Study: App install video ads effective but underfunded

Dive Brief:

Video makes up 50% of all marketing campaign spend, according to data from AdColony’s latest App Install Marketing Survey, which releases today and was made available to Mobile Marketer in advance. Full screen video, in particular, was ranked the most effective ad format by app install marketers.
The survey found that 71% of these advertisers find playable ads to be effective — and 45% claim that that’s what they’re most excited about this year — yet these interactive ads represent just 4% of total ad spend.
Teams that work to drive app installs are growing, the survey found. The number of teams with 10 or more people has surged nearly 3x since fall 2016, and about 70% of app install marketers are part of a team of 4 or more, leading to campaigns being optimized more frequently than ever before.

Dive Insight:

AdColony surveyed the top 250 grossing app developers around the world to provide insights and trends in the mobile gaming and non-gaming app install advertising space. It’s the company's seventh survey of its kind since 2013 and served up similar results to last year’s findings.

Over the past few years, the popularity of mobile video ads has steadily been rising for app install marketers. Logically, budgets have slowly followed, shifting away from social media toward avenues like video, as platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram are becoming increasingly crowded advertising spaces. Video is still relatively new, but more advertisers are now optimizing content to fit the vertical format for more effective consumer consumption and higher ROI.

Playable ads are similar to video in that advertisers can leverage sight, sound and motion, but with a higher level of interactivity. This format is seeing healthy growth from year to year. In 2016, AdColony’s survey showed that playables make up 2% of total ad spend and this year, that number rose to 4%. It makes sense that video and playable ads are more effective in driving app installs. Users get to see — and sometimes actively sample — what a mobile experience will be like, so they know what they’re getting into before installing, which means they’re likely high-quality users that will frequently engage with the app. Plus, the format helps to solve the mobile attribution quandary.

Advertisers should keep in mind that, like all channels and platforms, playables come with drawbacks. Not all platforms support playable ads yet, which could at least partially explain why the tool isn’t scaling quite as quickly as some might’ve hoped. Though full-screen video ads are found to be the most effective, some users might find the screen-consuming popup annoying or intrusive.