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In-app retargeting provides a seamless channel for marketers to stay top of mind with users, whereas emails or push notifications have the potential to reach users at a time when they’re not as able to finish the purchase, book the flight, or continue playing the game.

“What we’ve found is that mobile app re-engagement delivers such strong performance because you’re engaging those users in those mobile moments,” said Lapcevic from TapCommerce.

“We’ve already seen rapid growth from some of our clients who are spending upwards of 25% of their overall mobile marketing spend now in retargeting campaigns,” said Fetch’s Tim Villanueva. “They are seeing the return on investment.”

As the technology behind retargeting on mobile devices has matured, so has the approach of marketers.

“We’re seeing rapidly increasing levels of sophistication in how people think about re-engagement and setting up their ads,” said TUNE’s Kelly Mullins (Tweet this). “We’ve seen marketers go from just looking at installs to tracking many more events because they want to use those events in subsequent ad campaigns.”

Lapcevic added that the most successful campaigns engage app users across the entire conversion funnel, and that the marketers running these campaigns understand the impact of continually communicating with users in the right moment to and remind them of the value your app delivers.

“Knowing what all those key touchpoints are along the conversion funnel until they ultimately get to that purchase is key to determining not only what events you’re tracking, but more importantly how you’re going to measure the success of the campaign,” she said.

If you’re looking for more mobile app retargeting tips, the panel shared these best practices:

Know the value of bringing a lapsed user back in your app. Establishing the value of re-engaging a lapsed user not only increases the efficiency of your retargeting programs, but ultimately delivers more value back to your business. For example, a user installs your app but doesn’t register. How valuable is that registration to you? Perhaps once a user registers you get their email address, and that becomes even more effective because you can then link it to your internal CRM data.

Use frequency capping. Layer frequency capping into your campaign to ensure you’re not bombarding users with ads, but rather timing them in a way that leads to engagement. Frequency capping also allows you to stop serving ads once the user has reached a certain identified conversion point.

Test. Learn. Optimize. Repeat. (Tweet this) The most successful campaigns are constantly evolving as deeper insights surface from the performance data. Starting out, you may want to test simple segments throughout the entire conversion funnel to better understand your users’ behavior. From there, you can refine your approach to segmentation, creative and messaging as your understanding of user behavior becomes more sophisticated.

There’s a reason increasingly more digital ad dollars are being allocated to mobile—it’s where consumers are spending the most time, and the channel is providing high return on ad spend for advertisers due to advanced targeting opportunities and the ability to connect with consumers in real-time.

3. Showdown: Mobile Apps vs. Mobile Web US smartphone users ages 18 and over spend 88% of time on mobile in apps, versus just 12% of time spent in mobile web browsers, according to comScore (Tweet this) [Source].

It’s clear that consumers love apps, so not only should apps be a high priority for your business, but you should consider how apps can be used to meet the unique needs of your customers and enrich their interactions with your brand. Define your strategy for your app and decide which key performance indicators you will use to measure success. Consider what channels you will use to advertise your apps to drive user acquisition and re-engagement, given the demographics, interests, and digital behavior of your target audience.

4. Mobile App Install Revenue to Soar to $6.8 billion by 2019 Research from BI Intelligence projects that US mobile app install ad revenue will top $4.6 billion this year, and will grow to $6.8 billion by the end of 2019 (Tweet this) [Source].

As mobile app install ad revenue continues to soar, marketers are focusing on building a long-term mobile strategy that maximizes user engagement beyond the install to make the most of acquisition efforts. Helping consumers discover and install your app is just the first step. Marketers need to consider how re-engagement tactics, like app-to-app retargeting, can ensure that the effort and budget spent on acquisition has a direct impact on achieving the defined goals for your app, while strengthening app user retention.

5. Mobile App Inventory Is Increasingly Valuable to Advertisers Advertisers are finding increasing value in mobile app ad inventory, indicated by a year-over-year 14% rise in eCPM prices per MoPub’s Q4 2014 Marketplace report [Source]. Additionally, eMarketer reports that spending on in-app ads will beat mobile web browser ad spending by almost 3-to-1 in 2015 (Tweet this) [Source].

In-app advertising offers marketers a channel to connect with mobile users in the apps they love and use every day. In-app advertising is especially impactful for re-engaging your existing user base since marketers are able to reach users when they are in a mobile mindset, and seamlessly redirect them from another app back into yours. If you’re measuring in-app events and have deeplinking in place, you can even dynamically serve ads that are customized to each user, and redirect to page within your app that’s most relevant to their past browsing behavior. (Need tips on how to get started with mobile app analytics? Read our recent post, 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Mobile Measurement Partner.)

Of course, no two MMPs are exactly alike-- they differ in pricing, features, and attribution models. If you’re interested in measuring the lifetime value of your app users and thinking about launching a retargeting campaign, it’s important to consider the full suite of capabilities that a mobile measurement solution offers around re-engagement.

Below are a few questions to ask, and why they’re important:

Do you support full event postbacks to other vendors, or only attributed events?  Support of full event postbacks is needed to segment and retarget users in real time based on their in-app behavior. If the MMP is only able to send events generated after a user clicks on a retargeted ad (versus before), real-time segmentation is not possible.

