Consumer Acquisition’s UA Media Buying Model for Facebook, TikTok, and Google App Advertisers

In today’s post, we explain our UA Media Buying Model and how it works in tandem with our Ad Concept Model. Learn the media buying best practice strategies for Facebook Android, Facebook iOS SKAN, Google, and TikTok, including:

  • Increase ad-buying success rate across social platforms leveraging our account structure and media model
  • Develop and systematize a process to test account configuration and media buying tactics
  • Increase communication of media buying strategies to stakeholders

With the negative impacts of IDFA loss, including erosion of lookalike audience targeting on iOS, a constant stream of fresh creative concepts paired with smart, iterative testing is the most effective method for sustained profitable user acquisition. To address creative development and communication, we recently shared our Ad Concept Model, which efficiently systematizes the creation of persona-led ad concepts. Applicable to any app category— including mobile games, mobile subscription apps, fintech apps, DTC, and many more— our methodology maps competitive creative trends to user motivations to create defined paths for new ad concept ideation and simple communication.

Consumer Acquisition’s Media Buying Model

As a complementary tool to our Ad Concept Model, we are introducing our Media Buying Model which uses a similar matrixed approach to systematize best practices for user acquisition campaign development. Any mobile app can leverage a unique combination of distinct UA strategies and campaign parameters to develop a robust testing harness for ongoing mobile campaigns across social platforms.

In its most generic state, our Media Buying Model looks like the matrix below, prior to building out a mobile app user acquisition strategy. The entire matrix is tailored to a respective ad network and operating system requirements and constraints. Geographies, languages, and bid types are all modified based on the client’s needs. Each campaign is structured to meet specific goals at the intersection of strategies and parameters.

Media Buying Model

The entire matrix is tailored to a respective ad network and operating system requirements and constraints. Geographies, languages, and bid types are all modified based on the client’s needs. Each campaign is structured to meet specific goals at the intersection of strategies and parameters.

 

Testing on Android

Even prior to IDFA loss, Consumer Acquisition conducted creative and UA testing on Android because it was less expensive, and results translated well to iOS. We saved iOS testing for the rare clients without an Android app or those who were solely targeting iOS users.

Android Capabilities

  • Unlimited ad accounts and campaigns
  • Unobstructed deterministic tracking
  • Comprehensive A/B testing with full reporting
  • Distributed scale and spend across campaigns
  • Rapid testing, unlimited test campaigns
  • Success drivers easy to identify and scale
  • Google Firebase enables tROAS, delivering ~15% lift on CPA campaigns with better user mapping

iOS IDFA Impacts

  • Many accounts but only 9 campaigns, 5 ad sets
  • SKAN tracking disabled after 24-48 hours (See AppsFlyer Conversion Studio below)
  • A/B testing in DCO blobs, no asset reporting
  • Fewer campaigns, higher budgets, more significant edits
  • Restricted testing, only 9 campaigns
  • Aggregate insights drive slower optimization
  • Post-IDFA, iOS lookalike audiences have lost -65% of their reach and effectiveness

Testing on iOS with AppsFlyer

If you use AppsFlyer on iOS, we recommend testing through Conversion Studio, released September 9, 2021. Conversion Studio helps maximize LTV measurement for post-install activity by:

  • Extending post-install event collection up from 24 hours to 72 hours and enabling D3 optimizations
  • Tracking multiple iOS KPIs instead of only one in SKAN
  • Measuring sequential events in the conversion funnel
  • Marrying SKAN data to AppsFlyer attribution

Why use a model like this?

Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3.5 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. We run our tests using our software AdRules via Facebook, Google, and TikTok APIs. Our Media Buying Model systematizes the UA campaign process, so we know what works, why it works, how to do more of it, and how to easily communicate status. Our process is designed to save time and money by optimizing quickly to reduce non-converting spend and to scale as pockets of efficiency are uncovered.

Below, see our Media Buying Model built out for sample mobile app campaigns across Facebook Android, Facebook iOS SKAN, Google iOS SKAN, and TikTok iOS and Android.

 

Facebook Android Media Buying Model

 

On Facebook, UA campaign goals may include: 

  • High scale AAA campaign in top-performing countries
  • Broad targeting split by geo, using CBO to auto-optimize with additional ROAS boost from the top-performing demo.
  • Split broad targeting by time zone, using CBO to auto-optimize.
  • High Performing LAL audiences based on Primary Metric Value, using CBO to auto-optimize.
  • Exploratory spend split by interest groups, using CBO to auto-optimize.

Benefits of Testing on Android

  • Android unimpacted by IDFA
  • Optimization maintains deterministic efficiency
  • Android Facebook primary for A/B creative and audience testing
  • Rollout Android Facebook winners to iOS and other platforms

Campaign Strategies

  • Scale: increase installs
  • Exploratory: test creative, audiences to feed scale
  • Interests: bridge volume of broad and precision of lookalikes

Audience Strategy

  • CBO structure allows for maximized testing/learning
  • The highest-performing ad sets are relaunched as standalone campaigns to increase scale and performance
  • Initial 3% Lookalike likely to drive the best performance
  • High-performing LALs are immediately scaled as new campaigns
  • High-performing audience seeds are recreated with Frequency parameters
  • Use FB activity to create Lookalike Audiences (ex: Page Engagement, IG Engagement, Video Views, App Value-Based Lookalikes)
  • Purchase: Last 180 days
  • Frequent app users: Last 90 Days

Interest Group Testing

  • Build interest clusters using contextual targeting best practices leveraging personas, likes, pages, competitive apps, etc.
  • Ongoing identification and testing of iterative Interest Groups as campaigns progress

Creative

  • Utilize top creative combinations – image/video + body copy, headline, CTA
  • Creative Format testing- DCO, Carousel, PAC
  • Ad Copy Testing

Creative Testing

  • Phased creative testing, conducted on Android with winners transferred to iOS campaigns

Facebook Android Media Buying Model

 

Facebook iOS Post-IDFA Media Buying Model

 

IDFA Compliance

  • Embrace SKAN limitations: 9 campaigns max, 5 ad sets per campaign max, max 45-60 permutations
  • Optimize account to achieve a minimum of 128 conversions (installs) per campaign per day

Campaign Strategies

  • Scale: drive volume + performance
  • Exploratory: Test VO vs. AEO and Broad vs. Top Demos with single vs. bundled Geos to identify highest-performing Optimization/Geo/Audience (lowest CPT cost per trial)

Creative

  • Move winning creative from Android
  • AAA most successful with groups of high performing creative and copy

Scale

  • VO based on $CPT insights from Exploratory Campaigns
  • Initial AAA campaigns segregated by Geo can bundle US/CA/UK to reduce SKAN campaign slots (only if needed)
  • Campaigns 1-2-3 budgets must be sufficient to support a minimum of 128 installs/day

Exploratory

  • Leverage CBO structure in all campaigns to test individual/bundled Geos within single campaigns
  • Test Broad vs. Top Demo in campaigns 5, 6
  • Test AEO vs VO in campaigns 4, 5
  • Pinpoint opportunity for volume and $CPT efficiency by testing low-CPM images vs. video

Measurement Limitations for iOS Campaigns

  • Pre-IDFA Loss, iOS < 14.5
  • Lifetime deterministic tracking provided in AppsFlyer
  • 28 days of attribution across Facebook, Google, Snap, and Tiktok for bid optimization and creative testing

Measurement Post-IDFA Loss: iOS 14.5+ Limits

  • User is anonymized; install and event reporting delayed 24+ hours
  • Limited to a single conversion value; only one KPI can be reported back to your ad campaign
  • Limited to 24 hours post-install for event attribution timeframe
    • Event reporting is triggered after a minimum of 24 hours of inactivity
    • SKAN provides 6 bits of information to hold your conversion event data
    • This conversion value is set each time a user triggers specific events in your app, like a purchase
    • Each time you set it, a 24-hour timer starts, and at the end of that timer, your conversion will be reported back to the ad network with a random delay buffer added
    • Each time you set an event, the 24-hour timer restarts, potentially delaying your reporting to 64 days post-install!

Facebook iOS post-idfa Media Buying Model

 

Google iOS SKAN and Android Media Buying Model

 

On Google, UA campaign goals are progressive: 

  • Identify primary event performance and establish a baseline for video creative
  • Test messaging with upper-funnel campaign type
  • Event testing with a creative baseline established by geo
  • Continue message testing refinement
  • Full expansion by platform with top CPA event and performance messaging determined
  • Ramp up top event campaign from the previous week
  • Revenue optimization if FB enabled

Exploratory, Expansion, and Scale Campaigns:

 

Learning > Scale

  • Single Event CPA, graduated to event testing by Week 2
  • All Purchasers Last 180 days

Event Testing and Consolidation

  • Supplement opening creative tests with Install + campaign
  • Week 2 CPA event tests

Creative

  • Video forward – new concepts weekly
  • Ad Copy Testing
    • Low volume description/headline swaps weekly post-learning phase
    • Messaging testing by ad group splits for top volume CPA campaign.

Google iOS SKAN Media Buying Model

 

TikTok iOS and Android Media Buying Model

  • Behavior Audiences, Interest Categories, Interest Keywords: Identify audiences/strategies to feed scale campaigns. Bridge the volume of a broad audience and the precision of a LAL.
  • Lookalikes, Time Zone Targeting, Broad Top Demo: Increase KPI performance

On TikTok, UA campaign goals may include:

  • Targeting split by behavior, using CBO to auto-optimize
  • Split targeting by TikTok Category segments, using CBO to auto-optimize
  • Targeting split by TikTok Interest keywords, using CBO to auto-optimize
  • Primary Metric custom LAL audience based on historical data
  • LAL audiences of an app activity metric, installs, trials, etc.
  • LAL audiences of an ad metric, views, clicks, etc.
  • Broad targeting split by time zone, using CBO to auto-optimize; additional ROAS boost from the top-performing demo

Scale

  • Increase user base with Broad low CPM campaigns; identify top Geo
  • Testing of US, CA, GB Geos separately with broad campaigns; CA and GB inventory can be limited on TikTok
  • New accounts must run with an MAI objective until deeper funnel metrics are unlocked
  • Due to limitations of SKAdNetwork API, there is a limit of 11 active campaigns and 1 ad group per campaign for iOS 14+

Behavior Audiences

  • Testing of video and creator interaction behaviors

Interest Categories

  • TikTok-specific interest-categories with large scale

Interest Keywords

  • More specific targeting but with a limited scale

Time Zone Targeting

  • Broad targeting with dayparting splits

Creative

  • UGC creative key for Tiktok

TikTok ios and android Media Buying Model

 

User Acquisition Guide to Black Friday 2021 and Beyond

In today’s post, we share Black Friday 2021 and holiday mobile app advertising best practices and insights:

  • Expect to see CPM increases of 30-40% between Black Friday and Christmas across social channels.
  • Non-eCommerce advertisers should consider reducing spend from Thanksgiving until December 26, 2021, and then accelerate into January to take advantage of CPM drops.
  • Bulk up on creative production and testing to have enough high-performing assets for late December spend increases.

