Commentary

The Cost To Target A Mobile App Install By Operating System

To take advantage of a shift in consumer attitudes, more companies are relying on mobile app advertising, finding ways to entice consumers to install and use their apps. Many of these brands are new entrants into the world of Facebook -- and what a study released Tuesday, Kenshoo's second Mobile App Advertising Trends Report, calls mobile-social.

Among the key findings, mobile app installs rose 346% year-over-year (YoY) while click-to-install rates rose 32% YoY. Other findings: impressions rose 295% YoY; clicks increased 237%; cost per thousand impressions (CPM) fell 1% YoY, cost per click (CPC) rose 16% YoY, and click-through rate (CTR) fell 15%.

A handful of advertisers entering the mobile-social market in a big way focus on lower-priced clicks, impressions, and ultimately, installs. The shape of the curves for CPI, CPM and CPC are very similar in this regard, though the report sees the CPC for Gaming apps outpacing Consumer and other app types.

The combination of new entrants into the space and increasing budgets drove overall spending up nearly four times what it was one year ago. By comparison, Kenshoo reported overall paid social growth across all advertiser types, including, but not limited to, mobile app advertisers for Q2 2015 at more than 114%. Kenshoo now tracks twice as many individual mobile app titles as of Q2 2015 in this index, compared with a year ago.

While the cost per installation (CPI) varies, iOS carries a premium. But the influx of new advertisers and apps has narrowed that gap considerably in the past couple of quarters, driving down the overall CPI from an all-time high, according to the study.

How much does it cost to target someone on an iOS device? Chris Costello, director of marketing research at Kenshoo, calls out the cost per operating system. The advertising cost to get someone to install an app on an iOS device ran $1.57 in Q2 2015, up a bit from $1.43 in Q1 2015, but down substantially from $2.82 in Q4 2014. For Android, the cost to get someone to install an app ran about $1.27 in Q2 2015, up from $1.12 in Q1 2015, but down from $1.30 in Q4 2014.

This column was previously published in Data and Targeting Insider on September 16, 2015. 

 

 

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