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Instant Pages in TikTok
Today, we’re going to take a look at the functionality of TikTok Instant Pages and break down why they should be of interest to those who promote on TikTok and those who are interested in advancing their products and services.
What are Instant Pages?
Quick pages are a simple builder right inside the TikTok ADS Manager. You can use it to make a simple page with an order form for your desired offer. Moderation in TikTok is mostly triggered on a creo or a landing page, so with Instant Pages, you can try to pass it faster and more efficiently.
The standard scheme for directing traffic to an offerer is as follows.
- An advertising campaign is created.
- The user clicks on the creative.
- 3 He is redirected to the web site.
- He explores the content of the site.
- The user fills out an application.
In the case of Instant Pages, it is simplified and looks like this.
- An advertising campaign is created.
- The user clicks on the creative.
- Instant Page pops up in the TikTok app.
- The user fills in the application.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem like a big difference, but the difference is quite significant. The user stays in the app, there is less unnecessary information on this kind of landing page. Therefore, he fills out the application more quickly. As a result, the conversion rate goes up. There may be a lower approval, but you need to test. As practice has shown, the approval does not fall, and for some affiliates, on the contrary, it becomes higher.
How does it work?
First, the user sees the standard creatives. Then he clicks on the ‘Learn More’ and goes to the form for filling out the application. After filling it out a ‘Thank you’ window appears.
See how it’s as simple and convenient as possible. The whole process takes place without going to third-party sites. It also looks seamless to the user.
Advantages and disadvantages of Instant Pages
Affiliate marketers working with white offers can improve the conversion rate from a visitor to a lead. That said, it’s advisable to test different approaches in any case. If you are working with grey offers, Instant Pages can help you get through moderation faster and sometimes drive traffic even to grey offers. In addition to this, the conversion rate improves.
To try this out for yourself, publish two different ad campaigns in parallel. One should be a pay-per-conversion campaign with a standard link to a landing page. The second will aim to generate leads and use a quick page. You will be able to notice that the second campaign will go through moderation in just a few minutes and will be active immediately. The first campaign will at least hold up and could at most get rejected.
The page loads 11 times faster than standard mobile pages.
The disadvantage of Instant Pages is only one. If people don’t click through to your site, you don’t get referral traffic data.
All this shows the main advantage of Instant Pages. With this tool, you can promote a wider range of products and services. You can save time. And a bonus will be more contacts left by potential customers than would be the case with a standard landing page.
Global trends in mobile app advertising. What’s being promoted the most right now?
The world’s top apps are getting a lot of attention. Most people want to know what makes them catch users’ attention, and why users are downloading them more and more times. We’ve selected the top global mobile apps (non-gaming) in terms of downloads and ads based on last month’s results. Some of the results will seem logical, while others will be surprising.
We also paid attention to conversion creatives. You’d be surprised, but minimalism and informativeness are in demand right now.
Overall performance
Social apps have maintained a steady number of downloads, with Instagram at the top of the world’s best apps in terms of advertising. Health and fitness apps saw a surge in ad creative. The NewsBreak app continued to make significant adjustments to its iOS ads, dropping out of the iOS ad list as a result. Reading app GoodNovel topped the rankings for advertising on iOS and became the most advertised reading app.
Top 10 by number of downloads WW
There was a general upward trend in the ranking of the top apps by the number of downloads on Google Play last month (may 2022). Instagram moved up one position in the rankings on both iOS and Android and topped the list with 41.4 million downloads, up 5.1 percent from earlier.
The social app has outpaced other apps in terms of growth in downloads. Facebook continued to get more downloads, reaching 36.2 million downloads on iOS and Android combined, up 5% from the previous period. Facebook Lite immediately followed with 21.1 million downloads on Google Play, an increase of 28.7%.
On the App Store, ByteDance’s CapCut app continues to see steady growth in downloads. The app received 7.5 million downloads on the App Store, 24% of which came from the US. And TikTok showed a downward trend in the number of downloads: 8 million downloads from the App Store, down 17.5%.
Top 10 by ad volume
Now let’s move on to the ranking of the best apps by advertising volume based on last month’s results. The NewsBreak app continued to tweak its creatives on iOS and Android since March 2022, and then it had over 688,000 deduplicated creatives on iOS and Android combined.
