App Marketing Agency - Why you Need it and What to Expect?

"What an invention! An app growth marketing agency? What good is that?" - I have heard similar sentences many times since AppDNA came into the world. That's why in this short article I decided to describe our motives. Why did we open an app growth marketing agency, and how is it different from others found on the market?

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Differences between Marketing Agency and App Marketing Agency

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Before we get to the story, I'd like us to level our knowledge of the differences between apps and other digital products such as the web.

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Let’s discuss each point separately:

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Attribution

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The first issue is how to acquire a customer/user. For mobile apps, articulation is a longer process due to at least the fact that the user has to download the app to use it. In the case of an app/website, we build visibility and convert to visitors and then to paying customers, apps are first tasked with getting users to install them on their phones. Therefore, the funnel building, user acquisition strategies are quite different from apps. In the next part of this article you will be able to see the elements of a well-constructed app marketing funnel.

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App Store Optimization

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While traditional website marketing relies on SEO (search engine optimization), ASO (app store optimization) is the equivalent  strategy you need to promote your app. Optimizing your app’s listing with ASO will ensure it appears at the top of the search results in the app store — which is necessary, since consumers have millions of apps to choose from.

Ultimately,  the aim of ASO is to boost brand exposure and audience engagement, as well as to get positive app reviews and ratings (these help further boost app sales).

A well-designed and implemented ASO is an important factor in a successful user acquisition strategy and will result in you acquiring valuable users with high retention and lifetime value at a lower effective installation cost. ASO will also reduce the cost of Paid UA activities. You can read more about App Store Optimization (ASO) in a separate post here.

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First Time User Experience, User Activation & User Onboarding

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If we have already acquired the user, the next difference is to properly introduce the user to the application, show the most important functionalities and benefits of using it, and introduce the user to build in him the right level of engagement and the feeling that the application solves the problems he is looking for in it. If this process is not done properly the risk of churn is very high. Therefore, designing this element correctly is a key part of the funnel because this is the point where we can expose ourselves to losses the most - we will spend money on acquiring the installation and then waste it if the user leaves at the onboarding stage and is not properly activated.

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Engagement & Retention

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The next element in the sequence is to properly maintain the user's attention, engage them in our app and increase retention over the long term. Designing this element is very important because, on average, apps lose almost 80% of their users within three days of installation. This means you need to constantly work on generating excitement and encouraging reuse. For example, many apps use push notifications to inform users of pending notifications, messages or offers. As a result, the user is encouraged to check the app, see what they missed, and get re-engaged.

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Different KPIs

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In comparison to website marketing, app marketing requires measuring separate KPIs to properly track its performance. For your website, relevant KPIs typically include conversion rate, bounce rate and average time spent on your page.

Alternatively, app KPIs include specific metrics like retention rate, install rate, daily and monthly active users (DAU and MAU), and churn rate (or rate of attrition) — this measures the percentage of users who stop using the app within a certain time frame. It’s therefore important to treat your app and website KPIs separately.

Fortunately, tracing tools are available to measure your app KPIs — Apple Analytics, Firebase, CleverTap, Appsflyer, for example.

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Reputation Management

Another thing you need to consider is app reputation management. It covers both in-app reputation management like reviews and ratings optimization, closed-loop feedback, product/app roadmap management, as well as reviews reply automation, auto-tagging, categorization & auto fake reviews reporting. This part influence both on acquisition and retention part of the funnel. More about Reviews and ratings optimization you can read in a separate article here.

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Monetization

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Monetization is an area where apps possess a large advantage over websites. While websites can generate revenue through ads or e-commerce purchases, apps can generate revenue via both of these means, as well as by requiring users to pay for the app itself or for purchases within the app. Allowing users an in-app purchase that removes ads is a common practice, too. Apps can also charge auto-renewing subscription fees for certain types of purchases that meet the subscription requirements, such as expanded storage space.While the majority of apps now monetize through IAP, apps can also monetize with in-app ads or via e-commerce transactions for real-world goods or services.
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What about These Differences?

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These differences mean that an app marketing project based on web habits usually works very poorly or not at all. We saw this very well working with clients who had previously worked on their apps with classic agencies. The amount of money burned on misguided marketing campaigns was frightening. Trying to collect the total costs of such failed campaigns, we reached several million dollars across all our clients. A huge amount, right?

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For this reason, we at AppDNA have started to build marketing according to marketing and sales funnels, adapted by us to the reality of app marketing, which you can also find below:

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Searching for an agency in the market

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However, during our research among agencies that would meet the requirements, we encountered four main problems.

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• Most of the agencies performed only selected elements of the funnel. Clients who came to us were looking for one stable partner so that they did not have to worry about tediously combining the services of several agencies with each other.
• Most the agencies do app marketing as an addition to other web marketing activities. for clients who want to grow a mobile app is a huge risk, for the reason that habits from web marketing can derail efforts.
• No agency provided data-driven KPI-based services with ROI calculation and KPI estimation before project kickoff. If an agency has experience in app marketing and has already done dozens and hundreds of mobile app growth projects, it should have proven strategies and frameworks for developing each area. On top of that, if it has a data-driven approach it can estimate the results that specific activities can bring back. For the client, this is a big plus because it is easy for him to invest in such a project because he can simply estimate the ROI of such an investment.

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If you are looking for an app marketing agency here you have 10 questions that you should ask before hiring an app marketing agency for your app.

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In summary - we decided on this basis to solve these issues and create data-driven app growth marketing agency that meets all these needs.

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App Marketing in AppDNA

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We decided to compose an agency that could handle these problems and the specifics of app marketing comprehensively. Therefore, we built a team from the following roles.
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App Store Optimization Expert - is the person who is responsible for planning, implementing, and managing the company's overall ASO strategy. They usually cover a wide variety of duties such as app store optimization, analytics, strategy planning, link building, keyword strategy and creative assets planning with the designers.

Project Manager - is the person who takes charge of the designed funnel. He works on the front line with the client and is responsible for the successive implementation and improvement of the funnel using our specialists and the client's specialists, if they are involved in the project.

Engagement & Retention Specialist - is the person responsible for creating engagement campaigns (in-app notifications, email, etc.), marketing automation & monetization strategies to keep user engaged and optimize churn rate as well as revenues.

UX/UI Specialist - is the person who designs FTUX, user onboarding and consults on application design changes for our clients so that they actually convert.

Paid User Acquisition Specialist -  is a person who has extensive experience in building app marketing campaigns in various advertising systems (ASA,Universal App Campaigns, TikTok, Facebook, Snap, etc.). This allows us to generate valuable traffic in our funnels.

App Data & Analytics Specialist - is a person who plugs in and designs analytics so that correct conclusions can be drawn from the client's activities and then successively improved.

Mobile Developer - is a person who is responsible for coding, adding functionalities, mobile analytical tools, sdks and UX/UI changes.

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Such a composed team allowed us to comprehensively implement funnels for applications. So what makes an app marketing agency different from others? It's a place that was created from scratch with apps in mind. All processes, the composition of the team, and the way we operate and execute are tailored to the specific requirements of app marketing. This allows us to realize the needs of app marketing from the very beginning of the marketing idea to an effectively working system. In addition, we have built our data warehouse so that we can execute app marketing based on a data-driven approach and offer services in a KPI-based pricing model where our clients have the ability to estimate ROI right at the proposal stage.

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