Ad Format: The Right Choice To Earn More Revenue

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Effective ads should improve your revenue rather than being the reason for user to frustrating delete your app and lead to the loss in retention rate. There are  simple factors you would need to know:

  • Optimizing placement of an app.
  • Choosing appropriate ad format to maximize your revenues.

Key factors to make a good ad placement.

Here are some useful information for you would need to remember to optimize your ad placement:

  • Appropriate ads placement: Your ads need to be relevant to the user as well as perfectly match with the content of the app. There should be a good combination between user interface, gamification to achieve higher revenue and make sure your app does not annoyed user by appearing at the wrong time.
  • Friendly User Experience: It would be a disaster to make wrong ads placement which generates huge negative impact on your user’s experience. For example, the ads must not overlay menu and control buttons in app (This is also a violation of Google policy which might make your app get banned from app store). Also the ads should be displayed at the right time, you definitely would not want to annoy your users by showing ads at intense moment when your users are facing the difficult boss of a stage.
  • Consistency: The ad placement should be consistent with the design in your app design. Also make it clear for user to identify which one is app, which one is the elements such as menu button in the app. As a result your users would not be confused when an app appear and know how to interact with it.

Numerous choice of ads formats, which one generate maximum revenue for you?

As publishers, you would have plenty of choices to monetize your product: In order to know what ad format would be most effective for your mobile app monetization strategy.

Mobile display ads.

  • Banner Ads
  • Interstitial Ads
  • Fullscreen Ads
  • Rich media Ads

Video Ads

  • In-stream (Served within video content)
  • Out-stream (Served inside banner, interstitial or other ad formats on top of the app content)

Native Ads

Ads would be quite similar to the content of the app, it would be more friendly and related to the users.

Playable app

Users would interact with ap before downloading

Rewarded video

User need to watch a video to get valuable item in the app/game.

The most Beneficial ad format

Even though the efficiency of ads format depend on several factors: Content, context of app, placement optimization etc… You can still select your decision which ads format to choose base on current trends.

One of metrics for efficiency of ads is the click-through rate (CTR). Despite being considered as classical ads format, banner ads still perform competitive CTR 2.33% CTR compared to full screen ads format (2.55%), interstitial (1.96%). Among different ads format, dialog ads stands out among with 8.66% CTR, the nearest performance is rich media with 3.63%CTR and expandable banner ads with 3.78%.

Also there is a relation between the size of app and CPM/CTR

Video ads also become more popular for both advertisers and publishers due to the high return on investment for this type of ads. On average, the CRM rates of video ads reach $3, significantly higher than other. However, Native advertising ads can reach up to $10 also considered as strongly effective as it provides the attention 3 times higher compared to banner format. However, it takes a huge amount of time to design and create a native ads as well as finding appropriate ad placements for this kind of ads.

In summary, making more revenue for your app requires you to choose the most reasonable placement of your app. Also we provided you knowledge and statistic which could help to choose the right ads format which generate maximum revenue as possible for your apps.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
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What is Google Ad Manager?

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Google Ad Manager and The Fate of AdWords, AdX, & DFP

Familiar with Google products like Adwords, AdSense, DoubleClick, or specially, Ad Exchange? Well, be sure to adjust to the latest change of Google on July 10, for the better.

Looking back at the history, from October 2000, Google served 350 advertisers. Fifteen years later, Google had over 1 million advertisers. Everything had changed, since the Internet, websites, platforms went “boomed”. To supply for market demand, Google had provided A LOT of products, but not divided in logical groups or orders.

Google advertising ecosystem has become too complex, almost impossible to navigate, according to Jalil Chikhi, business leader at Google France.

So, on the 10th of July 2018, Google announced the simplification of its advertising ecosystem into three new categories: Google Ads, Google Marketing Platform and Google Ad Manager. Thus, this means a total rebranding effort of many products and tools like Ad Exchange, DFP and AdSense.

Google rebrand in a nutshell

For more information about the re-branding effort, you can read it here.

Simply, this is a summary of what happened to the old brands and how they are being rebranded.

Google Ad Manager:

  • Doubleclick for Publishers
  • Google’s Ad Exchange

Google Ad Manager is the new name for everything programmatic. Dedicated to publishers, it regroups DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange. The new Google Ad Manager will aim to equip publishers with more efficient tools to monetize their content.

Google Ads

  • Google AdWords: with keywords, custom intent audiences, video advertising formats, and much more, packed into one entity.

Google Marketing Platform

  • DoubleClick for Advertisers
  • Analytics 360
  • Data Studio, etc.

