With the steady growth in how users engage with and spend time on mobile devices, the mobile marketing industry and its app ecosystem have constantly evolved and advanced over the years. It is estimated that smartphone users worldwide will surpass 6.5 billion by the end of 2022. In India as well, the number of smartphone users is expected to double to 829 million in 2022 from 404.1 million in 2017 (Source- Cisco). Such an upsurge in usage enables both opportunities and challenges for app developers to create, launch, personalize and promote apps that best fit the needs and demands of billions of mobile phone users.
In present times, to connect and engage with smartphone users, businesses not only adapt innovative marketing strategies but also run advertising campaigns to target specific users via personalized communication. This is accomplished using a diverse mix of app user acquisition strategies where mobile marketers place their budgets on different advertising channels. A prominent example includes that of alternative app stores offered by mobile OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) like Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Samsung, and Realme, which enables app growth and staying on top of the competition.
Understanding the promising opportunities with alternative app stores for mobile marketers..
When app developers release new apps, they are highly impacted during the pre-launch and discovery stages to gain visibility – after all, nearly 4k apps are added to the Google Play Store daily. Marketers and advertisers compete against each other to get better engagement and maximum reach in their respective app verticals. This makes it increasingly difficult for apps with pocket-friendly marketing budgets to compete against similar apps.
Hence, mobile marketers are looking for new ways to elevate their mobile marketing mix from traditional and third-party advertising channels to a more sophisticated ecosystem, such as alternative app stores. These alternative app stores are brand-safe, cost-efficient, and fraud-free and target users based on similar interests beyond category to increase app install rates.
Mobile OEMs help in four pivotal ways…
- Market presence – An increasing number of Android mobile OEMs like Xiaomi, Huawei, Oppo, Samsung, and Vivo dominate Asia’s smartphone industry with a huge market share of 73.38% as of August 2022. These devices are now being sold in every small to large electronics retail store and are advertised online and offline at a similar scale as the previous market leaders in Asia. As an example, Vivo – one of the top five mobile OEMs worldwide, announced its partnership as the official sponsor for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022. .
- Accessibility – Alternative app stores offer not only the look & feel of a smartphone brand but also awaken an intrinsic feeling of loyalty and trust for users to engage with them. In addition, the simple steps of downloading applications from a smartphone’s app store make it effortless and uncomplicated for users to find relevant resources to fulfill their needs.
- Cost-effectiveness (lower CPI) – Unlike the cost models involved in third-party services running ads on Cost Per Click (CPC) pricing, mobile OEMs offer better ROI with the Cost Per Install (CPI) pricing model. Here, the advertiser pays the publisher every time users install the app, thus, proving to be more result-driven for apps in an effort to drive more installs than just clicks.
- Fraud-free – Mobile OEMs offer a fraud-proof advertising ecosystem to help scale a brand’s user acquisition efforts. No additional layers or middle parties are involved between the budget holder and the mobile OEM itself, making it highly reliable for advertisers to place their trust in OEM app marketing.
Preloaded apps are gaining popularity…
Mobile app marketing is now more focused on building loyal and relevant users than just getting mere installs. Now, there is a possibility that preloaded apps can be run with personalized recommendations on mobile phones. This has changed the notion of preloaded apps being entirely unwanted to becoming a valuable source of user engagement.
The biggest advantage of preloaded apps is that the user does not have to look for apps on the app store. Mobile marketers who are looking for ways to promote their apps directly on mobile OEMs should see preloaded apps as one of the most effective, exclusive, and direct routes to do so most reliably. Moreover, since the app is available to users by being on the device first, it gives them strong visibility to be a ‘go-to’ app for a fresh set of users.
Mobile OEMs are a powerful resource for mobile marketers to scale their advertising mix..
Mobile OEMs, as we see them through the lens of the mobile advertising world today, are proving to be a successful advertising channel for user acquisition. They are enabling mobile marketers and app publishers to garner fresh users for their mobile apps from more than 1.5 billion daily active users (DAU).
Harnessing the power of mobile OEM and considering it as a powerful advertising tool and a new-age solution will continue to empower brands with various advertising opportunities throughout a device’s lifecycle and present them with a new and sustainable user acquisition channel to take advantage of.
Views expressed are personal.
