Whether you are an app developer or an advertiser and you are looking for strategies to grow your app user base, you have certainly come across app install campaigns. Indeed, the goal of an app install campaign, as the name suggests, is to drive as many installs as possible and that’s not all. Actually, any app install campaign can be optimized towards post-install events, such as in-app purchases or deposits, which generate revenue for advertisers, as opposed to installs only. Furthermore, there are also CPA (Cost-Per-Action) app campaigns, which aim at acquiring high-quality users and are less risky for advertisers since they pay only when one of the in-app events mentioned above has been carried out by a new user. Therefore, an effective app user acquisition strategy must include an app install campaign but your efforts go well beyond its launch. In order to set up a successful app install campaign it is crucial to constantly analyze and monitor your performance, because it helps you with the optimization.
But how can you measure your app install campaign performance in order to run a proper optimization ? Here are four key metrics you need to take into account when measuring your app install campaign performance.
Volume Of Installs
We know it may sound obvious, but when evaluating an app install campaign performance, it is immediate to look at how many installs the campaign has generated over a certain period of time. Even though installs don’t always mean high-quality users who bring revenue for app developers and advertisers, they are crucial to growing your app user base and scaling volumes is an essential goal in every app user acquisition strategy. A positive trend of installs generated by the app campaign is always a good indicator of an app install campaign performance.
Conversion Rates
The second metric always monitored and analyzed in app install campaigns is the conversion rate. Actually, there are multiple conversion rates you can look at, based on the events you want to monitor. For example, there is the Click-Through Rate, which measures the percentage of impressions which lead to a single click; or the Click-To-Install Rate, which measures the percentage of clicks that lead to an install. In addition, it is possible to compute conversion rates between post-install events in order to have a bigger picture of the user flow within the app and optimize every step of the funnel. This is essential to the understanding of who your app’s high-quality users are. The relevant post-install events to monitor should be decided in the early stages of your app user acquisition strategy and should be aligned with your business KPIs.
Post-Install Activity
As mentioned above, post-install events represent an essential KPI for a successful app user acquisition strategy. Thus, measuring the post-install activity can be another way to evaluate the app install campaign performance. If users download your app but don’t engage with it and delete it after some time, app developers don’t get any revenue and that’s why a simple analysis of the volume of installs is not enough. The goal should be to acquire as many high-quality users as possible, which means to acquire users who carry out relevant post-install events and bring value and money.
App Install Campaign ROAS
Finally, the most analyzed metric in order to measure an app install campaign performance, and also the success of your whole app user acquisition strategy, is the ROAS, which stands for Return On Ad Spend. It measures the revenues generated by the campaign for every dollar spent and therefore it tells you whether or not your user acquisition efforts are driving money to your business. The most effective way to increase your ROAS is to optimize the app install campaign towards acquiring high-quality users, who generate revenues by carrying out post-install events such as in-app purchases or deposits.