The change concerns DoubleClick and the Google Analytics 360 Suite. They will be regrouped into one platform for advertisers to plan, buy, measure and optimize all of their Google digital media in one place.

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Even though Google addressed how these new products would be simplified under a smaller group of product umbrella’s, it left publishers with major questions.

How do I get a Google Ad Manager account?

As Google Ad Manager now includes both Google’s ad server/SSP (formerly DFP) and their premium ad exchange (previously AdX), not every publisher can sign-up to access a Google Ad Manager account.

Unfortunately, there is an invitation and approval process, and most small and medium-sized publishers do not find it easy to access..

However, there is an answer for this audience, and it is to work with a Google Certified Publishing Partner, and fortunately, we at Gamob, are providing this answer. Gamob provide sustainable growth solutions to optimize UX & ads revenue for every mobile app developers and studios, it is totally free for you to access our network. And we also support our clients with the most efficient solutions to any problem based on Google policies.

So, is Ad Manager an just an SSP and ad server?

Basically, it is the combination of the two originals, so YES.

Under a new name, Ad Manager is a complete and unified programmatic platform. Even though Ad Manager is essentially Google’s SSP/ad server, it still has all the advanced features and Google technology synergies in the marketplace that you’d expect to improve.

What’s new inside Google Ad Manager?

Along with most major visual rebranding efforts, the products themselves usually evolve to reflect the new brands.

Some terminology and the general user experience of the product will likely evolve to be different from DFP and AdX.

Google is also touting that the new Ad Manager will expand to allow publishers to better monetize things like AMP, live video, and more. This could indicate a broadened programmatic platform as well.

Unless you’re a large multi-dimensional publisher, many of those additional features may not be overly relevant.

Google will likely communicate any necessary changes via email multiple times if there is anything overly dramatic that will change in the coming months, but nothing is announced or expected.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
Thank you and have a nice day!.

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Best Advertising Size And Ad Format On Smartphone For Ad Campaigns

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Wherever you go there is always a smartphone presence. Sure, mobile phones have become more ingrained in our lifestyles than any other media.

As in Mary Meeker report:

  • 29% of the daily screen time for viewers via smartphones
  • Global mobile data traffic has increased by nearly 70%
  • Mobile orders make up 24% of communication time in the US
  • Mobile device time is 51% higher than US desktop computers

Therefore, mobile advertising is important for brands and advertisers (when it is done properly). Therefore, many people wonder: What is the best mobile advertising format for Marketing campaigns?

Although there are many different ad networks, there is nothing like a universal ad format. Instead, let’s take a look at the types of ads available for mobile phones – traditions and trends. Understand how they work, learn how to choose the best mobile ad format to monetize your marketing campaign on your mobile phone.

Standard Banner Ads

Banner Ads 320 x 50 pixels; static or dynamic, often messy content at the top or bottom of the screen. This is the most popular ad format so far. Previously, these ad formats created random, inefficient clicks. Now, it can be more effective if done in the appropriate context: passive, difficult to mistakenly click and do not interrupt the user experience.

Unfortunately, this also makes it easy to fall into “banner blindness” (a syndrome that users have developed an unintentional protest with a banner).

The success of the ads banner depends a lot on the brand’s identity. Big brands can take advantage of its minimal space without additional information when they are known. Unlike famous brands, they need more information into the small space, ending with a messy content.

Banner ads are flexible and simple. You can quickly produce finished products and deploy. However, this does not compensate for its terrible results and low CTR rates. It creates the least income among all types of ads. But banner ads aren’t quite a dark scenario. Sometimes, it can still be effective in the premise when users are active in the application and there is concentration.

According to different experts, banner design needs to be carefully balanced with eye-catching, subtle content but not distracting users from the application experience. Advertisers should highlight clear, concise main features or services. Avoid bright colors, excessive text or trivial graphics.

Some interesting findings of InMobi are on Android, banner ads that bring the best conversion for lifestyle content (2.02%); on iOS, the banner ads work best for classified content (2.7%).

Advantages:

  • Available on all screens
  • Can be done in large volumes
  • The cheapest format
  • Very quickly deployed
  • Easy to integrate

Defect:

  • Limited space
  • Quickly fell into the “banner blindness” syndrome.
  • Although fighting with the lack of space and banner blindness of users with a dynamic content display. It’s still not as effective as its other counterparts (as you’ll see below).

Interstitials Ads (Full Screen)

Interstitial ads are images that cover the entire mobile screen at 320 x 480 pixels. This is the most popular size because it allows for more contextual, call-to-action, and more creative content such as videos, archives, location and more. This allows you to encourage more participation so raising SAR (specific absorption index) for better performance and brand recognition.

