Google announced they are launching “a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions.” But don’t panic. Read why we trust they’ll continue to look out for mobile advertisers.
In addition, we are hiring across all departments for fully-remote positions! Find out how working remotely has immense advantages for work-life balance, productivity, cost savings, and more.
As the mobile advertising ecosystem has evolved, we have focused on being a reliable source of mobile app industry insights and trends. Continue reading today’s post tosee our creative work and learn how to minimize IDFA’s negative impact.
Google announced they are launching “a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions.” We are here to say: don’t panic.
TikTok For Business has quietly released some new features to help UA and creative teams improve TikTok ad performance. Get insider details on fresh UA tactics, like App Retargeting, Sneak Peek! Hashtag Behavior Targeting, and TikTok Media Buying Model.
Increase relevance and personalize messaging for each stage of the customer journey. See how programmatic can drive engagement by meeting the needs of a user at different points of the funnel.
Understand why remote work is here to stay. Uncover the benefits of remote work for employees and employers, and see how employees thrive in distributed teams.
Read our Case Study to see how we developed a 30-second CGI game trailer, 50 original concepts, and over 150 videos for Switchcraft to bring high-value players to the game.
Structure your media buying with proven best practices using our Media Buying Model. Mobile apps can leverage a combination of UA strategies and campaign parameters to develop a robust testing harness for ongoing mobile campaigns across social platforms.
Provides a platform for ongoing concept development
Tracks progress through evolving creative concepts
Documents creative concepts to be explored next
Programmatic Best Practices
Is your target customer standing at a bus stop or stuck in rush hour traffic? Or both, depending on the day? Programmatic advertisinglets you meet your audience exactly where they are— in the funnel or out in the world.
Leverage external data sources and tailor messaging to weather or local trends
See which programmatic platforms work best at each stage in the customer journey
As dynamic advertising has become a standard tool for data-driven marketing, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is a critical capability to drive higher performance. DCO leverages machine learning for real-time media buying to deliver the best possible creative at the right time. Ads are customized and changed in relation to a user’s past behavior or current situation with individual components of an ad personalized in real-time.
We now offer Programmatic through Brainlabs! Contact us at Sales@ConsumerAcquisition.com to discuss the benefits of adding Programmatic to your marketing mix.
They discussed how Zynga “leaves no stone unturned” when developing creative concepts, tying personas to user intent, and how the Ad Concept Model helps generate winning ad creative with a structured process.
Join Our Team!
We are hiring across all departments for fully-remote positions! Read our blog post to see how working remotely has immense advantages for work-life balance, productivity, cost savings, and more.
Our employees with families appreciate having the flexibility to attend their children’s events or family appointments as they need to. Employees who love to travel enjoy working from anywhere they like. Working with us, night owls and early birds all have a chance to thrive. And everyone benefits from working with people from different cultures and different perspectives.
In today’s post, we explain how to improve productivity and work-life balance with a fully-remote, distributed team. Here’s some of the good stuff we will cover:
Understand why remote work is here to stay
Uncover the benefits of remote work for employees and employers
See how employees thrive in distributed teams
Hear from our first Brief Writer based outside of the U.S.
A Fully-Remote, Distributed Team
#Remotework has been a trending topic since the beginning of 2020, and for good reason. The challenging circumstances of the last two years have caused unemployment rates across the globe to spike, while those who remained employed may have adjusted to working from home during lockdowns. And if there’s a positive takeaway from this, people came to enjoy the flexibility of working remotely. An impressive 62% of employees expect their employers to allow remote work.
The U.S. has seen a plummet in the unemployment rate from 14% in 2020 down to 4% in January of 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And, for almost a year, the job market has been shifting in favor of the job seeker as resignation rates skyrocketed. One major criterion for workers is finding a truly remote-friendly company.
Remote work has always been an ideal solution for improved employee satisfaction, productivity, and other benefits, even before the pandemic. According to Newsweek, despite the majority of CEOs wanting to return to the office, only 10% of workers want to return full time.
Many companies claim to support a remote work model, yet it’s common for management to require periodic attendance at an office. At the same time, a growing number of forward-thinking businesses have embraced the trend and reap the benefits of adopting a remote and hybrid working culture.
Consumer Acquisition is one such company. We have been fully remote since our founding in 2013, and we’ve thrived in this model. We’ve proven how working remotely has immense advantages for both employees and employers alike. Here are the benefits we’ve seen and how we do it.
The Good Stuff
Increased Productivity
Working remotely—even without your manager constantly looking over your shoulder— increased the number of actual work people performed in a day. Over 261 working days, remote workers spent an average of 58 hours more on core tasks and 256 fewer hours spent on communication than those working in the office.
Improved Work-Life Balance
Have you ever considered how much of your time is squandered commuting to and from the office daily? The U.S. Census Bureau clocks the commute at approximately 27.6 minutes each way. That adds up to over 240 hours per year, which means employees spend ten days of their life simply traveling to work! In high-density driving cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas, those metrics can be considerably worse.