Shopping app creatives show an overall upward trend. Speedd showed the sharpest growth among other shopping apps in April’s list, with over 11,000 de-duplicated creatives on iOS, up 78.6% from the previous month. Speedd’s main advantage is that it owns warehouses in Italy and provides delivery services. Other than Italy, its creatives were released mainly in Romania and Portugal, which accounted for more than 20% of the total number of creatives within 30 days.
Quite a few apps entered the ranking for the first time with their creatives, including the health and fitness app Fitnete with its outstanding performance. Since its official release in March 2020, the app released few updates and creatives until two years later when fitness exercises became popular again due to the global pandemic. Fitnete began releasing creatives in April this year and during the same month more than 65,000 deduplicated creatives were created on Android.
Top 10 in terms of advertising volume in the US
Quite a few apps that ranked again with creatives globally or in the US chose the US as their target market. In addition to the aforementioned health and fitness apps, reading apps have also been influenced by the stay-at-home economy and have begun to increase their advertising creatives.
Aidi’s reading app GoodNovel has around 30,000 deduplicated creatives on iOS and Android combined. It is followed by BueNovela and StoryHouse, with their number of creatives on Android up 200% from last month.
Travel app FREE NOW (mytaxi) and map app FREE NOW from Intelligent Apps saw rapid growth in creatives. As a well-known car delivery app in Europe, Free Now has partnered with car delivery apps Hailo, Kapten, and myTaxi, establishing a business in more than 60 cities. In March 2022 the Free Now app signed a contract with BMB as its global advertising and strategy agency, and in April it launched mass production of ads.
This ranking is interesting because we can monitor the practices used by these apps to find new approaches and make them even more appealing to the target audience. You can find out which well-known companies’ apps are also promoted through mobile marketing on our website page.
PWA apps. Scam or not?
There is a perception that PWA apps are ineffective and scam. We look into this issue and analyse this type of app and examine how effective it is for promoting products and apps.
What is it?
PWA (progressive web application) is a product of Google. It allows you to install a website on Android in the form of an app. In affiliate marketing, PWA applications stand as an alternative to webview apps. The latter is becoming more problematic to use due to the more stringent requirements of the moderators.
The trend for PWA applications began to grow in the summer of 2021. That is when webviews began to get banned en masse from both app stores and sources. Today, PWA app builders are actively developing, upgrading their functionality, and promoting themselves in the market. In addition to standalone brand services, PWA apps have also been released by affiliate programs and direct advertisers.
Webviews are apps that are found in the Google Play and Apple Store app shops. A PWA is a landing page that fully replicates the look and feels of a Google Play app and is located in the web space. PWA app can be distinguished from the original app only by its domain.
Once installed on Android the PWA looks like the original Google Play app. At the same time, the weight of PWA apps is much lower than that of webview, which greatly influences the download speed and user loyalty.
The weight of a PWA is directly related to the icon weight (61KB), everything else is in the OS. The weight of webview can range from 6 MB (native) to 30 MB (unity) – all depending on the development environment.
Advantages of PWA application
- No need to download from Google Play
- Traffic is directed to the link itself, therefore, it is not possible to tag the application and only the domain can be banned. But this issue is solved rather quickly because it takes 1 minute to generate a new domain for PWA.
- It does not require an advertising campaign to be shared.
- You can use aggressive and branded designs. They will not be banned.
- The application is editable in real-time. PWA applications are constructors, so the app design, description, and comments can be changed directly in real-time. There is no need to wait for the moderators to approve changes.
- The user will receive your push notifications even if he deletes the app. As push notifications are set at the browser level.
- A clever system for optimising ad campaigns. For example, there is a ‘double optimisation’ system. By enabling this feature, your ‘register’ and ‘install’ events will bounce back to the traffic source immediately as a ‘purchase’.
- Low cost, ranging from $10 to $20 each.
Cons of PWA applications
- Only support Android.
- No organic traffic. As the apps are not uploaded to Google Play, so there is no way to punch the apps ASO. Organic traffic to PWA apps simply does not exist.
- Difficult and time-consuming to set up.
Costs of creating PWA apps
You don’t need development to make a PWA app. The market offers ready-made builders where you can build your PWA application in 5 minutes. Usually, the builder includes:
- a ready-made domain;
- shop with 100+ designs to choose from;
- built-in cloak and white pages;
- in-depth push notifications.
