3 In-App KPIs to Watch Carefully

The following KPIs can be game changers. Optimizing them is necessary if you want to succeed!

Click-to-install rate: get more downloads

Although the source of the traffic (advertising, organic) influences your number of downloads, the landing page on the App Store has an impact on the conversion rate. If the percentage gets too low (usually less than 1%), you might need to consider these factors:

  • Weight of the app: less than 50Mo is optimal.
  • Screenshots: the first 2 or 3 must be the best. Videos are great!
  • App title and description: clear, relevant to the category and attractive.
  • Ratings: try to aim at 4+ stars.
  • Last update: updates need to be frequent enough (not more than a month old).
  • Reviews: make sure your support team replies to bad reviews.

Day 1 retention: get more active users

It is normal to see less users coming back to your app the second day after installation. However, improving this rate should be one of your first goals. You need to pay a lot of attention to the experience of your users during the first minutes within your app. Most app developers usually aim at a minimum of 20 to 30% in Day 1 Retention.

Here are tips to improve this rate:

  • Sign up: if the user needs to log in, make sure the process is as fast and as easy as possible.
  • Simplicity: the user should be able to catch the concept of your app in minutes. It can help to work on a nice tutorial.
  • Minimize the loading time.
  • Be reactive when bugs are notified in the reviews.

Daily / Monthly active users: keep users engaged

This rate should be followed daily. Engaged users will recommend your app and drive more traffic to it. A downward trend is a sign that something needs to be fixed:

  • Check your crash rate and fix the bugs you might find.
  • Reactivate users by sending regular notifications: new app feature, discount…
  • You can go further and send specific notifications per type of users: for instance, send extra lives to the users who stopped playing a level because it is too hard.
  • Get social: entertain your users on social media.
  • Launch a retargeting campaign: the advertising platform will find the users that are no longer using your app, and display an ad to make them want to come back.

How to Optimize your Ranking in App Stores

Are you developing the next big Hit? Great! In order to optimize your number of downloads, you need to optimize your app’s ranking. Indeed, smartphone users look for new apps through 2 main tools: the top charts on the store and the search bar.

Here’s some advice on how to get the best ranking on Apple and Google’s App Stores:

Keywords

    • It’s important to find the right keywords before you launch your app. Newly released apps seem to have a better chance of getting a higher ranking by the stores’ algorithms. You don’t want to miss that chance!
    • Choose the right keywords for your package name, title and description. Get inspiration from the store suggestions, and choose a short name for your title. Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to the description.
    • Once your app is live, you can use tools like AppAnnie to review your ranking, and remove keywords to which you rank low.

Downloads

    • The number of downloads and their growth rate have a high influence on the app’s ranking. It is even more important within the first few days after releasing your app, so share it with your friends, family and on relevant forums.
    • The most efficient way to get downloads is to buy traffic from ad networks. You can also increase your downloads by having your app featured on websites or apps like Giftiz, which showcase apps against a fee or return traffic.
    • Keep track of uninstalls as they bring your ranking down. An unusual uninstall rate can mean that there are issues within your app (bugs, loading time).

Retention

  • App store algorithms also take into account in-app metrics to determine your app’s ranking.
  • Work on having the highest percentage of active users: make sure users can start using your app within minutes (Is the sign-up easy? Is the tutorial too long?) and don’t experience any bugs. Keep your users active: send them notifications and give frequent rewards (e.g., first levels of a game need to be easy to reach).
  • Make sure you update the app frequently, fix bugs and provide support.

Reviews

    • Both ratings and the number of reviews count towards your app’s ranking.
    • Ask your happy users to review your app! Good reviews improve your app’s ranking, but you also need constructive feedback to improve your app. It’s a good idea to include a contact form in your app, so that unhappy users don’t feel the need to get your attention through a bad review.

Good luck!

How to make a great video ad for your game?

At AdBuddiz, we have watched MANY videos from our awesome advertisers.

