If you are an app developer and are trying to grow your app user base, it is highly likely that you have come across the term CPI. So what is it and how does it help you ? All right, first things first we need to talk about app install campaigns. App developers and advertisers often run app install campaigns through ad networks or DSPs, with the aim of boosting their app users. As the name suggests, app install campaigns have the goal of generating as many installs as possible for a specific app. Here’s where CPI comes to play. It stands for Cost-Per-Install and it is a pricing model applied to app install campaigns, where advertisers pay marketing partners such as ad networks and DSPs for every install they drive as opposed to CPA app campaigns for example. Let’s take a closer look at how cost-per-install campaigns work.
What Is Cost-Per-Install (CPI)
Cost-per-install, or CPI, is a fixed price advertisers agree to pay ad networks, DSPs or any other media sources for every single install they generate through their app install campaigns. The price can vary according to different factors like country, operating system or app category. For instance, if the CPI is set at $4.00 and an app install campaigns drives 1000 installs, advertisers pay $4000 to the media source responsible for that campaign. The reason why app developers choose cost-per-install is because it takes less risk than other pricing models such as CPM (cost-per-mille or cost-per-thousand) and CPC (cost-per-click). Indeed, with cost-per-install marketing partners and media sources get paid only based on the results and the performance they deliver. So, what does it take to launch and run a CPI app campaign ?
What You Need To Run CPI App Campaigns
Launching an app install campaign with a cost-per-install model takes a few simple but important steps. First of all, it is necessary to set a goal for your app install campaign, in terms of number of installs and also the quality of them, that is how much revenue they generate in-app. Secondly, you need to identify the target audience you want to acquire for your app and then the country where you want to acquire these potential users from. Based on these choices and the operating system where you want to target your potential users, iOS or Android, you allocate the proper budget. Next, you produce the creative ads you want to show to your target audience, and you can choose multiple formats like banners, videos, native ads and so on. Finally, you can launch your cost-per-install app campaign, always monitoring your results in order to optimize the performance and the creatives.
CPI vs CPA App Campaigns
As stated in the previous paragraph, cost-per-install campaigns are less risky for advertisers than CPM or CPC campaigns, but there is an even safer alternative. Indeed, CPA app campaigns are cost-per-action based, where the payable event is not the install anymore, but an in-app event which takes place after the install and which is usually aligned with the app business model. As a result, CPA app campaigns are less risky for advertisers than the cost-per-install model because they pay media sources only after users have generated revenue for them through a post-install event. These kind of app campaigns aim at acquiring high-quality users. However, even when running cost-per-action app campaigns, you can compute an eCPI, which stands for effective CPI, that tells you the effective cost for each new user acquired. Therefore, you can keep running CPA app campaigns and at the same time optimize them towards the eCPI goal you set.