- internal system for analytics and traffic optimisation;
- 24/7 helpdesk support and app customisation assistance.
Conclusion
As you can see, this type of app has both advantages and disadvantages. However, PWA operates in the same ecosystem as Webview. They are focused on a common goal. This is why the issue of transparency for this type of application depends on the way it is used, not on its nature and creation mechanisms.
Mobile merge games market analysis
What is the market of merge games, who are the leaders there, and how much do they earn?
Today we will tell you about this genre and try to show you its future.
What are merge games?
The merge games genre is over 10 years old. The genre has experienced ups and downs. Each time its rules have changed quite seriously. Its main rule is that when merging, identical objects do not disappear, but are transformed into something else. It always remains the same.
The very first game in the genre was called Triple Town. It was released 12 years ago. It was hailed by industry media as the best social game ever made. The Merge genre has quite a few sub-genres. We will focus on the major ones, which are the most representative.
The first sub-genre. Merge-3
The rules of the game are as follows. You need at least three items to merge. The more items you merge, the more bonuses you get.
The story revolves around discovering and clearing new territories and collecting resources. The energy expended is replenished over time. Visuals: bright cartoonish visuals, isometric perspective, fantasy setting, and the story is formal.
A few statistics. This niche has 86 current projects. For now, its total monthly revenue is $30 million, and its annual turnover can reach $360 million. In the top 10 games of the niche, there are three projects with earnings of $5 million per month.
However, it is important to understand that 80% of sub-genre games do not make more than $100,000 a month. As for the top, it was formed by far from ordinary players. Of the top 10:
- three games are by Gram Games;
- three games are by Chinese teams.
Six of the current top 10 niche leaders came out before Spring 2020.
Anyway, let’s name the leaders. These are Merge Dragons from Gram Games with a monthly box office of $11.5m; EverMerge from Big Fish Games, which earns about $6.9m a month; and a Chinese-made game, Merge Country from Microfun, which earned $4m a month back in March and reached the $5.5m mark in April.
The benefits of games in this sub-genre are good player monetisation.
Merge-2
The rules of the game are as follows. Two identical items are required to merge. The items required to obtain them are set by the quests. Free space on the field is usually heavily restricted to items without a pair. New items are obtained by the player from timed crates and chests. The field in such games is not isometric, but two-dimensional. A realistic setting is used, and the storyline plays a more important role than in merge-3.
An example of this type of game is Merge Mansion. Here the quests are set through the environment. For example, there is a bush that gets in the way of the heroine. To cut it she must, as part of the gameplay, get secateurs.
Now the sub-genre has 176 actual projects. The niche currently has combined monthly revenue of $13m. Its annual turnover could be as much as $156m. But nearly two-thirds of that amount comes from the single-game mentioned above, Merge Mansion. Based on monthly earnings, no other game comes close to its $7.5m.
Strategy Merge
Away from the finally formed (primarily due to numerous clones) merge-3 and merge-2 niches is a group of merge games aimed at completely different audiences. A sub-genre can also be called Strategy Merge. Within it, two directions can be distinguished. 4X-merge – merge with the storyline of 4X-strategies where the focus is shifted to construction and expansion.
For example, Top War by Hong Kong-based Topwar Studio. Today, Top War earns just over $30m per month, half of this amount coming from the western market and half from the Asian market.
TD-merge is a merge whose mechanics have taken a lot from the tower defence genre. Random Dice, for example. It has strayed as far as possible from the classic merge. It is therefore a stretch to relegate it to the genre. At its peak in 2020, Random Dice was earning $10 million.
The combined monthly revenue of the strategic merge sub-genre is $39.7 million, which is almost the turnover of merge-3 and merge-2 combined. Except that, as with merge-2, two-thirds of the amount comes from a single game (Top War).
Revenue per time of operation divided by downloads (ARPU)
The projects in the merge-3 sub-genre are the leaders. Together Merge Dragons and EverMerge have the cumulative ARPU of $9. The rest of the top 10 projects have an ARPU of $3-5. Even projects from the second top ten have ARPU of less than a dollar.
As for merge-2, even the leader does not have a large ARPU here. Merge Mansion has a sub-genre peak of $3.64. Projects from the top ten have ARPU below a dollar.
