How to screen high-quality APP promotion channels?

With the rapid development of the mobile Internet industry, the promotion channels of APPs are becoming more and more diversified. However, for APP operation and promotion personnel, the quality of channels is far more important than the quantity. Sometimes, the effect of launching a hundred ordinary channels is not as good as launching a single high-quality channel. Therefore, in the operation and promotion of APP, learning to screen high-quality channels is undoubtedly a necessary skill.

1. What are the APP promotion channels?

If an APP wants to acquire users, it needs to rely on the power of channels. Here are some mainstream promotion channels:

Channel 1: App Store Promotion

App store promotion is currently one of the most important channels for APP promotion and also the channel with the largest number of user downloads. It mainly includes: large-scale coverage of major mobile phone stores, third-party application stores, etc. The larger the release platform, the better the promotion effect. Now all major app stores have free activities that you can apply for. If the quality of your product is relatively good, you can apply for the recommended position in major stores, such as: App Store, 360, Huawei, Xiaomi's new product recommendations, Meizu's early adopter list, etc.

Channel 2: New media promotion

New media promotion is the use of new media platforms such as WeChat, Weibo, and Tieba to promote brands. Widely disseminate product information to users, thereby increasing user participation and product awareness.

New media promotion is divided into:

• Brand-based promotion : The APP has just been launched, there are no users, no brand awareness, and there is even no introduction to the APP product in the market. At this time, it is necessary to establish the product's brand foundation by creating brand entries in Baidu Encyclopedia and 360 Encyclopedia.
• Q&A promotion : mainly based on product-related keywords on major Q&A platforms, posting various product-related posts, or answering other people’s questions. After posting, you should regularly maintain your posts, promptly answer questions raised by users, collect user feedback, and optimize product and user experience.
• Social platform promotion: As the influence of social media grows, many APP operation and promotion personnel pay more and more attention to this promotion method. It mainly increases brand awareness through word-of-mouth communication among users. If necessary, you can plan activities, forward messages, etc. to increase product exposure.

Channel 3: Exchange

Traffic exchange means exchanging resources. You can exchange with the application market, with other APPs, or join the traffic exchange alliance. Specific forms include content cooperation, pop-ups, focus pictures, in-app recommendations, etc.

• Content cooperation: It is to attract some potential users in other APPs/websites through the high-quality content of some products, so as to achieve the purpose of promotion.
• Pop-up promotion: It is a form of advertising that pops up when users open other apps/websites. This type of promotion is effective, but it greatly affects the user experience.
• Focus picture promotion: It is to place pictures about product information in a more prominent position in other applications/websites. Because this method is completed in the form of pictures, it has a certain visual appeal.
• In-app recommendation: It means placing each other in the recommendation position or recommendation column within each app.

Suggestion: Before exchanging traffic, you need to consider whether there is a competitive relationship with the other party, what the other party’s brand image is like, etc.

Channel 4: Ground promotion

Ground promotion is very important for accumulating word-of-mouth in the early stages of a product, because it is the most direct way of communication with users, which can eliminate some potential users' concerns to a certain extent and increase potential users' trust in the product. Even during the field promotion process, we can interact with users and obtain the most direct user feedback, thereby optimizing the product.

2. How to select channels

Many APP operation and promotion personnel will use multi-channel promotion methods to quantify the promotion effect, but the quality of each channel is uneven, so we need to evaluate each channel. We can select suitable and efficient promotion channels for products according to different needs. We can select channels by comparing various data indicators.

The screening channels can generally be carried out from two aspects:

1. Quantity - Find the channels that acquire the most users

To screen a high-quality channel, it is an essential prerequisite that the number of its users reaches a certain scale. We usually observe and compare the following indicators:

• Download volume: refers to the number of users who download and install through the channel.
• Registration volume: refers to the number of users who have registered among those who downloaded and installed the app.
• Number of active users: The number of active users refers to the number of users who have launched the APP within a certain statistical period. Active users are important data used to measure the user scale and product status of the APP. According to different statistical periods, they can generally be divided into: daily active users, weekly active users, and monthly active users. Active users are important data for measuring the quality of channel users.
• User retention rate: refers to the ratio of new users who remain after a certain period of time. It is roughly divided into next-day retention rate, weekly retention rate, and monthly retention rate.
• Number of new users (activated users): New users refer to users who launch the app for the first time after installing it, that is, activated users. It is meaningless for users to download the app but not use it. Therefore, when evaluating the user quality of a channel, we should not only focus on the number of users' downloads, but also the actual number of users' activations. Users who download the app and start using it can be considered real users. This is an important indicator to measure the effectiveness of channel promotion.

