How effective is paid promotion of mobile apps? With all the chaos going on, who can you trust?

We spend money on promotion for the sake of results, but there is so much chaos in paid promotion at present. What should I believe?

Points wall? The effect is not good. But do you know what a points wall is? Why can't he do that? Sometimes you may encounter some confusion. Damn, you can still see retention when you push, but it’s gone when you stop pushing. Is it intentional to inflate the number? ! I can tell you the answer is most likely not. Regular paid promotion platforms are more afraid of inflated traffic than you are. They pay out real cash. In fact, a big problem lies in the fact that the points wall has an incentive nature (see the screenshot below).

After you click in, you will find that there are often two types of guidance: one is time guidance, the other is retention guidance, and of course there is also paid guidance. If you use the points wall in the payment method to guide an APP, you will see that these guides are carried out synchronously during the delivery. for example:

Guide ①: If the single use time is not less than 1 minute, you can get 200 points.

Guide ②: Log in the next day and you can get 300 points.

Then the question arises, these users go there not because of the product, but because of the points. If you continue to deliver, you can see the so-called next-day retention, 3-day retention, and 7-day retention. But once these so-called qualities are terminated, they are no longer a thing. Then another question arises, should I invest in the points wall? ! If you are wholeheartedly committed to making a good product, this channel is not suitable for your product in its early stages. Where does he use it? I'll try to be as simple as possible:

①First of all, have you managed to cheat enough money to climb this market?

② Secondly, are you collecting data for product development or to defraud more money (financing)?

Then see whether the channels you are currently using can meet the requirements of the product KPI and how big the gap is? If your product has enough money, and all major marketing channels including new media cannot meet the KPI of your current product, you can consider a points wall. Otherwise, please be careful.

Let’s look at the others. (Screenshot below)

This is PUSH, and the amount of pure PUSH is not large. But you will often see platforms telling you that they have launched PUSH and have several K volumes a day, and the retention rate seems to be good. Then I estimate that there is a 70% chance that they are fooling you.

Pure PUSH only costs a few hundred a day. So what are the other quantities? There are two answers. The first is to assemble packages through the points wall (or other formal channels), and the second is to increase the volume.

So is the PUSH effect good? The pure PUSH effect and the points wall effect are similar in that the customers are not proactive, but there is no guidance. So once PUSH is stopped, will it become like a points wall? The answer is no. If you have tested it before, you will find that the push retention curve is relatively smooth, while the retention curve of the point wall drops directly into the valley. Then PUSH’s choice of App operation can be taken into consideration, as it is more in line with certain product needs. The premise is, is the platform you are connecting with reliable? ! Is it willing to give you pure push when it comes to interests?

Next, let me talk about the lock screen (screenshot below)

Looks very high-end, right? It’s definitely better than the points wall. Just don’t be fooled by the appearance, the lock screen is upgraded from the points wall. It is also guided, but there is a certain degree of randomness. Because every time you lock and unlock the screen, there are accidents, you may not be able to see the APP you have launched. After unlocking it, you will get into the topic and you will find that this is a points wall. Yes! So why does this channel still exist? You have to think about what is missing from the points wall? Image page in brand VI. The lock screen makes up for some of the shortcomings of the pure boot method, which is gratifying. So is lock screen worth investing in? I personally think you can try it, but don't hold your hopes too high.

The single usage time of the lock screen is basically less than 1 minute, and this single usage time refers to the average single usage time of users. The guide retention is really amazing, 50+% the next day. This is the highlight of the lock screen, but it also cannot escape the common problem of the points wall.

Finally, let me talk about the recommendation wall (recommendation position)

There are many other payment channels that I won’t mention one by one. Many times when I mention recommended positions, your first reaction is the major markets. Paid advertising recommendation positions are not available in major markets. (Screenshot below)

How does it look like a market? It is just a product directly operated by developers distributed by the platform. Sometimes it is purely recommended, and sometimes it is clicked somewhere. So the question is, are there many such recommendation-type cooperation products on the market? Then the next question arises, the platform told me that it would give me a recommended position and give me 5K traffic a day? ! You have been fooled again, paid promotion is not that great, they are not in major markets, and its volume is at most similar to PUSH. This kind of channel is hard to come by and not every platform is willing to give it to you, they also want to make money. So is this channel worth investing in? That is a must.

But you have to think about one question: how much money would you give? 1.5?0.8? ? Do you know how much a good offer wall costs? It is 1.5. So you will see people around you saying, I put out 1.5 for CPA activation and they put me in the recommended position and paid 5K a day. Do you believe it? If you believe it, it's really weird. They put it together.

Supplement: The above statement is purely personal opinion and contains some bias. It does not represent an absolute situation. All problems and all descriptions require the operators themselves to go to the market to hone their skills in order to come to their own true insights. Paid promotion is currently in a state of chaos, but at the same time we cannot deny its effectiveness. All the major platforms I know of are striving to move towards big data to meet the increasingly higher requirements of their products. We need to give them more time, and of course our own operations must keep up with the pace of the times. I have said so much, not for any other reason, but just because I feel that I am also in the mobile Internet and I need to share something insignificant for this industry.