Ad Channel Diversification Strategy
The advent of Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) completely changed the game for advertisers as it disrupted the traditional ways of targeting and measuring app advertising performance, so much so that it necessitated the development of workarounds and marketing mobile app ideas, the most notable of which is Channel Diversification.It’s crucial to note that the opt-in (users who allow app tracking) rate of app tracking transparency has steadily increased from just 11% in April 2021 to 25% in April 2022. But, there’s a notable stall in downloads, despite apps in Play Store still steadily growing in numbers. It only proves one thing: competition is increasing and auction prices on ad channels along with it.
How Does Channel Diversification Help?
Channel Diversification basically means listing what you have to offer on the most platforms available and suitable to acquire optimal reach. Websites are but one channel.
If you’re selling any product or service, other app marketing channels that are readily available include Amazon, eBay, social media sites, and other online marketplaces.
A good App Marketing Agency will tell you that marketing channel diversification works simply because it anticipates what buying customers tend to do. More often than not, they’ll do their research and not rely on just a single channel when looking for options and other alternatives.
Limiting yourself to a single channel, even if it already has a huge user base, would be woefully short-sighted as other channels also offer their own opportunities for growing an audience. The fruits are there for the taking, why shun them and stifle your growth?
To underscore the importance of Channel Diversification, here are some of its main advantages:
Sales channel diversification helps to mitigate risk. In an industry where dynamic changes occur frequently (for better or worse), it’s always wise to put your eggs in more than one basket.
It helps you reach new audiences by simply making your products visible and available on numerous channels. More visibility means more brand awareness and chances to build trust and engagement. These in turn lead to higher conversion rates.
Ultimately, Channel Diversification leads to more opportunities to scale. You’re adding more opportunities to sell your product or service, so your sales will only increase on top of the present ones you’re enjoying from every channel you’re using.
Examples of business diversification include a company selling locally and then expanding its reach abroad. Or, a retail store adding more products that belong to different categories.
When Should You Diversify?
We as marketers always look for app marketing tips, but we need to be just as aware of the best times to apply most, if not all, of the methods we learn. With Channel Diversification, there may be instances when the sooner you do it, the better. It’s also important to learn how to allot your budget and be patient in
1. Why You Should Do It ASAP
To delay planning and executing your diversification growth strategy is a sign of unfamiliarity and under-preparedness which were the main reasons why many app advertisers were negatively affected when ATT arrived.
New ad channels’ doors are consistently open, so there’s no point in trying each of them out.
2. Wait for Each Channel To Reach Its Peak
It’s a given that not all channels will give you the results you’re looking for. This only underscores the importance of testing each one out, while having the patience to wait for each one to attain optimal performance.
Don’t be too hasty in abandoning a channel because it didn’t give you what you’re looking for after only a few days. Wait for at least a couple of weeks or months to know the real picture of its performance.
3. Allot a Set Amount of Your Budget for Each Channel
One diversification strategy that has proven to work is to be consistent in the budget you assign when evaluating the performance of each channel. We recommend starting with at least 10% to 20% of your budget for every channel, minus your calculated app development cost.
Let’s say that after doing your research, you decide to allocate 15% of your performance funds and have identified Facebook and YouTube as potential channels for testing. Perhaps, you found out that the average CPI (cost per install) for Facebook ads is $2, while it’s $3 for YouTube ads.
You can set the testing budgets by simply multiplying the average CPI by 2 or 3x the amount. If it’s 3x, you’ll need $6 per install on Facebook and $9 for YouTube for the first few weeks.
Establish a set weekly spending total for each channel to not exceed your allotted budget.
Three Essential Stages in Channel Diversification
Effective Channel Diversification can be summed up into three stages. It’s a three-step diversification marketing strategy that lays the fundamental groundwork for any kind of campaign as it gives you a solid direction of where to go.
First Stage: Pinpoint the Best Traditional Channels
At the start, you need to focus on reaching the biggest, most relevant audience through paid acquisition after your product has been launched. As much as possible, you should choose channels that already have an established user base and are readily accessible.
These include household names like Meta, Google, YouTube, or Apple Search ads. Once you’ve picked them, you should now take the time to experiment with various messaging and creative elements on the said channels.
Second Stage: Move Beyond Your Present Boundaries
We’re going to assume that these boundaries are the ones set by the major platforms you chose in the first stage. From there, you should start exploring other channels based on their relevance to what you have to offer.
Go beyond TikTok and Snap and look for long-tail self-attributing networks like Applovin, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, etc.
Third Stage: Ensure Your Channels Are Increasing As You Add More
Incremental growth should be prioritized and any form of channel cannibalization should be minimized if not entirely eliminated. This underlines the importance of consistently testing each channel, so be sure to have the right tools for that.
Don’t close your doors to younger, novel channels and options such as influencers or Connected TV, especially those that don’t readily adopt new advertisers at present.
Besides these three, here are other app user engagement strategies worth trying:
Promote loyalty programs to boost customer lifetime value, encourage upselling, and boost revenue growth.
Use web-to-app to capture registration details before they download the app. This helps to increase engagement from the get-go and boosts your targeting capabilities, too.
Consider AI tools to create various ad setups and personalize your messaging. Feel free to use them for content creation to save time as well.
Conclusion
Diversification in business has always been a failproof strategy that has kept numerous enterprises afloat in the past decades and even centuries. We can safely say that diversification marketing in the modern context of app ad channels is no different.
Its benefits can’t be denied and only underscore why it’s been included among the top App Marketing trends. More importantly, it’s clear proof that whatever obstacles businesses may encounter, even if they’re related to user privacy, can be solved if you simply know how to broaden your horizons.
The content was originally published in https://www.dotcominfoway.com/blog/ad-channel-diversification-strategy-to-hack-your-mobile-app-growth/
