As a mobile marketer, one of your main responsibilities is getting people to engage with your company’s mobile app. Building awareness to increase installs is important, but more important is having people actually use it, as their activity will likely be your revenue driver. This is where mobile app engagement ads come in handy. They are designed to get users back to your app.

Example of a Facebook Mobile App Engagement Ad in the News Feed

Similar to a retargeting campaign for your website but for mobile, you can use app engagement ads that will deep-link and drive traffic back to a specific page of your app. Use these ads to encourage users to try your app again, drive a specific action they’ve already started, or recommend certain features.

Why Mobile App Engagement Ads

There are millions of mobile apps available in the App Store and Google Play Store. While you may be willing to pay for an install, keeping someone in your app as a loyal user can be challenging at times.

For example, let’s say you’re in charge of marketing a gaming app, where your revenue stems from in-app purchases and impressions from advertisements. You’ve increased your user installs by 10% this month for the app, but are noticing that app traffic and in-app purchases have remained flat. Sound familiar?

To grow revenue, you have to start thinking outside of the box and begin engaging with your users in other innovative ways. If you’re already emailing them reminders to visit the app, but your email click-through rate is only 10%, you’re missing out on 90% of potential traffic.

This is where mobile app engagements ads can help. They’re available on both Facebook and Twitter, which means two additional channels to reach your users. These channels are particularly important because according to a study in 2014 by eMarketer, people spend an average of 42 minutes per day on Facebook and 17 minutes per day on Twitter.

So let’s dive into some best practices to use when crafting your mobile app engagement ads.

Best Practices for Mobile App Engagement Ads

A unique feature of mobile app engagement ads allows you drive users back to a specific page or section of your mobile app, also known as deep-linking. Mobile app engagement ads are very similar to retargeting ads, except for your mobile app. If we go back to the gaming app example, you can get users back to your game with the deep-link functionality that engagement ads offer. Here are some recommendations on how to tailor your ads for better performance:

• Install an SDK for Mobile User Analytics

  Even though engagement ads are similar to retargeting, the messaging is not dynamic just yet. Installing a third-party analytics SDK or the Facebook and Twitter SDKs in your app will allow you to gather analytics on your users. You can then create Custom and Tailored Audiences for your ad campaigns. With these insights on page visits and app destinations, you can customize your ads with the right message.

• Tailor Your Messaging

  As we know, reminding your user of the page where she or he failed to convert is a best practice for web retargeting ads. Employ this similar strategy for your engagement ads, making sure you show users an ad that is relevant to what they’ve already expressed interest in doing in your app.

• Mimic Your Email Strategy

  If you’ve required an email to use your app, you’re likely using that email address for email campaigns right? That’s perfect. Now you can take what’s in your existing email drip and amplify it with social ads. People are inundated with hundreds of emails per day, so adding additional touch points in an unobtrusive way helps get your messaging across. Whether your objective is brand awareness or direct response, mobile app engagement ads can help you achieve your goals.

Have you tried mobile app engagement ads on Twitter or Facebook? What are your experiences with this ad type? Let us know in the comments!