2. Quality: Find the channel with the highest quality users

We can judge which channel has the highest user quality based on two dimensions: user behavior indicators and revenue indicators.

User behavior indicators:

Generally, operators will judge user stickiness based on their operating behavior. The higher the stickiness, the higher the quality of the user. We usually observe and compare the following indicators:

• Number of launches: refers to the number of times users open the APP in a certain statistical period. Generally, there are daily launches, weekly launches, monthly launches, and the average number of launches per person in the corresponding period.
• Online usage duration: refers to the duration from when a user opens an APP to when they close the APP during the statistical period. The average usage time and single usage time can also be extended from the usage time. The average usage time = total usage time during the statistical period / number of active users during the statistical period; single usage time = total usage time during the statistical period / number of starts. This indicator is an important indicator to measure user stickiness and product quality. The usage time is generally analyzed together with the number of startups.
• Number of visited pages: refers to the number of product pages visited by users within a certain statistical period. For example, the number of active users who visit pages 1 to 2, the number of active users who visit pages 3 to 5, etc., can be used to determine the level of the number of visited pages based on different statistical periods. The page quality and user experience can be judged by the difference in the number of page visits.

Revenue indicators:

There are two main indicators for measuring revenue. One is the monetizable traffic within the app, and the other is the number of paying users of the app. The specific data indicators to look at depend on the core business of the app.

We usually observe and compare the following indicators:

• PR (paying rate): the ratio of paying users to the total number of imported users. The behaviors of paid users and free users are very different. It is recommended to treat paid users and free users differently and track the behaviors, churn rates, and revenues of paid users separately. By serving paying users well and increasing the amount they pay, you can increase your revenue.
• ARPU: The average revenue that each active user brings to the product. It calculates the revenue that each user brings to the product in a certain period of time.
• ARPPU: refers to the average revenue that paying users bring to a product within a certain period of time. It mainly measures the payment status of paying users and the overall payment trend.
• First payment time: How long after activation will the user start paying? This helps to grasp the timing of paid conversion users. For example, if we find that most users start paying after 7 days of activation, then we can consider guiding users who have activated for 6 days to pay, such as sending them coupons, etc., to guide them to pay.

By using various data indicators to evaluate the number and quality of users in each channel, we can select high-quality promotion channels, which can provide a strong optimization basis for the App's promotion strategy.

Notice! Depending on the different statistical calibers, the statistical plans are also different, which can be roughly divided into: account-based statistical plans and device-based statistical plans. The statistical plan can be determined based on the business needs of its own products.

3. Where do these data indicators come from?

The most direct method is to use a third-party channel statistics tool. There are many statistics tools for APP applications. By integrating the SDK method, you can directly access the third-party statistics tool, so that you can quickly obtain channel data.

A good channel statistics tool must ensure stable services, comprehensive and complete data indicators and dimensions, and accurate data. Introducing several commonly used statistical tools in China: Umeng, talkingdata, and openinstall.

• Umeng: It is the earliest platform in China to enter the field of statistical analysis. It has a rich product line and performs relatively well in data stability and functional completeness.
• TalkingData : It started out mainly as a game statistics analysis company, and in the field of Internet big data, its products tend to be digital services.
• openinstall: Focuses on the field of APP installation source tracking, can accurately identify the user's source channel, and is relatively professional in channel statistics. It can be used if there is a need for user invitation binding relationship, ground promotion statistics, and advertising monitoring.

Conclusion

Promotion at any time cannot be separated from data, and we must learn to find problems from the data. Although data indicators are not omnipotent, promotion without data indicators is absolutely impossible. During the promotion process, we need to develop relevant screening methods based on different products and needs, so as to identify the quality of channels and select high-quality channels suitable for the products.

Of course, a good blacksmith must have strong tools. In addition to doing a good job of operation and promotion, the quality of the product itself is also an important factor. If the product itself is not good enough, no matter how good the operation and promotion are, it will not retain users.

Source: CC_DingDong