Education
For Brands

Cost Per Install: How to Use Influencers to Supercharge Your Next Mobile App Campaign

In today’s saturated mobile app marketplace, there’s fierce competition to create demand. Currently, Google Play has over 2.8 million apps available for Android users, and the App Store has over 1.9 million available apps for iOS users. Needless to say, the mobile app market is a crowded one. And with so many apps to choose from, it can be a real challenge for apps to stand out and get noticed by users.

Catering to smartphone users with shorter attention spans only adds to the problem. This is why mobile app developers need to be effective with their advertising efforts in order to keep pace –– and keeping pace is the key to success. However, many developers think about mobile advertising through the lens of in-app ads and paid social media channels to get the attention of engaged, interested consumers.

We’re here to tell you there’s a better way....

How to Leverage Influencer Marketing to Boost App Installs

As the social media landscape continues to evolve and take on more functional uses beyond virtual communication and community, the use of influencers in marketing campaigns will only grow. In fact, influencer marketing is projected to become a $15 billion market by 2022.

Influencers play a pivotal role as liaisons, helping connect brands with consumers in meaningful and authentic ways that can deliver immediate return on investment. By tapping into influencers, mobile app owners and developers have a higher chance of their offer standing out in a saturated market.

Here are a few ways that influencers can help make a significant impact with mobile app marketing campaigns: 

  • Drive brand awareness and credibility
    With so many apps available, achieving brand credibility goes a long way toward driving installs. And when it comes to brand, product, or service recommendations, 61% of consumers are likely to trust recommendations from an influencer on social platforms rather than the brand itself.
  • Effectively reach a target audience
    It’s important for developers to choose influencers that already operate within their specific niche or category. In doing so, they can ensure their campaign is marketed to highly-targeted consumers that would be specifically interested in purchasing and using their app.
  • Test and optimize campaign strategy
    Developers need to review impressions, engagement, and the average cost per install to determine how the audience of the influencer fits their app and whether or not future campaigns (or influencers) need to be adjusted.

What is Cost Per Install in Influencer Marketing? 

CPI is a very common pricing model in mobile app advertising and, unlike customer acquisition costs, it can be tied directly to your campaigns and help determine the overall return on investment.

CPI stands for Cost Per Install, which is the price paid each time a user installs a mobile app.


Here’s how it works:


1. A mobile app owner or developer decides they want to promote their app or offer with paid advertisements 

2. Influencers are selected that are aligned with their brand values and campaign objectives.

3. Customized ads are used within an influencer’s social media platforms in various digital formats, such as banners, videos, native, and interstitial, to entice new users. 

4. When a new user clicks on the ad and downloads the app, the advertiser (aka, the app owner or developer) is charged. 


So, how is cost per install for a specific campaign calculated? All you need to do is divide the total ad spend by the number of new installs from that same time period. For example, if you spent $500 on ads for your mobile app and generated 285 new installs, your Cost Per Install would be $1.75.

Keep in mind that not all smartphone users are not created equally –– Android controls 88% of the global market share. This probably explains why the average global CPI for Android apps in 2020 was almost half that of iOS ($0.44 in comparison to $0.86). Comparably, the average iOS CPI in the United States was $2.07 and Android app CPI was $1.72.

Measuring the ROI of Your Mobile App Install Campaigns

Mobile app campaigns with Influencer.co operate on a CPI basis, which protects from fake engagement and traffic. And to measure install tracking, we integrate with major attribution partners, such as Appsflyer, Adjust, Kochava, that allow mobile app developers to drive measurable installs that can be monitored for quality.

Are you ready to connect with engaged influencers, drive awareness to your app, and reach audiences that convert? Join Influencer.co today and get started for free. 