Normally, interstitials appear at important moments during navigation, such as opening, browsing pages, or between games. It requires user actions; often click a button to close the ad or swipe to navigate to the desired content.

Interstitials is a straight-forward ad format from the web that fits perfectly on mobile devices. Its ability is to grab the user’s attention; especially the full screen display on mobile phones is very attractive to advertisers. You don’t have to worry about click errors, because it only appears between pages while an application is being used.

Advertisers can create beautiful and engaging content with high quality artwork and attractive copies. This can reduce the disruption factor for users.

According to many experts, interstitial ads are best placed in games with levels. The natural breakthrough in gameplay between levels allows transitional ads to appear appropriately. Do not interrupt user experience. Therefore, publishers should not push interstitial ads in the middle of the game.

Interstitial has been reported as well. InMobi Interstitial ads have 2-3 times higher click-through rates than banner ads. Most interstitial ads are very high.

Advantages:

  • The space is wider
  • Message, content display and storage ratio is wider
  • Intriguing visually
  • High Impression
  • High conversion rate
  • Can provide interactive multimedia and animation content

Defect:

  • High click-through rate in case of bad location
  • High CTR can make it difficult to close interstitial ads
  • Ask for more detail about the design work and the appropriate location to place

Native ads

Native Ads come in many different forms and sizes. It combines advertising messages with user-centric content. Meaning instead of providing ad publishers, they will be provided for the components of the ad. That depends on how they display the components appropriately on the application. Therefore, the ad will appear as part of the application content – so it has the name “native”.

It is similar to banner ads, but they do not occupy a specific screen space or are fully displayed. Users can still browse the content while viewing the ad, but because it is a “native” interface, it is less eye-catching and does not interrupt the user experience. Your ad will appear contextually relevant. Therefore, mobile native ads are highly effective. For example, advertising for cosmetics lies in the middle of the article about how to apply makeup in the blog reader application.

Many people assume that the native ads format is the best mobile ad format. This is because the native ads appear to match the context and content. Users consider advertising as a new content in their information flow and make it reasonable. These contributions make them more likely to click on ads.

That’s why CTR is excellent with static content. For example: Native ads on Facebook Ads, Twitter’s Ads or Instagram Ads. The targeting ability for these platforms is extremely accurate. It allows advertisers or brands to find the right people for your product or service.

Some statistics about native ads.

Native ads are viewed 53% more than banner ads. (Source: Dedicated Media)

Heineken Light has reached 54% of the audience – 35 million people – in just three days of using video ads on Facebook. (Source: Facebook)

32% of consumers said they would share native ads with friends and family, with ads, this figure was 19%. (Source: ShareThrough)

Advantages:

  • Fewer wrong clicks than other formats
  • Higher clickthrough rate (10.6%)
  • Better interaction rate of ads (14.0%)
  • Improved user experience

Defect:

  • Ask more about adapting to ads on countless possibilities due to its flexible format

Video Ads

In-app video ads have gradually become more popular. When mobile phones become the dominant advertising channel, advertisers are spending their advertising for videos. According to VentureBeat, mobile video advertising costs tripled in 2015, with global advertising costs rising to 71% of mobile advertising spending in the third quarter. Expanding video ads on mobile devices is a right step. High interaction rate, this makes them suitable for advertising games and famous brands.

Typical video ads run from 15 to 30 seconds when users press to play. While some advertisers invest in higher budget video ads that will automatically play when viewed. Video on mobile phones is quite attractive. Unlike desktop computers, users focus on video ads whenever they join the device. They don’t have much purpose around video ads.

However, advertisers must be careful because it can be returned. Poorly created or improperly placed ads will cause users to experience problems and cause them to close the application. Therefore, it is important that video ads should be brief (as mentioned in the range from 15 to 30 seconds). And as we said in previous formats, ad placement must be very natural in the user’s app journey.

Brand advertisers should ensure that there is an attractive screen to encourage users to play videos. They should think creatively when introducing a video to users. Due to its natural tendency to interrupt user experience, advertisers should consider only revealing videos after a banner is clicked. In addition, to minimize the risk of annoyance to users, video playback automatically will not run without sound and allow users the option to turn on or off.

The mobile video playback rate is higher on the application (14.0%) than mobile web (8.3%). While the video completion rate is slightly higher in the application (53.3%) than mobile web (52.7%).

