By: Ifa Reist, Zoomd Director of Products

Mobile app user acquisition campaign management can be complex at times, and with an ever-growing number of media channels to keep up with, maintaining high converting and engaging user acquisition campaigns is more complex than ever before. As a result, many organizations have become reliant on SaaS solutions to manage intricate mobile marketing and social media campaigns. While smart technological solutions are both fascinating and extremely useful, the behind-the-scenes of creating one can be even more intriguing.

What Does a User Acquisition Software Do?

Before we begin examining the design process behind our software, it’s essential to define exactly what our platform does. The Zoomd platform allows app developers and advertisers to create, run, automate and optimize user acquisition campaigns from one dashboard across multiple media channels. Many businesses struggle to keep track of and maintain various campaigns concurrently across different platforms as it can be time-consuming to set up, optimize and track cross-channel campaigns all at once.

Our platform gives you the opportunity to smoothly manage and craft engaging ads and campaigns across the top media channels. These channels include Facebook, Instagram, Google UAC, TikTok, Apple Search, Twitter, and even Snapchat. In addition, keeping track of all your campaigns simultaneously allows you to gain unique insights into the effectiveness of your campaign and all your creative assets’ performance.

So what goes into creating such a cutting-edge user acquisition software?

Considerations Before Creation

When we set out to create Skipper, our self-serve user acquisition platform, our goal was to create an easy-to-use product that would allow advertisers to optimize their campaigns automatically. Designing software that could accomplish all of this wasn’t done in a day. It required hours of preliminary research and self-learning. Before we could begin the design process, we knew that we would need to enlist professionals with experience in the field – our very own in-house media teams, who each have a deep familiarity with different media channels. We set out to combine the knowledge of all our campaign managers into one smart platform. It’s safe to say the platform was designed by campaign managers for campaign managers.

We designed the most effective user acquisition software based on our professional knowledge and experience with the industry’s pain points and managing media and social campaigns for clients. We combined this insider knowledge with our software’s machine learning capabilities and plenty of market research to design the ideal solution. As a result, our customers can rest easy knowing that their campaigns are being automatically optimized by a system designed with these purposes in mind – to simplify the campaign management process, to save them more time, and to have more insights about each campaign that they’re operating.

On top of that, we’re working with top-tier global advertisers that almost all run social user acquisition campaigns, either internally or externally. We had the opportunity to hear what a lot of them have to say on the day-to-day campaign management process, including what actions are the most time-consuming for them and what would help them become more efficient.

The Next Step: Knowing Our Customers

Once we had completed the research and development process, we were ready to onboard new clients and advertisers. The onboarding process gave us an opportunity to gain insight into our customers’ needs, giving us the opportunity to improve our platform. Knowing and understanding the customers’ needs and how to meet them was a core value behind our platform, and it still is – we’re constantly getting feedback and, when possible or relevant, we make adjustments along the way in order to improve. We invest effort in understanding the channels our customers use and their demographics to ensure our platform brings added value to our users across all channels.

Additionally, to create a machine learning algorithm that would meet the needs of advertisers and app owners, we needed to explore their goals and pain points and how our solution could address them. For example, we saw businesses struggling to juggle campaigns across multiple platforms and failing to adapt their campaigns to fit each platform’s user base. We knew our platform would need to address these issues and more, and once we identified our users’ needs, we designed our platform and automation algorithms to meet them.

Finding the Right Team

Once we established the parameters for our solution and the issues we wanted our platform to address, we were able to start building a powerful team. We built an organization made up of teams from around the world to ensure our staff consisted of the best out there – no matter where in the world they were. Our next challenge was to coordinate the work process between these teams across the globe.

Ensuring everyone was on the same page was essential so that our final platform would meet the goals and high standards we set out for it. Thanks to our teams’ hard work and dedication, we succeeded in developing a smart product that addresses clients’ user acquisition needs across various media platforms. Our platform allows our users to develop app advertising and social media campaigns quickly and efficiently.

