The use of mobile devices and apps is increasing every year, making mobile marketing strategies a more important priority than ever for digital marketers. As of 2018, global mobile app revenue exceeded $365 billion. By 2023, mobile apps will generate more than $935 billion in revenue through paid downloads and in-app advertising. To tap into the potential of this market, companies need to add mobile-specific advertising strategies to their annual marketing plans. Here, we share some of the best mobile app retargeting best practices to help you get accurate results faster.
What is mobile app retargeting?
Also known as remarketing, mobile app retargeting is a popular marketing and advertising strategy that helps businesses stay visible to people who have shown some interest in them. Whether they've visited their website or used their app, retargeting is an effective way to re-engage lost users and gain new ones.
Retargeting allows app marketers to expand their user base by promoting new apps to users of existing or old apps. This can be done by finding users who are similar to your existing active users and then targeting those similar audiences. Instead of blindly searching for users, you can spend your budget on acquiring users that are most similar to your high LTV users. This helps improve your return on ad spend (ROAS) for mobile app marketing.
What are the benefits of mobile app retargeting
Cost-effectiveness
As you can see from the statistics above, retargeting ads have a higher click-through rate (CTR) compared to other ads. In addition, in competitive industries such as health, finance, IT, e-commerce and commerce, retargeting ads cost 2 to 100 times less per click than typical search ads.
The cost of displaying retargeting ads is lower than creating ads for people who are seeing the same ads for the first time. According to Branding Strategy Insider, "It costs 6-7 times more to acquire new users than to retain existing ones." In addition, they generate more revenue than general advertising. 9% of brands allocate a separate, special budget for their retargeting efforts.
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More sales
Typically, 21% of users stop using an app after installation. The average mobile user has more than 100 apps on their phone - a fact that makes them highly competitive for time, money and attention. Unlike traditional CPI-focused campaigns, retargeting focuses on the (re)engagement of high-value users. When it works well, this approach is very effective - apps running retargeting campaigns have 130% higher paid user rates.
Retargeting is also a way to retain users. According to Investp, existing users are 60% more likely to try new products and 31% more likely to spend money compared to new users. In addition, according to Spiralytics, the average click-through rate (CTR) for display ads is 0.07%, while the average click-through rate for retargeting ads is about 0.7%.
Better conversions
When it comes to conversions, retargeting has significantly higher conversion rates than the initial marketing message. The evidence shows that mobile targeting works. According to DigiDay, some companies are seeing conversion rates of 50-60% with retargeting. These higher conversion rates for retargeting messages contribute to better ROI and more efficient use of ad spend.
While the practice of retargeting has multi-platform advantages, its benefits are most evident on mobile devices, as retargeting ads have been shown to be 13 times more efficient than on desktop. The majority (71%) of mobile commerce sales are made within the app, where users are able to navigate and convert at a much higher rate than on the mobile web. Retargeting encourages direct action, which for eCommerce apps translates into increased purchases and revenue.
- Across all verticals, the average growth in remarketing conversion share from 2018 to 2020 is 14%. However, it is worth noting the growth in Europe, with a 22% increase in conversion share in 2020 compared to 2018.
- The financial vertical has seen significant year-on-year conversion growth of more than 50% - this is particularly interesting as the number of apps running remarketing campaigns is virtually unchanged (4% growth in 2018 compared to 2020), meaning that apps using remarketing are doing more year-on-year.
- Shopping apps are the real stars of remarketing, with the highest growth rate across the board and a share of remarketing conversions up by more than 30%.
- The number of remarketing conversions for gaming apps is 250% lower than for shopping apps. The reality is that only a small percentage of gaming apps run remarketing. Given the dramatic growth in revenue for gaming apps that do remarketing, they are clearly missing a significant opportunity.
Engage more with your app
According to Localytics, 21% of mobile users abandon an app after one use. In addition, 71% of app users will churn within 90 days.
With more than 2.87 million apps on the Google PlayStore and 2 million apps on the App Store, the app marketplace is highly competitive. Retargeting ads by including updates, special offers and new features will give people a reason to continue using your app over other apps that offer the same service.
