App Advertising
App Advertising That Wins Users and Brings Lapsed Ones Back
App advertising is paying to put your app in front of people likely to install it and keep using it, through install and engagement campaigns on social platforms and app-install networks. We judge each campaign on what users do after the download, and set up the tracking that shows it before any budget goes live.
- Search platforms optimised, from Google to ChatGPT, Perplexity, Reddit and YouTube
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Some of the brands we have worked with
Who this is for
Where app campaigns tend to go wrong
Ads shown to existing users
Your install ads keep reaching people who downloaded the app long ago, so part of the spend goes on users you already have. Adding your user list as an exclusion takes them out of the audience.
No line from ad to action
Every network counts installs in its own way, but nobody can say which campaign brought the users who registered or bought, so budget follows the cheapest downloads, not the best users.
Paid-for users who went quiet
You paid to win people who installed, opened the app a few times and then stopped. Engagement campaigns can reach them again with a message written for the stage they had reached when they left.
The same ads for months
Your video and screenshots have run unchanged since launch, and nobody knows whether a different version would bring better users. Structured tests of formats, videos and screenshots settle it with data rather than opinion.
What we do
How app ad platforms learn who to find
App install campaigns learn from the events you report back to them. Report only the install and the platform looks for more people who install cheaply, whether or not they open the app again. Report the in-app actions that matter to your business, such as a sign-up or a purchase, and it starts to learn what a valuable user looks like.
So in our app advertising, tracking comes before the ads. We set up in-app events and attribution, check they reach each platform correctly, and only then point budget at installs. Cost per install stays on the report, but as a diagnostic rather than the goal.
Five jobs inside an app campaign
The networks in your app advertising change with your audience; the work itself falls into five parts.
Tracking and attribution
In-app events, attribution and deep links configured and tested, showing which campaigns bring people who go on to sign up or buy, not just install.
Install and engagement campaigns
Install campaigns win new users and engagement campaigns bring existing ones back, run on the social platforms and programmatic app-install networks where your users spend their time.
Lookalike audiences
The users you most want more of become a seed list, and the platforms that offer lookalike audiences use it to find new people who resemble them.
Creative testing
Structured tests of ad formats, short videos and screenshots, judged on which creative brings people who carry on using the app, not the most taps.
Store listing
App Store Optimisation run alongside the campaigns, so more of the people your ads send to the store page go on to install.
How we measure app campaigns
We report four measures: cost per install, retention, how often users complete the in-app events you care about, and how much revenue those events bring back for each pound spent. Ad platforms tend to flatter their own results, so we check their figures against your analytics before calling anything a win. Campaigns get weekly optimisation and a monthly review. When a network delivers installs but few active users, its budget moves to one where users stick around, and we tell you why.
App installs beside your search and social
App campaigns are one part of our PPC Management work, run by the same team that handles the rest of your paid media and your SEO. Apple Search Advertising covers App Store search ads, for people already looking for an app like yours, and Paid Social covers campaigns aimed at enquiries and sales rather than installs.
How it works
How we launch and run app advertising
Related services
Other Paid Media services
Apple Search Advertising
Apple Search Ads management means choosing which App Store searches your app appears for, what you bid on each and which searches you shut out.
Audio Advertising
Audio advertising puts your message inside podcasts and on streaming platforms such as Spotify, in moments when a screen ad cannot reach your buyers.
Bing Advertising
As your Bing Ads agency, we plan and manage campaigns in Microsoft Advertising, the platform behind Bing's ads, for a Bing audience your Google Ads often miss.
Display Advertising
Our display advertising agency puts your banners in front of two groups on the websites and apps they use: people who have not come across you yet, and people who visited your site and left.
Facebook Advertising
As a Facebook ads agency, we run campaigns on Meta's ad platform that reach new customers before they go looking and bring back visitors who left without buying.
Google Ads Management
A Google Ads account can burn a month's budget on the wrong searches in a week.
Insights
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FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
In a set order: measurement, then reach, then bringing people back. We agree which in-app actions mark a valuable user and confirm every platform receives them. Install campaigns then run on the networks your audience uses, and engagement campaigns follow for those who installed and drifted away.
Through paid install campaigns, with the audience built from your own user list. That list seeds lookalike audiences, so the platform searches for people who resemble your users, and it doubles as an exclusion list, so your install ads are not aimed at people who already have the app.
It is the tracking that links installs, and whatever users then do in the app, back to the campaigns that produced them. Without it you only have each network's own tally, and platforms tend to credit themselves generously. With it, you can compare campaigns on the users they bring rather than the downloads.
They are the reverse job: an app owner shows other businesses' adverts inside their own app and earns money from them. App advertising, as we run it, is the buying side: you pay for ads elsewhere that win new users for your app and bring back people who stopped using it.
For the work that decides whether installs turn into active users: event tracking and attribution, structured creative tests and weekly budget moves between networks. Everyone who would run your campaigns has 8+ years' experience. Nobody controls the ad platforms, though, so be wary of anyone promising a set number of installs.
Wider reach and a store listing that converts will lift the count, but installs alone are the wrong target: chase the cheapest and the number climbs while few people stay. App Store Optimisation turns more store visits into downloads, and each campaign is then judged by how many of its users remain active.
Speak to us today to get started