Facebook is one of the most powerful advertising media currently available, especially for mobile applications. The social network’s CPI program, which was released in 2012, is often pointed to as an industry leading offering. According to Facebook, during 2013 around 40% of the top 100 grossing iOS and Android apps were running user acquisition campaigns through the network.
There are a wide variety of ads available through Facebook. According to the network, app install ads are the most common in the mobile space. They include a title, short text ad message, an image, and an install button. If you use Facebook on a mobile device, you have almost certainly seen these. The power of this ad format comes from that install call to action button, which makes it incredibly easy to download and install an app right from the Facebook application.
Facebook is definitely a good option for CPI campaigns. It has incredible reach, an excellent format that is well-integrated with the major app stores, and has high engagement and repeat impressions. However, because of its advantages, Facebook is also fairly competitive. Therefore getting your campaign right can be a little tricky.
Segment Your Ads: Chances are that you don’t only appeal to one customer profile. Perhaps you have a game that is popular amongst men ages 18-20 and women ages 24-28. Rather than targeting everyone between 18 and 28, have two targeting criteria sets that hone in on each one. This allows you to skip over the gap and to create ads tailored to each segment,
Test, Test, Test: The most universal piece of advice on all of digital advertising: always test your campaigns. Facebook and other ad platforms offer excellent tools to see what the results of each ad you run are. Use these to identify whether you should invest more into an ad or change things. Furthermore, with the flexibility and responsiveness of digital, be sure to do some A/B testing until your find the most impactful ad for your product.
Make Tweaks: This is along the same lines as A/B testing, but it is important enough to reemphasize: make changes to find the right campaign for your needs. Change your bidding and your targeting parameters to find the best combinations. However, only tweak on thing at a time so that you can track which alterations make a difference.
Video Ads: Facebook offers excellent native support for video ads. Recently, they have even rolled out on a limited basis auto play for video. This allows marketers to offer a far more engaging ad experience. Furthermore, with auto play, they are fairly hard to ignore.
Image Text: Placing text in your ad image can be a great way to add to your fairly low character limit on ads. It can also add context to what you are showing in your image. Be warned, however, Facebook has very strict guidelines about the amount of text allowed. Images can only be up to 20% text.
Get Creative: There are a lot of ads of Facebook so standing out requires some creativity. While it is better to have run of the mill ad than no ad, having a really creative one will take you’re a lot further. One great example if Supercell’s ad for Clash of Clans in which plans for home defenses were hastily scrawled onto a photo of a house. It was an amusing and, most importantly, unusual way to portray a game.
Use these tips to hone in your Facebook mobile ad strategy. With its powerful CPI setup, it can be the centerpiece of a very successful app marketing campaign. However with all of the competition on the network, it is important to take the time to do things right.