In our previous blog,The Guide to Setting Up CPA Campaigns for Rewarded Ads, we provided insights on why a sustained CPA campaign is beneficial. Performance and pricing are one of the key aspects of Rewarded Ads. Today, let’s dive into another facet of Rewarded Ads, which is visibility.
As we approach the end of the (very long) summer, it is already a good time for performance marketers to start thinking about the upcoming seasonal promotions that come along with Black Friday and the festive season. Advertisers are considering multiple strategies for user acquisition and how to best gain visibility during this time.
Being visible in front of your users at this time is a golden opportunity, one that can be fulfilled though Rewarded Ads or Incentivized traffic.
Before advertisers begin using Rewarded Ads for visibility, it is important to consider these questions:
Are you launching a new game?
Do you want to be perceived as the leading app in your vertical?
Is your user growth impacted by seasonalities?
Does your in-app engagement increase during certain events or specific dates?
Do you want to create greater brand awareness of your app?
If you have mentally checked “yes” to any of the above questions, Rewarded Ads might be a powerful additional channel to acquire high-value users and enable visibility of the app.
With Rewarded Ads, advertisers can choose to run two types of burst campaigns:
Sustained Category Burst: With this method, advertisers have the opportunity for a constant flow of new conversions over a longer period of time. Depending on the strategy your performance advertising partner can run these for a period ranging from a week to a month. Advertisers can expect to see a steady increase in organic uplifts during this time.
Let us illustrate this with an example: Let’s assume an advertiser wants to maximize on a seasonal or promotional event for Halloween. A good point to start promoting a special in-app event can be a week before the promotion, with continued sustained burst campaigns that can help the app be visible to the target users for the entire time. This can be beneficial for the advertisers as it helps them to remain in front of their target audience, thereby increasing the chances of conversion.
Burst Campaign: A second category is the burst campaigns, which are run usually over a shorter time period compared to sustained burst campaigns. In this type of campaigns, the time frame ranges to typically 1-3 days and frequently run over the weekend. Instead of a low and slow approach – you push a lot to reach a very high rank, both within the category as well as the overall app ranking. Because of the high ranking, you will also see an increase in organics.
A burst campaign is typically helpful for advertisers looking to launch an app for the first time and want to create awareness by ranking high in the app stores. Burst campaigns are also a good supplement to other offline marketing activities and TV.
What you need to keep in mind when doing a visibility-focused campaign with Rewarded Ads
- Consider the ranking goal for maximum visibility with budget and duration in mind. For example, an advertiser competing for top 3 visibility in the app store in the “photo and video category” in the US, might face tough competition from giants such as YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram. Instead, a more viable option for visibility goal would be a top 5 rank.
- Have a clear understanding of your target audience.
- Acquire users through rewarded installs at low cost within the optimal time period. Short term campaigns can help create stronger visibility effect, whereas a long-term campaign can positively impact sustained UA or branding.
- Visibility-focused Rewarded Ad campaigns can help to increase the app visibility through a top position in the app stores, both overall or in the category. However, the end results can be different: an overall top spot means great reach, but it will be a wider/broader audience, whereas a top spot in a particular category will have a low reach but a more targeted impact.
- Scale your high-value users through the organic uplift of your campaign.
- Calculate the ROAS from the revenues of the purchased installs as well as the organic uplift.
Depending on your goals, this is one of the ways you can create more awareness of your brand. Other methods you can consider are Keyword Boosts, Playable Ads or Retargeting.