Top Apps of 2015

by | Jan 11, 2016 | Marketing

What were the top apps of 2015?

Nielsen, the same company that produces statistics for TV viewing, has released a list of the top smart phone apps for 2015 based on the number of average unique users.

Perhaps not surprisingly for many, the entire top 10 consists of apps put out by Facebook, Google, and Apple. The list reflects the growing influence of both social media and smart phone usage.

Nielsen also said that the use of smart phones grew to 80 percent in the United States at the end of the third quarter of 2015. ComScore still shows smart phone penetration at 78 percent, but the difference is negligible. It is important that online marketers embrace mobile marketing if they are to continue to be successful.

Here’s a look at the top 10 apps and Nielsen’s findings:

Facebook

The Facebook app had the most average unique users, coming in at 126.7 million.

That’s 8 percent more people than were using the app last year.

Marketers already know that Facebook is a great way to reach customers, but this data shows that marketers should also be targeting them through the mobile app and not just the main site or even the mobile site.

YouTube

Parents already know how great the YouTube app is for the phone. But many others use the app to watch music and catch up with viral news.

The app draws in 97.6 million average unique users, which is 5 percent more than last year. YouTube continues to show that it is a force to be reckoned with in digital marketing.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook made waves when it required users to access their messages through this separate app instead of offering it as an option.

Yet users quickly adjusted, and there has been little discussion about it since the change was made.

Likely because of the required change, the Facebook messenger app saw the most year-over-year growth, at 31 percent. The app has 96.4 million average unique users.

Google Search

Google is already the search king, but the app has made it easier for people to perform a quick search without having to open their phone’s browser and type in the search engine’s URL.

The Google search app had just over 95 million average unique users, which was an increase of just 3 percent over last year.

Google Play

Google Play is the app store for Android users, and it is the place to get movies, TV shows, games, music, and more.

It’s not surprising that the app was one of the most popular for the year. It had 89.7 average unique users, which was 7 percent more than the previous year.

Google Maps

Google Maps quickly toppled Mapquest after it came out, and most people use it as their de facto GPS locator.

That’s partially due to the fact that when you search for a business or other place on Google, it provides the directions through Google maps. You have to copy and paste the address to get directions from a different provider.

Google Maps had 87.78 million users this year, up 8 percent.

Gmail

Not surprisingly, Google products dominate this list.

Google has become the authority on the web, and most products that it introduces succeed.

Gmail was one of its early offerings, and it has continued to be one of the top providers of free email. The app has 75.1 million users, which was up 4 percent from the previous year.

Instagram

Instagram exploded onto the scene when it was introduced, and it has become a mainstay in social media.

The app had 55.4 million average unique users, which was up 23 percent over the previous year.

Apple Music

Everyone loves to listen to music on their smart phone or to stream it through their car stereos.

The Apple Music app had an average of 54.55 unique users, which was up 26 percent from the previous year.

Apple Maps

Finally, Apple Maps came in at Number 10, with an average of 46.4 unique users.

The app grew 16 percent over the previous year.

By paying attention to the trends in app usage, you can identify new advertising strategies for your brand. These apps cover the market, so you can reach every niche with one or more of these apps.

In addition to in-app advertising, you can look into mobile marketing on other websites that are popular among users.

It is important that you do not put money into the mobile version of a site when the app is more popular. For example, most people access Facebook through the app not by entering the URL on their phone.

Make sure you understand the audience you will be reaching and how that compares with your other options when putting together your advertising strategy. Working with a consultant can also help you identify the right advertising opportunities and create the most effective campaign.

Pay Per Play vs. Pay Per Impression vs. Pay Per Click – What’s Better?

by | Feb 24, 2015 | Advertising

Pay per play, pay per impression, and pay per click are all compensation methods used in online advertising. If you’re a developer who wants to monetize an app, if you’re a blogger who wants to test out monetization methods, or if you’re simply curious, you may want to learn more about them.

Keep reading to learn which compensation method pays more and which you should use in your advertising campaigns.

Pay-Per-Play

Pay-per-play (PPP) gets less play than other compensation method acronyms (pun intended). This is certainly because it refers to a relatively uncommon method of advertising: audio advertising.

It’s not that audio ads themselves are uncommon, but they are uncommon online. The web is a medium composed predominantly of written content and visual images. Though audio ad networks are available, they are relatively uncommon.

Anecdotal evidence from around the web suggests that they just don’t generate that much revenue. The Nielsen Norman Group – leaders and experts in the usability field – suggested that audio ads have a negative impact. They are ranked right up there with the “dreaded pop-up ads.”

Pay-Per-Impression

Pay-per-impression (PPI) is a compensation method that pays based on the number of impressions, or views, that an ad receives. From the advertiser’s perspective, this is abbreviated CPM, which stands for cost-per-mille, or cost-per-thousand-impressions.

This type of compensation model is used predominantly with display ads, text ads, video ads, interactive ads, and so forth. The pay rate varies, but is more widely known than the PPP compensation model, simply because there are so many more ads that use PPI than PPP as a payment setup.

As you may be able to guess, the advertiser pays out the ad network and the publisher each time an ad is viewed 1,000 times.

The rate varies based on the specific type of ad and the industry. Video ads can be over $20, while other types of display ads average at a few dollars per thousand impressions. At the low end, you’ll be receiving a few cents; at the high end, you’ll be receiving a few dollars, but the rates never quite compare to the rates for video ads.

Pay-Per-Click

Pay-per-click (PPC) rates are often much less per click, with small click-through rates that average around 0.3%. This means that if you receive 10 cents per click and get a 0.3% conversion rate, you will need more than 300 visitors to get a single click. That means you will need more than 3000 visitors to get a dollar.

Now, this is just extrapolation based on a hypothetical scenario with a hypothetical web page. But it gives you one clear idea: you need lots of traffic to earn money from these ads.

This is true whether you are using PPC ads on your website or in your app, though bear in mind that people tend to use apps for much longer periods of time than they do websites. The more engaged a user is with an app, the more they’ll be exposed to ads and the more likely they are to convert.

Which One Works Best?

It’s a toss-up between the PPC and the PPI. In either case, whether you’re designing for a website or an app or a software program, you’ll need significant amounts of traffic to generate a decent income from the ads.

To figure out the best option for you, put the ads in context with your particular marketing campaign and your content. If you already have an app or a website, it should be a simple matter to test out each advertising method and see which one works better.

Let’s compare the math above to potential earnings for a PPI ad: if you receive 10 cents per thousand views, then it would take 3,000 views to reach 30 cents. Not quite the same as 3,000 views for one dollar, is it?

Of course, this “10 cents” metric is arbitrary. As mentioned, the rates vary greatly based on your industry and how high profile your app or website is.

The highest paying industries, regardless of the compensation method, are business, technology, family and parenting, home and architecture, and web design. The lowest-paying industries are gaming, weddings, and beauty.

Do a little research to find out the average payments for your industry, then rough out some calculations to find out how much traffic you would need to reach a certain dollar amount.

From the above data, it’s clear that the PPP compensation method, i.e., audio ads, just isn’t feasible unless you run a radio show or podcast. And between the other two methods, PPC ads look like they have better results, but always do your advertising research, check your traffic and conversion numbers, and test. In some cases, the conversion rates and payout rates don’t equal the industry averages.