Benchmarking app store competitiveness & the cost of mobile app marketing

Mobile marketing shouldn’t require guesswork. Our award-winning Fiksu Mobile App Marketing Platform injects predictability into your campaigns, removing complexity and guesswork and shifting the focus to where it belongs: performance.

We’ve accumulated more than 107 billion mobile app actions to-date – including launches, registrations, and in-app purchases – and use this data to help you better understand the fluctuating dynamics of the complex app marketing landscape through our monthly Fiksu Indexes. 

The Fiksu Indexes include:

• App Store Competitive Index - Ever wondered if specific positions inside the top ranked apps become more and less competitive over time? This index analyzes the average aggregate volume of the daily downloads of the Top 200 ranked free iPhone apps in the U.S.
• Cost per Loyal User Index - Cost per loyal user is a more meaningful measure of ROI than click-based campaigns. Loyal users are the key to building sustained growth for your mobile app business. This index tracks the fluctuating cost of acquiring loyal users (people who open an app three times or more).
• Fiksu Analysis - Read our take on the story behind the numbers each month, based on our expert understanding of mobile traffic, app store behaviors and our analysis of over 107 billion mobile app launches, registrations and in-app purchases recorded via the Fiksu Mobile App Marketing Platform.

App Store Competitive Index

April 2013

The App Store Competitive Index tracks the aggregate volume of downloads per day achieved by the top 200 ranked free iPhone apps in the U.S. In April, the Index rose 11 percent, to 5.61 million daily downloads in April from March’s 5.02 million.

Cost per Loyal User Index

April 2013

The Cost per Loyal User Index measures the cost of acquiring a loyal user for brands who proactively market their apps. For the purposes of the Index, loyal users are defined as people who open an app three times or more. In April, the Index increased by 10 percent, or 14 cents, to $1.50, from March’s $1.36.

Fiksu’s Analysis: April 2013

April’s Fiksu Indexes reflect three key forces at play which, when combined, created increases in volume and costs:

• First, the relentless industry investment in mobile by brands large and small that kept competition high throughout the month.
• Second, the industry’s smooth transition from Apple’s UDID to its new Advertising Identifier (IDFA) actually kept traffic stable when it could have caused some disruption.
• And third, the rapid traction of Facebook mobile app install ads, which may have provided developers with a greater pool of efficient inventory and consequently may have buffered the industry against even greater rises in costs.

The increase in mobile marketing costs reflected during the month of April could be attributed to the end of UDID and the impact of Apple's new IDFA which has prompted many high-visibility, valuable app publishers, such as Pandora, to enter the marketplace, bumping up available premium inventory for advertisers. Previously, these kinds of publishers had been reluctant to participate using earlier identifiers, but they are now reassured by the advertising-friendly IDFA. We’ll continue to watch this trend and report back in our May Indexes. Stay tuned!

How can the Fiksu Indexes help you?

Your app is competing for users with more than a million others. The best way to improve your mobile marketing is to more precisely understand the competitive landscape you’re pouring your budget into. The Fiksu Indexes reveal how industry dynamics – such as iOS upgrades, device launches, advertiser demand, ad network/publisher inventory, and seasonal activity – impact your business goals. Armed with this insight, you can adapt and plan with more agility.

For example, maybe your cost to acquire loyal users increased month over month and you’re not sure why. Our Cost per Loyal User Index shows how much the industry paid on average, so you can compare and contrast and potentially understand the reasons for changing costs. Or, perhaps your rank slipped one month. Our App Store Competitive Index shows you the average daily downloads of the top ranked U.S. apps, so you can assess the competitive landscape and understand how larger industry trends may be impacting your rank.