Comparing that commute to the time walking from a bedroom to a workstation, workers gain back flexible time otherwise wasted. According to Forbes, work-from-home mothers reported a massive 30% increase in job satisfaction due to telecommuting, citing improved work-life balance by working remotely.
More Cost-Effective
Time is money, but can we put a price tag on time? According to FlexJobs, the benefits of working remotely add up to a whopping $4,000 a year in savings. If you aren’t required to go into the office, you’re not tied down to a location because of work. Employees can work from places with lower living costs and get the most bang for their buck.
Increased Freedom
One of the most significant benefits of working remotely is the freedom you have over how you work. For some of us, that may mean taking our laptops outside on a sunny day or setting up shop in a favorite cafe. Or for the digital nomads, working from a different city every few weeks. Why not work from the beach in Hawaii one week and a cafe in Berlin the next? If that’s not exciting, we don’t know what is.
Employers Benefit
When it comes to remote working, employers get a pretty great deal too. We have access to a significantly wider talent pool and greater levels of diversity since we don’t limit ourselves to the geography of our employees.
Remote and distributed teams also reduce turnover. OWL Labs found a 62% increase in employee company loyalty of employees allowed to work remotely. Additionally, Flexjobs states that 58% of workers said they would look for a new job if their current one discontinued remote work.
How do we work with a distributed team?
We hire passionate employees who are the best at what they do, no matter where they are located. Our distributed team currently has 55 employees across 11 countries.
Our employees with families appreciate having the flexibility to attend their children’s events or family appointments as they need to. Employees who love to travel enjoy working from anywhere they like. Working with us, night owls and early birds all have a chance to thrive. And everyone benefits from working with people from different cultures and different perspectives.
We’ve learned to embrace asynchronous progress. Working across time zones means projects may evolve in different and unexpected ways. We leverage Google suite, dropbox, slack, and Monday.com to help us stay organized. We prioritize tangible benefits over perks because mandatory team “fun” or a fancy break room in a hybrid office won’t make up for time away from family. Ultimately, to ensure our employees remain productive, loyal, and happy, we share expectations early and adapt to challenges as they arise.
We recently welcomed our first non-U.S.-based brief writer to the company. Maritza L. joins us from Mexico as a Junior Creative Director and Brief Writer. She helps to expand our capabilities for Spanish-speaking clients while providing fresh cultural and contextual insights. For those considering international, remote hiring, Maritza said, “making the shift to an international model provides people with diversified knowledge that directly impacts performance. It opens new collaborative opportunities based on flexibility and openness. And it is in this flexibility that we can transform and develop new creative models. It’s a panorama of worldwide, connected creative production.”
Want to work for a company that embraces remote working culture and means it? Check out our current job openings and apply!
Google announced they are launching “a multi-year initiative to build the Privacy Sandbox on Android, with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions.” In light of the devastating impact of Apple’s IDFA loss, this announcement could drive more fear into the hearts of mobile app developers and advertisers.
We are here to say: don’t panic.
Google’s stated goal is to provide a “clear path forward to improve user privacy without putting access to free content and services at risk.” Historically, Google has been vocal about supporting advertisers, especially as they develop new approaches to privacy. In their 2021 Q3 Earnings Call, Alphabet’s Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler addressed their commitment directly:
“So, from our standpoint, we see ATT (ph) is one aspect of the many broader ecosystem changes that are on the way, and we’ve been investing in privacy preserving technology for many years. Our focus is on supporting developers, small and large advertisers, creators’ publishers, so that they’re able to mitigate impact to their businesses. And we really see the future of digital advertising being built on advances and privacy preserving on device technologies which support the free and open Internet.”
This statement from Schindler stands in stark contrast to how Tim Cook addressed the feedback he’s “received from [Apple] advertisers and users and how it has also impacted search ads, your own ad business.”
The feedback from customers is overwhelmingly positive. Customers appreciate having the option of whether they want to be tracked or not. And so, there’s an outpouring of customer satisfaction there on the customer side. The reason that we did this is that — as you know, if you followed us for a while, we believe strongly that privacy is a basic human right and we believed that for decades. Not just in the last year or so. We’ve historically rolled out more and more features over time — to place the decision of whether to share data and what data to share in the hands of the user where we believe that it belongs.We don’t think that’s Apple’s role to decide, and we don’t think that’s another company’s role to decide. But rather the individual who owns the data itself. And so, that’s our motivation there. There’s no other motivation.
Cook described “customers” aligning with Apple users as if advertisers are not also Apple customers when asked about advertiser feedback. The omission of advertiser feedback is unfortunately consistent with their anti-industry and anti-developer practices, such as changing the entire iOS mobile app reporting and measurement system without any industry participation.
Ultimately, how well Google supports advertisers is critical to their success.
In their blog post, Google distances itself from Apple’s actions. They acknowledge “that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers.” Google has committed to supporting “existing ads platform features for at least two years,” and has provided an opportunity for developers to review their initial design proposals and share feedback on the Android developer site. “Our goal with the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile”. We trust that the “businesses” they refer to here will include advertisers.
So don’t panic, review the plans, and provide your feedback!