Continuing Our Legacy of Meeting Customer Needs

Although our platform has hit the market in a soft launch mode with multiple organizations already using it worldwide, we’re not planning to rest on our success. We are constantly upgrading, evolving, and developing our product together with machine learning and smart algorithms. We love getting feedback from recently-onboarded advertisers and use it to advance our product further.

One example of how we’ve advanced Skipper, our Saas platform, is by adding a feature that collects all the data on users’ campaigns across all active channels, and presents it in one central location, allowing users to easily see what works and what doesn’t. We understood that having a clear view of the bigger picture across all campaigns data, KPIs and creatives helps our advertisers perform better in their UA campaigns. Instead of attempting to get a clear view from several reports, we collect all the information into one easily understandable report which includes multiple sources of data according to the users’ Source of trues- streamlining the optimization process. This included direct data from the MMP such as Adjust and Appslyer. Whether it’s the campaign manager himself that might be in total control of his numbers, the platform is multi-user active, meaning all relevant people within the company get to see the numbers easily whenever they wish.

As the saying goes, knowledge is power. As such, another key feature we’ve decided to invest our resources into is providing advertisers with ASO data directly from the App Store and Play Store. The market analysis feature enables advertisers to gain key insights into app downloads, allowing them to compare their performance to their competition by GEO, see the number of installs, active users and much more. Additionally, the app provides data showing users which keywords can increase their ranking and popularity- so they can prioritize their bids on keywords. Even experienced marketers need new data in order to grow and bid on the right keywords to get their business noticed. Users have already expressed their appreciation of this feature, regardless of their industry experience.

In Conclusion

Skipper is ideal for any organization looking to create effective app marketing. Throughout the entire journey of creating our platform, we made sure to have our users in mind every step of the way. We are continually developing and improving our product to address users’ needs as they arise. We can help you coordinate your ads across platforms, allowing you to conduct effective mobile marketing campaigns on various media platforms.

Manage your multi-channel campaigns and increase your user acquisition automatically with Skipper.

Social media is continually evolving, and new platforms constantly come out of nowhere and take over public consciousness.
As a result, advertisers always need to remain aware of what platforms are trending, and while old campaigns can often be applied to new platforms, a refresher is usually needed.

Multichannel Campaigns

Running a multi-channel campaign is not a new demand for advertisers. Multiple channels or platforms have been popularized since early times, and often when crafting a campaign, advertisers will consider how well it will work across multiple platforms. But while advertisers often can and will use the same creative concept on various platforms, some aspects of the ad will need to be adjusted to make the most out of each advertisement.

Having an overall concept designed to work on several platforms while creating variations for each platform is recommended. After all, a static banner that may work on Google or Facebook won’t work as well on more dynamic platforms such as Snapchat. Slight adjustments may be enough to tailor ads for some platforms, but others stand so apart, they’re practically in a world of their own.

TikTok- When Multi-Platform Media Strategy Isn’t Enough

TikTok is the latest creative platform to take over social media, with over 1.1 billion users worldwide, many of whom interact with the app daily. The app is extremely popular, particularly with GenZ users, being yet again the most downloaded app from both the app and play store. The platform has its own style, rules, and culture, and creative concepts that have worked in the past or on other platforms may need a complete overhaul when making their debut on TikTok. Using the same old content on a new platform will reduce interest and engagement, leading to low CTR and conversion rates not to mention a negative impression of the brand.

Unlike traditional platforms, which most advertisers are already familiar with, learning what works and what doesn’t on TikTok may need extra investigation. One example of how TikTok is unique is that while it does rely on video content, TikTok users are generally encouraged to keep content as bite-sized as possible. Initially, the content was limited to just 15 seconds, but that was later extended to 60 seconds and now many users can upload three minutes for more informative videos. This means that the best way to get your message across and drive engagement on TikTok is by using short, sharp creatives with a clear and convincing CTA.

Why Avoiding Ad Fatigue Matters

Similar rules often apply to other platforms. On some occasions, your creatives may only need a slight tweak before it is presented on multiple platforms, while in other cases, you may need to rethink your creative concept and redesign it entirely from scratch.

