AppsFlyer revealed the most popular types of promotions

How many types of advertising are there in total and which proved to be the most effective at the end of the first quarter of 2013, was detailed by the research company AppsFlyer in their report. We offer a brief version of it in Russian.

Table

In the first quarter of 2013, the most widely used advertising channels were: ad networks, app discovery platforms, cross-promotion, incentivized traffic, search, and social advertising.

Conversion Rate = Clicks / Installs

User quality was calculated by analyzing the number of sessions, in-app events, purchases, and retention rates

Number of installations (bubble size) = Number of new users

Glossary

To clarify the differences between the types of promotion, AppsFlyer provided a small glossary:

1. Ad Networks

Ad networks place your ads in mobile and web applications

2. App Discovery Platforms

Ad networks that specialize in increasing visibility

3. Cross Sell

Placing ads for one of your apps in another one of your apps

4. Incentivized Ad Networks

The ad network offers users certain bonuses (in-game currency, free apps) for downloading specific applications

5. Search

Users search for applications using search engines

6. Social

Marketing on social networks (Facebook and Twitter). This includes promoting app pages, word of mouth, and similar activities.

Research Findings

Based on data from the first quarter, AppsFlyer highlighted several main findings:

• Social marketing proved to be one of the top tools when considering three main criteria simultaneously: user quality, conversion rate, and volume.
• Ad campaigns for games perform very well when using social marketing.
• As the "social channel" expands, the cost of conducting social ad campaigns will increase.
• In terms of user quality, search is unrivaled. However, it faces significant challenges in terms of the number of users and, even more so, conversion.
• If your primary interest is in the number of downloads, it's best to turn to ad networks. There are many of them now. The problem is that they often struggle with user quality, meaning conversions could be better. However, in some cases, ad networks perform very well (though predicting when an ad will work is impossible). Still, many ad networks can optimize campaigns for conversion, installs, and even IAP.
• There is currently growth in CPA offerings in the market.
• Incentivized traffic shows good conversion, but its user quality is very low. However, much of this depends on the type of application. In cases with programs that have a high K-factor (organic downloads), incentivized traffic performs very well.

You can find the full version of the report in English here.