Just as mobile advertisers survived IDFA loss, they can survive the Privacy Sandbox on Android.
Mobile app advertisers in 2022 are better prepared for the evolving advertising ecosystem than they were last year. We can now quantify the impact of IDFA loss and understand the iOS A/B testing implications and automated buying and privacy restrictions. Based on public comments, IDFA impact is generally being accepted as the new normal, with lower-level setting and -30% margin compression due to the complexity of targeting and measurement on iOS. Mobile app businesses are acclimating and many are growing within these new constraints.
Dependence on upper-funnel campaigns continues to increase. So, UA teams know they can no longer rely on the crutch of deterministic tracking to provide sustained financial performance. The deterioration of lookalike audiences and the black box of deeper funnel events means a user’s declared interests and contextual advertising are critically important for insights into user motivation and intent. Ad creative optimized to appeal to discreet personas is now the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition. Even without deterministic tracking, UA teams that understand their target personas can scale by attracting high-quality users.
Staying Ahead of Mobile App Advertising Developments
As the mobile advertising ecosystem has evolved, we have focused on being a reliable source of mobile app industry insights and trends. Our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation, along with tactical guidance for user acquisition and creative teams, has helped advertisers remain profitable during an unprecedented era of change. In addition, our industry expertise has earned coverage from CNBC, Forbes, SeekingAlpha, Business Insider, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Mobile Marketing Magazine, and many more.
This industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. Some of these advertisers include Glu, Roblox, Wooga, Zynga, and Skillz. Our proprietary full-stack marketing platform AdRules provides real-time business intelligence and creative research from 3.5 million video ads across social channels. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss how we can help you stay ahead, no matter how the mobile advertising ecosystem evolves.
In today’s post, we share over 200 mobile app ad concepts for TikTok, Facebook, and Google advertisers in this 2022 edition whitepaper. Starting with an advertising ecosystem update, we explain what you need to do to survive in this now volatile ad ecosystem in 2022.
Over 200 Mobile App Ad Concepts
for TikTok, Facebook, and Google Advertisers
2022 Edition
Section 1: 2022 Advertising Ecosystem Update
Mobile app advertisers in 2022 are better prepared for the evolving advertising ecosystem than they were last year. We can now quantify the impact of IDFA loss and understand the iOS A/B testing implications and automated buying and privacy restrictions. Based on public comments, IDFA impact is generally being accepted as the new normal, with lower-level setting and -30% margin compression due to the complexity of targeting and measurement on iOS. Mobile app businesses are acclimating and many are growing within these new constraints.
As dependence on upper-funnel campaigns increases, UA teams know they can no longer rely on the crutch of deterministic tracking to provide sustained financial performance. The deterioration of lookalike audiences and the black box of deeper funnel events means a user’s declared interests and contextual advertising are critically important for insights into user motivation and intent. Ad creative optimized to appeal to discreet personas is now the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition. Even without deterministic tracking, UA teams that understand their target personas can scale by attracting high-quality users.
At scale, agile persona-led creative is now the most efficient way to support the ongoing experimentation now required for profitable user acquisition. Based on over 100,000 videos and images we produce and test yearly for our clients, our research has shown that winning ads last only 10 weeks, before they burn out. We have performed over 25,000 A/B and multivariate tests on Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snap and have learned that 85-95% of new creative concepts fail to outperform the best ad in a portfolio. To survive in this volatile ad ecosystem, 20-50 new concepts are needed to find the next winning creative. And you’ll need to keep developing new concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue.
Read on for recommendations to:
Organize and track creative development through our Ad Concept Model
Find the creative trends popular within specific categories
Use personas to tailor ad creative
Use creative trends and user motivations to guide creative ad concept explorations
Develop over 200 mobile app ad concepts for mobile games, dating apps, mobile streaming apps, fintech apps, and subscription apps
Our Ad Concept Model is a collaborative communication framework designed to organize and track creative development. The model creates lanes for a creative team to explore while eliminating unfocused ideation that doesn’t align with your target personas, motivations, or trends. Each ad concept model supports 30-50 ideas for each app category by pairing creative trends with user motivations.
Here’s how we use it:
Using these steps, we’ll show you how we create dozens of persona-led ad concepts efficiently and effectively within our Ad Concept Model. Every app category or game sub-genre can leverage a unique combination of distinct emotional triggers and creative trends to attract users.
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Start with your internal data on what creative is working best already, then go deep on what’s working for competitors. Use Facebook Ad Library to see every ad currently running on their ad network. For implied success metrics, you can use Mobile Action, SensorTower, or AppAnnie competitor libraries. AdRules, our SaaS platform analyzes 3.5 million videos and is updated daily. Your goal is to get a broad view of what creative is working and what isn’t across the category. Identify the creative trends you’re seeing and segment those trends. Consider these like fashion – they keep changing and going in and out of style.