User acquisition in mobile app advertising is always fiercely competitive during the holiday season. However, last year UA managers could reliably build LTV models and scale profitable iOS spend using lookalike audience targeting. But with the loss of IDFA, mobile advertisers hoping to succeed in the Black Friday 2021 fray are facing a uniquely challenging holiday season. The devastating impact of IDFA loss and the erosion of lookalike audience targeting has affected revenue across the mobile app industry and the holidays won’t be any easier.  Additionally, the normal CPM drops that happen on December 26th didn’t happen in 2020 mostly due to advertisers maintaining spend to get ahead of then-pending IDFA removal.

CPM Trends for Mobile Apps in the U.S. (Optimized for Installs)

black friday 2021

 

Perspective on the mobile advertising ecosystem

The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted how the loss of IDFA has impacted ad networks differently in Q3 2021: “Google, the world’s largest digital-ad company by revenue, tallied its highest sales growth in more than a decade in the third quarter.” Other social ad networks were negatively impacted by IDFA loss, supply chain disruption, and labor shortages. A dozen eCommerce companies interviewed by WSJ reported they now must spend a lot more money on ads to get the same number of sales prior to IDFA loss. Without enough data to know how effective ads were at driving purchases, many eCommerce companies reduced their ad spending. In a July poll of 118 e-commerce store owners by eCommerce Fuel, 62% said they had decreased their Facebook ad spending since the loss of IDFA.

 

UA and Creative Best Practices for Black Friday 2021 and Beyond

 

To supplement our Q4 Creative Best Practices for Facebook, Google, and TikTok, we bring you Consumer Acquisition’s Guide to Post-IDFA Holiday UA. Based on our experience managing over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend, we are sharing insights on mobile ad trends to maintain advertising efficiency through the performance peaks and valleys of the holiday season, including Black Friday 2021.

 

Riding the Q4 2021 CPM waves

Since 2019 we’ve seen a decrease in CPMs right before mid-November. With eCommerce and brand advertisers reserving their budgets for Black Friday 2021, there is less competition causing CPMs to go down right before the holiday burst. This year, the decrease may be more extreme because the advertising ecosystem is impacted by IDFA loss.

We consistently see CPM increases of 30-40% between Black Friday and Christmas. CPMs then decline immediately after Christmas and typically stay lower through the middle of January, marking the lowest time of the year. With eCommerce advertisers putting major budgets behind holiday retail, most non-eCommerce advertisers can gain efficiency by reducing their spend until after Christmas and then accelerating into January.

After gifts have been exchanged, many consumers turn on new phones and load mobile games and apps. As retail and eCommerce pull back on their marketing budgets, other mobile app advertisers can take advantage of what we dubbed as Q5 last year. Q5 referred to the 10-day period starting on December 26th and running through about January 10th. We recommend gaming, entertainment streaming apps, meditation and fitness apps, DTC, and others to bulk up on creative production and testing to have enough high-performing assets to take advantage of the CPM drops during this time. After Christmas is a great time to target new device users, and device-specific creative can result in an extra relevance bump. If you’re going to spend money in December and you’re not an eCommerce company, try to save your spend for the last week of the year.

 

Mobile Traffic Replacing Foot Traffic

Last year due to COVID-19, foot traffic to stores was down 33% from 2019. This accelerated a move to online advertising for retail businesses during the holidays. We saw eCommerce brands advertising as long as possible on Facebook and Google during the holiday shopping season to make up for the loss of foot traffic. This year, while brick-and-mortar stores may have more foot traffic than 2020, predictions are still 10-15% lower than 2019. Therefore, we expect increased interest in mobile advertising to persist across categories. First-time eCommerce spenders who successfully entered the mobile advertising ecosystem last holiday season will likely participate again this year.

“It’s well established that mobile social media is vital for product discovery,” says Vincent DeSantis, director of Retail Facebook Business Group. “And best-in-class retailers have learned that their online shopping experience must be, well, experiential. They’ve taken the “wow” factor from their stores and brought it to life in their customers’ mobile feeds.”

WPP, the world’s largest advertising group, lifted their sales forecast for the third time this year, based on strong advertiser demand in Q3. Another sign of a robust holiday advertising season, advertisers want to capitalize on the global economic recovery from the pandemic. This past August, WPP reported they had reached 2019 business levels a year ahead of plan. Chief Executive Mark Read said the uplift was well beyond cyclical recovery from the pandemic, giving them “confidence that there’s momentum in the business.”

 

Staycations 

While the U.S. travel industry is showing some signs of recovery, American travelers are choosing houses over hotels, and local adventures over international destinations. This poses an additional opportunity for mobile app advertisers to reach millions of people staying in or staying home. Gaming, entertainment, health, and fitness can all enhance time at home. Similarly, people staying home turn to shared experiences on social sites like Facebook, Google, Snap, and TikTok. We expect social platforms that offer a way to play and engage with friends and family will continue to surge.

 

Bundling Up

As the cost to acquire a user/customer rises due to CPM increases and loss of targeting and measurement, advertisers can preserve profits by raising that acquired user’s value. Bundles, premium features, and tiered spending discounts (spend $X to get a percentage off) are all ways to increase average order value. Fortunately, this behavior maps perfectly to Q4 consumer activities. People are already spending more, both on themselves and others.

 

Focusing on Android

Even prior to IDFA loss, we tested on Android because it was less expensive and easily translated to iOS. We saved iOS testing for the rare clients without an Android app or those who were solely targeting iOS users. Testing creative for both IAP and IAA continues to work effectively on Android.

Fortunately, advertisers with Android apps who are NOT using Facebook’s AAA algorithm can follow our A/B testing best practices and maintain their deterministic efficiency. Advertisers maintain the ability to A/B test and see results at the individual asset level. Once a winning creative is identified, move it to iOS or other paid social platforms.

 

Getting Creative

Much of Google’s sales success in Q3 2021 came from the value of knowing a user’s intent: a search term reveals their interest or motivation. Other social networks that rely on app and web tracking are working through the complexity of losing deterministic targeting and measurement. Mobile advertisers that tailor ads to user motivations through persona-led ad creative, can scale efficiently and profitably by focusing on the positive attributes of contextual advertising while growing high-quality top-of-funnel installs.

We have performed over 100,000 A/B and multivariate tests on Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snap and have learned that 85-95% of new creative concepts fail to outperform your best ad. We also learned why it can be hard to beat your control video. So how can you keep those creative concepts coming?

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model is designed to systematize creative development and UA targeting based on iterative testing. Our model ensures advertisers always have new creative concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue. From niche to mainstream, our creative concepting model means our clients get reliable top-performing creative in the most cost-efficient and scalable way. The model can help you:

  • Systematize creative concepting
  • Utilize user motivations to tailor ad creative
  • Use creative trends and user motivations to create defined paths for new ad concepts
  • Find the creative trends popular within specific categories

 

Why trust our recommendations?

Our market insights and creative expertise come from managing over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers. Since 2013 we’ve worked with Roblox, Glu Mobile, Disney, SuperHuman, Rovio, Jam City, Wooga, NBA, MLB, Ford, Sun Basket, Lion Studios, MobilityWare, and many others. We provide end-to-end creative and user acquisition services for mobile app marketers via performance-oriented creative storytelling, integrated UA, and creative optimization.

Contact sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss our user acquisition and creative services.

How To Produce Winning Ad Creative For Mobile App Subscription Services

See what’s working right now for mobile app subscription services:

  • Discover user motivations for subscription apps
  • Compare top creative trends from mobile subscription apps
  • Use our Ad Concept Model to stay ahead of creative fatigue

How to Produce Winning Ad Creative for Mobile App Subscription Services

Mobile app subscription services range from weekly food boxes to productivity tools to fitness trackers. Borrowing from the value propositions of software-as-a-service, mobile subscription services promise an ongoing value for a recurring payment. While different mobile subscription categories focus on specific user interests, there are universal user motivations for subscription services that drive their popularity across all verticals. In fact, the subscription economy is so strong that financial services firm UBS predicts it will more than double to $1.5 trillion by 2025.

Using our Ad Concept Model, we’ve analyzed creative trends and user motivations for mobile app subscription services. Our model is designed to systematize creative development and UA targeting based on iterative testing. We identify creative trends and motivations within a mobile game genre or app category, then create concepts for target user personas where they intersect.

This process ensures we always have new creative concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue. We’ve systematized the process so we know what works, why it works, and how to do more of it. From niche to mainstream, our creative concepting model means our clients get reliable top-performing creative in the most cost-efficient and scalable way.

Mobile App Subscription Services Creative Trends

Competitive research will reveal which creative trends are working best across social platforms. To identify creative trends, use Facebook Ad Library to see every ad currently running on their ad network. You can also use Mobile Action, SensorTower, or AppAnnie competitor libraries. AdRules, our proprietary SaaS platform, analyzes 3.5 million videos and is updated daily. Creative trends we’ve identified for mobile subscription apps broadly include:

  • App Overview: An image or video that communicates overall user experience
  • Key Feature: Focus on the specific benefits of a core feature
  • Testimonial: Focus on a user’s review and/or experience
  • Animated Text: Kinetic typography or motion graphics
  • Visually compelling: Focus on arresting photography
  • Brand: Focus solely on brand messaging

Mobile App Subscription Services User Motivations

Below, we’ve outlined high-level motivational triggers for a mobile app subscriber. The included motivations are specific to the mobile app subscription model itself, not an individual category such as fitness or productivity.

mobile app subscription service

Mobile App Subscription Services Creative Trends x User Motivations

We map identified creative trends to user motivations within the category to develop and iterate on different concepts. In the empty model below, each box represents a different ad creative concept. Our ad concept matrix supports nearly 40 creative concepts for mobile subscription service apps by pairing six trends with six user motivations.

