Lessons from the Top 100 Mobile App Marketers

What can we learn from the top 100 mobile app marketers? As the third screen becomes the first screen, what trends and insights do the top performance advertisers on mobile have to offer?

To answer this question, I regularly conduct a survey of the top 100 advertisers on the AdColony platform. Just a few weeks ago, I published the results of that study. Here are the highlights:

• Budgets are increasing. For the third time in a row, an increasing number of advertisers are reporting that their spend on mobile is increasing. In this survey, 89% of advertisers reported that their mobile advertising budgets have increased in 2016.
• Spend is shifting to video. A truly effective format for illustrating the value proposition of an app, 81% of mobile marketers have increased their spend on video for their app install campaigns this year.
• Campaigns are going global. As marketers increasingly localize their apps and ad creative for more languages to appeal to a broader global audience, so their campaigns are spreading out over more geographical regions. In fact, 77% of advertisers have increased their geographic targeting in 2016 over last year.

Beyond the top 3 trends, there were a notable number of campaign shifts in 2016, which are illuminated by this chart:

As is evidenced by this data, a few ad formats are falling out of favor. Most notably, traditional media — television, display, out-of-home, print, and radio — are declining.

Granted, this was to be expected. As users reach app installation saturation & maturity, so the task of enticing someone to install an app becomes more daunting. As this happens, install rates fall, leading advertisers to re-examine their budgets. As traditional media’s tracking capabilities on mobile user acquisition is sorely limited, it’s not surprising that the budget lines attached to these formats would be critically reviewed and reconsidered.

So, what formats are thriving? What works for the top mobile app install marketers? According to the respondents, it’s clear that immersive, interactive, and highly targeted formats are exceedingly in favor.

Indeed, according to the survey respondents, the top app install formats used are full-screen video, interstitial display (which is also full-screen by definition), social video, and social display.

One might note that banner ads are curiously also popular. However, it must be noted that banner ads are the equivalent of bargain bin remnant advertising. If a restaurant offered nearly free fries in addition to a steak dinner, how many patrons would honestly turn it away? The same is true with banner ads. They are often purchased as a cheap way to garner a high volume of impressions to supplement other more expensive ad placements.

Indeed, usage is not indicative of investment, as the following chart illustrates:

In this view, it would appear that full-screen video is the end all, be all to mobile advertising. Alas, it must be noted that just as banner ads are cheap, so video ads are more expensive. Thus, investment in a full-screen mobile video campaign will command a significantly higher portion of the budget than the same number of impressions would on a rich media or banner campaign.

So, why can full-screen video command such high prices? If you ask the top app install marketers, there’s one clear answer: they work. Nothing quite beats the power of sight, sound, and motion to convey an app’s value proposition in a way that not only piques user interest, but drives high quality engagement and installs. In fact, when asked which ad formats were the most effective, the answer was clear:

Of the sixteen advertising formats included in the study — 12 of which were specific to mobile — the top three were all video:  full-screen video, social video, and in-feed video. While social display rounds out the top four, many would argue that it only does so for its uncanny ability to micro target audiences. While such targeting is available at a premium and offers limited scale, one cannot argue with its effectiveness.

What’s most interesting, however, is the promise offered by alternatively engaging ad formats. While video is far more captivating than display, so ads that truly engage the user and integrate with the in-app experience are the most captivating of all. In this way, playable and native ads are hardly to be scoffed at, garnering the attention of 33% and 39% of the top advertisers, respectively.

Looking Ahead
So, what does the future hold for mobile marketers? If the behaviors of the top 100 app install marketers are any indicator, the answer lies in user immersion. Truly captivate someone’s attention, even if it is only on a 4 inch screen, and you have a meaningful opportunity to drive measurable outcomes at scale.