Mobile app marketing costs increased by 30 per cent in November as app download volumes dropped ahead of the Christmas handset boom. According to the Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index, costs shot up $0.32 to $1.38 (£0.85), compared to the $1.06 CPA seen in October.

Prices had steadily declined during the preceding four months, hitting a low for 2012 in October, when downloads peaked after the iPhone 5 launch. The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index, which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free US iPhone apps, saw a drop in monthly downloads of 15.4 per cent from October to November. There were 4.57m daily downloads of the most popular apps in November, down from a seven month high in October of 5.4m. 

“We expect costs and download volumes to climb through December, much like last year, as marketers spend heavily in preparation for the flood of new devices and rush of user activity and app discovery around Christmas,” said Micah Adler, Fiksu CEO.