The proposed ad concept model acts as a foundation for an iterative creative process that can be customized and extended to develop endless ad concepts for an app, website, or service. By building a scalable infrastructure for creative ideation, we provide unique lanes for creative teams and media buyers to explore ideas. The model also acts as an archive of knowledge to ensure we are always optimizing what we have learned.

mobile app subscription services

 

Why use a model like this?

Tying persona-led ad creative to user motivation is what Facebook calls a “future-proof solution” for UA and creative teams. With the negative impacts of IDFA loss, including erosion of lookalike audience targeting and A/B testing, focusing on persona motivation is the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition.

Even if you adapt to the volatile ad ecosystem, it can still be hard to beat your control video. But a constant stream of fresh creative concepts and smart, iterative testing means we can beat the algorithmic odds. Consumer Acquisition’s industry expertise comes from managing over $4 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. Our process is designed to save time and money by killing losing creatives quickly to significantly reduce non-converting spend. Our proprietary technology enables our entire global team to make creative and media buying decisions. These decisions are based on a client’s financial performance, helping them achieve and sustain profitable mobile app user acquisition.

 Want better results from UA?

Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com.

 Check out our creative work:

Creative Trends

 

Consumer Acquisition Appears on the San Francisco Business Times Fast 100 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for 3rd Consecutive Year

Once again, the San Francisco Business Times named Consumer Acquisition to its annual list of the top 100 fastest-growing private companies in the Bay Area.

Consumer Acquisition Named on Fast 100

Each year, the San Francisco Business Times reveals the Bay Area’s Fast 100 companies based on percent revenue growth. Companies on the Times’ Fast 100 list represent extraordinary organizations. In addition, they are companies that have shown meteoric growth and potential over the past three years. These businesses also reflect the diversity of industries in the Bay Area across a wide array of industries. For example, industries from software and fintech to construction, health care, professional services, and food manufacturing.

Brian Bowman, CEO, and founder of Consumer Acquisition commented. “In our third consecutive year of being recognized as a leading Bay Area company in growth, we are again truly honored to be included by the San Francisco Business Times. This recognition is entirely a credit to the people of our organization. They continue to drive growth and innovation at Consumer Acquisition year after year.”

Since its initial founding in 2013, Consumer Acquisition has grown tremendously. They have managed over $4 billion in creative and social ad spend. Thus, helping the world’s largest mobile games, apps, and performance advertisers. Additionally, the company provides a creative studio supported by an elite Hollywood storytelling team, user acquisition services from tenured acquisition specialists, and self-service tools for Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snap mobile app advertisers. All of which contributes to its growth, which is recognized by the San Francisco Times this year.

Check out the full list of companies recognized by the San Francisco Business Times this year: Fast 100: Meet the fastest-growing private companies in the Bay Area in 2021.

fast 100

 

With this continued growth, we are excited to share our Mission, Vision, and Values statements.

Vision

To help our clients grow through advertising that mobile app users love.

Mission

To deliver impactful financial results for our clients through creative storytelling and data-driven optimization.

Values

We have a deep respect for both qualitative and quantitative experience.

  • A fully remote, global team exemplifies connected collaboration, balancing flexibility with accountability.
  • Shared success, built on a fusion of artistry and analysis.
  • Dedication to providing exceptional client results, supported by our commitment to our team’s work-life balance.

We innovate through both visionary risks and calculated analysis.

  • We create, learn, optimize, and create again.
  • Diversity of thought enriches our investigations.
  • Ideas born from instinct, are proven through iterative testing.

We support each other and the community to adapt to new challenges.

  • From industry volatility to shifting client needs, we respond with innovative solutions.
  • We share our collective insights to stay at the forefront of our industry.
  • Our ability to grow in an unpredictable environment is rooted in resilience and collaboration.

To better understand what makes us unique, we interviewed one of our very own rock stars.

Hear from Ariel Neiman, Director of User Acquisition, on what it’s like to work at Consumer Acquisition. Ariel has been with the company for 2 ½ years. Promoted twice during that time, she helped lead the UA team’s success. Some of her favorite parts about her job include being fully remote and working with her big clients and brands. She also appreciates the coaching and support she receives from her manager. When Ariel isn’t working, you can find her taking a new class, exploring a nearby town, or snuggling her cat.

The UA Formula To Beat Facebook Creative Fatigue: Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model

In today’s post, we discuss how to increase your Facebook creative success rate using our Ad Concept Model. Here we explain our UA formula to beat Facebook creative fatigue, including how to:

  • Systematize creative concepting
  • Utilize user motivations to tailor ad creative
  • Use creative trends and user motivations to create defined paths new ad concepts
  • Find the creative trends popular within specific categories

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model

Based on over 100,000 videos and images we produce and test yearly for our clients, our research has shown that winning ads last only 10 weeks, before they burn out. We have performed over 25,000 A/B and multivariate tests on Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snap and have learned that 85-95% of new creative concepts fail to outperform your best ad. To survive in this volatile ad ecosystem, you’ll need 20-50 new concepts to find your next winning creative. And you’ll need to keep developing new concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue.

Tying persona-led ad creative to user motivation is what Facebook calls a “future-proof solution” for UA and creative teams. With the negative impacts of IDFA loss, including erosion of lookalike audience targeting and A/B testing, ad creative based on persona motivation is the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition.

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model is designed to systematize creative development and UA targeting based on iterative testing. These are the steps within the model:

  1. Identify creative trends within a category
  2. Identify motivations within a category
  3. Map creative trends to motivations within a category
  4. Create concepts for one persona at the intersection of each trend and motivation
  5. Repeat step 4 for all additional personas

Using these steps, we will show you how we create dozens of persona-led ad concepts efficiently and effectively within our Ad Concept Model. We recently analyzed creative trends for fashion games and financial apps and use those categories to explore our ad concept model. Every app category or game sub-genre can leverage a unique combination of distinct emotional triggers and creative trends to attract users.

 

CREATIVE TRENDS

Step 1: Identify creative trends within a category

Start with your internal data on what creative is working best already, then go deep on what’s working for competitors. Use Facebook Ad Library to see every ad currently running on their ad network. For implied success metrics, you can use Mobile Action, SensorTower, or AppAnnie competitor libraries. AdRules, our SaaS platform analyzes 3.5 million videos and is updated daily. Your goal is to get a broad view of what creative is working and what isn’t across the category. Identify the creative trends you’re seeing and segment those trends.

Depending on the app category, some creative trends may include:

  • An app overview focused on overall user experience and/or specific features
  • An app overview using tips and quizzes to show benefits
  • Testimonials and reviews from users
  • Influencers and celebrities delivering the primary message
  • Current events and topical or timely content
  • Social connection, social media, and chatting
  • Memes and comedic text on an image, often building on something that’s already viral
  • Achievement opportunities like level progression and mastery of a game
  • Vignettes featuring short character scenarios or stories

Competitive research will reveal which creative trends are working best across social platforms.

 

MOTIVATIONS

Step 2: Identify motivations within a category

As consumer marketing has grown up, we’ve learned there is no perfect Pepsi, but there are perfect Pepsis for particular palates; the same goes for products in any market. Before building out a matrix for a particular set of ad concepts, we identify different motivations driving our user personas and break down those motivations by underlying values and desires. Below we have included motivational triggers and preferences for games compared to fintech apps to show the distinction between categories.

standard gaming motivation

ad concept model - FinTech and financial motivations

CREATIVE TRENDS X MOTIVATIONS

Step 3: Map creative trends to motivations within a category

We map identified motivations to creative trends within the category to develop and iterate on different concepts.

Using our fashion game or fintech examples, our ad concept matrices each support nearly 50 concepts by pairing eight trends with six motivations.

gaming motivations for target persona

ad concept model for finance app motivations for target persona

CREATIVE TREND X MOTIVATION X PERSONA

Step 4: Create concepts for one persona at the intersection of each trend and motivation

While not all creative trends will work persuasively with each motivation, we can expand our concepts even further by targeting specific personas within each pairing. Based on personas, we develop a bespoke creative strategy targeting behaviors, triggers, and preferences.

For example, concepts for a first-time home buyer as a persona can be extrapolated out to fill the entire matrix. Below, we’ve taken one fintech creative trend—Tips and Quizzes—and simplified some example concepts using six different motivations for a first-time home buyer persona.

ad concept model for first time home buyer

REPEAT

Step 5: Repeat the previous step for all additional personas

Just as we’ve done for a first-time home buyer, we can build out concepts for other target personas as well. Consider someone who just started a new job, or hit a milestone birthday, or just received an inheritance. Messaging, imagery, pacing, even tone, will trigger different responses for different personas. Using our Ad Concept Model, these four personas (homebuyer, new job, milestone birthday, inheritance) provide an opportunity for almost two hundred concepts.

Why use a model like this?  

We’ve learned why it can be hard to beat your control video. But a constant stream of fresh creative concepts and smart, iterative testing means we can beat the algorithmic odds. Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. Consumer Acquisition runs our tests using our software AdRules via Facebook, Google, and TikTok APIs. Our process is designed to save time and money by killing losing creatives quickly to significantly reduce non-converting spend.

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model ensures we always have new creative concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue. We’ve systematized the process, so we know what works, why it works, and how to do more of it. From niche to mainstream, our creative concepting model means our clients get reliable top-performing creative in the most cost-efficient and scalable way.

FinTech Ad Creative: Why Acorns Ads Work

See what’s working right now for FinTech ad creative:

  • Discover user motivations for using FinTech apps
  • Compare top FinTech creative trends
  • Get the breakdown on successful Acorns ad creative

FinTech Ad Creative: Why Acorns Ads Work

From investment advice to cryptocurrency to budget planning, fintech apps put money management right in your pocket. We’ve analyzed the best-performing fintech ads based on Facebook Ad Library data to see why they are working. Overall, we’ve observed:

  • Images are, as effective, and sometimes more than videos
  • Retirement/investment messaging performs better than advisor messaging
  • Provocative or question-based copy performs best
  • Vague headlines are not as effective as direct headlines

Acorns, the micro-investing app aimed at democratizing investment, is utilizing several ad creative trends successfully. We go deep on how Acorns is tapping into unique user motivations in the fintech space.