As for strategies, it is difficult to talk about a complete picture because, as we have already noted, not even niches have been formed. There are three major projects and that is all.
Conclusions
There are many games in the merge niche, but successful clones outside the merge-3 sub-genre are almost unheard of. As a rule, there is one major box office hit per sub-genre. The highest-earning merge is 4X-merge.
As far as strategic direction is concerned, that niche is being created right now. But will there even be a place in it for anyone other than those already in the niche? That is an open question.
How mobile app marketing works
Some companies have been building apps for years and already have a well-established mechanism for marketing their products. Some have just created their first app. They need to figure out what their promotion might look like. Which actions can you do yourself? And which can you entrust to a specialised agency?
We’ve prepared a checklist for you. You can go through it and determine whether you have done all you can to ensure that your product is seen by as many members of your target audience as possible.
Optimise the app's stock page
Getting your app noticed amongst the hundreds of others like it is a huge undertaking. Improving visibility is not the easiest task, but it’s important.
The app is ranked for keywords and keyword phrases. Effective optimization allows you to attract users and get more downloads. You need to know your target audience and the keywords they use to search for the app. Use these words in the title, description, and tags. 63% of apps on the App Store were found through search.
Use guest blogging
Guest blogging is publishing your content on third-party web resources suitable for product promotion. The blog owner receives valuable content, and you gain access to a new audience. Guest blogging is as old as blogging its own, but it is also very effective. This kind of action allows you to promote the app. It also helps to get new people interested in it and get links to the product from good sources, which will be a big plus for search engines.
Of course, it’s not an easy method, creating additional interesting content requires some effort, but it’s well worth the result. If you can come up with quality content that is relevant to your product or service, you increase your chances of getting a lot of potential customers not only from your guest posts but also from search engines.
Use Pinterest
Many people think of Pinterest as a source of inspiration, a warehouse of interesting images. But few see the site as a marketing tool. Pinterest is designed for visual content. You can use it to share interesting graphics, save your favourite images to themed boards, and look at other people’s boards. The site is ideal for promoting the visual component of an app, especially if you have a limited budget for advertising.
The app’s product images and themed infographics don’t always get a lot of attention on other social networks, but on Pinterest, they can easily go viral. The site’s users are passionate about visuals, and they appreciate memorable images. And, most importantly, these people are eager and happy to buy.
Hold a contest or lottery
Contests and lotteries are a great way to draw attention to a product. You can hold contests before the release of the app, on different holidays, and just for fun. Contest-related words (‘win’, ‘contest’, ‘winner’, etc.) are good to attract users.
Running contests, especially on social media, is one low-cost way to promote an app. People will talk about your contest on their social media pages if the terms of the competition involve reposting, voting, or doing something unusual.
You will get a huge audience reach. You can give contestants products that are available for purchase through your app as well as nice bonuses.
Use PUSH notifications
PUSH notifications are messages that appear on your mobile device. App creators can send them at any time, whether the app is currently running or not. With PUSH notifications, users can be notified about promotions, discounts, special offers, and more. The user will be aware of your news even if they are not actively using the app.
To make them work, it is important to remember some of their features:
- the name of the PUSHs makes it clear which app the message is from;
- the app icon improves the app’s visibility;
- the message can be any length, but users will only see the first 60 characters on iOS and 45 on Android.
Use QR codes
The QR code is one of the powerful mobile app marketing technologies. For a person to use a QR code, they must have a smartphone equipped with a camera and a QR code reader or scanner function. Most modern smartphones come with a QR code reader app pre-installed from the factory. You can place them in advertisements, books, and magazines and thus draw attention to the product.
Use ASO
App search engine optimization is a special action needed to get your website higher in search engine results and increase traffic and with it the number of customers. ASO application promotion is an important step in product development because applications have recently begun to appear in organic search results.
Use the app as a marketing tool
You’ve developed an app that helps people solve their problems, now you need to get the word out to potential users. Encourage users to leave reviews and rate the app in stores. This will increase product visibility and downloads. People are more willing to download an app that others have praised.
If you have a commercial product, provide a free trial. This way users will know they’re not being offered a pig in a poke and will appreciate all the benefits of the product and can purchase the paid version knowing exactly what to expect from the app.
