[mobile]
Top Ranking is Going to Cost You
by Ryan Weber; co-founder & VP corp. strategy, W3i; Sartell, MN
Executing a Successful Burst Campaign With more than 400,000 apps in the Apple App Store, it takes more than Apple’s approval to get top ranking. One way to get noticed is to use “burst campaigns”—concentrating your advertising spends over a short period of time to boost your game’s popularity. A case in point: Dolphin Play made its debut on December 21, 2010, as a free iPhone simulation game that monetizes by selling virtual currency to consumers. Dolphin Play ran three promotions in its first 90 days using burst campaigns and achieved a Top 25 Overall Free App Store ranking during each campaign.
Burst Campaigns
Burst Campaign Results
Apple’s App Store ranks the top apps overall and by category, primarily based on their recent popularity or gross sales. You can generate significantly more downloads for your game by achieving a prominent ranking in the App Store’s top charts. Because of this, many leading iOS game developers use burst campaigns to dramatically improve their App Store rankings. Last year, W3i conducted a survey of 458 consumers owning an Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, or iPod touch device. Among other things, the survey revealed how consumers prefer to discover new apps for download. The preferred discovery methods ranked as follows:
Dolphin Play achieved 937,115 installs in its first 90 days through the use of three burst campaigns— primarily utilizing pay-per-install advertising. (Our experience was that display advertising was not as effective for iOS app customer acquisition.) The first burst campaign came over the Christmas holiday; a second burst campaign occurred over an average weekend in January; and the third was during the Verizon iPhone launch weekend. In the three campaigns, we used a combination of four ad sources in which we offered an incentive for installing the app and four in which we did not. In addition, we ran campaigns on a cost-per-install basis within the W3i distribution network. The results were strong in each case, with incremental downloads (organic boost) ranging from 98 to 269 percent:
1. Top 25 Overall 2. Categories 3. Featured – New 4. Featured – What’s Hot 5. Search 6. Featured – Personalized Recommendations 7. Ads In Other Apps 8. Most Popular Topics
Burst 1 – Holiday promotion ›› Bought Installs: 125,097 ›› Total Installs: 461,000 ›› Organic Boost: +269% Burst 2 – Average weekend ›› Bought Installs: 101,613 ›› Total Installs: 250,851 ›› Organic Boost: +147% Burst 3 – Verizon iPhone Launch Weekend ›› Bought Installs: 113,987 ›› Total Installs: 225,264 ›› Organic Boost: +98% Summer 2011 Casual Connect 49