Advantages:

  • Users like them
  • Focus attention
  • Good for the brand

Defect:

  • Expensive to produce
  • Can be mistakenly clicked incorrectly
  • You can’t force viewers – if that person has seen it before, chances are they won’t want to watch it again. However, if your ad is great, you can have more views. So it’s best to allow users to share that video and hope for a viral social campaign.

How to choose the mobile ad format?

There are no rules when you choose the appropriate ad format for your mobile phone campaign. To find the ad format that works best for you, you’ll have to experiment. With a multitude of ad formats and multimedia components, there’s a lot of creativity.

However, you have to start somewhere. So perhaps the following questions will help you determine an appropriate ad format for your mobile device’s Marketing campaign.

What are the goals of your campaign and your earning goals?

Who is your target audience?

Are you looking for a refined user experience (UX)? Or to balance UX with revenue?

Do you want less misleading ads?

Are you looking to run a performance campaign or brand promotion?

Which inventory and platform are you targeting?

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
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How to Avoid 5 Common Mistakes In App Store Optimization

As a publisher or app marketer, it is a fact that getting higher rank in the app stores is the main priority. On the other hand, it’s commonly known that the competition is challenging and proven to be quite difficult due to the amount of competitors and apps in both Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Because of this, ASO, also known as App Store Optimization, is the most efficient method to assist you on optimizing your app to increase the app performance in the app store. ASO indeed is widely used by many developers and marketers, however people are often come across some mistakes that they make during their optimization process.

For the purpose of helping app marketers and publishers to make the best out of ASO, these are 5 common mistakes that usually occur during App Store Optimization process and how to avoid them.

Putting Too Many Unnecessary Keywords.

As you may already know, Keyword is of the most crucial elements in ASO. Because of this, some publishers and marketers tend to place keywords randomly and in an unorganized matter. They often overlook on how it might affect their own visibility of their apps.

From the perspective of a user, seeing an app that has no sense usage of keywords across the app page is a huge minus point for the first impression.

For example:

As you can see from the screenshot above, the “Emoji” keyword has been overly used across the app page. This is not efficient when it comes to optimizing your keyword element. Due to the fact that stuffing the high-ranking keywords into the app page will eventually lead to unclear and illogical app description. Furthermore, the use of “Emoticons” in the app title is another fatal mistake that often results in app name is not relevant as a keyword for the app name.

In order to avoid or fix this misuse of keywords, the first thing that every publisher and marketer must know is “ Quality over Quantity ”. Instead of putting a numerous high-ranking keywords frequently, do some research and pick the most relevant keywords that can describe your app clearly and precisely. Keep in mind that app name and app description should always be natural and fluid.

ASO Tip: Use your keywords wisely and put them where they belong. Quality over quantity

Changing App Name Too Frequently.

As mentioned above, App Store Optimization is a great way to improve your performance on the app stores and it’s an efficient way to gain more organic downloads and users. However, the ASO process always involves changing core elements of your app in general and changing it too often can lead to another critical mistake.

There are some app publishers and marketers overly use ASO and change their app name too frequently. It’s a fact that optimizing the app page is crucial but over-doing it can decrease your ranking in the app store along with downloads volume of your app.

The reason for this is potential users won’t be able to search your app in the app stores once you have changed it and they will be confused or even mistaken your app with your competitor’s apps.

One of the valuable lessons here is that you should always do an in-depth research about keywords and app title first then decide on choosing your app name. Lastly, stick with it because it’s the name of your brand that you’re presenting to your potential users.

ASO Tip: Your app title is the name that represents yourself. Stick to it.

Ignoring ASO Graphic Elements.

Another common ASO mistake is that App Publishers often overlook the importance of other ASO Elements such as app icon, app screenshots, previews and other elements related to graphic. One of the app page elements that can make an excellent first impression is App icon because users often notice it. As a result, the app icon should be appealing to the users and expressing what the app is about at the same time. For example, a camera icon is for a photo related apps or an envelope icon is for an email app, etc.

The app icon color theme should have less than 3 colors, it gives the icon an aesthetic look towards the users and it makes the icon looks more professional and neat. If you use too many colors, your app icon will look messy and unappealing to potential users. Furthermore, the icon should be able to deliver visually what the app does in order to prompt potential users to install the app.

Additionally, other ASO elements like screenshots and previews are also been overlooked. After going through your app name, app icon and description the users tend to judge the app through its UI and what it actually looks like inside the app. It’s never enough to convince someone to use your apps if they don’t know how it works in reality. This is what screenshots and previews are used for.

