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Advertising on mobile is like going caroling in your 30s.
Most (sane) people won’t open their doors to you unless you bring something completely new to the table.
You’re doing the same with mobile advertising. You’re knocking on people’s (mobile phone) doors, trying to hook them.
So you’d better be ready with the equivalent of Ave Maria on your highest metaphorical note.
The main obstacles are knocking on the wrong doors with the wrong problems and not having a good enough offer.
Mobile advertising is not just about posting some Instagram ads or sending users push notifications about your products.
It requires strategy, thoughtful marketing topics pickup and in-depth knowledge about your audience.
Read the examples below to see why they work and what we can help you with.
Even better, we’ve included plenty of small brands and (some) larger brand fails, so keep reading below.
TL;DR
- Expert Endorsement: Driving Test Success leveraged macro-influencer Richard Fanders for authentic promotion.
- Micro-Influencer Marketing: Followers+ used genuine content creators for a more authentic and relatable ad experience.
- Unique User-Generated Content: Hopper employed TikTok for longer, in-depth videos, targeting Gen Z and avoiding ad fatigue.
- Generating Buzz: Mailbox used a waiting list strategy, creating desire and FOMO but faced backlash due to a difference between expectation and reality.
- Event-related Discounts: The Walking Dead Survivors utilized series finale buzz and offered Thanksgiving discounts, tapping into holiday expectations.
- Social Media Ads: Nerva created authentic-looking ads, combined personal stories with scientific backing, and directed users to an online quiz for more engagement.
- Co-Marketing: Tinder and KFC combined their brand appeal for a unique contest, showcasing the potential of brand partnerships.
- Blending Proven Strategies: Visual DX mixed influencer partnerships with holiday sales and giveaways for a comprehensive approach.
- Guerilla Marketing: Burger King's "Burn That Ad" was innovative, inviting users to virtually "burn" competitor ads for rewards.
1. Expert Endorsement: Driving Test Success
Driving Test Success is a mobile app that caters to student drivers and future driving instructors, providing them with learning materials and tests.
This mobile app uses a slew of advertising techniques to promote itself.
One of the most notable is partnering with a noteworthy influencer who is also an expert in his field.
Here’s why this mobile marketing strategy works:
- Richard Fanders is a popular macro-influencer with 493,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel.
- This creator produces relevant video content with tens of videos that help people learn the art of driving.
- His engagement is high if you’re to look through his thousands of quality comments alone.
But even more importantly:
- The video that Driving Test Success sponsored is relevant to their brand, so the app isn’t outshined by the content being produced.
In fact, in this particular video, Richard Fanders discusses the “Ready to Pass” campaign.
This DVSA initiative aims to increase the driving test pass rate in Great Britain.
Lesson learned: Expert endorsement can bring more qualified prospects and increase conversion rates.
But it’s essential to choose the right influencer first.
2. Micro-Influencer Marketing: Followers+
Followers+ is an Instagram app that helps people monitor their followers, unfollows, fake followers, stalkers, and more.
The app mainly targets people with too many followers to keep track of manually.
Besides, the app comes with a unique selling point:
It increases user privacy.
For example, Followers+ paid members can look at their friends’ stories without these people knowing they did.
That was the concept behind this ad we created with one of our best influencers:
Here’s why micro-influencer mobile marketing campaigns work:
- You get creative, authentic content that helps you stand out from the crowd on social media platforms.
- You build tight connections with customers, starting from one of their most poignant issues.
- You can create social proof around your app and the desire for it.
Again, you will need to choose the right content creators.
That means researching those creators that fit your brand’s image, shortlisting the best, and vetting their profiles. Then, you need to ensure they deliver quality work on time on the right social media accounts.
inBeat can spare you hours of research because we partner with the top 1% of content creators.
But if that’s not what you’re looking for today, check out our free toolkit first:
- Our fake follower checkers will help you vet creators’ profiles.
- Our engagement rate calculators ensure you’re picking a relevant creator.
- Our free mock-up ad generators help you test different ads before rolling them out on your social platforms.
- Our free return on ad spend calculator assists you in measuring the effectiveness of paid campaigns.
Lesson learned: Social media influencers help you stand out of the crowd with original app marketing.
As a result, you get more downloads and grow your traffic more quickly.
3. Unique User-Generated Content: Hopper
Hopper is another great case study for mobile app marketing.
Hopper allows people to book cheaper flights, find hidden gems, and ensure their trips go as planned.
Thus, Hopper offers a consistent user experience and excellent customer service.
Our job was to create a mobile marketing program to prove that.
The app mainly targets Gen Z.
Our research shows this consumer demographic is very mindful of their finances. Hence, they’re very interested in finding the right deals.
Zoomers also want to ensure they’re making the right purchases, so they need to understand how the products and apps they buy work.
That’s why we used TikTok – one of Gen Z’s preferred platforms.
We also weren’t afraid to produce longer mobile video ads, up to a minute.
We knew our mobile users were hungry for more in-depth explanations of how Hopper works.
Pro tip: Longer video content is also a good strategy to qualify the right prospects. While short attention spans are a considerable problem, you may want to attract the kind of people willing to watch/read something longer.
That said, here was Hopper’s main problem:
Ad fatigue is huge on TikTok, which means the cost per action (CPA) is skyrocketing.
