While the effectiveness of certain mobile app advertisements may be in question — especially with so many ad-blocker services available — it appears that organic ads still click with certain audiences.
A report from AppsFlyer (as reported by Adweek) {link no longer active} indicates that, according to their study, organic installs actually have a higher retention rate than ad-based installs. This was based upon more than 450 million installs from clients across both iOS and Android platforms, from May to July. However, only applications with more than 5,000 installs were considered.
The chart above, tracking Android devices, indicates that organic retention actually has a higher effective rate than paid apps, with 46 percent on the first day, rocketing up to 156 percent by Day 30.
Meanwhile, over on IOS, the day one lead was a little smaller at 20 percent, but it showed similar results, as by Day 30, it reached a whopping 133 percent advantage over paid apps.
Facebook and Twitter also do quite well on both platforms when it comes to achieving application retention. In fact, apps advertised on Twitter managed to have a higher retention rate on Android, while Facebook did moderately well on both platforms.
Ran Avrahamy, head of marketing for AppsFlyer, had a lot to say when it came to the power of social networks in apps. “Just like in our Performance Index for the gaming industry, Facebook still reigns supreme in our power rankings, coming in at the top spot on both iOS and Android because of its rare combination of strong retention and unrivaled scale. Meanwhile, Twitter made the most significant leap in the power rankings, in large part due to its exceptional retention rates.”
The measurements continued with this third chart, showcasing the top 25 non-gaming apps for Apple devices. Facebook’s dominance is easy to see, with Twitter not far behind, and Google AdWords, AppLovin and DataLead rounding out the top five.
Meanwhile, over on Android, it’s a different story, as Twitter didn’t even crack the top five. Facebook is on top, followed by Mobvista, Cheetah Mobile, Google AdWords and AppFlood.
Speaking with (a)list daily, Avrahamy added, “We put this list together to help app marketers identify the best performing sources of high quality installs. Our research doesn’t say that mobile app ads don’t lead to high user retention, because they certainly do, especially in the cases of Twitter, Google AdWords, Cheetah Mobile, Facebook, AppLovin and the other networks in our Top 25. As everyone knows, organic installs that come through word-of-mouth or from browsing the app store are always going to have higher retention, but app ads can absolutely drive highly engaged, long-time users as well.”
The full report can be found here.