Nothing is more encouraging potential users to take action than high-quality screenshots. So every publisher should also spend time and effort on optimizing there screenshots and reviews equally as other elements.

ASO Tip: The better the presentation the higher chance to gain more users.

Prioritizing Only On High-Ranking Keywords

As you may already know that high-ranking keywords always equals large amount of user search traffic. Due to this matter, publishers are often making a common mistake that they only prioritize on high-ranking keywords. The reason behind this is because the higher the traffic the higher the competition. Other app publishers more likely to target those high-ranking keywords as well. This will lead to decreasing app visibility and search chances on the app stores.

In order to optimize your keywords in a right way, instead of using all of the keywords, try to use only the most relevant and precise keywords for your app. Do more research with ASO Tools like Mobile Action or App Annie and narrow down your keywords list. You will get higher visibility and less competition with keywords that is low-ranking or long-tail keywords.

ASO Tip: Prioritize on the most relevant keywords.

Giving up or stop doing ASO

Last but not least, one of the vital mistakes that the majority of app publishers usually make is quit ASO after a few failed attempts or some even stop optimizing their app once they have received some increase in performance . It’s understandable that people often quit when they see no positive results and there is no other reason to keep doing so. Some might stop doing ASO because it they are satisfied with the results and they seek no further goal outside of their comfort zone.

Keep in mind that digital apps and app stores are evolving every second, so you need to keep putting efforts and time on optimizing and evolving your product. ASO is an endless process, there is no limit to what you can do based on your imagination. The only barrier that you will face is yourself and the only way to overcome it is to push yourself further and keep moving forward.

App Store Optimization is an essential part of every app. People often mistaken it as a one-time solution. To start doing ASO in a right way, every publisher and marketer should dedicate on putting continuous effort in order to maintain their app ranking.

ASO Tip: You can change your app icon and screenshots according to seasonal, holiday or even trendy themes to keep your app page fresh and appealing to users.

In conclusion, App Store Optimization is a powerful tool of the mobile app industry. It can bring you great results and efficient performance. However, everyone makes mistakes, it’s the process of learning and improving both your app and yourself. So learn from your failures and keep on optimizing because there is no shortcut to success.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
Thank you and have a nice day!.

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7 Free Tips to Improve Your App Store Optimization Skills

It is well known that App Store Optimization can help you in various ways and lead you to success in the mobile app industry. Additionally, you don’t even have to spend money throughout your optimization process. With the help of these 7 free tips, you will have a better chance to gain more new users and downloads for your mobile app.

Tip #1: Be Original & Unique

As you may already know by now that your app’s icon is the first thing that interacts with your potential users. App icon is the face that represents you and your brand in the app store. So like any other industry and company, you need to make that first impressions count. Even though it is wrong to judge a book by its cover, people today do it all the time in order to save time due to the fact that modern users don’t want to download an app that they don’t have a good first impression. Because of this, as an app developer, you need to make sure that your potential users will see the value of your app in the app icon.

So when it comes to designing the app icon, simplicity is your main priority. For the purpose of designing a great app icon, here are some rules and tips that you can apply:

  • Avoid Using Words.

One of the most common mistakes that majority of publishers made is putting words into app icon. It’s unnecessary to have texts inside the icon due to the fact that there are plenty of other places in your app page to put words and texts such as app name, app description, etc. Putting words inside the icon will distract users and draw their attention away from the visual aspects of the app icon. Because of this, your main focus when it comes to designing app icon is to prioritize only on the visual aspect of it.

  • One Main Visual Element

The purpose of the app icon is to have an impact on your potential users. In order for an icon to have an impact, your icon design should focus on one main visual element. Try to avoid putting everything about the app or game into the icon. Prioritize in one main important aspect and use it as the center of your app icon.

  • Have The Same App Icon For Different App Stores.

There is a mistake that some developers make is using different icon on different app stores. Users change platform whenever they buy a new phone or a new device so it will be much easier to have the same icon on different platforms. By using the same icon, users can easily find your app in any app store in just a few seconds.

  • Correct Size And Format

It’s always better to give users the highest quality as possible. So when designing the app icon, quality matters. The higher quality app icon the more impressions you will receive. In order to do this, you need to use the correct size and format. The app icon must be visible at 1024×1024 resolution.

  • Be Creative

Try to be creative with your app icon. You want to define your app and stand out among your competitors. Focus on grabbing the attention of the users in a positive way. Think outside of the box and don’t be afraid of being creative.

Tip #2: What To Put In Your App Title?