February 11, 2021 / by
Education
Engagement
Social Media Marketing
Tips & How To’s

How Much is Your Following Really Worth? (And How to Increase That)

Perhaps you opened your social media accounts because you knew you should but you didn’t really know why or what it was going to do for your business. A few years back, most business-related social media accounts were just a place for happy brick and mortar customers to reminisce on their experiences or current customers to learn about (and hopefully bite on) new promos, products and services. At that time, it was hard to place a dollar value on each social media follower since their financial impact on a business was negligible, at best. These followers gave (and still give) businesses and fellow customers a non-financial value; more of a warm and fuzzy feeling than additions to the bottom line. As they do with technology, things have quickly changed…but only if your following has too. Don’t completely disregard the non-monetary value your original followers (we’ll call the ‘messenger’ followers) provide since they are the current-day village gossip. Remember the old adage that a happy customer will tell one person and a dissatisfied patron will complain to 10 friends. Luckily, social media and ‘likes’ have changed that dynamic a bit and happy customers tend to spread the word to a wider net. In addition to these ‘messenger’ followers, you should also aim to grow your ‘purchaser’ following. These followers are quieter and appear to be less active on the surface but they are actually more active when it comes to the bottom line. To push your social media platforms to the next level, increase followers and gain the ideal mix of followers.

Here are some tips:

Photo cross-section of influencers and audiences

  • Engage: If you neglect your social media, it will quickly reflect in your number of followers. Lack of posting means disengaging with the messenger-style followers (which are necessary to keep up and expand your overall following) and purchaser followers will get upset if their questions go unanswered.
  • Post Often: Again, think nurture not neglect. Water the plant and it will grow. The highest social media earners post a lot…as in multiple times per day. This might sound like a lot but so long as you're providing worthwhile contributions that keep people engaged, and not over-saturating them, you'll be fine.
  • Pre-Plan: If constant posting is overwhelming or will take precious time away from you actually working in and on your business, you can pre-plan posts ahead of time rather than keeping your social media accounts open all day.
  • Hit Every Angle: Text-only posts should still have a place on your pages but attention spans are only getting shorter as the years go by. To reach every possible follower, appeal to the visual and auditory crowds. Videos or audio clips are a great way to reach the non-readers out there but keep it short and sweet.
  • Hire Out: If it’s financially feasible for your business, hire a social media planner who specializes in growing and maintaining your pages with specific goals in mind. Many planners work with several businesses so you don’t have to commit to a full-time employee if you usually work solo or your company is on the smaller side.
Simple illustration of social media components
  • Stay Authentic: If you choose to pre-plan posts or hire help, it’s easy for your social media accounts to look like a robot is behind the scenes. If everyone knows your business is in Seattle, don’t schedule posts at 1am Pacific. If you’re staying engaged and you make sure to throw timely content in on a regular basis, you’ll stay authentic.
  • Utilize Stats: Avoid shooting in the dark and make use of a service like our Influencer Links that allows you to track the performance of each of your posts. Find out what works so you can post more efficiently to maximize profits. Influencer.co allows you to create easy tracking links and generate professional reports for free.
  • Become an Affiliate: Even if your end goal is to sell your own product, start with an affiliate program to increase attention and to start earning income. This will also get followers used to purchasing something familiar from you before they make the plunge into the unfamiliar.
  • Paid Endorsements aren’t just for Celebrities: Reach out to brands you use and like (again, think authentic) for social media promotion gigs. Companies will pay for a simple photo of their product or a shot of you at their location if they have brick and mortar stores, along with a designated hashtag, of course.
  • Filter, filter, filter: You don’t need expensive filming or photography gear but photos should look the part if you’re expecting likes let alone a payout. Remove clutter from the scene and crop out anything distracting or unsightly to make for a clean, modern and professional-looking picture.
There are several ways to increase followers and income on social media but the one thing you shouldn’t do is pay for followers. Sure, your numbers instantly look great after you purchase a bundle of followers but your real social media-savvy followers or companies you hope to work with will see right through the façade. They’ll label you, you guessed it, inauthentic and not worthy of their investment. This can impact all of your possible angles of online income so keep it real and stay the course to boost your follower ‘worth’ online. Ready to get serious about monetizing your following by promoting and tracking the products you care about? Influencer.co helps new, emerging and pro influencers, their managers, agencies and brands do just that, and make it dead simple.
April 15, 2017 / by
Education
Engagement
Monetization Strategies
Social Media Marketing

