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Chimani boosts app marketing strategy with Google video

Chimani, a developer of free application guides for United States national parks, is adding video ads to its download push in an effort to reach a wide swath of outdoor enthusiasts. 

With the National Park Service turning 100 years old in 2016, Chimani is building on a successful program using in-app display ads via Google and install ads on Facebook to focus more on building brand awareness. Approximately 90 percent of the company?s marketing budget has been going towards Google, driving a 417 percent increase in user acquisition in the past year. 

?For in search and video, a lot of it comes down to our resources,? said Tom Tash, marketing manager at Chimani. ?What can we create in house that will have impact.

?We want to develop it in house so we can control our messaging and tweak it as we go,? he said. ?When we are visiting parks, we are getting HD video and using that.

?We are trying to figure out what is the best way to really impact the audience in 15 seconds.?

Subaru is the primary sponsor of the apps.

Celebrating national parks
Chimani recently completed app guides for all 59 national parks in the U.S. The travel apps include first-hand descriptions of park features, trails and amenities. They are available for iOS, Android and Amazon devices. 

Prior to 2016, the company?s mobile marketing efforts focused primarily on driving downloads using a typical display campaign across Google?s network for an umbrella app that provides an overview and encourages users to download more in-depth travel guides for individual parks. 

Between June and December of last year, Chimani saw a cost-per-install rate of $1.25. With the industry standard CPI rate between $2 and $3 and as high as $6, Chimani attributes the low rate to the fact that there is a wide audience of national park enthusiasts. 


In January of this year, Chimani started ramping up its spending and saw the cost-per-install rate come down to $1. 

This spring, Chimani introduced campaigns for individual apps, focusing on three-week campaigns for large-market apps for Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon. 

A big focus of the display campaigns is that the apps work offline, which is an important benefit when hiking in national park where mobile service can be spotty. 

Video ads
Going forward, the company will be working with Google to ramp up and introduce universal app campaigns as well as video campaigns. 

On Facebook, Chimani focused for a long time on install campaigns, which worked well. However, when it came time to refresh the look alike audience, the company decided to switch its focus to promoted posts to drive overall awareness of the brand with a wider audience. For example, the company might target the entire Western half of the U.S. with a promoted post for the Grand Canyon app to get in front of consumers when they are planning a trip. 

The company also leverages Twitter when it has news to announce, such as its completion of apps for all 59 national parks. 

With Facebook, Chimani has a good idea of who its audience is and engages them. 

While Google delivers the best results in terms of bringing in new users, Chimani is not always able to engage those users. 

?We are hoping to get the best users and our retention data shows that to be true, but we are not always sure who the users are,? Mr. Tash said. 

?From what we can see, our user retention has been on the incline, which suggests they are good quality users,? he said.