Depending on the app category, some creative trends may include:
An app overview focused on overall user experience and/or specific features
An app overview using tips and quizzes
Testimonials and reviews from users
Influencers and celebrities delivering the primary message
Social connection, social media, and chatting
Achievement opportunities like level progression and mastery
Vignettes featuring short scenarios or stories
Step 2: Identify user motivations and target personas
Before building out a matrix for a particular set of ad concepts, identify different user motivations driving your target personas and break down those motivations by underlying values, desires, and behaviors.
Depending on the app category, some user motivations may include:
Excitement
Connection
Expertise
Success
Escape
Creation
Learning
Access
Simplification
Discovery
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
Map identified motivations to creative trends within the category to develop and iterate on different concepts. In the empty model below, each box represents a different ad creative concept. User motivations appear along the horizontal axis and trends appear along the vertical axis.
Step 4: Test and Learn
While not all creative trends will work persuasively with each motivation, expand concepts even further by targeting specific personas within each pairing. Integrating performance data, competitive analysis, and UX, you can develop a bespoke creative strategy targeting behaviors, triggers, and preferences through individual concepts.
Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model ensures we always have new creative concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue. We’ve systematized the process so we know what works, why it works, and how to do more of it. From niche to mainstream, our creative concepting model means our clients get reliable top-performing creative in the most cost-efficient and scalable way.
Each of the following ad concept models supports 30-50 ideas for each category by pairing creative trends with user motivations. Across five top app categories, get inspiration from over 200 ad concepts to develop and test.
Because game genres are so varied, we’ve compared fashion games to sports games to show the distinction between categories. The creative trends for these two gaming audiences are notably different from one another while sharing triggers and motivations.
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, here are ad creative trends we’re seeing for mobile sports games:
Gameplay and game overview that showcase graphics and players (Home Run Clash, NBA 2K, Boxing Star)
Distance or performance challenges for viewers to propel an object to reach a target (Baseball Boy, Slap Master)
Competition videos dramatize head-to-head competition between rival players or teams. (Darts of Fury, Home Run Clash)
Noob vs. Pro videos displaying bad and good gameplay (Darts of Fury, Mini Golf King)
Real player footage replacing game characters and gameplay (Tennis Clash, Sniper Arena, Draft Kings)
Cinematic techniques like slow-motion and camera pan utilizing game characters (Johnny Trigger, Mr. Bullet, Sniper Arena, Tennis Clash)
Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, here are ad creative trends we’re seeing for fashion and style simulation games:
Choosing what’s next from the player POV to direct narrative while interacting with the game’s characters
Game trailer/overview that showcases user experience, core objectives, and other game features.
Fashion and style challenges
Using social media or texting to convey the narrative or primary message
Character focus using countdowns, origin stories
Vignettes featuring short character scenarios or stories
Achievement opportunities like level progression and mastery of a game
Success vs. Fail gameplay contrasting experienced and amateur players
Step 2: Identify user motivations
General Gaming User Motivations
Here’s how sports game creative trends appeal to user motivations:
Real player footage and cinematic techniques provide immersion, fantasy, and excitement
Distance challenges and Noob v. Pro videos appeal to mastery, competition, power, and fantasy
Player rivalries appeal to competition, mayhem, action, challenge, power, and fantasy
Gameplay and controller overlays appeal to immersion, excitement, challenge, and competition
Augmented gameplay provides social appeal and story immersion
Team creation scenarios appeal to creativity, customization, strategy, and making decisions
Here’s how fashion game creative trends appeal to user motivations:
Choosing what’s next appeals to self-expression, progression, and escapism
Fashion and design challenges appeal to self-expression and escapism
Using social media or texting appeals to social connection
Focusing on character stories and vignettes appeal to discovery, relaxation, and escapism
Achievement opportunities and Success vs. Fail gameplay appeals to expertise, power, and progression
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
Sports Game Creative Concepts
Create videos that incorporate statistics into the gameplay:
Overlay graphics to show the distance of tape measure shots and challenge viewers to play
Overlay stats graphics on characters, challenging viewers to beat their opponent
Appeals to players motivated by competition, power, challenge, excitement
Create a countdown of featured players in the game:
Showcases animation style, range of players, and stats
Style graphics like collector cards
Spark curiosity about who is (or is not) included
Appeals to players motivated by completion, surprises, competition, community, and power
Add trash talk over gameplay:
Showcases gameplay and graphics alongside subtitles
Appeals to players motivated by competition, community, being on a team, mayhem, interacting
Feature gameplay with emoji overlays and talk bubbles to communicate emotions:
Humanizes and adds humor
Showcases game graphics
Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, interacting, fantasy, and surprises
Intercut gameplay with real footage, so that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s the game:
Showcases game graphics and simulation
Appeals to players motivated by immersion, fantasy, action, discovery
Re-create the feel of a famous announcer calling a legendary game with gameplay and voice over:
Creates emotional “what if” scenarios
Engages viewer’s curiosity
Highlights the passion of sports fans
Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, immersion, fantasy, action, discovery
Create videos using cinematic techniques and voiceover to up the emotional ante of the game:
Showcases game graphics
Utilizes nostalgic sports documentary feel
Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, immersion, fantasy, action, discovery
Create side-by-side videos of good (Pro) versus bad (Noob) gameplay:
Shows the difficulty of the game
Highlights both “wins” and “fails”
Appeals to players motivated by competition, power, challenge, excitement
Create a sing-along music video of gameplay with a famous sports chant:
Most chants are in the public domain
Showcases graphics and gameplay
Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, immersion, fantasy
Fashion & Style Games Creative Concepts
Create ads based on choosing what’s next:
Use diverse characters and situations
Offer multiple quick choices
Use popular themes like jealousy, cheating, hooking up, fantasy, and revenge makeovers
Insert player into the narrative:
Have character interact directly with the player
Use meters to rate player responses
Feature simple situations, not complex narratives
Use popular themes like what to wear, hooking up, fantasy, and revenge makeovers
Fashion & Style Challenges:
Event-based fashion choices like what to wear on a date
Revenge-based makeovers from being rejected by a character
Male makeovers based on rejection or aspiration
Self-acceptance makeovers reject perfection in favor of body positivity
Design a perfect date by choosing the right movie, food, etc.
