5 top tips when advertising your mobile apps on Facebook

By Sukey Miller - August 19, 2022

We’ve compiled insights and guidance to help app marketers get the most from the substantial marketing opportunities Facebook represents.

Facebook is the largest social media network with more users than any other platform – approximately three billion worldwide. Recent analytics show that roughly 1.96 billion people are active on Facebook every day.

Its algorithm collects data on the interests of users and then prioritizes the content they show you during scroll times accordingly. This is great for app marketing campaigns as they have a better chance to be seen by those with genuine interest. For example, when a user responds to financial news or trade reports, Facebook will show ads for banking and broker apps in their feeds.

The app market is fiercely competitive and app marketing must be on point if an app wishes to gain a slice of this lucrative pie. This article looks at the do’s and don’ts when advertising your mobile apps on Facebook.

1. First impressions count

On average, Facebook users take only 0.3 seconds to decide whether they will view an ad or not. Grabbing their attention from the start is crucial.

You need to employ combinations of imagery, audio and content to hook users. Remember to feature your brand and its values within the first three seconds and combine it with all the creative tools in your arsenal.

Using Facebook’s reach and in-depth guidance in your ad campaigns can make a significant difference to your own reach and traffic.

Facebook provides valuable educational tools and background information that enables you to build the best ads for your goals. For example, guidance on setting traffic goals and how to manage payable advertisements to help you to gain a complete picture before diving in. It’s definitely worth checking this out.

2. Be specific with objectives

As Facebook functions according to an algorithm, it needs to ‘know’ what your campaign objectives are. For this purpose, keep your goals precise and simple.

Sticking to one objective will render better results and make better use of the algorithm to not negatively impact your metrics. For example, a campaign aiming to increase reach may not be able to increase traffic at the same time.

Through Facebook’s Pixel tracking and SDK , you are able to monitor whether you have met your objectives. What was the ROI? How many new paying users did you acquire? What was the CPP? Is there anything you would do differently next time to improve your campaign outcome?

3. Focus your targeting

There are three main types of audiences to consider in your quest to find paying users: Facebook audiences (filtered), custom audiences and lookalikes. You can also easily overlay your own demographic and interest filters to custom audiences (i.e. paying user audiences) to find the ones who are more likely to be engaged by your app and therefore go on to pay.

Create lookalike audiences from audiences that have already engaged with your ad, app or product. Lookalikes enable you to target similar users. They regenerate every 3-7 days. Refine lookalike audiences by targeting users who like similar things.

4. Avoid making too many changes

Making too many changes once a Facebook campaign has gone live will affect your campaign’s performance. Start with enough daily budget to reach as many users as possible at the lowest possible cost and increase as you go along. Also, don’t stop and start your campaigns! This affects the learning process and can make your campaigns less effective.

5. When experimenting…

Facebook will always skew towards data it knows works. It uses your campaign history, data and insights to do so. If you are experimenting and decide to try something new, we advise turning Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) off. This way Facebook will give your experiment a fair run instead of optimizing towards your existing audience which it knows performs well.

More info…Acquire more paying users from your Facebook campaigns 

To reach more of those elusive paying users and gain a higher return on your Facebook advertising investment Bango Audiences has produced a free guide.

Get detailed expert tips and tricks, including: 

  • The foundations for success that will get you to revenue faster
  • Why a strategy that considers monetization and acquisition together is vital
  • Essential tools for accurate tracking and effective analysis
  • Which ad types and placements engage users and increase payment conversions
  • Focused targeting approaches that reach the elusive 5% of users who pay in apps and deliver over 80% of revenue

Download your free copy today and nail paying user acquisition on Facebook

Want to get your ads straight to a new audience of paying users?

With these top tips implemented, getting your ads in front of an audience of new paying users is easier than you think.

Target your social ad campaigns straight to new audiences of active payers that you would never find with other datasets, including your own, with Bango Audiences. 

The Bango Payment Platform processes billions of dollars of in-app payments across the major app stores every year. Our strength in purchase data enables us to build custom audience segments based on detailed app purchase history, including specific titles, categories, spend value and frequency. Digital marketers use these custom audiences to target paying users in similar and high-affinity titles and categories to get higher-performing ads and a lower cost per conversion.

Fully GDPR and CCPA compliant custom audiences shared directly to your social ad accounts for immediate use. No SDK, no integration. Try Bango Audiences in your next c ampaign and find your next paying user.

Top Tips for other social ad platforms:

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