Cost per install (CPI) is a performance-based pricing model employed for user acquisition. It’s a fixed or dynamic price that an advertiser pays an ad network and the DSPs each time a new user clicks on the ad and subsequently installs the advertised app.
CPI is calculated by dividing the marketing expenses for the campaign by the number of installs promoted by the CPI campaign itself.
CPI has now become a powerful tool for user acquisition and the growth of mobile apps. This has led many app developers to use CPI campaigns with the purpose of attracting new app users and taking full advantage of all the benefits of CPI.
- A safe source to assess the effectiveness and performance of your campaign
- Lower risk for advertisers as compared to other pricing models
- A helpful tool to boost your app and increase its popularity
CPI campaigns offer numerous benefits ranging from reducing the risk for advertisers to creating buzz around your app. Moreover, compared to other pricing models, CPI is proving to be more effective and less expensive, turning it into the most convenient cost model available.
The main benefits of a CPI campaign are the following:
- A useful measurement of the ad spend and the effectiveness of your campaign;
- Lower risk for advertisers, helping them to save money and increase ROAS;
- Essential to get your app out there and build its reputation.
Now let’s delve into each one of them and learn more about CPI’s positive impact on your campaign!
CPI campaigns offer the opportunity to evaluate the performance of your marketing campaign by tracking the number of new app users and verifying the target audience you have reached. If your app has achieved a high install rate, this implies that your campaign has reached the right target audience and has met its goals.
Furthermore, CPI campaigns make it easier for you to keep track of the acquisition cost of new users and compare it to the revenues brought by the users themselves. All of this is useful to measure the campaign’s profitability.
By measuring the performance of your campaign, CPI campaigns also allow you to compare different UA partners so as to evaluate how each one of them performs and how effective their contribution is.
CPI campaigns tend to be safer for advertisers, whose job is to acquire LTV users who are willing to keep using the app and engaging with it.
It’s worth mentioning that installing an app requires a real interest coming from the user. That’s why CPI is also a crucial tool to help advertisers save money.
Cost per click (CPC), for instance, is a cost model mainly used by big companies such as Google and Facebook. However, it isn’t always a convenient method as CPC is usually higher than CPI. Therefore, advertisers choosing a CPC model will have to pay significantly more if they want to acquire a large number of new users. That’s why CPI is much more convenient when the UA campaign’s goal is to climb the leaderboards and acquire as many new users as possible.
Another pricing model representing a higher risk than CPI is the cost per mille (CPM) model, where advertisers pay to show the ad and can never be sure if the user will take any further action.
This is yet another case in which CPI seems to be preferable with respect to other pricing models available for advertisers. Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) usually opt for the CPM model since it relies on the ad impressions, but when it comes to performance-based metrics CPI is always more advisable.
A successful CPI campaign will also help your app increase its popularity and build its reputation. Exposure in the app store is a crucial step at the beginning of your app’s journey. Upon its release, your app will need to be immediately visible for new users to hear about it and feel convinced to install it. CPI campaigns are useful precisely for this purpose: acquiring a large number of new users so as to improve your app’s ranking in the app store.
It is important to remember that your app’s explosion in popularity will only be possible if your CPI campaign is effective. That’s why you should never overlook the importance of building the ideal CPI campaign for your app to blow up on the app store.
Building the app’s reputation is crucial as well. By employing a CPI model, you will make sure to let your ads be seen by a large number of potential users. Not all of them may decide to install the app after seeing your ad for the first time. However, the positive aspect is that ad viewers will start getting acquainted with your app and might decide to install it after stumbling upon the ad again. Therefore, this strategy will increase the likelihood of acquiring new users thanks to the trust you have managed to build.
Mapendo is an AI-powered platform running performance-based CPI campaigns with either a fixed or dynamic CPI. Our company has access to traffic worldwide, benefiting from premium ad exchanges for real-time bidding.
Furthermore, Mapendo provides full transparency, meaning that advertisers will know where their ads are shown. In addition, our traffic is always clean and brand-safe, as certified by Appsflyer, Adjust and other major MMPs.
Moreover, it’s worth noting that our AI-powered platform can optimize CPI campaigns towards any post-install event, thus aiming at acquiring only high-quality users. We can optimize towards CPA, ROI/ROAS, and any in-app event rate. This demonstrates that our CPI campaign goes beyond app users’ growth and is interested in finding LTV users who are willing to stay.
Mapendo has also developed multi-page ads, which can combine multiple formats like video and playables and are particularly useful to promote mobile games. A thousand different versions of multi-page ads are tested in real time and automatically optimized towards desired KPIs.
Lastly, our team of veteran advertisers will take care of your CPI campaign from beginning to end.
Overall, CPI campaigns are proving to be the most effective price models among all the ones currently available for advertisers. That’s why Mapendo has decided to choose CPI campaigns over other payout models.
If you are interested in knowing more about CPI campaigns and their benefits, don’t hesitate to contact us!
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