Cost per install (CPI) optimization is a key step you should not take for granted after launching your mobile advertising campaign. CPI campaigns indeed require constant optimization to improve their performance. Collecting data about the campaign’s effectiveness and efficiency is necessary to improve ad creatives and audience targeting so as to optimize your campaign’s performance.
There are several strategies app developers and marketers can implement to optimize CPI. Your main goals will be to reduce CPI and improve the experience of the app users you have managed to acquire up until now.
- A/B testing to deliver high-quality creatives
- Targeted advertising and the return of contextual targeting
- Multi-page ads to prompt more installs
Cost per install (CPI) represents the cost incurred to acquire a new user installing and opening the advertised app. It’s one of the preferred pricing models chosen for user acquisition campaigns.
As opposed to other metrics, CPI has proven to be more convenient and less expensive for advertisers seeking to avoid wasting their money. Moreover, CPI provides app developers with useful insights on the effectiveness and efficiency of their campaign. By measuring CPI, your company will be able to verify the campaign’s progress and analyze how to improve its performance.
To understand how to improve CPI performance, it’s crucial to be aware of the factors influencing it and their impact on your mobile advertising campaign. CPI can vary depending on a series of factors such as the target audience, the type of ad creatives, the user’s location, the app category and the mobile phone’s operating system. By understanding how to calculate the precise CPI, app developers will manage to carry out the most appropriate strategy to optimize its performance and bring it to the next level.
As mentioned above, CPI optimization is not just about lowering the cost per install itself, it’s also about acquiring high-quality users who are likely to engage with your app and contribute to its success.
Here’s a comprehensive list of effective strategies app developers and marketers can implement for CPI optimization and user retention:
A/B testing involves comparing two or more variations of an element within your advertising campaign to determine which performs better with the help of a data-driven approach.
By comparing different versions of ad creatives, it’s possible to see how they perform with your target audience. After conducting a statistical analysis, you can determine which format resonates best with your target audience based on the metrics.
By testing the performance and effectiveness of different ad creatives, you can:
- Improve engagement rates: Discover which ad versions attract more clicks and installs;
- Enhance conversion rates: Identify the version that leads to higher install rates;
- Reduce costs: Organize your budget more efficiently by investing in high-performing ads.
It’s important to highlight that you should repeat A/B testing over time so as to understand which versions are more appealing to users and which aren’t. This test will reveal each version’s advantages and drawbacks, thus helping advertisers determine which creative (videos, banner, interstitials) is more effective for their CPI campaign.
Moreover, this tool for app campaign optimization allows advertisers to increase their ROAS and significantly improve CPI performance.
An important step in the CPI optimization process is conducting a targeted and personalized advertising campaign. Therefore, an advertiser’s goal should be to segment their target audience based on demographic, geographic and behavioral considerations so as to create user personas.
In this way, users are segmented in different groups having similar characteristics such as the app they’re using, their location or their mobile phone’s operating system. By identifying your target audience, you will be able to deliver relevant content to each group, thus reducing CPI and increasing conversion rates.
By using algorithms to analyze the characteristics of your best-performing users, it’s also possible to retrieve the so-called lookalike audiences, representing groups of people who resemble your existing customers in terms of demographics, interests, and behaviors.
However, it’s crucial to note that behavioral targeting isn’t always possible, especially after Apple’s introduction of ATT, a new privacy regulation activated in 2021. Before that, advertisers were able to track app users and build profiles containing data about their behavior.
That’s why contextual targeting has been reintroduced to the world of mobile app advertising. Contextual targeting is a method of serving ads based on the content of a web page or app, rather than user behavior or demographics.
Advertisers use algorithms to scan and analyze the keywords and phrases within the content of a web page or app, thus determining the theme or topic of the content. That’s how contextual targeting leverages web pages and apps’ content to power user engagement and conversions, making it a valuable strategy for optimizing CPI in app marketing campaigns.
Multi-page ads represent an innovative ad format designed to create an interactive advertising experience. These ads are particularly effective for CPI optimization because they attract users and prompt direct installs.
Mapendo’s multi-page ads are implemented as follows:
- A 30-seconds video;
- A playable ad for users to interact with a demo version of the advertised app;
- An end card encouraging users to install the app.
By experiencing the app through the playable ad, users can make an informed decision to install it, resulting in higher-quality installs. Moreover, the end card provides an appealing call-to-action, encouraging immediate installation.
The above-mentioned elements combined together will result in significant improvements in user engagement and conversion rates. Moreover, different combinations can go through real-time testing to verify which one works better in terms of CTR and click-to-install rate.
CPI optimization is crucial for app developers and marketers aiming to acquire high-quality users and enhance CPI performance. By implementing strategies such as A/B testing, multi-page ads and contextual targeting, marketers will be able to improve user engagement, increase conversion rates and make more efficient use of ad spend.
Optimizing CPI thus represents an essential ongoing process to guarantee your app’s long-term success and the acquisition of LTV users. That’s why you should never overlook the importance of CPI optimization when launching your advertising campaign!