Hyper-customization including avatar skin tone, facial features, room design, etc
Feature gameplay with emoji overlays and talk bubbles to communicate emotions:
Humanizes and adds humor
Showcases game graphics
Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, interacting, fantasy, and surprises
Create side-by-side videos of good (Pro) versus bad (Noob) gameplay:
Shows the challenges
Highlights both “wins” and “fails”
Create gameplay videos that explain the experience in detail:
Detail benefits of playing (customization, escapism, social connection)
Explore live-action to differentiate from category
Feature influencers or players discussing the game
Explore CG concepts to differentiate from category
Section 4: Dating Mobile App Ad Concepts
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Top competitors in the mobile app dating space include Tinder, Hinge, Skout, Clover, Match, Plenty of Fish, OKCupid, and Coffee Meets Bagel. Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, dating app creative trends we’ve identified include:
App Overview: Overview of the app that showcases features and user experience
App Content: Captured content and screen grabs from the app
Testimonial: Focused on a user’s review and/or experience of the app
Influencers: Utilizing influencers and/or celebs to deliver the primary message
UGC: Content a user would upload to social media regarding the app
Tips & Quizzes: Communicating features or benefits through advice or quizzes
Step 2: Identify user motivations
Dating app ad creative perfectly illuminates how persona-based creative concepts appeal to the unique motivations of different users, from long-term romance to casual connections.
Dating App User Motivations
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
Focus on success stories to appeal to users seeking love, authentic connections, and validation:
Show a dating journey
Highlight real user testimonials
Use high-quality photography to show happy couples
focus on one-to-one attention
Highlight app features by inserting the user into the experience:
Have user choose from actual profiles
Simulate chat with potential dates
Have user set up a mini profile
Highlight app features for users seeking casual connections:
Model fast onboarding
Reveal “new singles” in the area
Prompt users with “See More” to tease a surplus of profiles to access
Focus on the app experience to highlight ease of use:
Rotate through dating profile photos with minimalistic UI
Use captured content and screen grabs to communicate the interaction process
Rotating through a swath of potential users
Leverage faux testimonials and UGC-style videos:
Use direct address toward the audience and text overlays to look like native content
Use screenshots of personal messages to show dating experience
Show newness and popularity of the app
In the model below, each box represents a different ad creative concept. This dating app model supports over 30 creative concepts for streaming apps by pairing six trends with six user motivations.
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Top competitors in this space include Netflix, Hulu, Philo, Pluto TV, Sling, Starz, SyFy, Vudu, Shudder, FXNow, AT&T TV, BET Now, Paramount Network, Crackle, Disney+, Maimovie, TikTok, Uplive: Live it Up, Replika: My AI Friend, Roku, Youtube TV, and HBO Now.
Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, broad concepts and trends we see for streaming apps include:
Movie Trailers: Videos with movie trailer style content, featuring one or multiple titles. (Starz, Shudder, BET Now)
Promoting Exclusive Content: Videos or images promoting exclusive or original content. (Netflix, HBO Now, TikTok)
Special Offers: Videos or images with special offers. (Hulu, Starz)
Range of Programming: Videos or images touting breadth of content. (Philo, Pluto TV, Vudu)
App Overview: Videos or images focused on the workings of the app, including exclusive services. (Vudu, Maimovie, Replika)
Step 2: Identify user motivations
Streaming apps and mobile content services range from hard-to-find content to broad appeal favorites, pay-per-view to subscription. While different mobile content services may focus on specific user interests, there are universal user motivations for content and streaming services that drive their fast-growing popularity across all categories.
Streaming App User Motivations
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
In the model below, each box represents a different ad creative concept and we’ve included a sample set. This ad concept model supports over 40 creative concepts for streaming apps by pairing seven trends with six user motivations.