Differences such as the age and gender of users primarily engaging with a platform need to be kept in mind when developing a media budget and during the media planning stage. This is especially crucial when running a cross-channel campaign. Users who follow your brand across multiple platforms will grow bored of constantly having the same messaging directed toward them, leading to ad fatigue and lower conversion rates.

Refreshing your creative specs is essential, not just for the holiday season or special events but all year round to keep those conversion numbers growing. Remain open to change and continually run your creatives by testing to see what works with which demographics. With Zoomd’s “Best Performing Creatives” feature, available on our own developed Skipper UA platform, you can tell from a glance at your dashboard which creatives are working and what needs to be refreshed, indicated by the low CTR. By avoiding creative fatigue, you maximize every cent of your media budget and increase your chances of converting new users. Instead of struggling to understand your audience, use statistics and real-time insights to see what works and where.

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Looking to improve your creative assets? Look no further. With our strong and authentic creator’s community, you can easily scale your creative production performance in a matter of days. Let’s talk

Learn more about our creator’s community in this video:

Will you be better off with an advertising agency or an in-house team? What will drive greater app growth while optimizing operations?

Having provided user acquisition platforms for both agencies and advertisers – and having acted as a performance user acquisition agency for some of the largest brands in the world – we know there isn’t a right or wrong way. There’s just the way that’s best for you.

Here are 5 key aspects to consider, and how both advertising agencies and in-house teams can help your app succeed, depending on what matters to you most.

Changing Industry Requirements

Choose in-house if you have the resources for continuous employee training. With the advertising and app industries changing so frequently and so widely (remember the days we only had a couple of primary channels?), you’ve got to constantly keep your team on the cutting edge of knowledge and technology.

The benefit is that employees often see professional development as an employee differentiator, so you are likelier to attract and retain top talent.

Choose agency if you just need to get going or if you don’t have the resources to keep up with all the changes, then develop or find training for your team on an ongoing basis yourself. Some agencies do that for you – they continuously train their teams on new channels and strategies. Others go deep and specialize in certain aspects.

If you need access to effective influencers *and* you want to build your app’s own TikTok community, hire an agency that has already achieved proven results for each goal, and see results faster. One of the top reasons for that is that agencies tend to have much more operations volume in one channel (in comparison to a single advertiser), thus get direct account managers introduced by the platform or social network themselves. For example, as a certified marketing partner of TikTok, we received in-depth data, best practices and faster supports from the platform. To understand the real value of a technology agency, you can read in our latest article by Zoomd VP of media.

Broad and Deep Perspectives

Choose in-house if you want a greater cross-silo collaboration. When your marketing people collaborate with sales, customer success and product people, magical things can happen. They gain a deeper understanding, better data, and end up driving better results, because they understand your app’s customers better.

You can create intentional collaborations with agencies, but the advantage of in-house teams is that they interact informally with other teams, whether it’s at lunch or on the company’s happy hour Zoom call. The personal relationships could make collaboration simpler, and some ideas might pop up spontaneously in day-to-day conversations.

Choose agency if you want proven strategies that have worked for apps like yours – or if you want the benefit of cross-industry experience. Folks who work at agencies typically work with many more app companies than the in-house marketer that “only” changes companies every 2-3 years.

It’s a different type of experience. The in-house marketers go deeper into one brand, while the agency marketers get a broad perspective. They can see how app users in both your industry and in complementary industries have responded to certain marketing initiatives, and what works in other industries that your audience might not already be used to seeing, allowing you to differentiate your messaging further.

Hiring and Compatibility

Choose in-house if you want to decide who you work with. First, you might care about certain skills that your agency doesn’t. Maybe your agency hires very creative people who design stunning campaign assets (link to assets article once it’s published), but you need someone on your team who’ll prioritize diversity and inclusion, or empathy toward your app users.

Second, maybe your agency’s team members check all your professional checkboxes, but you want someone who’ll just be fun to work with. When you hire advertisers yourself, you have more control.

