Costs per registration and share decreased in Q3, while costs per subscription jumped dramatically; marketers cautioned to prepare for increased costs per action (CPA) during Q4 holiday season by focusing on retargeting campaigns.
Palo Alto, CA – Liftoff, a fast-growing mobile app marketing and retargeting platform, today released the Q3 2015 Mobile App Engagement Index that measures the costs associated with actions users take in mobile apps, including registering, sharing, purchasing, subscribing, and reserving. The index is focused on five major non-gaming app categories including dating, ecommerce, social, travel and utility. For this quarterly report, Liftoff examined 45 million app installs and 1.1 billion post-install events, 60% of which were based in North America and 40% in Asia, Europe, South America, and the Middle East.
Mark Ellis, CEO of Liftoff, said: “Our findings show that CPAs fluctuated more in the third quarter than previously this year, and we believe that marketers can expect even more change going into the fourth quarter, where growing mobile marketing budgets and an increase in competition during the holidays will impact mobile growth. From a marketing perspective, knowing which users to engage and the best ways to drive repeat engagement and actions will be critical during this period.”
Key findings from the Liftoff Q3 2015 Mobile App Engagement Index reveal that after a continual increase in the cost per registrations from the end of last year through the first two quarters of 2015, CPAs finally started to decrease in Q3. Additionally, costs per share gradually decreased, while reservations maintained their cost, and subscriptions jumped to a price higher than they’ve been since last year:
- Mobile advertisers spent an average of $9.46 to acquire a new registered user, the lowest it’s been in 2015.
- Cost per subscription rose 10.6% in Q3 after seeing a six-month 13.5% decrease in price come to an end in Q2.
- iOS users are 68.1% more likely to make a first-time purchase than Android users, but the cost per first purchase is even across both platforms.
Among the app categories analyzed, differences in gender behaviors were observed. In Q3, dating apps saw male and female users register at nearly the same rate, while ecommerce and travel apps saw a very narrow gap between male and female purchase and reservation rates. Additionally, marketers have begun taking advantage of the fact that males are becoming more willing to make purchases via mobile devices.
- Dating app marketers spent an average of $193.61 to acquire a subscriber, up 10.6% from the end of Q2.
- Travel app costs increased significantly to $56.42 per reservation, a 24.6% increase from Q2, which may affect how travel apps market this holiday season.
- Ecommerce apps saw a decrease in the costs to acquire a purchaser, down to $162.14, and marketers will likely take advantage before the big Q4 rush hits and CPAs see an expected rise.
- Males were more likely to subscribe to a finance app after install, and the average cost to acquire female subscribers of a finance app was 333.99% higher than males.
To further support non-gaming mobile app marketers, Liftoff recently launched ‘Mobile Heroes’ to bring a focus and voice to the challenges facing mobile marketers of non-gaming apps. Each week, Mobile Heroes provides marketers with new insightful thought leader content, events, and best practice guides for app marketing. Leading mobile marketers across a variety of industries have joined Mobile Heroes, including Chris Nguyen of Zoosk, Nick Adtkins of SeatGeek, Kevin Hsu of Touch of Modern, and Iryna Newman of Invoice2go. For more information on Mobile Heroes, visit http://heroes.liftoff.io.
To download a full copy of Liftoff’s Q3 2015 Mobile App Engagement Index, please visit http://info.liftoff.io/app-
About Liftoff
Liftoff launched in 2012 with the mission to revolutionize how mobile app marketers build and grow an active, engaged user base. We designed the first truly CPA-optimized mobile acquisition and retention platform for apps. We set our sights on enabling marketers to run campaigns focused on finding users who will take meaningful actions beyond the install, like register for an account, book a hotel room or make a purchase. This is how mobile app marketing should work.
Since our initial launch, Liftoff has grown to become one of the most recognized leaders in the mobile industry, powering CPA-based app marketing campaigns for some of the world’s greatest brands including Zoosk, Lifelock and Invoice2Go. For more information, visit http://liftoff.io.
About Mobile Heroes
Mobile Heroes is about bringing a focus and voice to the issues and challenges facing mobile marketers of non-gaming apps. Liftoff formed Mobile Heroes with successful mobile marketers across a variety of industries, including Chris Nguyen of Zoosk, Nick Adkins of SeatGeek, Loren Austin of FutureAdvisor, Kevin Hsu of Touch of Modern, Iryna Newman of Invoice2go, and more. Mobile Heroes provides marketers with a community to find insightful thought leader content, events, and best practice guides for app marketing. Read more at http://heroes.liftoff.io.