If app icon is the face and the logo of the brand, then app title is the name of your company. So choosing a name for your title is a crucial part in ASO. Up to 65% of organic downloads comes from in store searches so you need to make sure you pick the right name that your potential users can easily find their way to your app.

There are 4 basic rules that you need to follow when picking an app name:

  • Focus On The First 25 Characters

Although Apple App Store and Google Play Store have different character limits, they both have the same trait when it comes to app title. The first 25 characters in the app name is what users can only see when they find your app in the app store, so the main focus should be making the best impact possible.

  • Stand Out Among Your Competitors

Another thing that you need to consider is app name should not be too generic. You should also be aware of the existence of other apps and games that are similar to yours.

Firstly, do a quick research to find out whether the name you’re working on is already taken and what apps in the market share the same similarity.

In case of the app name has already been taken or similar to the app name that you are working on, reconsider your strategy. Keep in mind that it’s more difficult to be unique and stand out when everyone is doing the same thing.

  • Use Keywords

Keywords is a crucial part in every search aspect. They are the guide that leads the users to your app. Because of this, using relevant and related keywords in your title is one of the most efficient tactics. You might want to make the most out of the leftover characters in the title to help users find your app or game in an instant.

  • Have URL Friendly Characters

Avoid using special characters or symbols in your app title such as copyright symbols and trademark. It will be difficult for users to find your app so keep it simple and user friendly.

Tip #3: Keep Your Screenshots Fresh

As one of the App Store Optimization main aspects, App screenshots are needed to be polished and optimized. Screenshots are your indicator that demonstrates the functionality and features of the app to potential users. The purpose of app screenshots is to let users know that they are going to have a great experience using your and or playing your game.

To help you with screenshots optimization, you can follow these guidelines:

  • Use All Of Your Available Screenshot Slots.

There more screenshots on your app page, there more details your potential users will know about your app or game.

  • Use High Resolution Screenshots

High resolution images with definitely grab the attention from potential users. Due to the fact that high quality screenshots can demonstrate how good your app is and how much you care about your app.

  • Put Your Best Screenshot In The First Slot

Just like the app icon, your first screenshot will determine the face of your app. Since it the first screenshot that potential users will look at, you need to make that first impressions count.

Tip #4: Categorize Your App

Picking the right category for your app or game is one of the best practices in App Store Optimization. This process will make it easier for potential users to find your app in the app stores. Furthermore, it also narrow down your competitors. There are a few things that you need to consider before picking the category for your app.

  • Choose The Least Competition.

It’s important to know and understand about your competition. You need to know who you are competing with in order to have a good preparation. It’s difficult to gain visibility within highly competitive category. Because of this, it is wiser to pick the lowest level of competition. Start small and then work your way up.

  • Pick The Most Relevant Category For Your App.

It’s a common mistake that most publishers make is putting their apps or games in the wrong category. Keep in mind that not every low competitive category is relevant to your app or game. So it’s important to research a variety of categories then pick the most relevant one to your app.

Tip #5: Describe Your App Precisely And In Details

App description is another important aspect of ASO but most publishers often make mistakes when it comes to this section of the app page. A precise and authentic app description can show your audience the values of your app or game. Despite the fact that some might argue that app description doesn’t have any influence in app store SEO, potential users are still exposed to it. Because of this, you need to optimize it.

There are 4 things that you need to follow when you’re in the app description optimizing process:

  • The First 3 Sentences Are your Main Priority

The first thing your audience will read are your first 3 sentences in the app description. As always, the first impression is the most important things of ASO. Grab the audience attention by demonstrating the best value about your app and convincing potential users to download your app.

  • Include User’s Experience In The Description

Secondly, including your current user’s experience is a good way to write a convincing app description. Word of mouth is the best marketing strategy.

  • Write Your Best Benefits and Features

Put yourself in the user’s shoes, they always want something first before giving something away. So it’s important to tell your audience what benefits they will get from your app and what kind of experience they are getting into. Describing your features precisely and clearly for potential users is the best way to draw them into downloading your app.

  • Self-promotion

App description is your sales tool, you want to let them know about the product that you’re presenting and you want to convince them to install your app. You want to let your potential uses know how much you care about your app and how much effort you have put into it. Last but not least, make sure that you include your contact information

Tip #6: User’s Reviews And Ratings

As mentioned above, word of mouth is one of the best sales tactics today. Nothing can beat great and positive reviews about your apps. Your app reviews and ratings will be determined by potential users and they will consider whether your app is worth downloading or not. There are a few ways to get positive reviews for your app.