Add a share button
Make sure you add a ‘Share’ button to the app that includes the most popular messengers and social networks. And don’t forget Twitter! The top 100 global brands have Twitter accounts specifically for 42 of them.
Create a promo video
A good promo video is an effective tool to promote any product/service and helps a lot of people make a purchasing decision. A video about a mobile app shows you how the app works. Also how you can use it and you can appreciate the interface and the user-friendliness.
Another advantage of a promotional video is that it can be used not only for storerooms but also for promotion. For example, people search for a ‘foreign language learning app’, and your video fits the title or description on YouTube. This way, it can appear in search engine results.
Contact a marketing agency
Millions of people are ready to download your app. But how do you get the word out about your product? One effective way is through the services of a marketing agency specialising in mobile app promotion. Such agencies have the necessary tools and experience to make the app visible on the global web, bringing it to your target audience.
Using someone else’s promotion experience will avoid many mistakes. Especially since you can choose a highly specialised marketing agency that promotes mobile apps exclusively. For example, Adsbalance brings apps to the top by the number of downloads and installations in the areas of games, e-commerce, finance, beauty, and health.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to promote a mobile app, you can use all or some of the most popular ones. Free marketing strategies sometimes take a long time to achieve the desired results, paid ads can bring thousands of downloads in a few days. The final choice of strategy depends on your capabilities. Most of all, remember that only consistent marketing and the involvement of professionals can guarantee the long-term success of an app. The more thoughtful and consistent your promotion is, the more rewarding it will be.
What is the difference between a publisher and an advertiser?
Anyone who has heard even a little about affiliate marketing has come across the concepts of publishers and advertisers.
Essentially, these are the main actors operating in the mentioned ecosystem.
Today, let’s look at what these terms mean, whether one can include the other, and how not to confuse the concepts.
What do the publisher and the advertiser do?
Their roles are different. Advertisers are companies (those that produce or sell products or services) that outsource all or part of the promotion of their products. For this purpose, they approach an affiliate programme, performance agency, or media buying team. Special mention should go to the so-called direct advertiser. It is an affiliate programme that itself produces the goods/services advertised by the publishers.
Publishers are people or groups who promote the advertiser’s products directly or through an affiliate programme. They do not receive a salary, but a certain amount of money for each user they attract. There are several payment schemes, each based on what action a potential lead takes that is “influenced” by the advertising run by the publisher. It could be by going to the right website, registering in an app, leaving a loan application, and many others.
Accordingly, the publisher can also be free to choose the means of promoting the advertiser’s products and use a particular source of traffic or several. People who promote through SEO, for example, can also be called webmasters.
To avoid confusion, let’s look at a simple example.
Company N applies to the affiliate programme M with its offer: a slimming cream. That offer is seen in the personal account of the affiliate program by George, who has a specially designed for such purposes sites about beauty and health. He installs the necessary code on his website. The network begins to show ads for this product on George’s sites. Every time this slimming cream is ordered through one of his websites, he receives the amount of money prescribed in the offer.
Thus, George is the publisher, M is the advertiser, and N is the affiliate, just mentioned above.
A fair question may arise: why doesn’t the publisher approach the company directly? It is possible. First, there are affiliate programmes that develop their products (health and beauty products). So they are direct advertisers.
Also, large companies, such as big federal or international online retailers, deploy affiliate programmes on their bases. In this case, the difference from the previous example is that the principal company’s activity here will be online sales of its products. The affiliate programme will become a kind of department of the company to promote its goods.
But back to our question. Yes, it is possible to work with a company directly. But this option will suit already experienced publishers who do not need help from the partner programme. Also, there must be trust and confidence in the integrity of the other side. That’s why the point of most affiliate programs is not only to connect the two parties, but to resolve conflicts, and misunderstandings, and avoid fraud by either party.
We hope this article has helped you to understand the meaning of these two concepts and how they differ from each other.
We continue to regularly feed our blog with interesting and informative articles, and topics, which are currently relevant and in demand in the market.
Affiliate Marketing Scammers and how to spot them
The field of Affiliate Marketing is attractive because you can make a lot of money in it. At industry conferences, you may see 20-year-old millionaires driving the latest models of expensive cars. Whether you are an affiliate or a client, or a service user, you understand that earning money is real.
