App installs

 

Overview

In Q4 of 2020, an established game targeted to 13-24-year olds was looking to increase its presence on iOS devices.  They were running the app install campaigns in house with some success but needed to find a partner to help scale while keeping specific install benchmarks. 

Platforms

With the aggressive CPI goals and the younger target audience, TikTok and Snapchat were the platforms of choice. 

DNW’s Approach

After auditing the platforms and current performance, we created a game plan to move forward.  It was not about starting from scratch, but working with what was currently running and modify, making incremental improvements that add up over time.

Below were some steps we took to improve performance:

  • Budgeting – By reviewing audience size and performance, slowly increase budgets to test new thresholds.  If performance held within benchmarks at a specific budget, we would increase and continue to test

  • Targeting – There was a two-pronged approach.  First, we built out lookalikes to help find high quality installs.  Secondly, we broke out targeting in a way to help provide better insights and allow us to adjust bids/budgets to maximize performance

  • Bids – Work in the platform to continually tweak and modify bids to find the right balance of scale and performance.  Each platform has nuance, so each needed a separate strategy

  • Creative – Helped create a cadence for updating creative, and worked in the platform to implement to make sure best performers worked harder. 

  • Connect with Platform Reps – Key to success is working with the platform reps to gain from their experiences.  But also equally important is to process their recommendations and adapt to fit to the apps goals.  Not all “best practices” provided by the reps are best for a brand.  Parsing through and testing appropriately is important

Performance

After just a few weeks we saw the following

  • TikTok was able to scale quickly.  We were able to double the budget while staying 15%  below our CPI benchmarks

  • Lookalikes on TikTok had much stronger conversion rates (25% vs a campaign average of 13%)

  • Snapchat wasn’t able to scale at our CPI goals.  Almost as important to finding successful channels is finding out the ones that don’t work.  Its not that we abandoned Snapchat, but rather we invested more time/money in TikTok to help grow the user base