  • Friends & Family

Ask your friends and relatives to leave reviews on your app pages. However, make sure that they have already used your app or play your game and know a good amount of insight about your product. Nothing beats an honest and sincere review.

  • Your Current Users

Nothing is more convincing than your current users reviews and ratings. They knows better than anyone else. You can ask your users to leave reviews and feedback on your app page by pushing notifications. However, do not abuse it due to the fact that your users might be annoyed by receiving too many notifications. Because of this, you need to put your notification wisely.

Tip #7:Analyzing & Keep On Testing

Once you have gone through all of the process of ASO, it’s time to put it to the test. Focus on analyzing the performance and results while you’re testing your changes. Because ASO is a continuous process, there are no limits to it so your goal is to keep improving your app store page.

  • Run A Test with different ASO elements

There are 7 elements in ASO. You need to optimize all of them. However, Take your time during the process. It’s not wise to change everything at once. You can start by optimizing 1 or 2 aspects of ASO then run a test. If they aren’t improving your downloads you can try to optimize other elements. App Store Optimization does not have any limits so you should keep on trying and improving during the process.

  • Analyzing your results

Keep track of your performance and results. Then analyzing each one of them for the purpose of finding out whether you’re on the right track and what you need to change your strategy. It’s a long journey to success but it is worth it in the end.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
Thank you and have a nice day!.

For more articles on ASO, please find it here

What is: Ad Impression 

An ad impression is the metric used to count the number of times an ad has been served, which is displayed within an app.

Ad impressions vs clicks should not be tangled with each other. Indeed, impressions in digital marketing tells advertisers and developers how many times an ad was viewed by users, but not demonstrate how many times the ad was clicked.

App developers get paid for every 1,000 ad impressions, which is measured by eCPM (Cost Per Mille – The advertising cost per thousand impressions)

Types: Served impressions & Downloaded impressions

  • Served impression:
Source: Google Publisher University

With served impressions, an impression is counted when an ad is sent, or served, to a publisher by DFP. However, the ad creative may or may not have rendered, been downloaded in the user’s device, or viewed by the user.

  • Downloaded impression:
Source: Google Publisher University

With downloaded impressions, an impression is counted only after ad retrieval is initiated by the publisher and the ad creative begins to download on the user’s device. A separate viewability measurement will determine if the user has viewed the creative.

Why We Should Not Ignore Behavioral Policy

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In behavior policy, there are several main rules that publishers need to follow to pass the screening process of Google. To be more specific, Ad Placement and Invalid Impressions are the two main important parts of defining whether Ads are acceptable or not.

Invalid Impressions and Clicks

Google treats invalid activity very seriously, which means analyzing all clicks and impressions. This action is for determine whether they fit a pattern of use that might affect an advertiser’s costs or a publisher’s earnings. If they determine that publisher account might pose a risk to advertisers, they may disable that account to protect advertisers’ interests.

Publishers disabled for invalid activity or violating policies may not be allowed any further participation in other Google publisher monetization solutions. This means, if a publisher had an account disabled for invalid activity or policy violations, they would not be able to use other accounts to monetize. Thus, these publishers may not open any new accounts.

If that publisher opens additional accounts, Google will flag the accounts as duplicates and then one or both accounts will be disabled.

Ad Placement

In behavioral policy, publishers are encouraged to experiment with a variety of placements and ad formats. However, they must follow some specific application implementations to make sure that they do not fail in comply with Google permission:

  1. Ads should not be placed very close to or underneath buttons or any other object such that the placement of the ad interferes with a user’s typical interaction with the app or ad.
  2. Ads should not be placed in a location that covers up or hides any area that users have interest in viewing during typical interaction. In addition, Ads should not be placed in areas where users will randomly click or place their fingers on the screen.
  3. Ads should not be placed on an ending screen. There must be a way to exit a screen without clicking the ad such as a ‘back’ or ‘menu’ button. Moreover,  user should be notified that the home button will exit the application.
  4. Ads should not be placed in applications that are running in the background of the device or outside of the app environment. Examples include: ads served in widgets; ads launched before the app has opened or after the app has been closed.
  5. Ads should not be placed in a way that prevents viewing the app’s core content and placed in a way that interferes with navigating or interacting with the app’s core content and functionality. Examples include: an interstitial ad triggered every time a user clicks within the app.
  6. Ads should not be placed on any non-content-based pages such as thank you, error, log in, or exit screens. Ads that are the main focus on these types of screens can confuse a visitor into thinking that the ads are actual content, so do not place ads on such screens.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
Thank you and have a nice day!.

For more articles on Policy, please find it here.