Tying persona-led ad creative to user motivation is what Facebook calls a “future-proof solution” for UA and creative teams. With the negative impacts of IDFA loss, including erosion of lookalike audience targeting and A/B testing, focusing on personas is the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition. To better understand why people hit that install button, our creative learning agenda incorporates intensive research into app genre, personas, and user motivations.

FinTech Apps and Sites We Reviewed

Acorns, Fisher Investments, Lending Tree, The Penny Hoarder, Northern Trust Wealth Management, Dave: Banking for Humans, Current: The Bank for Modern Life, Coinbase, Crypto.com, M1 Finance, Finimize, Kabbage: Small Business Loans, DOSH, Edward Jones, Edelman Financial Engines, Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, myFICO, YNAB, Mint, The Balance, Personal Capital, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Nerdwallet, Stash, Earnin, Motley Fool, WalletHub.

FinTech Ad Creative Trends We Identified

  • App Overview/Feature Benefit: An image or video that communicates overall user experience and/or specific features. (Dave, Current, Coinbase, M1 Finance, Finimize, Edward Jones, Credit Karma, many others)  
  • App Overview/Tips & Quizzes: Communicating app features and/or benefits through advice or quizzes. (Fisher Investments, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Persona Capital, Penny Hoarder, Nerdwallet)fintech ad creative journey
  • Testimonial: Focused on a user’s review and/or experience of the app. (Penny Hoarder, Dave, M1 Finance, Dosh, Credit Karma, YNAB, Personal Capital, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Earnin)
  • Influencers: Utilizing influencers and/or celebrities to deliver the primary message. (Personal Capital)
  • Promotional: Contests, promotions, gift cards, and other rewards for using and/or downloading the app. (Lending Tree, Current, Coinbase, Crypto.com, M1 Finance, Robinhood)
  • Current Events/Topical: Having to do with recent news or impactful events. (Lending Tree)
  • Social Connection:  Involving people connecting on social media or via text. (Dave, Finimize, Earnin)
  • Meme: Comedic text on an image, often building on something that’s already viral. (Credit Sesame) 

 

Motivational triggers that cause people to use Fintech apps:

  • Milestone birthday: Realization upon reaching a meaningful age that retirement is approaching, triggering a newfound sense of urgency and/or responsibility.
  • Job change: Change can evoke a sense of anxiety and need for financial security and control.
  • Sold/bought a home: Taking on more debt or suddenly getting an influx of cash from a sale can trigger overwhelm or a need for guidance.
  • Legacy: Receiving an inheritance or estate planning can trigger tax and investment questions.
  • Paid off debt: Increased cashflow from a lack of debt can trigger the desire to make responsible, future-looking decisions
  • Simply being proactive: Seeking guidance on budgeting, saving for retirement, planning for the future, etc.

 

Why Acorns Ads Work

“From acorns, mighty oaks do grow.” This is the promise Acorns makes to its users by offering investment accounts for families, retirement, checking, earning opportunities, and a knowledge hub. In their ads, Acorns uses simple phrasing that feels accessible and easy while leveraging many different creative tactics to appeal to user motivations.

fintech ad creative acorns ads

Creative trends Acorns uses in their ads include:

App Feature Benefit: Mapping a real-world example alongside a screenshot of user experience highlights the value of the app. This also appeals to the desire to be financially proactive (without having to do too much).

App Tips: Pairing investment advice with outcomes highlights value. Using milestone birthdays triggers a sense of urgency and responsibility.

Influencers: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s own financial story appeals to users and provides an opportunity to be proactive. Acorns also use Ashton Kutcher and Steve Harvey in their ads.

Promotional: Receiving a monetary reward from the app itself shows it is a partner in creating financial freedom. Claiming the promotion is an affirmative, proactive step in that partnership.

 

Fintech Ad Creative Concepts

 

Trend: App Overview—Feature Benefit

Create concepts that focus on the overall site experience, as well as specific features:

  • Appeal to different financial triggers (home buying, job change, retirement, college, etc.)
  • Try copy tied to a positive emotional benefit rather than fear-based messaging (e.g., “Retirement? You got this.”)

FinTech companies utilizing trend:

  • Acorns, Dave, Current, Coinbase, M1 Finance, Finimize, Edward Jones, Edelman Financial Engines, Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, myFICO, YNAB, The Balance, Marcus, Personal Capital, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Stash, Nerdwallet, Earnin, Fisher Investments

 

Trend: App Overview—Tips & Quizzes

Features advice and/or quizzes:

  • Communicates key benefits/features by engaging with a user
  • Appeal to different financial triggers (home buying, job change, retirement, college, etc.)
  • Explore a diverse range of user representations
  • Explore refined illustration in addition to portraits

FinTech companies  utilizing trend:

  • Fisher Investments, Marcus by Goldman Sachs, Personal Capital, Penny Hoarder, Nerdwallet, Edward Jones

 

Trend: Testimonials & Reviews

Feature user and media reviews:

  • Written reviews are easiest to produce
  • Can test versions that feature independent media reviews and user reviews
  • UGC testimonials are a simple way to review the site
  • Explore individual user profiles

FinTech companies utilizing trend:

  • Penny Hoarder, Dave, M1 Finance, Kabbage, Dosh, Credit Karma, YNAB, Personal Capital, Wealthsimple, Robinhood, Earnin

 

Trend: Influencers

Utilize celebrities or influencers to promote the site:

  • Inset or split-screen, combining influencer with site graphics
  • Full-screen influencer testimonial, before cutting to app use and end card
  • Can also work with static images/quotes from the endorser

FinTech companies utilizing trend:

  • Acorns, Personal Capital

 

Trend: Promotional

Create a promotion where visitors to the website can register to win money or other prizes:

  • Creates an incentive to visit the site
  • Prizes could include:
    • money for retirement fund
    • Help with house down payment
    • Pay off of a credit card
    • Free financial planning from a fiduciary for a year

FinTech companies utilizing trend:

  • Lending Tree, Current, Coinbase, Crypto.com, M1 Finance, Robinhood

 

Trend: Social Connection

Create concepts that leverage social platforms:

  • Used successfully by John Hancock in TV ads
  • Texting can be a good way to tell narrative stories in an inexpensive, easy-to-produce format

FinTech companies utilizing trend:

  • Dave, Finimize, Earnin

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model

To stay ahead of creative fatigue, Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model systematizes the creation process. Using our model, it’s possible to create dozens of persona-led ad concepts efficiently and effectively. Every app category or game sub-genre can leverage a unique combination of distinct emotional triggers and creative trends to attract users. Here is our Ad Concept Model for FinTech Ad Creative:

ad concept model for FinTech ad creative

Why trust our UA and creative recommendations?

  • Founded in 2013, we are a technology-enabled marketing services company and creative studio that has managed over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers.
  • We provide end-to-end creative and user acquisition services for mobile app marketers via performance-oriented creative storytelling, integrated UA, and creative optimization.
  • We provide game-changing results driven by quantitative optimization and a relentless focus on increasing your net profit driven by client-specific, creative learning agendas.
  • Clients we’ve helped grow: Roblox, Glu Mobile, Disney, SuperHuman, Rovio, Jam City, Wooga, NBA, MLB, Ford, Sun Basket, Lion Studios, MobilityWare, and many others.

 Want better results from UA?

Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com.

 Check out our creative work:

Creative Trends

 

Mobile App UA & Creative Roundup October 2021

Today’s post brings you the most up-to-date trends and tactics for UA and creative across platforms and genres for October 2021. We’ve got new UA campaign guidance straight from Google and TikTok Business along with our Q4 A/B Testing Best Practices white paper updated for post-IDFA loss.

From style and fashion games to fantasy football, we’ve analyzed top-performing ad creative to show how player motivations can improve your top-of-funnel UA. Plus, we’ve gone deep on Apple’s anti-consumer, anti-developer behavior, most notably with the privacy update in iOS 15.

 

Mobile App UA & Creative Roundup October 2021

 

Persona-Led Creative & Creative Trends

 

October 2021 Facebook, TikTok, Google Creative Testing Best Practices

Q4 2021 Creative Testing Best Practices for Facebook, Google, and TikTok

In the face of IDFA loss, SKAN requirements, and media buying automation, our updated A/B creative testing guide will help user acquisition and creative teams make the most of their campaigns.

 

ios 15

Apple Is Anticompetitive: From ATT to IAPs

With only 10% of all App Store users generating 70% of App Store revenue, Apple is clearly trying to corner the market of high-value spenders. Read the article to see Apple’s tactics in action.

 

Google App UA

2021 Hot Tips for Google UA

Here’s what’s working right now, how to evaluate SKAN Discrepancies, SKAN Modeling Delays (pre/post iOS 14.5), and benefits of Firebase implementation.

 

TikTok Creative Hot Tips for Fall 2021

TikTok Creative Hot Tips for Fall 2021

Read our newest TikTok Creative guide to get the latest creative recommendations straight from TikTok and up-to-date analysis of high-performing U.S. game ads.

 

NFL & Sports App Ad CreativeSports Games: Top Tactics for High Performing Ad Creative

To celebrate the NFL season, we reviewed top-performing ads for fantasy football apps, sports betting, and sports game simulators.

 

Fashion & Style Simulation GamesFashion and Style Simulation Games Creative Trends

From revenge makeovers to pets and parties, fashion games pump up the beauty, drama, and personal connection for gamers. We’ve analyzed the best-performing fashion and style simulation game ads based on MobileAction data.

october 2021 14 vs 15

Apple Is Anticompetitive: From ATT to IAPs

“…the Court finds that common threads run through Apple’s practices which unreasonably restrains competition and harm consumers…”  Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc.

Consumer Acquisition has been reporting on Apple’s anti-developer, anti-advertiser restrictions for months now. While our reports have primarily focused on devastating advertising revenue loss and impacts, the ruling of the Epic Games case and inconsistent privacy language in iOS 15 have shown Apple is also anticompetitive to the disservice of consumers and developers.