Compare the app experience, price, and other factors against other apps or games. Here’s what to do for viewers interested in the following:
Discovery Seekers: use a new content comparison
Access Seekers: use a content library comparison
Value Seekers: use a cost comparison
Showcase features and user experience through screen grabs from the app.:
Convenience Seekers: highlight ease of use to get to the content fast
Deal Seekers: highlight promos or discounts
Discoverers and Access Seekers: new releases and a variety
Use UGC and testimonials to highlight content and user experience:
Highlight ease of use to get to the content fast
Show what it’s like to discover a new favorite
Highlight niche and hard-to-find content
Section 6: Fintech Mobile App Ad Concepts
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Top competitors in this space include: Acorns, Fisher Investments, Lending Tree, The Penny Hoarder, Northern Trust Wealth Management, Dave: Banking for Humans, Current: The Bank for Modern Life, Coinbase, Crypto.com, M1 Finance, Finimize, Kabbage: Small Business Loans, DOSH, Edward Jones, Edelman Financial Engines, Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, myFICO, YNAB, Mint, The Balance, Personal Capital, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Nerdwallet, Stash, Earnin, Motley Fool, WalletHub
Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, FinTech ad creative trends we identified included:
App Overview/Feature Benefit: An image or video that communicates overall user experience and/or specific features. (Dave, Current, Coinbase, M1 Finance, Finimize, Edward Jones, Credit Karma, many others)
App Overview/Tips & Quizzes: Communicating app features and/or benefits through advice or quizzes. (Fisher Investments, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Persona Capital, Penny Hoarder, Nerdwallet)
Testimonial: Focused on a user’s review and/or experience of the app. (Penny Hoarder, Dave, M1 Finance, Dosh, Credit Karma, YNAB, Personal Capital, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Earnin)
Influencers: Utilizing influencers and/or celebrities to deliver the primary message. (Personal Capital)
Promotional: Contests, promotions, gift cards, and other rewards for using and/or downloading the app. (Lending Tree, Current, Coinbase, Crypto.com, M1 Finance, Robinhood)
Current Events/Topical: Having to do with recent news or impactful events. (Lending Tree)
Social Connection: Involving people connecting on social media or via text. (Dave, Finimize, Earnin)
Meme: Comedic text on an image, often building on something that’s already viral. (Credit Sesame)
Step 2: Identify user motivations
FinTech and Financial App User Motivations
From milestone birthdays to selling a house to job changes, there are many motivational triggers that drive people to use fintech apps.
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
In the model below, each box represents a different ad creative concept and we’ve included a sample set for a first-time homebuyer below. The expanded ad concept model supports almost 50 creative concepts for streaming apps by pairing eight trends with six user motivations.
Create concepts that focus on the overall site experience, as well as specific features:
Appeal to different financial triggers (home buying, job change, retirement, college, etc.)
Try copy tied to a positive emotional benefit rather than fear-based messaging (e.g., “Retirement? You got this.”)
Feature advice and/or quizzes:
Communicates key benefits/features by engaging with the user
Appeal to different financial triggers (home buying, job change, retirement, college, etc.)
Explore a diverse range of user representations
Explore refined illustration in addition to portraits
Feature user and media reviews:
Written reviews are easiest to produce
Can test versions that feature independent media reviews and user reviews
UGC testimonials are a simple way to review the site
Explore individual user profiles
Utilize celebrities or influencers to promote the features:
Inset or split-screen, combining influencer with site graphics
Full-screen influencer testimonial, before cutting to app use and end card
Can also work with static images/quotes from the endorser
Create a promotion where visitors to the website can register to win money or other prizes:
Creates an incentive to visit the site
Prizes could include:
money for retirement fund
Help with house down payment
Pay off of a credit card
Free financial planning from a fiduciary for a year
Create concepts that leverage social platforms:
Texting can be a good way to tell narrative stories in an inexpensive, easy-to-produce format
Section 7: Subscription Mobile App Ad Concepts
Step 1: Analyze competitor and creative trends within your genre/category
Based on information from Facebook Ad Library, TikTok For Business, and MobileAction, creative trends we’ve identified for mobile subscription apps broadly include:
App Overview: An image or video that communicates overall user experience
Key Feature: Focus on the specific benefits of a core feature
Testimonial: Focus on a user’s review and/or experience
Animated Text: Kinetic typography or motion graphics
Visually Compelling: Focus on arresting photography
Brand: Focus solely on brand messaging
Step 2: Identify user motivations
Mobile app subscription services range from weekly food boxes to productivity tools to fitness trackers. Borrowing from the value propositions of software-as-a-service, mobile subscription services promise an ongoing value for a recurring payment. While different mobile subscription categories focus on specific user interests, there are universal user motivations for subscription services that drive their popularity across all verticals. Below, we’ve outlined high-level motivational triggers for a mobile app subscriber. The included motivations are specific to the mobile app subscription model itself, not an individual category such as fitness or productivity.
Subscription Mobile App User Motivations
Step 3: Map competitive trends to user motivations to guide creative concept development
Our ad concept model supports nearly 40 creative concepts for mobile subscription service apps by pairing six trends with six user motivations.