Choose agency if you want access to a pre-vetted pool of industry pros, who have experience taking apps and campaigns to the next level. The hiring process can be extensive and expensive, and partnering with an agency that’s already done the heavy lifting can make your life easier and save you money. Make sure you meet with the people who’ll be working on your campaigns, to ensure compatibility in personalities and work process preferences.

Work Velocity

Choose in-house if you want greater control over your schedule and over your team’s availability.

You can tell an employee you need a project ASAP – it’s your company and you decide what to prioritize – but if you need a deliverable within two days, and your agency is already fully booked with commitments to other clients, you’ll need to find an alternative solution for that deliverable.

Choose agency if you want to grow fast. Agencies already have team members, plus relationships and partnerships with freelancers. They can likely add people to your app’s campaign quickly.

Alternatively, hire 2-3 agencies at once. You make 2-3 hiring decisions and book entire teams instead of 2-3 people.

Customization to Your Needs

Choose in-house *and* agency for the best mix for your specific situation.

Have some in-house advertisers to ensure your app campaigns remain on-brand across partners, and to simplify cross-silo collaboration. Simultaneously, partner with agencies that specialize in areas that complement your team’s strengths, have broad experience to help you differentiate yourself from the noise, and have the ability to help you scale fast.

Here at Zoomd, we have performance marketing solutions to help you whichever way you choose. If you need an agency that specializes in meeting ambitious user acquisition goals, we’ve got your back. Prefer to do it yourself? We recently started providing access to our proprietary AI-based platform. You gain the benefit of 500,000,000 daily data points, leverage what works on one channel to inform campaigns on other channels and increase your app growth efficiency. See what’s possible here.

Do you advertise your app where you want to advertise your app, or where your customers are at?

According to a 2020 Kantar “survey of 4,000 consumers and over 700 senior marketers,” there is a “discrepancy between consumers – who favor advertising on fresher platforms such as TikTok – and marketers, who favor more established brands such as YouTube,” reported The Drum.

Following the partnership marketing certificate and after a few hot (if we can say so ourselves) campaigns we help execute, we’re going to help you leverage one of today’s hottest platforms to create a deeper connection with your customers and significantly increase your user acquisition performance.

“Don’t Make Ads. Make TikToks”

As TikTok itself will tell you, if you want to create ads that drive actual results for your app, “don’t make ads. Make TikToks.”

Find ways to incorporate your app, product and message in native TikTok experiences, while recreating popular dances, trends, humorous skits and challenges. In today’s blog post, we’ll show you both ads and everyday creator posts to inspire you to do just that.

One of the simplest ways to do it, though, is to follow one of the most effective TikTok advertising strategies, according to TikTok – “let TikTok creators lead the way.”

Just recently in late January, we had the pleasure to support and be part of the very first TikTok hashtag challenge in Mexico of TCL Mobile together with Zoomd Mexico and the outstanding creative team at Alazrki networks. The First of its kind campaign in Mexico was created uniquely to support the brand activity in the region among the young and active target audience. Generating staggering results of more than 40K followers in less then 24 hours, and so far, created more than 100 million views in total. It is without a doubt that no other media source or platform would be able to meet these results and high exposure with the targeted audience, not even mass media Television broadcast.

Show Your Customers You Believe in Them

While every platform has its negative aspects, TikTok often shows up as a very uplifting platform. Spend some time on the “For You” page, and you’ll see smile after smile expanding as the dance continues. But it’s not just about watching creators having fun, and feeling the contagious need to dance yourself.

You’ll also come across massive creativity in anything from home décor to science experiments, alongside posts focused on women empowerment and stereotype breaking, and hashtags like #ItsOkNotToBeOK, that raise mental health awareness and let people know they’re not the only ones dealing with challenges.

@brooklynandbailey##sponsored Maybe we woke up like this,##MaybeItsMaybelline! @maybelline♬ original sound – Brooklyn and Bailey

Advertising on TikTok is a great opportunity to position your app as the one that believes in the power of your target audience, the one that tells them they’re OK just as they are, and the one that inspires them to turn their aspirations into reality.