Do you support last-click attribution for re-engagement?  Last-click attribution is key for measuring retargeting performance, as often these downstream users have previously been targeted in an install campaign. A last-click attribution model will provide 100% credit to the campaign that drove the last click prior to conversion (for example, a purchase).

Is it possible to configure attribution windows for each vendor?  It is important that your MMP offers flexible attribution windows (the time period between ad click and conversion) to align with your unique business goals. In general, advertisers have longer windows for re-engagement versus install campaigns depending upon the complexity of the path to conversion. Common attribution windows for retargeting campaigns include 4 days, 7 days, 14 days, or 28 days.

Do you show re-engagement campaigns in your UI? Performance marketers rely on MMP dashboards to view campaign activity across all vendors. For re-engagement campaigns, the marketer should be able to determine attribution based on what they see in the MMP dashboard without having to access that data elsewhere.

Do you make historic data available for export? If so, does that include organic and paid installs as well as downstream events, such as purchases? Are there any lookback restrictions?  Marketers aiming to quickly scale a campaign out of the gate can export historic install and downstream event data for segmentation. Historic data on downstream events is particularly important for targeting lapsed users and bringing them back into the app to convert.

Keep in mind that it’s not required to work with an MMP in order to get started with TapCommerce -- there are other implementation methods available to you, such as our SDK. However, if you do have a mobile measurement solution already in place, it’s easy to kick-off a retargeting campaign since we partner with a number of popular providers.

#2 - Utilize Forrester’s “IDEA cycle” to win, serve and retain mobile customers.

Knowing that consumer expectations are constantly in flux, how can companies win, serve and retain customers throughout the mobile journey? To answer this question, Julie explained the IDEA cycle— the central premise of The Mobile Mind Shift, a new Forrester book she co-authored— which encourages businesses to:

Identify the mobile moments and context. When is your target customer turning to mobile, and what’s the context in those moments?

Design the mobile engagement. Determine which of the mobile moments are the best opportunities for re-engagement, for both your business and your users. [Tweet this]

Engineer your platforms, processes and people for mobile. Think through how increased mobile use will affect your teams and systems, and make necessary adjustments to support long-term scalability. 

Analyze results to monitor performance and continually optimize outcomes. If you are unaware of how well your app and related marketing campaigns are performing, you’re likely missing key opportunities to meet consumers’ needs. Julie noted, “If you’re not tracking which messages are driving engagement, you can’t get better and move the needle forward to win, serve, and retain customers like your competition is doing.”

#3 - In-app retargeted ads drive incremental mobile revenue.

In-app mobile retargeting has rapidly emerged as one of the most effective ways to drive incremental mobile revenue by connecting with users post-install [Tweet this]. Previously, marketers relied on email or push notifications as the only available channels to reach existing app users. Driven by powerful, real-time contextual data, in-app retargeting offers a scalable new way to reach your mobile audiences and easily bring them back into your app.

Brian Long, co-founder of TapCommerce and Head of App Re-Engagement at Twitter, discussed how although specific KPIs can vary by industry, the overarching goal of any mobile retargeting campaign is to drive a certain in-app action. For example, an e-commerce app might aim to convert recent cart abandoners to complete the check-out, while achieving a defined ROAS goal. Whereas for a subscription-based music app, the goal could take the form of achieving a certain “cost per subscription” in order to convert free users into premium, paid users.

#4 - Identify which behavioral events are most impactful to your bottom line.

Take time to understand your user base and how different segments engage with your app, as that knowledge will build the foundation of your re-engagement strategy.

Marketers should track as many in-app events as possible to enable segmentation and targeting of different subsets of users [Tweet this]. Some core events are common across verticals, such as measuring installs, opens, and purchases. At a minimum, it’s recommended to be tracking an event that correlates with how you measure the success of your app (for example: purchase, booking, upgrade, etc.) so you can prove the efficacy of your mobile marketing campaigns.

In order to take advantage of the granularity retargeting offers, you’ll need to dive in deeper and take a look at the downstream events that lead to revenue and ROI. Examples of commonly tracked events by vertical are below:

#5 - Choose the proper attribution model for your business.

Ryan Grenier, vice president of product at Apsalar, a provider of mobile app analytics, discussed the two different approaches that exist for mobile app attribution: linear and lifecycle.

The linear model attributes conversions to the original acquisition source. For some businesses, this simplistic attribution model is sufficient— particularly those concerned with just tracking installs. But for those concerned with properly attributing more “bottom-of-the-funnel” downstream events, this model does not easily enable you to connect conversions to numerous marketing efforts that ultimately led a user to take action.

TapCommerce is teaming up with Apsalar and Forrester to host a webinar on mobile retargeting on December 10 at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET. Register today to reserve your spot.

Guest presenter Julie Ask, VP at Forrester Research and co-author of “The Mobile Mind Shift,” will share the latest data and trends on the mobile market.