With only 10% of all App Store users generating 70% of App Store revenue, Apple is clearly trying to corner the market of high-value spenders by:
  • Preventing users from accessing less expensive alternative purchasing methods in the App Store to maintain their high margins (i.e., the Epic Case)
  • Luring users entirely out of third-party advertising platforms with privacy scare tactics (i.e., anti-advertising ATT language)
  • Making it very difficult for third-party platforms to identify top spenders and effectively build lookalike models (i.e., the loss of IDFA)
  • Reduced profitability of iOS advertising by rendering A/B or multivariate creative testing useless.

Ultimately, this anticompetitive behavior is highly disruptive to the vitality of the iOS advertising market and is having a negative impact on mobile app game developers, advertisers, and consumers.

 

October 2021 Facebook, TikTok, Google Creative Testing Best Practices

 

Get our Q4 2021 Creative Testing Best Practices for TikTok, Facebook & Google white paper for proven UA tactics to survive and thrive in a post-IDFA world.

IDFA loss, SKAN requirements, and media buying automation through Facebook AAA or Google UAC are tough challenges facing user acquisition and creative teams right now. Read the white paper for:

  • Facebook, TikTok & Google creative testing best practices
  • iOS A/B creative testing without IDFA
  • Updated Android A/B creative testing best practices
  • Analysis of the evolving mobile app ad ecosystem
  • Creative testing recommendations for IAP and IAA apps
  • Automated ad buying benefits and deficits

 

creative reels

More Creative Trends

Helpful Content

For more information on persona-led creative or IDFA impact, please contact sales@consumeracquisition.com.

Fashion and Style Simulation Games: Why Super Stylist Ads Work

Check out what’s working right now for fashion and style simulation games ad creative:

  • Discover user motivations for fashion and style simulation games
  • Compare top fashion and style simulation game creative trends
  • Get the breakdown on successful Super Stylist ad creative

Fashion and Style Simulation Games: Why Super Stylist Ads Work

From revenge makeovers to pets and parties, fashion and style simulation games pump up the beauty, drama, and personal connection for gamers. We analyzed the best-performing fashion and style simulation game ads based on MobileAction data. The strongest ads in this category are simple, quick, and funny. Dramatic and relatable relationship stories stand out. Letting the viewer feel like they’re making gameplay choices through real or augmented mechanics motivates engagement. And to combat the negative impacts of IDFA loss and the erosion of lookalike audience targeting player motivation matters. Whether we call it motivation-led, profile-based, or persona-led creative, Facebook says this approach to user acquisition is a “future-proof solution.”

Fashion & Style Simulation Games

With IDFA loss rendering A/B or multivariate creative testing useless, tailoring creative to different player motivations is the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition. To better understand why people hit that install button, our creative learning agenda incorporates intensive research into game genre, personas, and user motivations as well as understanding what ads our target users are responding to in other markets.

Here are ad creative trends we’re seeing for fashion and style simulation games:

  • Choosing what’s next from the player POV to direct narrative while interacting with the game’s characters
  • Game trailer/overview that showcases user experience, core objectives, and other game featurescreative journey
  • Fashion and style challenges
  • Using social media or texting to convey the narrative or primary message
  • Character focus using countdowns, origin stories
  • Vignettes featuring short character scenarios or stories
  • Achievement opportunities like level progression and mastery of a game
  • Success vs. Fail gameplay contrasting experienced and amateur players

Why these trends work: 

By analyzing high-performing ads through the lens of player motivations, we can break down why specific ads appeal to different audiences.

  • Choosing what’s next appeals to self-expression, progression, and escapism
  • Fashion and design challenges appeal to self-expression and escapism
  • Using social media or texting appeals to social connection
  • Focusing on character stories and vignettes appeal to discovery, relaxation, and escapism
  • Achievement opportunities and Success vs. Fail gameplay appeals to expertise, power, and progression

Fashion and Style Simulation Games

 

Why Super Stylist Ads Work

Top-25 RPG Super Stylist is a fashion story game that earned 2 million downloads in August 2021 and over 50 million downloads since its 2019 release, according to Sensor Tower. Through Mobile Action, we can see how Super Stylist’s high-performing ads make the most of popular creative trends for fashion story games.

fashion and style simulation games

Featured creative trends:

  • Relatable character vignette: The main character prepares cocktails for a party and when her friends arrive early, she must get appropriately dressed
  • Social/text overlay: text helps the story progress and reminds players of social interaction
  • Player choice: choosing makeup, hair, and outfits allows for self-expression and decision-making
  • Challenge and mastery: showing the countdown timer and fluctuating success triggers sparks a desire for mastery and achievement
  • “Fail” gameplay: The final cumulative outfit decision is ultimately unsuccessful providing an opportunity for the player to do better

 

Creative Concepts for Fashion & Style Games

Create ads based on choosing what’s next:

  • Use diverse characters and situations
  • Offer multiple quick choices
  • Use popular themes like jealousy, cheating, hooking up, fantasy, and revenge makeovers

Insert player into the narrative:

  • Have character interact directly with the player
  • Use meters to rate player responses
  • Feature simple situations, not complex narratives
  • Use popular themes like what to wear, hooking up, fantasy, and revenge makeovers

Fashion & Style Challenges:

  • Event-based fashion choices like what to wear on a date
  • Revenge-based makeovers from being rejected by a character
  • Male makeovers based on rejection or aspiration
  • Self-acceptance makeovers rejecting perfection in favor of body positivity
  • Design a perfect date by choosing the right movie, food, etc.
  • Hyper-customization including avatar skin tone, facial features, room design, etc.

Feature gameplay with emoji overlays and talk bubbles to communicate emotions:

  • Humanizes and adds humor
  • Showcases game graphics
  • Appeals to players motivated by community, being on a team, interacting, fantasy, and surprises

Create side-by-side videos of good (Pro) versus bad (Noob) gameplay:

  • Shows the challenges
  • Highlights both “wins” and “fails”

Create gameplay videos that explain the experience in detail:

  • Detail benefits of playing (customization, escapism, social connection)
  • Explore live-action to differentiate from category
  • Feature influencers or players discussing the game
  • Explore CG concepts to differentiate from category

Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model

To stay ahead of creative fatigue, Consumer Acquisition’s Ad Concept Model systematizes the creation process. Using our model, it’s possible to create dozens of persona-led ad concepts efficiently and effectively. Every app category or game sub-genre can leverage a unique combination of distinct emotional triggers and creative trends to attract users. Here is our Ad Concept Model for Style and Fashion games.

ad concept model fashion trend

Why trust our UA and creative recommendations?

  • Founded in 2013, we are a technology-enabled marketing services company and creative studio that has managed over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers.
  • We provide end-to-end creative and user acquisition services for mobile app marketers via performance-oriented creative storytelling, integrated UA, and creative optimization.
  • We provide game-changing results driven by quantitative optimization and a relentless focus on increasing your net profit driven by client-specific, creative learning agendas.
  • Clients we’ve helped grow: Roblox, Glu Mobile, Disney, SuperHuman, Rovio, Jam City, Wooga, NBA, MLB, Ford, Sun Basket, Lion Studios, MobilityWare, and many others.

 Want better results from UA?

Email us at sales@consumeracquisition.com.

 Check out our creative work:

Creative Trends

 

Q4 2021 Update: Facebook, TikTok & Google Creative Testing Best Practices Post-IDFA Loss

Facebook, TikTok & Google Creative Testing Best Practices: Post-IDFA Loss is our new Q4 2021 update to our wildly successful whitepaper.  IDFA loss, SKAN requirements, and media buying automation through Facebook AAA or Google UAC are tough challenges facing user acquisition and creative teams right now. We have new best practices with updated recommendations, including the following:

  • Facebook, TikTok & Google creative testing best practices
  • iOS A/B creative testing without IDFA
  • Updated Android A/B creative testing best practices
  • Analysis of the evolving mobile app ad ecosystem
  • Creative testing recommendations for IAP and IAA apps
  • Automated ad buying benefits and deficits

 

Facebook, TikTok & Google Creative Testing Best Practices: Updated For IDFA Loss

Section 1: Creative Testing Today

THE EVOLVING MOBILE ADVERTISING ECOSYSTEM

With the loss of IDFA and the increase in automated ad buying, user acquisition and creative teams must adapt to survive in the volatile mobile app advertising ecosystem. The devastating impact of IDFA loss and the erosion of lookalike audience targeting is affecting revenue across the mobile app industry. However, persona-led creative is what Facebook calls a “future-proof solution” for the evolving ad environment.

Creative diversification based on motivation is critical, according to The Big Catch from Facebook: “it’s time to make different creatives inspired by these motivators. The more unique these are, the easier it will be to ultimately determine what has attracted its audience.” It seems obvious that ads should be tailored to appeal to different audiences’ motivations and interests. However, too many UA managers rely on the crutch of behavioral targeting to solve for one-size-fits-all, middle-of-the-pack creative.

Lookalike Targeting: Before and After

Prior to the loss of IDFA, lookalike audience targeting was reliable, effective, and efficient; it offered limitless opportunities to slice and dice revenue events to uncover new high-value users. A strong lookalike audience could scale and run for a month or more; but now, ROAS maybe 0.5% when it was previously 15%. As a result, advertisers are decreasing social ad spend for iOS by 40-50% each month since ATT enforcement and are consistently shifting more ad spend over to Android.

As reliance on upper-funnel campaigns increases, ad creative optimized to appeal to discreet personas is the most efficient lever for sustained profitable user acquisition. Without deterministic tracking, understanding user motivation is critical to attracting high-quality top-of-funnel installs. Beyond the install, the first 48 hours of app usage should identify consumers that indicate a propensity to monetize. We recommend streamlining and instrumenting your onboarding flows and events to capture these early monetization signals. With persona-led creative paired with onboarding events, the algorithms will learn what changes to make to deliver better audiences.

UA teams that understand their target personas can scale efficiently, even without IDFA. While much of the industry has been focused on user behavior, the deterioration of lookalike audiences and the black box of deeper funnel events means a user’s declared interests are critically important for insights into motivation and intent.

Sample User Motivations

CREATIVE TESTING BEST PRACTICES

MOST AD CREATIVE WILL FAIL OR FATIGUE

At scale, agile persona-led creative is the most efficient way to support the ongoing experimentation now required for profitable user acquisition. 85-95% of new creative concepts fail to outperform the best ad, so 20-50 new original concepts are necessary to find a new winner. Winning ads last only 10 weeks, then fatigue and die, requiring fresh creative concepts.

