type! So, you can utilize banner ads without going broke.

Publishing ads without disruption was a dream before but thanks to native ads people even like the ads now. Native ads are about using the balance between content and context, the more natural fit to content means the more impression from the people in context. By using native ads, you will be reaching the right people through the right message since your ad is highly correlated with the published platform’s characteristics.

Native Ads:

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eCPM is a significant metric for tracking your ad performance. To reach a high eCPM, you must keep gain per impression as much as possible. You can do it by assuring your ad is performing in the right places and reaches to the right audience. Native ads are the best method to providethis you’ll see how in the next step.

Optimize your ads to achieve the highest eCPM.

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The most important thing to care on paid user acquisition is whether your adreaches your target audience. We will talk about a way to assuring this, usingthe CRM data.Facebook ads’ usage of Google’s database is not a secret now, ads relatedto our interests come to us by themselves according to our Google History. So, it is a good idea to use a strategy like this by collecting data from your segments and use them for reaching the perfect fit with your targeted audiences.

Use CRM data for targetingthe right segments.

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A study done by Online Publishers Association shows that 80% of consumers can remember a video ad for 30 days after seeing it. This ratio is unneglectablebecause people are more likely to use the apps that they heard about rather than the ones they have no idea about.

There are no many things to keep in mind about video campaigns but one of themost significant fact among them is that total views are not always the right indicators of success. What also matters in terms of mobile video ads is theinteractions. Thus, you should try your best to be unique in terms of the appyou built and don’t expect everything from the campaign.

Video Campaigns

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What we mean by being unique is that you should proceed step by step while creating a video campaign. Most of the app owners have the misconceptionthat if you have a video campaign, you’ll market your app anyways. However, that’s not true. Just like how it is for any other thing in mobile world, success of a video campaign is determined by its quality.

Set your video campaign goals and don’t leave them to chance. The number of people watching online videos is higher when they’re using their mobile devices, so you are allowed to enlarge your target by using video campaigns. There are also other reasons for video campaigns to be that useful. The statistics show that you should invest in videos. Users love sharing whatthey saw. That is to say, you have the chance to improve word of mouth about your mobile app by using video campaigns.

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Benefitting from visuals is always awesome but when it’s a video, it becomeseven more effective on users. Everybody likes broadening the experiences on their interest area, therefore; interstitial ads have high click-throughrates as long as they’re shown at the right place with the right frequency.Making people watch a video on a related content with the activity they are doing on an app gets a remarkable attention. Even if they do not click on the ad, it creates brand awareness, which you can benefit from later, with the right techniques such as displaying your ad on another platform and offering incentives.

Harmonize interstitial adswith video campaigns!

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Having a new app in this competitive mobile app landscape seems a bit scary and feels like you’re the small fish in the ocean. Actually, it is something that you can turn into an advantage. If you manage to nurture people’s curiosity and offer them a unique concept on something they need or they want, your app would be hit the top of rankings. However, it is a heavy pain for new app owners to place their app at the top of rankings without getting any help because it requires extreme efforts and time. Instead of waiting for the magic happen and fling yourself into stress and anxiety, you can givea chance to boost campaigns to kill the pain points.

Boost Campaigns

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You will see the results of boost campaign in a very short period of time, this is the main point of it, depending on your abilities for app store management. Therefore, if you want to get success in a boost campaign, you should have a great ASO. Without right ASO efforts, your app will be lost in boost campaign since there is no development for keywords, neither for keyword rankings.

Apple has announced that we will be able to see App Store rank of every app, which means your app should not only have a great ASO but also be at thetop of rankings in order to grab user’s attention and make them download your app. There are lots of similar apps in the App Store, your app’s high ranking psychologically makes people think you have better features thanyour competitors. How you can be at the top of rankings? You’ve just learned: Boost Campaigns.

In the graph, it can be seen that using ASO and Boost Campaigns together is a perfect element for your mobile marketing strategy.

Make use of a great ASO to seeBoost Campaigns’ effect at maximum.

Consider iOS11’s new categoryrankings feature in your marketing plan.

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Until now, we examined paid andorganic mobile user acquisition strategies in an educational manner. We gave you tips forthe most effective usages of these methods and the ideas toget better results. Now, let’s make clear some points and investigate the two mobile useracquisition methods together.

Both paid and organic mobile user acquisitionchannels have their own advantages. It’s not easyto choose which method to use but no worries, you don’t have to choose one. All you haveto do is building a marketing strategyby integrating them and taking your steps one by one. Because no matterwhich one you choose, you’ll also need the other and sometimes the otherhappens automatically. Also, you don’tneed to wait for the app-development process to be done. Starting your user acquisition efforts before your app enters to the market is a perfect idea. You know, there is no such thing as one-night success.

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Image source: https://www.tune.com/blog/mobile-marketing-paid-app-installs-impact-organic-downloads/

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The first step of building a marketing strategy would be determining your target. Think about the service you provide and who are the probable users. Because the content of your ads will not only be formed by your app but also your audience. Ads become varied by targets. Even if it’s the same mobile app, you wouldn’t create the identical marketing content for different segments.

According to the data shown by Tune Business Intelligence Team, apps get 1.5 organic installs for each paid install. This is a powerful statistic.The best part about organic traffic is that organic users tend to serve you for a long term while the other may result in low quality traffic. Therefore, integrating these options, such as using ASO and Boost Campaigns together, will give you the most efficient results.

I N T E G R A T I N G P A I D A N D O R G A N I CM O B I L E U S E R A C Q U I S I T I O N S T R A T E G Y

Another thing to keep in mind is that even if you achieve to boost your app’s ranking, you will still need to make efforts for maintaining it. In order to keep your app’s place or to go higher, you should be doing yourinvestments accordingly.

After distributing your budget between various paid user acquisition optionsand doing the requirements for getting organic traffic through free channels, you had better measure your success. As we mentioned above, fooling yourself or worrying unnecessarily will make no good, so trust the data you have and make a good analysis of it. Then, give decisions about your marketing strategy to improve your current status quo.

In this eBook we not only tried to show you how to improve your mobile user acquisition plan, but also how to integrate paid and organic tools for your mobile marketing strategy by moving through tips and best practices. As long as you consider user acquisition strategy as a whole, you will get you what you expect!

Get rid of the complexity and the inefficiency

of the mobile advertising world in order to

acquire qualified users for your mobile app.

Meet App Samurai’s artificial intelligence

and machine learning algorithm to start growing!

S I G N U P F O R F R E E !