She’ll be joined by panelists Ryan Grenier, VP of Product at Apsalar, and Brian Long, co-founder of TapCommerce and Head of App Re-Engagement at Twitter, who will explore topics including:

Different strategies for retargeting based on in-app behavioral data

Tracking methods for different industries and goals

How to segment and retarget users in real-time with precision and relevance

Best practices for designing mobile ad creative that drives conversions

We’ll be taking questions during the webinar, and you can follow along and submit your questions using the hashtag #retarget.

The Essentials

Date & Time: December 10 at 11:00 am PT/2:00 pm ET

Guest presenter: Julie Ask, VP at Forrester Research (@Forrester)

Panelists: Ryan Grenier, VP of Product at Apsalar (@ApsalarInc) and Brian Long, Co-founder of TapCommerce and Head of App Re-engagement at Twitter (@BrianCLong @tap)

Before you even open Photoshop, first spend some time thinking about your audience and what is most likely to bring them back into your app. Because mobile re-engagement campaigns target different groups of users at various stages of the buyer lifecycle, what appeals to one segment might not have quite the same impact on another group.

“Always keep the target audience in mind when you’re designing an ad,” Andrew says. “For example, a group of users with items in their shopping carts might be more attracted to an ad offering them a discount or free shipping, whereas lapsed users with empty shopping carts may be more interested in seeing new, featured products.”

2. Get personal.

Using dynamic ad creative helps improve click-through rates and conversions. Showing a user an item they recently considered purchasing, alongside copy that now offers a “percentage off” discount on that item, just might be the push needed to complete the order.

“Dynamic ads are highly effective, but it’s important to balance out user-specific content  with more generic, branded visuals,” Andrew says. “Placing frequency caps on your ads can also help you prevent showing a user the same product multiple times.”

3. Keep it simple.

When designing for mobile screens, you need to make the most of your real estate — but that doesn’t mean including as much information as you can fit. This ad, produced by Spotify’s creative team, is a perfect example of how to avoid clutter and focus on conveying a straightforward message, while still giving the user enough context to motivate them to click-through and visit your app.

“Identify your key selling points, and hone in on making them stand out,” Andrew says. “Decide on a hierarchy of information and use high-quality images, easy-to-read fonts, and contrasting colors.”

4. Make your CTA pop.

Your call-to-action (“CTA”) is the part of your ad that clearly describes the next step you want the user to take next — Open App, View Item, Play Now, etc. What you say in your CTA is just as important as how you say it, so be thoughtful not only in the words you choose, but in the overall layout and design.

“Bright, contrasting colors will help your CTA stand out from the rest of the ad,” Andrew says. “Most importantly for mobile screens, make sure your CTA is easy to tap. For smartphones, that means making the tappable element at least 44 pixels by 44 pixels, and generally placing it in the lower right area of the ad so it is easily accessible by thumbs.”

5. Always be testing.

The ad you designed might look amazing on your 27-inch Mac Thunderbolt Display computer monitor, but that’s not how your mobile audience will see it. Once you finish creating your ad, test it out on the various devices it will actually appear so you can adapt your design as needed.

The first panel, moderated by Phil Gontier, App Engagement - EMEA Sales at Twitter, united a group of performance marketers from leading apps across the e-commerce, travel, lifestyle, and gaming verticals to discuss how to guide mobile users further down the funnel toward conversion. Panelists included David Llewellyn, Head of Mobile Marketing - Europe, Skyscanner; Robert Lamvik, Growth Manager, Spotify; Fabio Esposti, Innovation Manager - Europe, eBay; and Adir Ron, Head of Marketing, Win.

Although the exact approach varied by industry, all panelists agreed that end goal of mobile engagement is to strengthen retention and grow the lifetime value of each customer. Advanced segmentation (made possible by measuring in-app behavior) and retargeting allow marketers to stay connected with those who have already downloaded their app to keep users informed of new products, content, and special offers.

App Optimization: Strategies for Measurement & Monetization

The second panel, moderated by Shelley Lapcevic, Head of App Engagement - Customer Success at Twitter, gave attendees a chance to hear from mobile measurement providers and agencies on best practices for optimizing and monetizing mobile apps. Panelists included Peter Hamilton, CEO, TUNE; Stephanie Emmanouel, General Manager - Connected Customer Marketing, Somo; Christian Henschel, CEO and Co-Founder, adjust; and Shumel Lais, Account Director, M&C Saatchi Mobile.

The conversation focused on the importance of effectively using behavioral data to inform your mobile strategy. When it comes to analyzing app data, Stephanie Emmanouel of Somo expressed the need to “differentiate between the noise and the signal in order to better understand the mobile customer’s journey.” The panelists discussed how tracking more in-app events, enabling real-time data sharing, and optimizing deeplinking are all critical aspects of cultivating a successful mobile program.

Fireside Chat: The Next Phase of Programmatic

We wrapped up the day with a fireside chat between our Co-Founder, now Head of App Engagement at Twitter, Brian Long, and Co-Founder of MoPub now VP, Exchange at Twitter, Jim Payne. Brian and Jim discussed how the mobile advertising ecosystem has rapidly evolved over the past few years and what’s ahead for the future of programmatic. 

Networking Reception at the Century Club

After the panel sessions concluded, guests had the opportunity to catch up over cocktails and check out the London skyline from the rooftop terrace.