To maintain advertising efficiency, you need a steady pipeline of new creative ideas and content to test. When successful, a new creative concept can lift performance by 200% or more. This performance increase is worth the cost, time, and risk that’s inherent with testing new concepts.

creative testing best practices

 

STRONG PERFORMANCE COMES FROM SMART TESTING

We test a lot of ad creative. We produce and test more than 100,000 videos and images yearly for our clients, and we have performed over 25,000 A/B and multivariate tests on Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Snap. Our industry expertise comes from managing over $3 billion in creative and paid social spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and performance advertisers. We focus on gaming, e-commerce, entertainment, automotive, D2C, eSports, digital subscriptions, financial services, and lead generation.

Consumer Acquisition runs our tests using our software AdRules via Facebook, Google, and TikTok APIs. Our process is designed to save time and money by killing losing creatives quickly and to significantly reduce non-converting spend. This process also does not necessarily follow the published Facebook, Google, or TikTok guidance of running a split test to reach statistical significance before moving into the optimized phase. Our insights are specific to the above scenarios, not a representation of how all testing on all platforms operates.

 

THE COSTS OF CREATIVE TESTING

In classic testing, a 95% confidence rate is ideal to declare a winner, exit the learning phase, and reach statistical significance (StatSig). However, that ideal 95% confidence rate for in-app purchases may end up costing an advertiser $20,000 per creative variation.

Here is an example scenario: To reach a 95% confidence level, you’ll need about 100 purchases. With a 1% purchase rate (typical for gaming apps), and a $200 cost per purchase, you will end up spending $20,000 for each variation to accrue enough data for that 95% confidence rate. There are not a lot of advertisers who can afford to spend $20,000 per variation, especially if 95% of new creative fails to beat the control.

With a cost of $20,000 per variation and 20 variations to find a winner with a 95% failure rate, it would cost $400,000 just to find a new control.

creative testing best practices

THE SECRET TO COST-EFFECTIVE CREATIVE TESTING

To avoid such high testing costs, we move the conversion event we are targeting up, or towards the beginning of the sales funnel. For mobile apps, instead of optimizing for purchases, we optimize for impressions per install (IPM). For websites, we optimize for an impression-to-top funnel conversion rate. Again, this is not a Facebook recommended best practice. This is our own methodology, designed to allow advertisers to find new, top-performing creative in the most cost-efficient and reliable way.

This process does pose a risk that high CTRs and high conversion rates for top-funnel events may not be true winners for down-funnel conversions and ROI/ROAS. It is more efficient to optimize for IPMs over purchases, so we take that risk to save the time and expense of optimizing for StatSig bottom-funnel metrics. Perhaps most importantly, this method means you can run more tests for less money per variation. For many advertisers, that alone can make more testing financially viable. $200 testing cost per variation versus $20,000 is the difference between a couple of tests or an ongoing, robust testing program.

Because the outcomes of our tests have consequences, we also test our creative testing methodology. That might sound a little “meta,” but it is essential for us to validate and challenge our methodologies, assumptions, and results. The outcome of every test shapes our evolving creative strategy, so making the wrong call means incremental changes that could have significant consequences. When we choose a winning ad out of a pack of competing ads, we ensure it’s the right decision.

 

 

Section 2: Our Foundational Testing Approach

FACEBOOK TESTING BASICS

When testing creative on Facebook, we typically test three to six videos along with a control video using Facebook’s split test feature. We show these ads to broad or 5-10% lookalike audiences. We restrict distribution to the Facebook newsfeed only, Android only, and use mobile app install bidding (MAI) to get about 100-250 installs. If one of those new “challenger” ads beats the control video’s IPM or comes within 10%-15% of its performance, we launch those potential new winning videos into the ad sets with the control video and let them fight it out to generate ROAS.

In November and December 2019, we produced 60 new video concepts for a client. All of these creatives failed to beat the control video’s IPM, which was statistically impossible. We expected to generate a new winner 5% of the time, resulting in three fresh winners. Confident in our creative expertise and execution, we looked deeper into the testing methods.

Based on numerous ad accounts and confirmations from 7-figure spending advertisers, the following ad performance scenario has been common. We’ve anonymized the scenario to share critical performance insights.

 

A/A TESTING IN FOUR ACTS

To ensure a methodology is sound, you must test your testing system through an A/A test. Instead of testing multiple creatives as you would with an A/B test, A/A tests run the same creative in each “slot” of the test.

If your testing system is working as expected and you are close to statistical significance, all “variations” in an A/A test should produce similar results. If your testing system concludes that one creative variation significantly outperforms or underperforms compared to the others, there could be an issue with the testing method or data.

We set up an A/A test to validate our non-standard approach to Facebook testing and to understand if Facebook maintains a creative history for the control. If so, the control video would get a performance boost making it very difficult to beat.

A/A Test 1

We copied the control video four times and added one black pixel in different locations in each of the new “variations.” This allowed us to run what would look like the same video to humans but would be different videos in the eyes of the testing platform. The goal was to get Facebook to assign new hash IDs for each cloned video and then test them all together and observe their IPMs.

For anonymity purposes, we’ve replaced the actual ad creative with this dapper dachshund. The far-right ad in the blue square is the control creative and all others are clones of the control with one black pixel added. The IPMs for each ad are on the far right of the image.

First A/A test of video creative

The far-left ad/clone outperformed the control by 149%. As described earlier, a difference like that should not happen if the platform were truly variation agnostic.

We ran this test for 100 installs, our standard operating procedure for creative testing. However, we did not follow Facebook’s recommendation to allow the ad set(s) to exit the learning phase. We analyzed the results then scaled up to 500 installs to get closer to statistical significance. Our remaining question was if more data would result in IPM normalization (in other words, if the test results would settle back down to more even performance across the variations). However, the results of the second test remained the same. Note: the ad set(s) did not exit the learning phase and we did not follow Facebook’s best practice.

The results of this first test, while not statistically significant, were surprisingly enough to merit additional tests. So, we tested further!

A/A Test 2

Test 2 included six videos. Four videos were controls with different headers; two videos were new concepts that were very similar to the control. Again, the actual ad creative has been replaced with cute animals.

The IPMs for all ads ranged between 7-11 – even the new ads that did not share a thumbnail with the control. IPMs for each ad in the far right of the image.

Second A/A test of video creative

A/A Test 3

Test 3 included six videos: one control, four visually similar variations to the control, and one very different for a human. IPMs ranged between 5-10. IPMs for each ad in the far right of the image.

Third A/A test of video creative

A/A Test 4

This was when we had our “ah-ha!” moment. We tested six very different video concepts: the one control video and five brand new ideas, all of which were visually very different from the control video and did not share the same thumbnail.

The control’s IPM was consistent in the 8-9 range, but the IPMs for the new visual concepts ranged between 0-2. IPMs for each ad in the far right of the image.

Fourth A/A test of video creative

A/A TEST RESULT ANALYSIS

  • Facebook’s split tests maintain creative history for the control video. This gives the control an advantage with our IPM testing methodology.
  • We are unclear if Facebook can group variations with a similar look and feel to the control. If it can, similar-looking ads could also start with a higher IPM based on influence from the control — or perhaps similar thumbnails influence non-statistically relevant IPM.
  • Creative concepts that are visually very different from the control appear to not share a creative history. IPMs for these variations are independent of the control.
  • It appears that new, “out of the box” visual concepts vs the control may require more impressions to quantify their performance.
  • Our IPM testing methodology appears to be valid if we do NOT use a control video as the benchmark for winning.
  • The line graphs below show the IPMS  from the second, third, and fourth tests

 

creative testing best practices IPMs

FACEBOOK’S AAA ADVANTAGES

We do all our testing on Facebook because of the granular controls we have for bidding, creative reporting, and targeting. While Facebook’s Automated App Ads (AAA) reduce visibility into ad campaigns, there are some clear advantages to using the system.

  • You get creative performance reporting on images, videos, and text, and you can get that tied to standard events. This reporting persists whereas Google’s doesn’t.
  • You have a choice between an auto bid and a bid cap.
  • There are fewer restrictions on the text. You can use CAPS, exclamation points, emojis, etc.
  • Flexibility with creative assets. You can basically do whatever you want with 50 assets, and the reporting will persist.
  • You can assume there is a CPM discount and a CPI discount. Whenever you use Facebook solutions that they are encouraging, the platform will give you a discount.
  • Android and iOS performance can be comparable to standard campaigns.
  • 4 x 5 and square aspect ratios tend to do best on Facebook, though in some placements, a full portrait (9 x 16) is better. Be careful about Facebook allowing you to run creative assets that don’t entirely fit on given placements. Facebook will just shave off the top and bottom of your ads in some cases, which could mean they are chopping off the ad’s CTA or other critical information.
  • Note: We also suspect that Facebook will soon give advertisers even more flexibility with how many creative assets they can use. They know that creative testing is the best competitive advantage left for advertisers, and they want to give us the tools to aggressively optimize our ads.

 

 

 

Section 3: Post-IDFA Creative Testing Recommendations

 

TESTING ON ANDROID

Our creative testing process was built leveraging deterministic tracking and 1:1 asset-level reporting of multi-stage creative’s lifecycle testing. This process spans from IPM to ROAS across the learning phase to the eventual optimized phase. A/B creative test reporting is coupled with client-provided revenue targets frequently provided by an MMP (Appsflyer, Adjust, Singular, Kochava).

Even prior to IDFA loss, we tested on Android because it was less expensive and easily translated to iOS. We saved iOS testing for the rare clients without an Android app or those who were solely targeting iOS users. Testing creative for both IAP and IAA (outlined below) continue to work effectively on Android. In that sense, IDFA loss has validated our cost-effective strategies.

Fortunately, advertisers with Android apps who are NOT using Facebook’s AAA algorithm can follow our best practices and maintain their deterministic efficiency. You’ll maintain your ability to A/B test and see results at the individual asset level. Once a winning creative is identified, move it to iOS or other paid social platforms.