But just as real as making a quick buck is, for everyone, the likelihood of running into scammers is also high. Because the field is quite new and unregulated, information about such cases is not widely known. Let’s look at the main types of marketing scams and highlight the signs you can use to spot a scammer.
You are offered to get rich very quickly
Useless or even obviously pseudo-courses, webinars or training fall into the marketing fraud category. This scheme is often used to scam newcomers who lack industry connections and experience. There are different variations of this affiliate scam. At best, you’ll waste your time on them, and at worst, you’ll also part with your money.
Imagine an established marketer who wants to become more popular and recognised in the community. He launches a free online marathon to share his knowledge and expertise. Usually, it’s just about building a personal brand and gaining more influence. You won’t get any unique information. Everything they tell you about is already available on the internet. So why are such supposedly educational projects useless? Because the purpose of their author is not to transfer knowledge but to build a personal brand. It is to launch the author’s course with minimal losses for himself, and not to invest in its educational part at all.
The second case is slightly different. Here you are also offered a free webinar, in which the speaker actively sells an advanced course in his marketing message. Of course, you have to pay for it. But you get unique knowledge, personal mentoring from the trainer, and so on. Of course, as soon as you pay for access, the trainer disappears.
How do you protect yourself from affiliate marketing scams? You can’t go anywhere without constant learning in the fast-paced online marketing industry, so the risk of falling for a scammer’s bait is also growing. If you’re unsure about a trainer, search the internet for information about him. If he is a scammer, you will find a lot of negative information about him in chats. Also, don’t be lazy. Ask in the profile chat, if someone has been trained by such a mentor, and ask for recommendations.
Fake media buying teams
These scammers also target newbies. They invite you to join a cool buying team but give you a test assignment. For example, you have to find an account with $300 worth of ad spend. This is a challenging task, and you fail it. Then representatives of the “good” team reassure you and tell you that they have accounts, but they are expensive. You want to prove your worth and you agree. You give them the money… And they disappear.
How do you check the reputation of a media buying team? If it’s a real team, it’s bound to be known about in the community. Again professional chats and forums are at your service.
If you want to get on a real, not fake, buying team, contact us, the performance affiliate marketing agency Adsbalance. We are ready to educate young buyers, help new talents develop and immerse them in the complex but interesting world of affiliate marketing.
Shaving affiliates
Shaving is when an affiliate network credits your account with fewer leads than you bring in. They may say that the quality of your traffic is lower than what they want and that you have brought in bots. In this case, you need to look at your stats in detail.
Here are the basic patterns
- If CR drops drastically towards the end of the month, the advertiser has likely exhausted his budget. When a new month starts your CR is as good as new.
- If you see your CR dropping and you contact the advertiser to check if everything is ok with payment systems, accounts, proxies, and so on. And he says everything is OK, but then you see that your CR has miraculously stabilised.
- You see a sudden drop in conversions with a steady flow of traffic.
- A sudden drop in approval rate is also a red flag. It could be caused by technical problems on the advertiser’s side, but it could also be shaving. Check the approval rate before activating an offer ideally it should be around 90%.
Be careful and pay attention to the statistics. Idea: run a split test. Run one campaign and divide the traffic equally between the same offer, taken from 4 different affiliate networks. Four networks, 25% traffic per offer. They should all show the same results.
Cookie stuffing
Cookie stuffing involves the swapping of cookies of website visitors to attribute them to your leads, even if their targeted action happens much later and for unrelated reasons. Thus, you as an affiliate lose a hard-earned lead because the user’s browser has automatically exchanged a bunch of third-party cookies with the “stuffed” site. This is difficult to detect as there are several 1×1 pixel iFrame windows involved in the “stuffing” cookie.
Cookie stuffing occurs most often in the Nutra and e-commerce verticals. The most vulnerable are blog writers and webmasters who run websites that allow them to post any kind of image. Cookie stuffing also hurts advertisers, as they pay for the same lead 3 to 4 times.
Conclusion
The easiest advice if you suspect someone of affiliate fraud is not to keep quiet but to talk to your colleagues in the field. Visit forums, talk to your affiliate programme manager, and open up profile media. And, of course, make friends with other marketing performance teams. Open communication is the key to combating scammers in the affiliate industry.
