The Principle of Restricted Choice – or how to succeed in your Mobile App Retargeting

In a world where 1 out of 4 installed apps are never used and a similar percentage are abandoned after the first use, mobile app retargeting is a critical part of a mobile app marketing strategy. It has proven to be one of the most useful tools to not only bring dormant and churned users back to an app, but, ideally, get them to spend money.

While an app loses 90% of its daily active users within the first 30 days, around 30% will re-use if offered a discount or bonus content (source: Adobe Digital Marketing Blog).That’s a substantial number of users who are potentially willing to engage further with your app, and are worth being re-activated.

Moreover, mobile app retargeting campaigns are not just about the lapsed users. Active users also get under the radar of retargeting in order to keep them engaged and notified of premium service, new updates and more.

Source: Apsalar retargeting whitepaper

So, what is the best way to retarget your app users, and how do you set up these campaigns? Both are good questions – read on to find some answers.

Facebook Mobile App Retargeting – How is it done?

Driving quality installs, of course, is still important. But more and more app marketers put as much effort on retargeting as on new installs to encourage users to return to an app, boost engagement and ultimately convert them into frequent buyers.

And Facebook, as one of the most powerful and efficient user acquisition channels, gives all the tools you need for successful mobile app retargeting.

In fact, it is fairly simple to retarget your mobile app users on Facebook. Just choose a campaign objective of bringing more traffic, increasing conversions or driving app installs, and see how mobile app retargeting campaigns will get the job done!

With traffic or conversions, just choose an app in the ad set settings:

Make sure to target a custom audience of people who already installed your app.

You can use the audiences tool to create an audience of installers. If you want to create a more granular audience, such as purchasers in the last 28 days with an install source of Facebook ads with at least 3 app launches (too much?), you can use Facebook Analytics for Apps.

Creatives: Go That Extra Mile

New engaging creatives are the key to successful mobile app retargeting campaigns. So don’t think about running with the same creatives you use for user acquisition – this audience has already seen them!

Invest in new creatives that speak directly to the certain segment of users, whether it’s a dormant or lapsed one, or even an active user whom you want to up-sell something new.

Messages that emphasize new games or features of your app could work well. Alternatively, everyone likes a good “we missed you” joined with a juicy welcome back bonus.

Just make sure you give the user a good enough incentive to get back into the game.

Bidding: Clicks are all you need

Think about it – in these campaigns, you will be retargeting a small, super-segmented audience of lapsed payers, last 7 days installers, etc., so you don’t need to bid for any lower funnel actions.

Your audience should already consist of high-quality users, so bidding for a click should do the job. You want as many people in your target audience as possible to see your ad. That’s why bidding for clicks or unique daily reach would be best.

Deep links go a long way

When creating an ad for a mobile app, you can drive users to your app page in the app store. In mobile app retargeting campaigns, your audience consists of users who have already installed the app, so they would be re-directed to your app’s lobby.

You could alternatively send them to another location within your app using a deep link.

Using deep links could make it easier to entice users back and re-engage with your app. You can find some examples here.

To sum up:

We have tried to cover the basics you need to know about setting up your mobile app retargeting campaign. For additional insights, check out our 7 Tips for Successful Facebook Retargeting.

And, finally, here are two important things to keep in mind – as with any app marketing campaign, ALWAYS analyze your metrics and NEVER stop testing to optimize for the best results.

If you have any questions or need assistance with your mobile app campaigns, feel free to contact us.