The Google Play store has been growing at a rapid pace over the last few years. While that gives users plenty of mobile apps and games to try out in every category, it is becoming difficult for app developers and marketers to gain attention for their apps. The competition for the attention of the same target market is never-ending and the only way out is to leverage the power of Google App Campaign. But when everyone is taking the same approach, how do you make sure your ad gets maximum user engagement that turns into installs?
On analysing thousands of Google App Campaigns, we found some common traits in the winning campaigns. Here’s what you need to know!
Traits of a winning Google App Campaign
1. They have great app store optimisation
Your campaign picks data such as the app title, description and images from your listing. That’s why one of the very first things we noticed in a successful Google App Campaign is how optimised the app store listings were.
This is the step where you need to take into account how your target users search for apps similar to yours. Most would make the search with a simple pattern that follows their main search with the word ‘app’. For example, ‘fitness’ + app, or ‘food delivery’ + app.
But when optimising your app store listing, don’t forget to take into account your competitor’s strategy. Take note of the keywords they are targeting, how they have changed their app title over time and what their description includes. This will not just help you target keywords that are more likely to get a response from target users, but also avoid mistakes that might hamper your Google App Campaign results.
Smart tools like SEMrush and Serpstat, are a good place to start your competitor research for optimising your app store listing.
2. They optimise target keywords continually
Another practice we picked up from the search advertising examples we observed, was continual optimisation of the Google App Campaigns.
There is no one way that a user makes a search query. But additionally, how they make searches also changes over time. That’s why it is important to understand what’s trending in your target market and analyze to identify the changing search behavior.
At any given point of time, your campaign should match the keywords that are being used by your target audience. Now doing so manually can be overwhelming and that’s where the best campaigns leverage the power of automation.
The Blackbox Platform combines the power of automation with industry-leading expertise to help you optimise your Google App Campaign continually.
All you need to do is tell the platform which app you want to promote, who you’re targeting and how much you want to spend.
The automated learning and auto-generated keywords that are led by performance data save you time and money in keeping your campaigns optimised. Actionable insights also enable app marketers and developers to make data-driven marketing decisions.
3. They don’t target duplicate keywords
Every app marketer will set up at least two to three Google App Campaigns to be able to reach a wider audience. But one of the most common mistakes they make is using duplicate keywords across the campaign.
By definition, duplicate keywords are those target keywords that are being used by more than one ad in different campaigns or ad groups.
A lot of marketers believe that using duplicate keywords is just competing against themselves, so they will not have an impact on their performance. But what it actually does is make it difficult for you to track which keywords are actually working for your Google Play Search Ads campaign.
Here is a good example. You reduce the bid on one of the keywords you’re targeting. But at that point, you neglect the other versions of the keyword. When you do so, you will not realise when Google switches over to the other listing, impacting the performance of your search ads.
So when you create different campaigns, remember to remove duplicates. You want your campaigns to be driven by concrete data for maximum performance.
4. They track more than one goal
The obvious metric to track is the number of app downloads you get. But to get a clearer picture of how your target market is responding to your Google App Campaign, track another metric that indicates their interest - for example, clicks.
This will help you understand how a typical user you’re targeting, moves across the sales funnel. Right from the point, they discover your app on the Google Play store to clicking on your ad to know more about it and then downloading the app.
Diversifying the metrics you’re targeting ensures that you understand what your target users need to convert. It helps you identify where you’re losing a user’s interest and how you can improve a campaign to get maximum downloads.
For example, you’re getting a number of clicks on your campaign. But you’re not getting as many downloads.
So you know that your app title and text peak a user’s interest. But what they read and see further on your app listing isn’t as compelling. You need to test different variations of your app images and description to get better results.
5. They adjust your ad schedule for improved targeting
Your Google App Campaign will perform better at certain times. You need to keep a close watch on this data as it tells you when your target users are the most active.
For example, you have an app that enables users to be more productive during the work week. It offers them a way to plan their to-dos for the week and set deadlines for themselves.
Now these users are more likely to either be active on Sundays or Mondays. While they can be targeted throughout the week, there is a higher chance of them downloading your app on those specific days.
By adjusting your ad schedule as per your target user’s behavior, you improve your targeting by bidding only at those particular times. At the same time, you reach more of your relevant audience and are able to optimise your spend as well.
Creating a winning Google App Campaign
With the increasing amount of competition, it is important for app marketers and developers to focus on understanding their target market.
The closer you are to understanding how your ideal user searches for apps, who they are, where they come from, what they are looking for and what it takes to convert them, the higher is the success rate of your campaigns.
Need help strategizing and running your Google App Campaign? Why not contact us today.