Apple Search Ads are now possible in Switzerland - according to the study they are a good choice

Apple Search Ads are the new tool of choice for marketing apps alongside Facebook and Google, as they deliver the highest-revenue users at a competitive price. This is revealed by the latest Performance Index, which AppsFlyer publishes twice a year as the leading platform for mobile advertising attribution and marketing analytics. The benchmark of the leading advertising networks, broken down by region and app category, has established itself as an important guide for data-based media buying for the marketing of apps.

AppsFlyer is a data-driven marketer whose technology can be found on 98 percent of all smartphones. AppsFlyer tracks billions of mobile user actions every day, enabling advertisers and developers to maximize the return on their advertising spend. AppsFlyer sees its role as providing advertisers with the data they need to make intelligent decisions about their campaigns and media buying. This includes data on which advertising networks generate a) many, b) many active and c) many paying users.

Attract attention with search ads in the App Store

The App Store is one of the most important sources for users to find new apps. However, with well over 2 million apps in the Apple Store alone, it has become a major challenge for providers to get their app noticed. This is why Apple created a way to advertise apps via search ads in the fall of 2016. Until now, the format was only available in the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Now Canada and Mexico have been added to Switzerland.

According to AppsFlyer, the performance to date in the English-speaking markets has exceeded expectations: Apple Search Ads have taken less than a year to reach a top position in the global comparison of mobile advertising networks. Compared to other networks, they generate 30 percent more revenue per user (average revenue per user = ARPU) for iOS apps at 40 percent lower costs.

"If you want to market an iOS app in Switzerland, you're backing the right horse with Apple Search Ads. App providers should include the search ads in their Christmas campaigns in particular, as long as coveted keywords are not yet too competitive. Similar to Google's search ads, the ads are based on search queries made by users. This makes them particularly effective, as the path from ad to download is particularly short if there is already a concrete interest in new apps during the search and the user is already in the App Store," says Ben Jeger, Managing Director DACH of AppsFlyer.

The most important findings at a glance:

The Power Ranking provides information on how well the networks succeed in generating quantity (number of generated downloads adjusted for fraud) in combination with quality (user engagement) and loyalty (number of sessions per user). For the first time, AppsFlyer is also introducing an ROI index that shows the advertising networks with the best revenue-to-cost ratio.

Apple Search Ads have taken less than a year to reach the top of the Power Ranking. In the non-gaming category, they take 3rd place, in the gaming ranking it is 4th place. The search ads in the App Store land in 1st place in the newly introduced iOS ROI Ranking.

Facebook and Google dominate the Performance Index by a greater margin than ever before. Facebook remains the undisputed number one in the global power rankings in terms of reach and quality of users, closely followed by Google in second place. Its dominance is particularly noticeable in the non-gaming sector. Here, its share of all downloads generated is 70 percent higher than its share in the gaming sector. The two giants are also impressive when it comes to evaluating ROI: In the Android ROI Index, they land in first and second place by generating twice as much revenue as the other networks at an average cost. In the iOS ROI Index, Facebook came in second place with an average of 50 percent more revenue at 20 percent lower costs than other networks, while Google secured third place.

Twitter delivers good results in the non-gaming sector, both in terms of reach and quality of users, and comes in 4th place in the Power Ranking. In the Gaming Power Ranking, the micro-blogging service secures a place in the top 10. In the ROI Index, however, Twitter is not represented among the top positions.

Video networks remain particularly strong in the gaming sector: Unity Ads holds 3rd place in the Power Ranking behind Facebook and Google, with Vungle in 7th place followed by AdColony in 8th place. Video ads deliver valuable users, as the multimedia ads give a good impression of the advertised game. This helps to filter out less interested and therefore less valuable users before they download the game. The specialists are therefore also convincing in the ROI Index, above all AdColony, which is in 4th place.

Gaming apps tend to work with a small number of global networks, as gaming apps are often marketed internationally. Non-gaming apps are more differentiated and choose a mix of global players and locally strong networks for marketing. (pd/hae)

About the study:

To create the Performance Index, AppsFlyer analyzed 6 billion app downloads and 80 billion usage sessions in 5,500 apps and compared 250 advertising networks in the period from January to June 2017. The ROI Index included data from over 800 apps, over 40 million downloads and a turnover of over 150 million USD. The data was adjusted for fraudulent traffic. App marketers can download the full report with all rankings here: Appsflyer.com/index