In today’s multitouch media landscape, a cross-channel marketing strategy that spans in-app and mobile web touchpoints is a great way to access new pockets of users. At LifeStreet, we’ve seen much success with app-to-web conversion flows, especially following changes to data granularity after the release of iOS 14.5.
Below, we define app-to-web conversion flows and why you should consider adding it to your company’s mobile advertising mix.
What is app-to-web?
App-to-web adds a mobile web touchpoint to a typical in-app advertising conversion flow. By leveraging the frictionless experience of mobile web, an app-to-web flow can drive specific actions; such as capturing a new user registration or driving trial sign-ups.
Rather than a player seeing an in-app ad, tapping it and downloading an app, an app-to-web conversion flow takes a user to a mobile web page to register. Because mobile web conversion represents a low-friction experience, it’s a highly viable growth channel. It also lets marketers take advantage of app and gaming traffic, regardless of whether they have their own app. For example, a user playing a mobile game might be served a rewarded ad offering cash or prizes in exchange for completing a task, like a quick survey. When the user taps on the incentivized offer and completes the survey on a mobile web page, this represents an app-to-web conversion. In this way, app-to-web expands the quality and variety of inventory available to performance marketers looking to tap into the mobile ecosystem.
While marketers with their own app can use app-to-web to incentivize actions (for example, a subscription app looking to drive free trial sign ups); at LifeStreet, we typically use this conversion flow with performance marketing agencies that don’t have their own app but still want to leverage app inventory to drive performance for clients. For these marketers, app-to-web combines the technology and innovation of in-app advertising with the frictionless ease of mobile web conversion.
The benefits of app-to-web
Amid the complexities of iOS 14.5, mobile web touchpoints offer a breath of fresh air to performance marketers looking to build an agile growth strategy and unlock new traffic. Below we cover the main benefits of an app-to-web conversion flow.
Expanded Reach & Discoverability
There are 3.8 billion smartphone users around the globe. How can a mobile marketer even begin to access this total addressable market? By diversifying their growth stack to expand beyond just desktop channels.
Imagine a user’s experience when they’re engaging with a new brand. The average individual has 80+ apps on their smartphone. However, they only engage with around 9 apps per day. With so many apps on their phone already, it’s understandable that a user might be hesitant to download yet another app to their device. This stands to benefit performance marketers that don’t have an app. Rather than requiring users to download an app to drive conversions, a performance marketer can leverage existing apps’ ad space while still incentivizing them to undertake a desired action.
As an example — let’s say a user is playing a mobile game and sees an in-app banner offering rewards for signing up for a free trial for a streaming service. After tapping the banner, they might drop off when they are linked to the app store to download the streaming app. On the other hand, if the banner links them to a mobile web landing page, they’ll be less likely to drop off; and, instead, sign up for a free trial without having to download the app first.
Enhanced Measurability
With the deprecation of the IDFA, full-funnel measurability and targeting have gotten more complex. Today, advertisers that depend on networks that rely on the IDFA (Facebook, Google, Twitter) have less visibility on the users who engage with their ads. SKAdNetwork does not offer granular attribution data. As SKAd is also not a real-time attribution mechanism, it doesn’t support deferred deep linking either.
This is where mobile web touch points can fill the gaps created by iOS 14.5. With an app-to-web campaign, you can flow users from an in-app ad to an owned mobile site. This enables highly-accurate, real-time attribution of users.
Cost Efficiency
Tens of thousands of new apps are released in the App Store and Google Play Store every month. With that said, the business of app advertising gets more intricate and competitive every year, especially since the deprecation of the IDFA. As historically popular channels get less measurable and more expensive, cost-efficient mobile web touch points have become an attractive channel to marketers looking to shore up costs. If you do have an app, running a web acquisition campaign can cut down App Store fees by 15%-30%. For this reason, web acquisition campaigns have become a popular strategy among performance marketers.
Brand Recognition & Retention
Users are more likely to convert after coming to fully understand a brand’s benefits and offerings. An app-to-web conversion flow can support marketers by helping them build a more in-depth onboarding journey. For example, taking a user from an in-app ad to a mobile landing page promoting your brand can give you an opportunity to educate new customers about your value proposition.
Mobile websites can be also used to drive certain high-value actions that generate conversions down the line. For example, you might target a player with an incentivized offer in a mobile game and then link them to a mobile web page that captures their email for future promotions by asking them to take a survey, subscribe to a service, enter a sweepstakes, watch videos, or play games in exchange for a new console game.
Takeaways
We’ve seen much success with app-to-web conversion flows at LifeStreet. Amid the complexities of iOS 14.5, mobile web touchpoints offer a breath of fresh air to performance marketers looking to build an agile growth strategy and unlock new traffic.
- What is app-to-web? Rather than a player seeing an in-app ad, tapping it and downloading an app, app-to-web takes a user to the mobile web to register. For example, a user might see a rewarded ad while playing a game and be linked to a mobile web page to complete a survey in exchange for in-game rewards.
- A way to unlock new channels. App-to-web unlocks app and gaming traffic for marketers that might not have their own app. In this way, app-to-web expands the quality and variety of inventory available to performance marketers looking to tap into the mobile ecosystem.
- Benefits of app-to-web: Expanded reach, enhanced measurability in the post-IDFA world, decreased costs and increased retention!
Looking to give app-to-web a try?
It’s always good to be testing new strategies and channels! Reach out to us to unlock new inventory and explore the benefits of app-to-web conversion flows for your brand.