Any app or game marketer knows managed success comes measured. There isn’t any all-knowing God metric to perform miracles. Measurement victories lie in selecting mobile app KPIs intelligently because no one can test everything all of the time. Not without all the time in the world to put the marketing department’s wallet directly in the toilet.
Here are some practical pro tips to efficiently narrow the measurement scope for any mobile app with a paid social strategy charged with delivering cost- and time-effective results.
Test In-App Events
The most sophisticated social platform for delivering measured insights is still Facebook. Even with recent policy changes in response to foreign interference in elections and data privacy concerns, Facebook remains the tool closest to all-knowing status available to app marketers, regardless of vertical.
And we’re not just talking about measuring installs. Any company can find success carving out a portion of its budget to also test Facebook events. In the retail realm, a company who engages users both online and in stores with discounts might add new events into its app and bids towards in-app events, not just towards installs.
In-app events allow performance marketers to evaluate the cost of install difference between campaigns that are bid towards the install versus an event. In the retailer example, the company can run campaigns bidding towards a used coupon and then measure that tactic to observe whether it’s cheaper than one focusing more on the top of the funnel.
Facebook’s in-app events methodology isn’t new, but many apps still have yet to adopt it or measure against it. Why not give it the ol’ college try?
Consider the Creative
Facebook also remains the most effective platform for measuring creative success.
When testing creative, go one variable at a time. Multi-variant testing is not only difficult to measure, it is nearly impossible to understand what actually made the impact without getting extraordinarily lucky.
The beauty of validated social learnings is that they can be applied across other channels. If a creative element works well on a Facebook campaign for example, mobile marketers can repurpose it on app store landing pages as part of a successful ASO strategy.
An exact timeframe needed to secure confidence in the data depends on volume of installs and level of spend, but generally speaking, the recommended interval for creative A/B testing is about two weeks before pulling the next lever. That fortnight is enough time to accumulate enough insights to achieve statistical significance.
Top-of-the-funnel learnings like click-through or conversion rates, or combination metrics like installs per one-thousand impressions, are standard when testing creative. If click-through rates are high, but conversions low, those measurements indicate the creative interests the users, but their app store experiences are not in line with expectations. Or alternatively, if they’re reaching the app store and finding something that connects with their passions, conversion rates are high, and that app marketer is swimming in the top of the funnel.
Avoid This Pitfall
In addition to testing too much at one time or the flip side of that coin – testing too few or only for vanity metrics, performance marketers must consider new target audiences in paid social campaigns.
Never presume to know who all users are. It’s common for brand marketers to possess a savvy feel for the pulse of their audience. But don’t overlook testing different segments that could be growing in the margins in lieu of assuming all relevant customer groups are known.
Those core audiences might be the case for the brand overall, but they might not always be the case for that brand’s mobile app. Revenue-accretive surprises are often waiting to be counted.
Don’t Forget the Best of the Rest
While Facebook (and Instagram) is currently lord of the paid social manor, app marketers should not ignore other platforms. Whether it’s Twitter or Pinterest or Snapchat, all channels have unique audience characteristics that warrant unique KPIs to measure against.
Measure the eyeballs everywhere they are watching thumbs scrolling, but always with the discipline to focus on only those metrics that truly matter.
Learn how TMGA can help best measure your app’s growth strategy