Showcase features and user experience through screen grabs from the app:
Convenience-seekers, highlight ease of use, fast set-up, and support
Deal-seekers, highlight promos or discounts
Discoverers and access seekers show new products and features
Use testimonials to show subscriber experience:
Highlight ease of use to get products fast
Show what it’s like to discover a new favorite
Highlight niche and hard-to-find products
Use arresting photography to differentiate:
Show exclusives and limited editions
Highlight niche and hard-to-find products
Highlight community spaces and social connection
Section 8: Staying Ahead of Mobile App Ad Concepts
Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers, including Glu, Roblox, Wooga, Zynga, and Skillz. Our proprietary full-stack marketing platform AdRules provides real-time business intelligence and creative research from 3.5 million video ads across social channels.
As the mobile advertising ecosystem has evolved, we have focused on being a reliable source of mobile app industry insights and trends. Our strategic analyses of IDFA loss and media buying automation, along with tactical guidance for user acquisition and creative teams, has helped advertisers remain profitable during an unprecedented era of change. Our industry expertise has earned coverage from CNBC, Forbes, SeekingAlpha, Business Insider, VentureBeat, TechCrunch, Mobile Marketing Magazine, and many more.
We now offer Programmatic through Brainlabs! To discuss programmatic best practices and the benefits of adding programmatic to your marketing mix contact us at Sales@ConsumerAcquisition.com.
Programmatic Best Practices
Dynamic Creative Optimization
Dynamic advertising has become a standard tool for data-driven marketing. As a result, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) is a critical capability to drive higher performance. DCO leverages machine learning for real-time media buying to deliver the best possible creative at the right time. For example, customize and change ads in relation to a user’s past behavior or current situation. Also, personalize individual components of an ad in real-time.
Here’s how to make the most of your programmatic campaigns with dynamic creative optimization.
Think Beyond Display
Programmatic is not one specific ad format or channel. While display advertising is often a default choice, other programmatic opportunities include:
YouTube
Podcasts
Streaming audio
Homepage takeovers
Linear and Connected TV
Email
Native
Digital out-of-home (DOOH)
Programmatic media buying can happen wherever your audience is, so consider your target personas and how they engage with media. As you test and optimize, specific channels will emerge as winners for different audiences and stages along the customer journey.
Meet the Moment
Test and optimize every component of your ad to meet your audience exactly where they are. Rotate text, colors, imagery, buttons, and calls to action to identify high performers. In addition, use eye-catching formats like carousels to showcase meaningful content and products with engaging functionality. Also, use external data sources like weather or local trends to align your ads with what your audience is experiencing at the moment.
Customize for Every Stage
Increase relevance and personalize messaging for each stage of the customer journey. Programmatic can drive engagement by meeting the needs of a user at different points of the funnel. Some examples include:
Top of Funnel: Reach and Recall
Increase brand awareness by leveraging engaging creative and interactive experiences.
Connected TV lets a user explore an experience in a highly immersive way.
YouTube captures interest while a user is already engaged.
DOOH drives measurable awareness by geofencing key events and screens and leveraging device ID retargeting.
Direct buys with relevant partners educate consumers and earn their trust.
Audio advertising, via YouTube or Private Marketplace, adds an essential touchpoint in the consumer’s purchase journey. This allows the brand to connect with listeners at different points during their day.
Mid-Funnel: Contextual
Educate the user with informative and persuasive content. Show them how you will meet their needs. Also, show how a product or service aligns with their interest, values, and motivations. In addition, leverage native video and display to get first-party data through traditional onsite metrics. Examples include duration, page depth, time on page, and bounce rate. First-party data is also obtainable through channel performance metrics like shares, clicks, and CTR.
Bottom of Funnel: Conversions
Establish and nurture your customer base. Display and native ads are most efficient as they evolve from educating to inspiring action. Here you can capture bottom-funnel metrics such as transactions, installs, ARPU, and LTV.
Retain and Re-engage
Programmatic video, display, and rich media help build a loyalty loop, so retarget users and promote the brand contextually.
Keep Your Team Focused on the Bigger Picture
DCO saves time and resources. The algorithms assemble and test ads that are most likely to resonate with your audience at a faster rate. As a result, your team maintains visibility on data across all channels and can focus on higher-level strategy.
How Programmatic Advertising Can Help
Consumer Acquisition has been acquired by digital marketing agency Brainlabs in an exciting move to expand our capabilities. In this next stage of growth for Consumer Acquisition, we are thrilled to bring Brainlabs’ strengths in SEO, paid search, and programmatic advertising to our clients. Brainlabs’ portfolio of clients includes Mars, Samsung, Walmart Canada, Formula 1, Adidas, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and F5.
Programmatic advertising is an invaluable medium for you to learn about your online audience. It will also help inform your broader marketing strategy and performance. A rigorous testing plan is central to our data-led approach. This includes testing every element of your programmatic set-up from the audience to creatives and placements. In addition, it’s supported by granular reporting and bespoke programmatic analysis tools that enable a better understanding of performance. Thus, helping you to drive the most value for your brand. Our approach is underpinned by first-party data and activated across the latest formats in audio, CTV, and DOOH. Contact us to discuss best practices and how programmatic can help you reach your 2022 marketing goals.
