Beyond Installs: Announcing Mobile App Ads for Engagement and Conversion

We originally launched mobile app ads to effectively drive installs, and today we are announcing a new way to use mobile app ads - to drive engagement and conversion.

Last year we launched a way for developers to reach the right audience, at scale. So far this year, mobile app ads have driven over 145 million installs in the Google Play and Apple App stores.

However, app discoverability is only one of the challenges of building a mobile app. Developers are also faced with the challenge of getting installed users to return and remain active within their apps. According to a study by Localytics, a Mobile Measurement Partner, 66% of app users only open apps between one and 10 times.

Now mobile app ads can keep existing users active within your app, even after they install. You can now use deep-links for your mobile app ads, letting you direct users to a customized, specific location inside your app, such as a sale, promotion or specific content such as a new album or hotel listing.

HotelTonight has used mobile app ads to encourage existing customers to book that last-minute weekend getaway. "The ability to engage people on mobile by deep linking them into our app from Facebook is very powerful," said Kevin Kwon, Marketing Manager from HotelTonight. "We’re excited to be working with Facebook on this new feature; it has significant potential to drive bookings in our app.”

Mobile app ads for engagement and conversion provide seven call to action choices, including universal actions such as "Open Link" or "Use App" as well as more vertical specific actions such as “Shop Now”, "Watch Video", “Listen Now”, “Book Now” or "Play Game”. Below are some examples:

• Shop Now – A retailer advertises a 24-hour sale for purchases made within its mobile app.
• Play Game – A game wants to bring existing players back to its app to play newly updated levels.
• Listen Now – A music app wants to bring listeners to a newly updated playlist.
• Book Now – A travel app wants to promote cheap fares and getaways.

To get started driving engagement and conversions in your app, you should follow the steps below:

1. Use our ads tool - Power Editor - to set up your campaign and creative. You can also work with one of our Preferred Marketing Developers.

2. Identify your existing app users. Upload a list of your existing app users into Power Editor using our various custom audiences options. These include Mobile Advertiser IDs, email addresses, phone numbers, or Facebook User IDs. You also still have access to the same powerful ads capabilities that are available for all Facebook ads, including targeting by demographics, interests, and even mobile device type.

3. Measure the effectiveness of your campaign. To measure the effectiveness of your ads, we recommend that you integrate with Facebook’s latest SDKs for iOS or Android. By integrating with our SDKs, you will be able to define and measure actions taken within your app by engaged users. This can be one of 14 predefined events such as "purchased" in a retail app, "level achieved" in a game, or even custom events you define to help you understand the engagement and ROI of your mobile app ads on Facebook. You can also work with a Mobile Measurement Partner to measure installs, and other metrics.

Our aim is to provide an end-to-end mobile solution that helps app developers reach the right people, acquire new users, keep those users engaged, and measure the performance of their campaigns. As always, we will continue to improve upon the user experience and performance of our mobile app ads.

Learn how to get started on mobile app ads to drive engagement here as we roll out this capability over the next week.