toxicrain
Contributor
It never occurred to me to create a campaign for a competitor app to get data.
Thanks.
well, not FOR a competitor app, but more like AGAINST the likers of competitor's Facebook page
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Free registration at the forum removes this block.It never occurred to me to create a campaign for a competitor app to get data.
Thanks.
well, not FOR a competitor app, but more like AGAINST the likers of competitor's Facebook page
no not at all, that would be a waste of money
you created an app and placed Facebook sdk in it.
then you create an ad campaign for your app, and you target 1 country + people that liked "clash of clans" Facebook page
then you see the demographics and the kind of traffic that bites
after getting some initial results in, you create a new campaign and target the demographic (age+gender) that worked best for you and you no longer include "clash of clans" fans in that campaign.
then you can segment further by income, other page likes, geographics, etc.
but the real gold mine is in "lookalike audience" which you can only build after you include that Facebook sdk in your app. you can create a lookalike audience based on users of your own app, and Facebook will create a lookalike segment of Facebook users that are similar to your apps users, and you can target those people with your ads.
you are like 3 years too late.
i think there is an opportunity in app store (iOS) search ads and snapchat ads right now, Facebook is becoming a mature, expensive medium to advertise apps for indies.
oh ok thanks i get it, i forgot you can target people based on what pages they like! that's very useful.
Shame about the facebook sdk requirement, i can do it but man its so annoying dealing with third party SDK's.
Seems to be worth it for the lookalike audience.
I have question though, isn't the facebook sdk data gathering only work for apps that are hosted on facebook? or do i just need users to "log into" the app using their facebook account or something?
I make very casual apps and i like to keep things as minimal as possible for users.
It shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to setup fb sdk for a professional. It will cost $10 if you outsource this to someone who knows how to.
Its literally 2 lines of code.
Facebook sdk tracks users of your app and matches them to those that are registered on Facebook (if they are). Your users don't need to login using Facebook sdk for you to have analytics or install tracking on your ad campaigns.
when you run ad campaigns on Facebook mobile feed, only people with Facebook app will see your ads. Thats where the match is made. When you test you campaigns you will see that you will need the Facebook app to test properly.
I've been testing lot of ad networks to acquire players for my games. For me the best ad network is Facebook/Instagram Ads.
Almost all ads networks works like an auction. If you give more money per install, you can get more installs. So if you need low cost installs you have to set up daily budget very low, it can be about $25-50 per day in one country, one platform. Than your ads will be visible after big companies, when prices go lower.
Always integrate Facebook SDK and set up eCPM payment optimized for installs (don't use cost per install!!!). It's always better use eCPM payment when you want low cost installs.
So set up your ads, you can start with $10 per day. Test multiple countries and multiple targeting options. Multiple creatives too. It's easy to test it all with Facebook ads. If your game is good you can achieve CPI about $0.4 for top tier countries (or maybe even less, my best is ~$0.32 for USA). But you need to test a lot before you achieve numbers like this.
Is paid advertising worth if average revenue per user is lower than cost per install?
I think it's not if your game is mediocre and long in app market.
Paid advertising is good when you're launching the game, so you can speed up organic growth. But your game has to be good. People should really like it. Once I spent like $1k on mediocre game, achieved good position in TOP NEW in small country and right after I stopped the ads, my position dropped drastically.
For Google Play you don't need to advertise to get traction and achieve stable organic downloads. All you need is to gain some downloads right after launch (lets say 1.000 downloads in first two weeks) and I believe you will see stable organic downloads. You can achieve it by spamming Facebook, reddit, sending press kits to press and so on... Ofcource you need a nice ASO for this to work .
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