Get insider details on fresh TikTok UA tactics including:
App Retargeting
TikTok Instant Page
iOS14 SKAN Multi-Ad Group Feature
ACO Upgrade
Sneak Peek! Hashtag Behavior Targeting
TikTok Media Buying Model
TikTok UA Hot Tips and Updates
To help UA and creative teams adjust to the evolving ad ecosystem, we’ve compiled the latest updates and guidance for TikTok UA campaigns. TikTok For Business has introduced several new features to enhance their advertising capabilities, so UA teams have some great new tools to try out. And if you’d like expert TikTok recommendations from our UA team, feel free to contact us here. Our market insights and creative expertise come from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers. Here’s what’s happening in TikTok mobile advertising.
App Retargeting
Re-engage users that already have an app installed on their device based on a postback from MMP. Then, optimize toward specific events. TikTok App Retargeting also supports Traffic (CPC) and Conversion (oCPC/oCPM) objectives.
For gaming apps, TikTok retargeting can engage and bring back inactive players and improve retention among existing players. E-commerce apps can feature specific promotions and timely products or discounts. In addition, utility apps can re-engage through new services and features.
TikTok Instant Page
According to TikTok for Business, TikTok Instant Page is a “lightweight native landing page within the app that loads up to 11 times faster than standard mobile pages.”
The easy-to-build pages are customizable with videos, images, carousels, and buttons to explore a product or service without leaving TikTok. TikTok reports that optimizing towards conversions that occur on your Instant Page can drive up to 40% lower cost per action. Or, use the TikTok Pixel to enhance delivery optimization on an external site.
iOS14 SKAN Multi-Ad Group Feature
TikTok has made it possible to run two ad sets within one app install dedicated campaign. This includes up to 22 active ad groups. Therefore, offering more flexibility. Optimize the same objective for both ad groups. Individual ad groups can be paused but not deleted unless the entire campaign is deleted. All SKAN metrics will be available at the campaign, ad group, and ad level. Although, reporting at the ad group level is not shared with the advertiser’s MMP.
Two ad groups: SKAN conversions reported at the ad group level are modeled based on first-party ad engagement signals. Thus, using statistical methods. Modeling is applied at the ad group level.
One ad group: SKAN metrics will be the same at the campaign and ad group level and are not modeled.
Ad level SKAN metrics: Available when running multi-ad group dedicated campaigns; ad level metrics are modeled.
TikTok ACO Upgrade
Automated Creative Optimization (ACO) got an upgrade! Previously, an ad group was limited to one version of ad copy, one CTA, and up to ten videos. Now ACO offers five ad copies, dynamic CTA, and up to 30 videos.
Sneak Peek- Hashtag Behavior Targeting
Our UA team recently began testing new hashtag behavior targeting. The highly-qualified audience targeting seems promising, but longevity remains to be seen. Here’s a peek at the feature in action.
TikTok Media Buying Model
Our Media Buying Model uses a matrixed approach to systematize best practices for user acquisition campaign development. Any mobile app can leverage a unique combination of distinct UA strategies and campaign parameters. This will develop a robust testing harness for ongoing mobile campaigns across social platforms, including TikTok. The entire matrix is tailored to a respective ad network and operating system constraints.
Below is a sample Media Buying Model for TikTok. Geographies, languages, and bid types are all modified based on our client’s needs. In order to meet specific goals at the intersection of strategies and parameters, structure each campaign accordingly. Here are trends we’re seeing in testing:
Creative: UGC creative is critical
Behavior Audiences, Interest Categories, Interest Keywords: Identify audiences to feed scale campaigns. Bridge volume of a broad and precision of LAL
Lookalikes, Time Zone Targeting, Broad Top Demo: Increase KPI performance
Behavior Audiences: Test video and creator interaction
Interest Keywords: Specific targeting but a limited scale
Time Zone Targeting: Broad targeting with dayparting splits
TikTok Creative Testing Recommendations
TikTok’s A/B testing capability is rapidly evolving, use Facebook Android if you can.
Test only two creatives at a time, due to two split audiences
Broad targeting recommended keeping CPMs low
Each ad set must spend at least $20/day
Shorten Split Tests set to run for 7 days
Optimization for Clicks, Installs, or In-App Events
Bidding: Cost Cap Bidding, Lowest Cost Bid (recommended)
Test Standard Ads and Spark Ads (Organic)
Create and test musical iterations using the TikTok Video Editor
Diverse Content Drives Results on TikTok
As we’ve reported, without deterministic tracking on iOS or effective lookalike audiences, relying on general broad-stroke creative won’t be enough to profitably expand your audience. However, persona-led creative developed around player motivations, preferences, and interests is the key to sustainable user acquisition. In TikTok’s Creative Solutions: The Ultimate How-to Guide their recommendation is clear: “in order to captivate new audiences, the key is to continuously share fresh and diverse content.” With the platform built on a content graph instead of a social graph, “diverse discovery” keeps users “inspired and energized.”
Want better results from TikTok UA?
Working with a knowledgeable marketing partner that can provide extensive quantitative creative testing ensures you get the best performance from your TikTok ads. Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss your user acquisition goals.