What is: Ad Mediation

With just one simple SDK integration, ad mediation is a solution for app monetization that allows app developers to manage and optimize various ad networks in one place. Ad mediation are platforms that give multiple ad networks permission to access an app’s inventory. It also creates a competitive ground for different ad networks to win the auction and get their ad displayed to the users. The higher the competition, the more ad revenue (eCPMs) for publishers.  

Generally, most ad mediation platforms have a strong approach to optimize its ad networks.
When someone issued an ad request, the top performing ad network is notified until its ad pool is totally used up. After that process, the system proceeds to the next ad network on the list until its ad pool is fully used again. Then, the system will keep on repeating the cycle.

On the contrary, advanced mediation platforms use a weight mediation system, which assign and prioritize ad networks according to weight. We measure an ad network’s weight by the performance of a single network regard to other. Thus, the only ad pool that is at the top among others will receive the ad request. This process ensures that high-performing ads are filled into the ad space from each network first, before passing on to lower paying ads.

Based on the majority of reports, publishers increase an average 40% in total ad revenue from weighted mediation system.

Expertise Your Skill with Firebase Analytics

Firebase, introduced by Google, is a new tools kit for mobile app developer to build, grow, and monetize their apps. A developing feature is Firebase Analytics, which is the already-famous product Google Analytics integrated into Firebase. Let’s take a look at how Firebase can be used to measure analytics of our mobile apps.

Firebase Analytics is the core of Firebase, all of the other Firebase functions are built to integrate and share data with Firebase.

Firebase Analytics help you to understand your user, by analyzing their behaviors while interacting with your app. Based on “Event” mechanic, all user’s operations will trigger an event. Then Firebase Analytics will calculate all of the needed information based on data in those events. By default, Firebase already provides 15 essential events which could provide you an overview on your user. Let’s have a look at data on Firebase dashboard.

Some of the most important statistics are:

1. Active User

Including 3 sections:

  • DAU (Daily Active Users) – 1 day user: Number of people use your application daily.
  • WAU (Weekly Active Users) – 7 days user: number of unique user use your app in 7 days.
  • MAU (Monthly Active Users) – 28 days user: Firebase count 28 days for MAU, the same method of calculation

Here are the insights certainly you would want to see first whenever you log in your Firebase Analytics (reason for these statistics be on the top section of dashboard). These data will give you the information that you need to see how your application is performing such as: the number of daily active users, uptrend or downtrend from user.

2. DAU (Daily Active User)

Not only is the number of daily active users important, but you also need to know how much time they spend on your app daily. Certainly, it is better to have 100 users who spend an average of 30 minutes on your app, rather than having 1000 users who only open your app for only 30 seconds.

In the meantime, Firebase Analytics supports with tracking all user’s activities on every app screen. Take a look at daily user engagement: you would have enough information on which app mode/game mode that your users choose to spend most of their time on.

3. User retention (How well do you retain users)

The rate of returning user – also called user retention has become the most important statistic in mobile app & mobile game industry recently. Basically, this is records that demonstrates the number of users who continuously use your app after the first day of using it. This strongly affects your monetization as well as user acquisition of app.

Firebase allows you to see daily, weekly and monthly retention rate.
Click on “View new user retention” then receive full function with time range (month/week/day) to watch.

According to Firebase Analytics, the standard retention for casual game day 1 – day 7 – day 30 is 40 – 20 – 10 perspectively.

Summary

Firebase Analytic is a powerful tool, and above are top 3 most important index of Firebase Analytics.

Tip: If you use other analytics tool, there would be difference between reports from those tools. Due to offline tracking ability, even when users are online, events that happen during the session will be recorded. After 3 days, if your users are back online, the information about their session will be sent to Firebase Analytics server, which help updating all the statistics.
That is the reason explaining why you can see the statistics of Firebase Analytic still changing in days after updated.
For more information, please read at the official page of Google’s Firebase Suite.

If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. 
Thank you and have a nice day!.

For more articles on Firebase Tools, please find it here.

What is: Ad Network

Ad network is a place to store ads, and they are also accountable for collecting inventory from publisher websites and then selling those to diverse advertisers.

The purpose of the networks is to connect advertisers and app publishers. Advertisers will offer their ads to the ad network with the goal to promote their brand and product. After that, app publishers will receive the payment by presenting these advertisements to their app users. With the purpose of gaining permission to access the network, app publishers must integrate an SDK if they wish to proceed to the next step.

There will be confusing points in distinguishing ad exchange and ad network, as they are both platforms which contain ads. So if you want to find the difference, please read our comparison here.