New Ways Brands Can Work with Influencers on a Performance Basis

Influencer marketing is an increasingly popular channel that many marketers are investing heavily in. The data gathered for Linqia’s report "The State of Influencer Marketing 2017" from the end of 2016 indicates that nearly half of brand marketers anticipated increasing their budgets in this area. Savvy brands have adjusted their strategies to embrace this channel, though doing it effectively still causes consternation for large and small companies alike. Any Google search about influencer marketing will yield results showing businesses who claim to be highly successful with the channel, but also frustrated ones complaining that the price they pay for influencers doesn’t always back out to being a good investment. As with any marketing campaign, executives naturally need to ensure they are driving results, maintaining a budget and also driving ROI, which is where the performance-driven platform of Influencer.co can be a major benefit to companies and influencers alike. First things first, though...

When many influencers think of engagement they often think of comments and likes; however, engagement goes much deeper especially when calculating CPE.

How To Effectively Utilize Influencer Marketing

Utilize Influencers with a strong audienceBefore any brand sets out to work with an influencer, no matter where they’re engaging them, it is imperative that they first define their goals. Determining and then defining goals can be a long, strenuous process, but you can’t effectively build a campaign if you don’t know what results you hope to obtain. Marketers could easily spend thousands of dollars on influencer marketing and still fail simply because they began a campaign with no true ending in mind. To help keep spending under control, many brands are now stepping away from hiring influencers based on likes and audience sizes and instead have began to hire influencers on a performance basis, with those metrics determining how successful (or unsuccessful) an influencer campaign is. thus, audience size becomes less important when selecting influencers than views and conversions generated by that audience, incentivizing the influencer to become a more successful marketer. Make sense yet? It will.

What Exactly is Performance Based Influencer Marketing?

Performance based influencer marketing is essentially CPE (Cost Per Engagement). It is used to help businesses compare influencers to one another and to their targeted audience. CPE gives you direct insight on how valuable your influencer is or could be to the audience in which you wish to target. When many influencers think of engagement they often think of comments and likes; however, engagement goes much deeper especially when calculating CPE. CPE calculates clicks to the branded urls, likes, comments, shares, retweets and direct purchases. These calculations not only show the influencer how well their content is being received but it also gives marketing executives a live update on how well or how badly an influencer campaign is performing. This in turn gives brands an opportunity to either end the campaign or tweak it without the fear of losing a large amount of money.

The Uncertainty of Performance Based Influencer Marketing

Seeking ethical InfluencersWhen it comes to performance based influencer marketing, there is still a level of uncertainty for both the brands and influencers. For a brand, there is often fear that influencers will begin to employ unethical tactics such as buying likes, shares, clicks, etc. in order to increase their CPE which could still end up costing brands thousands of dollars in budget expenses. On the other hand, many influencers fear that if their campaigns do not perform well they are not just out of a paycheck, they have also wasted time on a campaign that yields no return on investment and for a full-time influencer, time is money. If executed strategically; performance based influencer marketing has the potential to be lucrative for both the brand and the influencer with less risk for the brand and demonstrable success leading to high returns for the influencer.

Creating a Win-Win Scenario for Merchants and Influencers

Happy Influencers discussing next stepsFor Influencers, monetization and tracking platform gives influencers the opportunity to work with a plethora of different brands without having to deal with the stress and anxiety of having to produce results within a certain time frame. This new monetization platform also benefits the brands because they no longer have to search the internet to identify influencers. When brands join our platform they will be able to see our list of “invite only” influencers which also allows them to the benefit of working with more than one influencer at any given time to see which influencer yields the best results. Despite the challenges of performance based influencer marketing, it is still much better for both brands and influencers to employ this tactic vs many fee structured strategies because they pay out could ultimately end up being significantly higher for both parties involved and everyone knows a happy marketer often means an even happier influencer.
April 15, 2017 / by
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