Video Ads Drive Highest Retention at Scale

Gaming_Preformance_Index_HeaderNew figures suggest that video advertising on mobile is becoming more crucial to app campaigns than ever before, with video networks showing 130 per cent higher overall retention rates compared to other networks.

The figures come from a new report by mobile ad measurement platform AppsFlyer, which analysed retention performance for all of the top mobile ad networks and broke down performance data by product type.

The study focused on mobile gaming apps, and covered over 50m paid installs across hundreds of gaming apps running campaigns on hundreds of AppsFlyers integrated network partners.

With the cost to acquire a loyal app user rising above the $3 (£1.91) mark recently, retention becomes an increasingly significant measure of an apps success, and the ability to attract users who will provide lifetime value for an app becomes more and more important.

The study found that iOS dominated the fight for app retention, with 26 per cent higher retention rates on video networks, 28 per cent on in-app networks and 47 per cent higher in social networks. Across various types of networks, the drop in retention averaged 56 per cent between days one to seven, and 80 per cent between days seven to 30.

Based on a combination of install volume and retention, Facebook performed the best across both iOS and Android, with ad network Chartboost grabbing the number two spot on both platforms.

“Theres a great deal of variance among campaigns and apps and developers,” said Shani Rosenfelder, senior marketing manager at AppsFlyer. “Just as companies are different, games are different as well and so are their marketing teams. Top notch marketers who put in the effort thats required manage to beat their numbers through constant measurement, targeting, retargeting and applying deeplinking solutions.”