So… you’ve strategized, planned and launched your lead generation marketing, you monitor and optimize your campaigns, and yet see no real growth in the number of installs your app is getting?
If that’s the case, this article is for you, my friend, as there are plenty of reasons why you might not have installs from your outbound or inbound marketing, which we will disclose and review in this article.
Traffic types
To get to the root of the problem of not getting installs from the lead generation services you’re utilizing, it’s important to clarify there are different channels for getting that traffic to your mobile application.
They divide into two large categories – organic and paid traffic types. Organic traffic represents all the installs you are getting thanks to people searching directly for your app, relevant content on your social media pages and great Search Engine Optimization of the articles on your Blog.
Paid traffic can come from multiple sources, which include:
Google Search Ads
A method that allows your text ad to appear at the top of the search list when someone is searching for an application similar to yours or using the keywords your app has defined for ranking.
Google Display Ads
A method that shows your visual ads throughout the web for those users that have previously interacted with your app, visited your website or searched for an app with the functionality your app has.
Social Media Ads
Generating business leads and other lead types through Social Media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to advertise your app to the users that belong to your target audience.
PR
Buying leads using Public Relations techniques, such as creating and publishing a press release about your app launch, a review by a reputable app public, or cross-promotion with another popular app.
To find out the reason behind a poor lead generation process we’ll review different cases which will help us indicate where the issue comes from. Let’s start with case number one.
Case 1: You have a low number of impressions
Having a low number of impressions after advertising your app means not enough of potential users are seeing your app.
Possible reasons include:
a) Failing to use relevant keywords
You’ve spent a good deal of time and effort on choosing your keywords, but there can be a number of issues related to them. If the keywords you rank for are in demand but don’t really apply to your app, you’ll have a case when a lot of people see your app, but not a lot interact with it due to a poor match between the advertisement and the product. Another issue with keywords occur when your keywords are a perfect fit for your app, but the keywords themselves don’t attract a lot of traffic.
Solution: review the keywords you have with the Keyword Planner to find the ones that receive lots of traffic and precisely describe your app at the same time.
b) Using non-relevant channels for ads
Your lead generation marketing campaign can be set up just right, and the keywords you’ve chosen could be appropriate, but if the channels you are using are not home to where your target audience is located, you’re going to have trouble collecting impressions for your mobile app.
Solution: take a look at the channels you are using to broadcast your app ads – are they age & interest-appropriate for your target audience? If your app is a game targetted for kids and teenagers ages 9-18, use the advertising within Snapchat, Likes, and other age fitting advertising platforms as opposed to using Search Ads, for example.
c) Too many negative keywords
Having too many negative keywords in a simple broad creates a situation where the keywords you chose as negative could match and create many combinations of normal keywords.
Solution: reassess your negative keywords choice and try to use negative keywords in phrase match, even if they consist of a single word.
d) Location exclusions
The locations you originally didn’t think of as a treasure land per se, might turn out to be quite the goldmines when assessed more closely. The target audience for the English-teaching app, for example, will lay far outside your typical advertising zones in countries like India, Guatemala, Sudan, Ukraine, etc.
Solution: review your countries of choice to make sure you don’t miss out on the locations that will generate the sales leads you’re missing.
Case 2: High number of impressions, but a low number of installs
The reason why you’re having lots of impressions but a low number of clicks or installs, or low CTR, lays in the low-quality of the traffic and other factors we’ll describe below.
Possible reasons for the low CTR on your app include:
a) Wrong targeting
You might have spent a considerate amount of dollars on defining the right target audience, although who you think the people who’ll love your app are can be vastly different from who they actually are.
Solution: broaden the knowledge on your existing audience through inbound marketing techniques like polls, giveaways, incentive questionnaires, and build a new, upgraded view on your target market. Also, here’s a great list of tips on How To Market An App OR App Marketing Platforms.
b) Wrong Ads info
When web users see your ad they’re excited and want to learn more about the app, so they click to find out more and – oh, snap! – that’s not exactly what they wanted. If the app description in the add does not accurately describe the mobile application itself, or the app has hidden stones, for example, it’s not anything like the graphic showcased in the ad or it’s expensive instead of being free, you’ll have lot’s of impressions but not so many downloads.
Solution: make sure that your ad description is aimed to describe your app exactly as it is, and serves as a fair application characteristic as opposed to a lead generation magnet.
c) Lower Rank Ads
Here’s the deal. If you have your ads running through, say a Search Network, but they get displayed on the first page but lower than the other ads, you’ll gather impressions but not enough to get installs. Your mobile app ad might be just too low down the list to generate much profit. That happens if your ad score or your bid is lower compared to the rest of the advertisers, which results in your ad not getting enough quality exposure.
Solution: asses your average ad position, and in case it is lower than 3, try these lead generation techniques – improve the quality of your landing pages, increase the website loading speed, check SEO on your website pages and make sure the content is relevant to your ads, create and keep smaller ad groups.
Case 3: High number of App store visits, but a low number of installs
There’s a number of reasons for having a high number of App store visits with a low number of installs, among which are:
a) Non-friendly App Store page
No matter how good your app’s advertising is, once web users come to the App Store page, the app description is all they see. So make sure it’s transparent what your app is all about, that people can clearly see the screenshots of your working app and that the app description is not misleading.
Solution: a good product page will clearly indicate how users can interact with the app in the form of specially-designed visuals, which tell users what the app does step-by-step, like in the example below. To be at maximum for a user-friendly score, add a short 30-seconds or a minute video that explains how your app works using visuals and good animation.
b) Having a Paid App
Okay, so you made a decision to declare your app paid and have some pretty solid reasons for it. Now, let’s just take a look at the numbers and come back to this decision in a minute.
According to the latest mobile app stats, only 5,76 % of all downloaded apps from the Google Play store have been paid in the past 2018, with the 11,82% being true for the Apple Store. People don’t like to buy before they try, and having an upfront price tag on your mobile application can drastically decrease the number of downloads you’re getting.
Solution: make your app free, and introduce your subscription options and paid features once the user has already got familiar with the app. Find useful tips on how to make users stay once they download your app with our awesome article – Top 3 CRO Onboarding Practices.
Conclusion
The mobile app industry has been growing steadily since the first app ever has come out, and is predicted to expand into $311,249 million industry by the year 2023. And as the industry grows, so does the competition, which means the only way to stay ahead of the game is to constantly move forward.
Find out why you don’t have installs from marketing and use the tips and tricks described in this article to keep bringing new users to your app over and over again.