We’d like to share with you the a few tips to ensure the maximum conversion rate for videos:

The Basics

  • Make different lengths from 15 to 30 seconds. From our experience, 15-second videos are the best performers!
  • Make sure to have specific versions for Android and iOS. First, it does improve the conversion rate (because the user can better relate to it). Second, Apple will ban apps that display ads with a Google Playstore logo.
  • Less is more: Don’t add too much texts and details. Keep in mind that a smartphone screen is very small and the user needs to understand easily what the game is about.
  • End your video. This is the key to get a good conversion rate: show the name of the app, and where it is available (which OS, device).

Attract Attention Within The First Few Seconds

Most advertising solutions offer the possibility for the user to exit the video before the end. As a result, we don’t recommend to display the publisher logo at video launch. It is likely that the user will simply click on the exit button to come back to his game!

See the video as a good trailer: show immediately a great scene, then give some information on the app and where the user can find it.

Show The Gameplay

Show what it will be like to use your app so the user knows what to expect. It should look easy and fun, and use your best graphics in high definition!

Looking for an example? Let’s check out King’s latest video for Jelly Saga.

We can divide the King video into 3 parts:

  1. Catchy video launch: the game’s goal is clearly stated. It lasts less than 2 seconds.
  2. Cool Gameplay description: it’s colourful, you get to the next level in no time, and winning is rewarding.
  3. Closing: OS logos and “free to play” mention. (As this video was posted on Youtube, it makes sense to have the store logos all-together. However, make sure to have one version only with the Appstore logo if you want to promote your game within iOS apps)

3 steps to maximize the ROI of your campaigns

2015 was the year for Mobile Ad Spending growth.
In 2016, it is time to spend every $ wisely ;)

1. Find quality partners

- Test different partners with a small budget
- Negotiate all the important terms of the campaign: the goal is to know exactly what you are paying for
- Make sure your partner works with direct publishers: if there are middlemen between your partner and the publishers, it means you can’t for instance know for sure that your traffic is non-incent
- Don’t be afraid to optimize the ad networks by sub sources rather than globally

2. Golden Rule: implement post-install events

Post-install event optimization is a very powerful tool. It allows you to get only the high quality traffic you are looking for.

 

The way it works is simple:

- Agree on the KPI goal with your ad network: Day 1 retention and in-app purchases are the most common ones
- You create the event postback on your side: most of the tracking solutions on the market propose that functionality
- The ad network will pause automatically all the sources that don’t match your KPI goal (example: 20% of paying users)

3. Go deeper!

- Apply a higher CPI to the highest quality publishers, so you’ll get more traffic from them
- Check out my previous articles to improve the quality of your ads and avoid creatives mistakes
- Don’t forget to make video ads of different lengths and compare the results
Let’s get ready for the 2016 challenges!

Happy Holidays from AdBuddiz!

2015 at a glance

  • The number of publishers on AdBuddiz more than tripled this year
  • Working with top advertisers (such as Ximad), we ran thousands of campaigns every month
  • We introduced RTB (programmatic) campaigns in our ads selection, enabling publishers to earn on a CPM basis alongside CPI
  • We launched our premium video ads (rewarded and non-rewarded), which have so far been reaching up to $20 eCPM
  • We attended and made new partnerships at various events including Mobile Webtainment Conference (Berlin), Game Connection Europe (Barcelona) and Appsworld (London).

Did you know?

January is the peak month of activity for mobile apps. Is your app ready? Check our article on ad placement.

We wish you a peaceful and lucrative holiday season as well as a fantastic year 2016!

The advertiser’s check-list when starting a new campaign

Launching a new campaign is very exciting, but in the heat of the moment you may forget some important steps.