 

OUR 3-STEP CREATIVE TESTING PROCESS FOR IAP (IN-APP-PURCHASES)

Creative Testing Best Practices IAP

Phase 1: IPM Test

  • No control videos
  • Create a new split test campaign using 3~6 new creatives (no control).
    • Setup campaign structure for basic App Install (No event optimization or value optimization)
  • Spend an equal amount on each creative. Ex: One ad per ad set.
  • Budget for at least 100 installs per creative
    • $200~$400 spend per ad is recommended (based on a CPI of $2-$4) if T1 English-speaking country
    • $20~$40 spend per ad/adset testing in India (based on $0.20-$0.40 CPI)
  • US Phase 1 testing.
    • 10-15% LAL with a seed audience like past 90-day installers, or past 90-day payers.
  • Non-US Phase 1 testing.
  • Use broad targeting & English speakers only
  • If not available in India, try other English-speaking countries with lower CPMs than the U.S. and similar results. Ex: ZA, CA, IE, AU, PH, etc.
  • Use the OS (iOS or Android) you intend to scale in production
  • Use one body text
  • Headline is optional
  • FB Newsfeed or Facebook Audience Networking placement only (not both and not auto placements)
  • Be sure the winner has 100+ installs (50 installs acceptable in high CPI scenarios)
    • 100 installs: 70% confidence with 5% margin of error
    • 160 installs: 80% confidence with 5% margin of error
    • 270 installs: 90% confidence with 5% margin of error
    • IAP Titles: kill losers, top 1~3 winners go to phase 2
    • IAA Titles: kill losers, allow top 1~3 “possible winners” to exit the learning phase, and then put into “the Control’s” campaign

Which Creatives Move from Phase 1 > Phase 2?

Which Creatives Move From Phase 1 > Phase 2?

How To Pick a Phase 1 IPM Winner?

  • IPMs may range broadly or be clumped together
  • Goal: kill obvious losers and test remaining ads in phase 2
  • Ads (blue) have IPMs 6.77 & 6.34, move to phase 2
  • If all ads are very close (e.g., within 5%), increase the budget
  • IAA (in-app ads titles) you may need more LTV data before scaling

Phase 2: Initial ROAS

  • No control videos
  • Create a new campaign with AEO or VO optimization
  • Place all creatives into a single ad set (Multi Ads Per Ad Set)
  • Use IPM winner(s) from Phase 1 (you can combine winners from multiple Phase 1 tests into a single Phase 2 test)
  • OS – Android or iOS. 5-10% LALs from top seeds (purchases, frequent users + purchase) + Auto Placements
  • Testing can be done at a lower cost if you wish to run this campaign in other countries where ROAS is similar or higher but CPMs are much lower compared to the US – ie., South Africa, Ireland, Canada, etc.
  • Lifetime budget $3,500-$4,900 or daily budgets of $500-$750 over 4-6 day (depending on your $/purchase).
  • WARNING! Skipping this step is highly likely to result in one of the following scenarios:
    • Challenger immediately kills the champion/control but hasn’t achieved enough statistical relevance or exited the learning phase and therefore the sustained ROAS/KPI may not be sustained.
  • Champion/control video has a lot more statistical history and relevance and most likely has exited the learning phases and may immediately kill the challenger before it has a chance to get enough data to properly fight for ROAS.
  • The latest change to our Phase 2 strategy: we have become more focused on retention than we were a few months ago. Before, we were just looking at pure ROAS. Now, we pay attention to retention information as it comes in on Day 1 to Day 3 or so. This is usually possible, because we’ll run Phase 2 ads for about 5 days, and that’s worth weighing in for which pieces of creative you take to Phase 3.

Phase 3: ROAS Scale

  • No control videos
  • Use strong CBO campaign
  • Choose winner(s) from Phase 2 with good/decent ROAS
    • You have proven the ad has great IPM and “can monetize”
    • To win this phase, it must hit KPIs (D7 ROAS, etc.)
  • Create a copy of an existing ad set
    • Delete old ads and replace them with your Phase 2 winner(s)
    • Allows new ads to spend in a competitive environment
  • Then, create a new ad set, roll it out towards target audiences with solid ROAS / KPIs
  • CBO controls budgets between ad sets with control creatives and ad sets with new creative winners.
    • Intervene with ad set min/max spend control only if new creatives do not receive spend from CBO.
  • Require challenger to exit the learning phase before moving to challenge the control “Gladiator” video.
  • Once the challenger has exited the learning phase, allow CBO to change budget distribution between challenger and champion.

 

Our 3-Step Creative Testing Process for IAA (In-App-Ads)

Creative Testing Best Practices IAA

 

Phase 1: IPM Test

  • We use the same approach for IAA ads as we do for IAP ads in Phase 1.

Phase 2: Initial RPM

  • Look at your MMP. Find whichever countries/regions/geos are paying out a good RPM, and just go with those.
  • No control videos. Multiple ads per ad set. We call this “the gladiator battle.”
  • Create a new campaign with AEO (not VO), but instead of the event being a purchase, have it be an event that could only occur after someone has played the game for a long time like they’ve achieved a certain level.
  • For AEO, with a nonpurchase event, you can lower your budget down to even $250 per day.
  • Auto placements are okay if that’s what you typically use for the account. Generally, just use the placements you already know will work. No need to reinvent the wheel here. Just run your default best setup.
  • For audiences, just run your top two to three audiences. If you are concerned about budget, stack your audiences so you only have one ad set. This will get the ad set out of the learning phase faster and save you some money. (Keep in mind that you may not get out of the Learning Phase at all sometimes in Phase 2 testing.)

Phase 3: ROAS Scale

For IAA, there really is not a Phase 3, but our recommendations for what to do at this stage depend on your budget:

  • If your budget is small, you are not going to know performance for several weeks and so you might as well just roll your best-performing ads out into production.
  • If your budget is large, do a scaled-down Phase 3 structure as we suggest for IAP advertising. This is especially important if you have control ads that are still doing well. Roll strong Phase 2 performers whenever you need a win.

creative testing best practices

iOS CREATIVE TESTING WITHOUT IDFA

The loss of IDFA has profoundly impacted creative testing on iOS and requires a new strategy for creative optimization. Unfortunately, the trifecta of IDFA loss, account simplification required by SKAN, and media buying automation through Facebook’s AAA or Google UAC had an immediate impact on creative testing and creative strategy.

If you don’t have an Android app or you have embraced Facebook’s AAA algorithm or Google’s UAC, get ready for a different way to A/B test: ASSET FEEDS!

  • Most major platforms (Facebook, Google, Tik Tok, Snap) will have limited account configurations due to iOS14 SKAN tracking limitations. iOS14 accounts will be restricted to 9-11 campaigns with 5 ad sets per campaign, meaning you’ll have 45-60 permutations. It will be difficult to justify burning these ad sets on A/B testing. Therefore, new concepts will be the most important lever for your UA team.
  • Facebook (XML feed spec) and TikTok (XML feed spec) have published solutions for asset-level reporting data tied to dynamic asset-feeds for creative. The solutions attempt to:
    • Allow creative partners to tag, track and measure the performance of individual media.
    • Allow basic dynamic reporting (eg. CTR, spend/asset, clicks, impressions) for an individual asset in the Ad Set. However, they appear to not allow for multivariate-level reporting of the combination of ad copy, headline, and creative.
    • Prevent MMP data from being married to asset feeds based on the current platform’s specs. This may be a concern for companies leveraging their reporting to make creative or financial decisions from A/B testing.
    • Help with fatigue identification through Google’s introduction of asset performance labels (Best/Good/Poor…). This will aid in asset feed performance diagnosis and is a starting point to provide simple suggestions for what asset to optimize or replace.

From small changes to wholly new concepts

Due to limited testing slots and opaque creative-level reporting, creative strategy is shifting from optimizing with small changes to testing entirely new concepts. When creative optimization moves into asset feeds, the performance results of each creative are blended together into a kind of creative blob. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to know the contribution of each element is optimized. What we’re seeing:

  • Creative iterations and variations based on the most effective asset in a portfolio provide a higher likelihood for success but a much lower lift in performance (think < 5%).
  • Creative optimization is very likely to shift toward new concepts that take 5-20x as long to conceive and execute, but they offer a much higher potential for success (think 20% to 500%) and a correspondingly large risk of failure.
  • On average, we see a 5-15% success rate for new creative concepts, but when they succeed, the results can be a massive increase in KPI performance.
  • As creative becomes a targeting mechanism and user-intent filter, the new demand for fresh creative concepts vs iterations is certain to put a large strain on internal creative teams.

 

Google UAC Creative Testing

The loss of Apple’s IDFA has a cascade of consequences including how ad creative is used on Google. If you are running an asset feed ad like Google UAC, you need plenty of creative combinations within the feed to be truly effective.

With Google AC split testing feature not yet widely available, we recommend a phased Evergreen> Motivation ad group test plan.

Account Creative Cycling Structure

Week 1

  • Launch with one ad group (evergreen)
    • Fully loaded 20 video assets, landscape image, and 10 text assets

Week 2

  • Open 3-4 ad groups with distinct text assets only, centered on product motivations
    • Social, Exploration, Achievement, etc.

Week 3

  • match top motivation text group with corresponding video assets and iterate
    • Kill underperforming motivation groups
    • Repeat the process and iterate on the winning motivation concept

Tactics

  • Avoid relying solely on Google’s Best/Good/Low Creative Score for optimization; these scores are relative to other comparable sized assets in the ad group and do not always align with KPI
  • Instead, identify creatives with scale potential at KPI and consider creative metrics IPM/CTR along with CPM

creative testing best practices

Google UAC Advantages

  • Flexibility in campaign bidding structure.
  • You can have multiple campaigns running in any geo. You can have different CPAs, campaigns just running for installs, etc.
  • Better transparency for performance with 1:1 event reconciling via MMP data.
  • You can see the performance by traffic source.
  • Using multiple Ad Groups you can put different creative approaches into separate “buckets” and see how their performance compares. This also means you can run seasonal or ad hoc events without disturbing evergreen campaigns.
  • Being able to create multiple Ad Groups also means you can test a lot more creative than you can on Facebook. Google does cap your assets at 20 videos and 10 images, but if you need more you can just create more Ad Groups.
  • Portrait (9 x 16) and landscape (16 x 9) aspect ratios are the best bet right now for videos on UAC.

