If your KPI is LTV, then you need to pay attention to more than just CPA.
And now in English: If an advertiser is looking to acquire users with high lifetime value, quantity without quality is money down the drain.
“Advertisers are willing to pay high prices to retain good users – it’s actually amazing how much they will pay – but in many cases they’re spending that money to acquire irrelevant users,” said Moshe Vaknin, CEO of app distribution company YouAppi, which released a mobile customer acquisition tool on Wednesday aimed at post-conversion performance.
Dubbed OneRun, the tool enables advertisers to track user behavior and build targeted user acquisition plans. YouAppi’s algorithm ingests 25 data points, including basic demographic information (age and gender), as well as location, keywords, interactions, intent, downloads and transactions.
But it’s not just about building one-off campaigns, Vaknin said. Truly successful user acquisition is more of a marathon than a sprint.
“When a client comes to us, it sometimes requires about three weeks for us to analyze their data,” he said. “We analyze their app over time and that helps us get much better results in the long term.”
But it’s all on the privacy up and up, Vaknin said.
“We don’t care who the users are, we simply have a user ID that allows us to define and create groups of users with common interests,” he said.
For example, if Amazon’s audiobook platform Audible, a YouAppi client, is looking for users, it makes sense for the YouAppi algorithm to start looking for people who drive cars and have downloaded an audiobook in the past.
“Our vision with all of this is to allow advertisers to do everything through one system, from setting up their goals to user acquisition to tracking their users to ensure that they’re relevant,” Vaknin said.
To that end, OneRun combines three modules: optimizing inventory yield, user analysis and behavior targeting. The tool also helps its clients with mobile media planning and buying, available as a managed service or via OneRun’s self-serve interface.
YouAppi counts several large international brands among its clients, including Time Inc., Craigslist and Pandora, and connects with about 100 supply-side partners across the US, Europe and Asia.
“Every advertiser defines success differently,” Vaknin said. “But if you acquire users that do nothing, never open the app and make no purchases, that becomes a serious financial drain. Post-install is the key to expanding their business.”
Now generally available, YouAppi finished beta testing its tech about nine months ago with 25-30 clients. The company, which raised $3 million in Series A in October, has 22 employees spread across offices in Israel, San Francisco and New York, a number Vakin told AdExchanger he hopes to increase to 40 within the next six months.
