Celebrating 1 year of mobile app promotion

Every day, people use Twitter to discover new ideas, trends and products — including apps. A year ago, we launched mobile app promotion to help marketers drive cost-effective app installs and engagements. Along the way, we’ve enhanced the product suite with new targeting, creative and measurement features - enabling our advertisers to more effectively connect with the right audience on Twitter.

These product improvements are delivering high returns on investment for clients across all verticals, from tech to entertainment to retail. Take delivery service Postmates (@Postmates), who used the platform to launch its app in new markets. Not only did the company double quarter over quarter conversions on Twitter; it also saw CPIs 25% lower than any other ad platform:

Twitter has become an integral part of our user acquisition efforts. We launched in several new markets and mobile app promotion was key to our success, providing an outlet for us to capitalize on the buzz attached to our launches in new cities, as well as tie our delivery promotions to acquisition and re-engagement efforts.

Madison OieGrowth Marketing Analyst, Postmates

Lyft (@Lyft), an early adopter of mobile app promotion, used the product to acquire and engage with users via geo-targeted promotions:

Over the past year, Twitter has become our go-to channel for social media marketing. We’ve seen tremendous results with up to 3x better performance than other social media channels. We rely on Twitter to drive brand awareness, efficient acquisition, and ongoing activation of our target customers.

David MausolfSenior Online Marketing Manager, Lyft

Comedy Central (@ComedyCentral) combined TV, keyword and username targeting to reach fans of its most popular shows:

Twitter’s mobile app promotion product suite enables us to connect with fans when they are most likely to engage with our Comedy Central app. By leveraging granular targeting to reach our fans, paired with creative that promotes exclusive video content found in the app, we’ve seen exceptional performance. We have exceeded our cost per instalI goals by 66%.

Shawn SilvermanVP of Brand Marketing, Comedy Central

Ticketing platform SeatGeek (@SeatGeek) used Twitter to drive a high volume of installs at well below their cost per install (CPI) goal:

Over the course of the last year, we’ve consistently been able to beat our cost per install targets by 20% on several hundred thousand installs. We saw strong gains in cost efficiency using tailored audiences to exclude previous app installs from our user acquisition campaigns, even as we’ve continued to scale our efforts.

Will FlahertyDirector of Growth, SeatGeek

And, community-powered shopping platform Mercari (@mercari_app) found success using mobile app promotion to acquire users on a global scale:

Twitter offers targeting with high precision, so we were able to acquire new users at a 20% lower CPI from our target by promoting content that appealed to specific targeting audiences. Furthermore, we were also able to scale in terms of the number of installs, confirming that Twitter is one of the best promotion channels for Mercari.

Naoya SukigaraSenior Marketing Specialist, Mercari

We’re only just getting started
As we head into the second year of mobile app promotion, we’re committed to creating the best platform for driving cost-effective app installs and engagements at scale. Today, we’re pleased to announce three beta products that will be rolling out to all mobile app advertisers globally over the coming months.

Video App Card: Showcase your app within a video ad - providing an immersive experience that drives higher quality app installs.

Optimized action bidding: This new bidding type allows app install advertisers to optimize their bids according to install, while still paying by app click — offering another way to lower cost-per-installs and yield the highest possible ROI.

Cost per install bidding: Advertisers can bid, optimize and pay by install giving you cost-efficiency and maximum control over your cost per install.

Video app card

In addition, mobile app marketers will soon be able to leverage Twitter’s unique targeting to reach mobile users across a wide range of Twitter partner apps on more than 1 billion mobile devices. Kabam has been testing this offering and seeing impressive results:

We’ve been thrilled to have multiplied the scale of our top 10 grossing Marvel: Contest of Champions install campaigns by 5x by running them on Twitter partner apps. We look forward to the opportunity using mobile app promotion to help maintain Kabam’s market leadership position.

Jordan EdelsteinVP of Marketing, Kabam

Get started
To learn more about mobile app promotion, contact your account team or sign up for an account at ads.twitter.com. You can also visit our Help Center to learn more about creating a mobile app promotion campaign.