 

Google UAC CHALLENGES

  • In Google, you can have up to 20 videos and 10 images. Those are hard caps; you cannot swap out and have even 21 videos and 9 images. But if you swap those assets out to add new assets, you will not be able to see the stats for those creative assets. It is possible to get the stats back if you re-add the videos. So, the data isn’t lost. It’s just not shown.
  • Reporting on creative performance is harder to get.
  • You cannot control bid settings (like an auto bid and bid cap).
  • You cannot control where your traffic is coming from, or how it is allocated throughout your campaigns, Ad Groups, and ads. This means you cannot really do a proper split-test. You can have one creative in one Ad Group, and then create as many Ad Groups as creative variations, but that is not a proper split-test.
  • Google is more restrictive about the text. It will not allow CAPS, exclamation points, emojis, etc.
  • There are no standard campaign options on Google. There’s only UAC.

 

 

TIKTOK CREATIVE TESTING

TikTok’s A/B testing capabilities are still rapidly evolving so we recommend A/B testing on Facebook Android. If you can only test on TikTok, here are our suggested best practices:

  • Creative testing on TikTok is limited to running two creatives at a time, due to the limitation of two split audiences
  • Broad targeting is recommended for testing to keep CPMs low
  • Each ad set within a split test must spend at least $20/day in order to run
  • TikTok automates split tests to run for 7 days, but this can be shortened
  • Tests can be run with an optimization goal of Clicks, Installs, or In-App Events
  • Available bidding: Cost Cap Bidding or Lowest Cost Bidding. The lowest cost is recommended to maximize your number of results.
  • Both Standard Ads and Spark Ads (Organic Posts) can be split tested.
  • Musical iterations of ads can be easily created and tested using the TikTok Video Editor

 

OPTIMAL CREATIVE SIZES ACROSS PLATFORMS

To maximize creative testing, run optimal aspect ratio and media types relative to each platform across Facebook, Google App Campaigns, TikTok, and Snap. However, as the failure rate of new creative is 95% you will also want to minimize the number of sizes you produce until you have uncovered a fresh winning creative. Below is our recommendation to maximize distribution and while minimizing creative production.

creative testing best practices

Section 4: A Final Word On Creative Testing

IDFA loss, SKAN requirements, and media buying automation through Facebook’s AAA or Google UAC are tough challenges facing user acquisition and creative teams.

But don’t despair. Dean Takahashi from GamesBeat says, “Advertisers aren’t helpless. In a post-IDFA world, Facebook, Branch, and Consumer Acquisition recommend focusing on ‘persona-led creative’ (or marketing to a type of person) to regain efficiency by allowing paid social algorithms to cluster users based on behaviors and creative trends.”

Tactics we recommend throughout these pages may not be strictly aligned with publicly available platform best practices. But we know they work. Our market insights and creative expertise come from managing over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers. Since 2013 we’ve worked with Roblox, Glu Mobile, Disney, SuperHuman, Rovio, Jam City, Wooga, NBA, MLB, Ford, Sun Basket, Lion Studios, MobilityWare, and many others. We provide end-to-end creative and user acquisition services for mobile app marketers via performance-oriented creative storytelling, integrated UA, and creative optimization.

Contact sales@consumeracquisition.com to discuss our user acquisition and creative services.

 

Download Creative Testing Best Practices: Post-IDFA Loss Today!

Apple Is Anticompetitive: From ATT To IAPs

Apple’s iOS 15 gives its internal apps, products, and services an advantage over third parties. Are they intentionally confusing customers? Here’s what we learned:

  • California Court rules against Apple’s anticompetitive practices in Epic Games lawsuit
  • App Tracking Transparency (ATT) differences for iOS 14 third parties vs iOS 15 Apple’s apps
  • Insights into Apple’s anti-industry and anti-consumer practices

“…the Court finds that common threads run through Apple’s practices which unreasonably restrains competition and harm consumers…” 

Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc.

 

Is iOS 15 Intentionally Confusing Customers?

Consumer Acquisition has been reporting on Apple’s anti-developer, anti-advertiser restrictions for months now. While our reports have primarily focused on devastating advertising revenue loss and impacts, two recent Apple developments have shown they are also anticompetitive to the disservice of consumers and developers.

Personalized Ads or Tracking: Apple’s ATT Prompt 

Apple released iOS 15 on September 20 and there are notable differences in the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompt for internal Apple products versus third-party ATT prompts. Their apps are custom-designed to harm the mobile app advertising ecosystem and confuse consumers. According to iMore, this change was visible in the public beta as well.

Any app distributed through the App Store that is now Apple’s is required to ask each consumer if they will allow having their activity tracked using the following language: Allow [App] to track your activity across other companies’ apps and websites? (See graphic below). Developers can add one customizable sentence to explain the value of tracking. Users must select “Ask App Not to Track” or “Allow” before continuing in the app.

Apple’s Inconsistent Privacy Language

For iOS 14.5, Apple automatically opted-in consumers to be tracked for Apple’s internal apps, which was troublesome considering their privacy rhetoric. With iOS 15, Apple is now showing an ATT prompt for their internal Apple apps; however, they provide substantial advantages to Apple by using specifically designed soft language for this purpose. In contrast to the terse, transactional prompt to permit tracking, for their own apps Apple asks you to “turn on personalized ads”. They also include a wordy explanation of all the benefits of said personalization, along with privacy protections and increased content relevance.

You cannot overstate the difference in language. One prompt is about empowering a user to do a positive thing while the other prompt is about preventing a negative thing. Personalization is delightful and sought out, while tracking is intrusive and objectionable. An empowered user can turn a feature on or off like a light. However, a disempowered user must ask for something negative not to happen to them.

iOS 15 anticompetitive behavior

Apple’s Unfair Standards

Apple’s behavior is custom-designed to give their products a strategic advantage over third parties like Facebook, Google, and TikTok. For all of Apple’s extensive privacy promises, the rhetorical spin-doctoring they employ to persuade users to be tracked for Apple’s benefit casts a new light on their commitment to privacy. But, the end result is the same. If a consumer opts out of ATT they will not see fewer ads. Instead, they will see non-personalized ads, essentially unsolicited spam.

Why is it okay for Apple to use advertising-friendly language with their own apps and then use aggressive anti-advertising language for third parties? This language is creating an inconsistent and confusing consumer experience. However, Apple seems to be building a walled garden of perceived consumer safety and security. At the same time, they are screaming like Chicken Little when third-party, AI-driven algorithms offer elegant, unbiased recommendations outside of Apple’s human-curated preferences. As app developers and advertisers are hobbled by IDFA loss, what resources do they have when the iOS rules are so blatantly different and unfair? Hopefully, Apple will create universal standards they apply consistently to their own apps. Apple’s recent announcement that native apps can now be reviewed and rated is a step in that direction.

Monetary Impact

In Q2, 2021 earnings calls, both Applovin and Playtika shared that iOS 14.5+ adoption was over 80% and the ATT opt-in rate was only 35-40%. Zynga warned IDFA removal would have a material impact and H2 2021 bookings could be down by $100M. Consumer Acquisition is seeing a -15% to -20% average revenue loss for iOS broad audience games and a -35% revenue loss for heavy IAP/niche audience games.

anticompetitive behavior

September data from Flurry shows that worldwide, users being shown the ATT prompt have been opting in at a rate of only 23% week-over-week since August. In the U.S., the opt-in rate is an abysmal 16%. Custom and lookalike audience size is down -77% worldwide (86% in the U.S.) with these low ATT consent rates. As a result, effectiveness has dropped. Many mobile app developers have paused spending on iOS or shifted heavily to Android, inflating CPMs.

Epic v. Apple Ruling

Last week, there was a monumental ruling in the industry-shaking lawsuit of Epic Games v. Apple. Epic sued Apple “alleging violations of federal and state antitrust laws and California’s unfair competition law based upon Apple’s operation of its App Store,” with Apple disputing the allegations. While the court did not conclude that Apple was a “monopolist” or engaging in “antitrust conduct,” the trial did show Apple’s “anticompetitive conduct” under California law.

The evidence in the case demonstrated that gaming apps make up nearly 70% of all App Store revenue. And only 10% of all app store users generate that revenue. The court found that Apple’s anti-steering restrictions—which prevented developers from communicating with users about lower prices on other platforms— “hide critical information from consumers and illegally stifle consumer choice” and called for “nationwide remedy.” You can read the full court findings here.

In the ruling, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers issued a permanent injunction declaring that Apple is “permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing and (ii) communicating with customers through points of contact, obtained voluntarily from customers through account registration within the app.”

The ruling takes effect in 90 days unless delayed or reversed. Then, app developers can add metadata buttons and external links for alternative purchasing mechanisms outside of the App Store. By offering users these alternatives, app developers can decrease IAP costs for users. They can also reduce their own overall App Store commissions by 30 percent. Increasing the diversity of the monetization ecosystem will ultimately benefit the entire mobile game industry.

 

Here is My Take on Apple’s iOS 15 Anticompetitive Behavior

Only 10% of all App Store users, mainly from games, are generating 70% of App Store revenue. Apple appears to be trying to corner the market of high-value spenders by:

  • Preventing users from accessing less expensive and less flexible alternative purchasing methods in the App Store. This is to maintain their high margins (i.e., the Epic Case)
  • Luring users out of third-party advertising platforms with privacy scare tactics (i.e., anti-advertising ATT language)
  • Making it very difficult for third-party platforms to identify top spenders and effectively build lookalike models (i.e., obfuscation of IDFA)
  • Reduced profitability of iOS advertisers by rendering A/B or multivariate creative testing useless.

Ultimately, this behavior is highly disruptive to the vitality of the iOS advertising market. It is having a negative impact on mobile app game developers, advertisers, and consumers.

 

For More Background On Our Perspectives Around Post-IDFA Loss

How We Can Help

  • Mobile app advertisers agree that the full costs of internal UA teams are 6-8% of media spend. We work with your team to bring industry-wide expertise and insights across paid social providers. This will provide a broader understanding of the highly evolving IDFA impact.
  • We provide a creative studio and user acquisition services for Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snap, and Apple Search advertisers.
  • Our Hollywood-based storytellers can produce ongoing persona-driven creative concepts to stay ahead of creative fatigue.
  • Founded in 2013. Manage over $3 billion in creative and social ad spend for the world’s largest mobile apps and web-based performance advertisers.

Contact Sales@ConsumerAcquisition.com to work with the team.

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