@jaymethompson20Build Up Their Confidence ##momsoftiktok ##strongwomen ##momsofdaughters ##positivevibes ##spreadlove ##confidence♬ original sound – Cat Gray

Create a Hashtag or Trend that Sparks Creativity

Of course, instead of following popular hashtags and trends to advertise your app – you can just create one yourself.

To raise awareness for a new car, for example, BMW‘s creators showcased multiple ways to use the campaign’s hashtag.

@falcopunchEndless ##joy with @skyandtami , @patrox & ##BMW 😎 Join ##THE1challenge ##anzeige♬ Like That – NGHTMRE & Big Gigantic

They created multiple videos that could spark creativity in their audiences, and in any case, stood out from traditional car ads.

Of course, while leaving room for creativity with your hashtag or challenge is important, make sure it’s easy to replicate if you want to see it all over the “For You” page (and please make it a challenge that your customers can recreate safely).

Think Outside the Demographic Box

If you use TikTok as someone who’s over 30, you’ll likely come across posts from 30-something and 40-something creators sharing that some viewers told them they’re too old for this platform. But the data disagrees. Depending on the research you read, 44% of TikTok members are over the age of 30, or 49.7% of TikTok members are over 34.

So reaching vast audience on the platform is relevant and should be done correctly with highlighting your benefits to that age group, understanding their needs:

And this talented woman, @keiko.at70, with her 104,600 followers at the time of writing this, isn’t the only one out of the #Over30Club taking TikTok by storm. @amybartoncotney, for example, has 536,500 followers.

@amybartoncotneyGawd I love being married to a happy, silly man that can dance! ##doitbold ##couples##rockstarhusband ##youbeyou##positivity ##positivityclub♬ original sound – Tex

If your app or your products could make life better for active, life-loving adults of all ages, this might just be *the* app to differentiate your brand – and acquire users who you might have otherwise missed out on.

Chances are, if you target “older” audiences on this platform and speak the TkTok language, you’ll likely speak to their souls in a way that most of society just doesn’t.

Add an Element of Surprise

The more time people spend with your brand, the more brand recall and emotional connection you’re likely to build with them. Plus, we know that people often need to hear the same message multiple times before they take action.

TikTok, with its automatic loopable videos, plays that up. Take advantage of this feature by giving viewers a reason to *have* to watch again.

If you’re advertising an app for dog owners, maybe have a dog clap her paws and instantly change outfits at the end of the video. If you’re advertising milk, you could do something like this:

Even viewers who aren’t yet ready to download your app might be curious enough to check out the rest of your videos or learn more about your brand. If your non-ad videos are of similar quality and feel, they’ll likely follow you and continue the conversation, until they’re ready to convert.

Amplify TikTok’s Data for Better User Acquisition

To improve your user acquisition rates, you likely spend a lot of time analyzing data, trying to figure out why something didn’t work, and doing more of what actually drives results. The more data you have, and the easier is it to access and analyze it, the smarter decisions you can make for your app marketing efforts.

But while TikTok gives you access to data and analytics, it’s limited to what TikTok alone knows. To get a deeper picture, you’ve got to look at your data across all platforms. TikTokers do communicate differently than Instagrammers, however analyzing cross-platform behavior gives you a clearer understanding of your audience, which sparks insights and ideas you might not have been able to access before. As at the end of the day the metric might be a bit different from one media source to another, but the bottom line is always the same.

Of course, doing it all manually can end up costing you a lot of time, money and frustration. It can be confusing, as data looks differently on each platform, and the metrics you’re able to measure are sometimes different as well.

As performance marketers, we’ve been there too – until we decided to do something about it, so our clients and fellow marketers won’t have to.

We built a proprietary, AI-based platform that unifies all premium channels all in one dashboard, and unifies all that data as well. Data from one channel now automatically impact the decisions we make on other channels, and it has significantly improved both our time management and user acquisition results. We can do it for you too, or just give you access to our platform, so you can do it yourself. Check it out here.