Here is my check-list to help you stay on track:

 Agree on the campaign’s details with your ad network

You must discuss the following:

- targeting: geos, CPI, OS version, device
- total budget & daily cap (useful for soft launches)
- running dates
- delay to apply pause notifications
- financial details: mainly payment terms

 Prepare the creatives

At this point it is not essential to make many sets of creatives, however I encourage you to provide localized versions of the same creative. Feel free to ask for advice from your Campaign Manager.

 Test the tracking links

It is best to use one of the market’s existing tracking solutions. We are integrated with most of them (Tune, Appsflyer, Adjust, Kochava…). You can also use a Server2Server integration.

Don’t forget to ask your Campaign Manager to make a test install. This is important in order to make sure both sides are receiving the installs correctly, and to avoid any issues at the end of the month.

 Make sure you receive the sub publisher id

You will be able to see the performance per publisher and push the campaign where it performs best. At AdBuddiz, we are able to send this data easily: we add it to the tracking link.

 Get the reports

Request a dashboard access from us, so that you can monitor your daily installs and spendings.

Once you have done all this, you are ready to go ;-)

Let’s meet at Appsworld 2015

Where: London,
When: Wednesday 18th November 2015

Come say “Hello!” November 18th  at the 7th annual Appsworld conference held in London, UK! We invite you to join us as we explore the current and future trends within the mobile world. We would love to speak with you about our latest innovations and the possibility for future partnerships.

Feel free to contact us at [email protected] to get in touch prior to the conference.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

5 factors that influence the conversion rate of your campaign

When  launching a CPI (Cost per Install) campaign, you need to keep in mind that your volume depends on 2 parameters.
The first one is your CPI. The second is the conversion rate from ad impressions into installs.

It means that with the same CPI, you can have more volume if you improve your conversion rate.

Here are 5 factors that can help you maximize your conversion rate:

1) App rating

If your app rating is lower than 3.5 stars, this might lead to a lower conversion rate. Here is a simple way to improve your App rating:

Ask your users within the app if they like your app or not.
If they click on “yes”, encourage them to leave a rating on the store.
If they click on “no”, redirect them to a form where they can explain why.

By proposing only your happy users to leave a rating, you’ll improve your global rating.

2) Weight of the app

We encourage you to keep your app light (preferably less than 40Mo).
When a user attempts to download a heavy app, he usually gets a warning message. This can be a deal breaker for many users, as only the ones connected to Wifi might want to give it a try.

3) Ad creatives

It is very important to show what the app really is about
(read my article here on the top creatives mistakes).


From my experience, strategy games campaigns convert much better when showing an action scene on the ad.

Don’t forget the “call-to-action” button (like “Download now” for instance.)

4) App icon/Store screenshots

A user must understand in a glimpse what your app is about through the app icon and the screenshots.

Suggestion: take the best screenshots (an action scene), add a clear sentence and, why not a couple of features?

Need more inspiration? Here are some of the top apps on the Google Play Store:

  1. Clash of Clans: use of video, powerful sentences and highlighted characters
  2. Uber: main features are explained above screenshots

5) Store description

Did you translate your description into other languages? You might want to find a native speaker to review it!

Join us at the Mobile Webtainment Conference!

Where: Berlin, Germany at the Grand Hyatt Hotel
When: October 16, 2015
About the event: http://mobilewebtainment.com

AdBuddiz is pleased to announce that we will be attending this year’s Mobile Webtainment Conference in Berlin, Germany. This 2-day event is ideal for those looking to network, who are interested in, or currently involved in the mobile industry.

You can look forward to learning more about who we are and what we do, as our CEO and Co-Founder, Jonathan Ferrebeuf speaks about our history, as well as our journey towards our Real-Time Bidding (RTB) model. He will outline several topics including, but not limited to, the Pros and Cons of RTB, its impact on AdBuddiz, and monetisation lessons.

Please feel free to join us Friday, October 16th, from 17h30 - 17h55. We will also be available to take questions or meet with potential partners throughout the day. Feel free to contact us at [email protected] to get in touch prior to the conference.

Looking forward to seeing you there!