Apple advertising Campaign Alliance iad conversion rate Experiment

Apple's iAd for developers lets developers have an app promotion platform in addition to ADMOB, but how does this new platform promote, cost, conversion, and so on? Cocoachina Member "Blackbox" This translation should let us to the iAd for developers promotion effect has a new, quantitative understanding, also should save the developer's massive promotion expense.

Simple conclusion

The Apple platform ad iAd for developers seems to be of little help to download volume.

From August 19 to August 25, I promoted our audio ebook audiobooks Premium program on the latest version of the IAd for developers platform, and the results were disappointing. So far, it seems that IAD is not a viable way to increase download volumes and create sustainable economic benefits. This time I spent 1,251.75 American Knives, but only 84 downloads, so CPA close to 15 us DAO, and our app is just 0.99 us DAO, which is obviously not OK.

Details

This test is the last of a test ad platform and the lowest-cost series of trials looking to promote apps. My goal is to find the cost-effective way to promote our products to new customers who cannot find our app on the App Store platform. When IAd for developers was released, I was curious if Apple really found a way to solve the exposure problem, and we can also seamlessly sell our app to users in this way. This article may be useful for developers who are considering the same approach.

Process

The IAd for developers application is very simple. You go to the IAD page, submit a copy of your contact information, and a day later, you'll receive an apple email asking to set up some info, as well as submit an ad image and so on. We set up this trial of CPC 0.25 American knives.

We designed the sidebar below to let people who might be interested understand what our app is like. Maybe this looks too much text, and there are too few image elements, but we don't want to pay for impressions, we just want people who are really interested to click on our ads:

On this page, you set a budget, then click GO, and then Apple will set you a reporting site that can be tracked and monitored in real time. Apple's report is very useful and professional. I can't say that our tests are perfect, but I can say that the test went well. Compared to Admob and Flurry, I am very thankful that Apple has this level of professional data and details.

The Target

Target Object

We chose our most successful program, audiobooks, as the object of this experiment. For those who feel that our program is not sufficiently popular to suspect our experiment is not a reference, I must clarify that our program has been downloaded more than 1.6 million times, and that during the lifetime of this program the TOP10 of Books classification has long been stuck. Perhaps our program is not a bird, but there is no doubt that it is a popular program that has been tested by users.

The Results

Results

The experiment began on the evening of Wednesday, August 19. The data from the start day does not seem to warrant anything.

Day	Spend	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Downloads	CPA
8/19	$255.00	400,991	1,020	0.25%	19	$13.42

From the IAd report, this can be estimated. They use a target positioning system that requires a bit of data to find accurate and transformational customers. So we let this experiment continue to run the knife weekend (which has been the best time of the week for us to sell). But the results didn't change much.

Day	Spend	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Downloads	CPA
8/20	$258.25	449,338	1,033	0.23%	17	$15.19
8/21	$253.73	422,354	1,015	0.24%	15	$16.92
8/22	$254.00	413,144	1,016	0.25%	18	$14.11

This time, I really want to immediately pull the plug (literal translation, actually want to interrupt the meaning of the experiment), but I would like to give a few more days, set a lower daily budget, to see if their target positioning algorithm can improve the effect. But the truth is always worse than the wish.

Day	Spend	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Downloads	CPA
8/23	$128.50	229,958	514	0.2%	9	$14.28
8/24	$102.25	137,144	409	0.3%	6	$17.04

At this time, we really pulled the plug (ibid.), there is no indication that the experiment, even if it runs for how long, can have a successful result. Finally, here's a summary:

Day	Spend	Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Downloads	CPA
8/19	$255.00	400,991	1,020	0.25%	19	$13.42
8/20	$258.25	449,338	1,033	0.23%	17	$15.19
8/21	$253.73	422,354	1,015	0.24%	15	$16.92
8/22	$254.00	413,144	1,016	0.25%	18	$14.11
8/23	$128.50	229,958	514	0.2%	9	$14.28
8/24	$102.25	137,144	409	0.3%	6	$17.04
Total:	$1,251.75	2,052,929	5,007	0.24%	84	$14.90

Simple comparison

We did the same test on AdMob to compare with iAd, so I spent $75 and set the same picture. Admob doesn't have a good conversion tracking report like Apple, but tapping the data is no doubt interesting.

Impressions	Clicks	CTR	Cost	CPC
145,093	1,944	1.34%	$77.76	$0.04

Admob is 6.25 times times cheaper than iAd, and surprisingly, CTR is actually 5.5 times times more. This other I am very surprised why Apple believes that putting an IAD ad will lead users to buying impulses.

My thoughts.

The disappointing results of the experiment did not surprise me. I have experimented on every advertising platform and found that no one has a noticeable effect. I think the root of the problem is why users want to buy apps. I believe that most people who buy apps are suggested, or someone speaks directly, or sees the data in the icon. There is no good way to deal with money that can really replace this cognitive system. I tried iad because iad did something that no other platform could do--a seamless pay experience. Users don't have to quit their current app to pay, so the user experience is much better. However, I think Apple has found that they have fallen into their own alleged foul issue. Ads lack passion, click on the banner is just to show you a simulated App Store page, there is no way to pull the user in. I think if they allow developers to set up more features that can really show their programs, including videos, HTML5, typography, demos, and so on, perhaps this kind of station-street AD can be successful.

At least 60% of the cost of the experiment went straight into the pocket of my peers, so I guess I just contributed $751.05 for the beer business of my peers. Cheers!

Apple advertising Campaign Alliance iad conversion rate Experiment