Best practices for mobile app retargeting
The idea of retargeting mobile ads is not new - many brands have been using it for a long time, and in that time, many best and worst practices for mobile retargeting have been defined. To get the best results and make your campaign a success, follow these steps.
Define your goals
This first step is usually the most important one. The more precise your vision for your app retargeting campaign, the more specific the further concrete steps you will take, which are key to achieving the best results. So, take some time to think about what the main goals of your app remarketing campaign are.
Do you want to increase brand awareness? Then, in this case, you should focus on emphasizing your brand, making people aware of it, piquing their interest in visiting your app or website, and making them remember that.
On the contrary, if your main goal is to get conversions, then your main audience is people who are already aware of your services. This requires a different strategy in order for your campaign to be more targeted. At this stage, you may want to include links to specific services, suggest free trials, or highlight products of interest to someone.
These details are important, so setting goals is a key element in defining your mobile retargeting approach.
Understand your audience and personalize promotions
Another important thing to know about mobile app retargeting is to know your audience. Personalized offers delivered at the right time and on the right platform work better than generic ads.
Knowing your users is critical - knowing which platforms they use, what they're looking for, how they use your app, etc. - all of this information provides a great opportunity to offer personalized promotions. After collecting this data, you can direct people to specific links within your app and remind them about your offerings using a cross-channel approach.
This approach has been used extensively over the past few years and has yielded great results. For example, a recent study showed that targeted campaigns have an 18% retention advantage over their broader counterparts.
These numbers prove that personalization is a great way to build a strong relationship with your users because it ensures that your app will not be abandoned. So don't miss this opportunity to make the most of your app remarketing campaign - personalize it.
Use audience segmentation
Once you know your targets and users, you can segment your audience and build retargeting scenarios for each group.
Mobile retargeting works for almost any service you can purchase: travel, food, transportation, e-commerce, gaming, lifestyle, dating, and more. There are many scenarios and ways for users to come back to mobile apps, and many ways to segment them.
Here are some examples of specific segmented audience groups grouped by behavior.
- Those looking for items but not adding anything to the shopping basket.
- Those who have added items to the shopping basket but have not purchased them.
- Those who bought something recently and where your goal is to sell more.
- Those who bought something earlier but later lost interest.
Now let's look at the most popular user return scenarios.
- Offering special deals, such as discounts on the next order or bundled items.
- Introducing new features in the app and informing about new ways to use the app.
- Displaying banners with products that the user has already searched for or complementary products.
- Reminders of forgotten items in the basket and many other items.
Users can also be segmented by time windows, such as how often you want them to see ads or how much time has passed since their last visit. This may depend on the type of product - for example, those buying travel should be targeted earlier than those interested in luxury items. It is also important to re-engage new users after installing the app, as they tend to return more after this type of app retargeting. Finally, location and time zone are also important details to consider in order to deliver retargeting ads at the right time.
The success of any retargeting campaign depends on the correct segmentation of the audience, which depends heavily on the topic and type of business. Therefore, before starting a campaign, select your audience segments and develop key return scenarios.
Ad capping and burn codes
High frequency advertising is not always cause for celebration. When it comes to retargeting, it's a bit counterintuitive, and often "less is more". When potential buyers see ads too often, it can have a negative impact on their emotions as the product "chases" them around the web. Like push notifications, if users see ads too often, they will report finding them "annoying," "intrusive," or worse, "creepy. Again, like push notifications, they can have a dramatic effect when implemented with optimal frequency.
It can be even more annoying for users to receive ads about something they have already purchased. To avoid this, you may want to consider using a burn code that removes users from a retargeting list after they have purchased an item, or moves them to another list with a new mobile retargeting campaign.
Measure your results
When talking about the success of a campaign, it's important to have numbers in order to compare which ideas are most effective. To get those numbers, users should consistently measure retention, installs, and revenue. Other values that may be of particular interest for app retargeting are reattribution (number of people who reinstalled the app) and re-engagement (number of people who used the app after the campaign ended). These metrics can help you estimate which campaigns work better and maximize returns.
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