Our solution was advising Hopper to scale UGC ads for mobile on TikTok because this type of content:
- Is relevant, in-depth, and genuine
- Addresses people’s main problems authentically
- Can be very diverse, so they target different needs from different perspectives
- Creates social proof on social networks
- Increases user response
These mobile ads aren’t boring, so they won’t lead to ad fatigue, and interested people will be more likely to buy the app.
Besides, Hopper's social media campaign unfolded with lower mobile ad spending than usual for this channel.
Lesson learned: Know your mobile audience and speak their language, emphasizing how your app solves their needs.
Then, figure out a cost-effective mobile ad strategy to convey your message.
4. Generating Buzz: Mailbox
This campaign is an oldie because it took place in 2013.
However, their mobile marketing tactic is still relevant today because it’s based on two poignant truths about user behavior:
- We crave what we can’t have.
- We don’t want to miss out on the fun everyone else is having.
Orchestra, the company behind Mailbox, harnessed these perennial truths into one exciting strategy: it created a waiting list for Mailbox.
That means people at that time could have downloaded the app but couldn’t use it.
In the meantime, the app received all sorts of glowing reviews from different personalities, saying how this app will change how people interact with e-mails.
That mobile advertising strategy created more desire and FOMO, so more people signed up on the waiting list.
Side note: The reservation system itself was a master plan because it instilled more desire in the outsiders while helping the app users feel privileged.
In turn, the app became viral.
As a result, Mailbox’s perceived value increased.
Here’s the problem:
When Mailbox finally launched, people saw it was not as amazing as it was hyped out to be.
Although users had a seamless experience, the disappointment came from the huge difference between expectations and reality.
Lesson learned: Use PR and other instruments to generate buzz and create desire. However, make sure your app is worth that buzz in the first place, or you will deal with severe backlash.
5. Event-related Discounts: The Walking Dead Survivors
The popular TV show The Walking Dead has finally reached its series finale – with a bang.
However, the other products in the franchise are still going strong.
One of them is The Walking Dead Survivors game.
The game could capitalize on the show’s finale and the new Rick and Michone sequels that inBeat fans worldwide are looking forward to.
However, this time TWD decided to follow a century-old tried-and-tested method of attracting smartphone users:
This mobile marketing strategy works because:
- People love freebies, especially holiday-related ones.
- People expect freebies from their brands, especially around holidays.
Therefore, campaigns like this allow you to target customers who specifically wait for these periodic offers because they have a limited budget.
Besides, offering discounts can help you get back customers who’ve lost interest in your app and those who just want to test it.
Lesson learned: Holiday discounts help you attract different customer bases. You will get a large volume of sales within a short time span.
6. Social Media Ads: Nerva
Nerva’s main target audience is people who want to manage their IBS symptoms at home.
Since research suggests a strong link between the gut and the brain, Nerva helps people manage their mental health to tackle this gut-related issue.
Their main strategy is using social media ads like the one below:
There are multiple case studies of when business entrepreneurs successfully benefit from in-app advertising as an alternative to social media advertising since the percentage of usage of mobile is growing year by year and all we do on mobile devices we usually do via apps. According to research from Epom, a reputable adtech solutions provider, direct consumer monetization in social apps via in-app purchases is expected to reach 150% YoY increase. "All our life became deeply connected with our mobile devices. Everything is about mobile. There we communicate with our friends and families, do our work tasks, and make everyday purchases. Advertisers and brands should be on the same page with customers and move their advertising efforts into mobile." - states Lina Lugova, CMO at Epom.
Here’s why this particular ad works so well:
- The ad looks like user-generated content, which it (almost) is.
- This video tells the story of the app’s creator – how he fought the celiac disease and found a solution. This personal story attracts the attention of users and keeps people hooked.
- The ad eases people’s potential queries by presenting the science behind it and the expert who did the research. This approach increases the app’s credibility. While you would use free Powerpoint templates for this type of presentation before, a video is more engaging.
- The video’s description underlines the main points presented in the clip.
- The video’s description gives people a link to an online quiz. Clicking on that link helps people better understand the app’s science and moves interested prospects through the funnel. This mobile strategy can decrease the bounce rate and increase conversions. By comparison, a CTA to buy the app would have been too pushy.
Lesson learned: If you want people to purchase an innovative app based on very new technology, dispel their fears first.
7. Co-Marketing: Tinder and KFC
Co-branding partnerships like the one between Tinder and KFC will help you attract a wider pool of customers.
To make things worth it for their audience, the two brands concocted a contest with an attractive prize: a chance for the lucky couple to meet Jack Harlow.
Why this mobile strategy works:
- Teaming up with another brand lets you borrow each other’s appeal and credibility.
- The two brands are already renowned and have specific customer segments. This strategy lets them develop a unique selling point to attract new prospects.
- Contests and quizzes are tempting content for mobile, especially if the prize is worthwhile. Creating a marketing quiz is a worthwhile lead generation activity.
Pro tip: You can blend this strategy with proximity marketing. For example, you can show this ad to people nearby a KFC.
Lesson learned: Entering a marketing collab with another brand can open up new doors for you, and so will contests. Just ensure the partnership makes sense within your mobile ad campaigns, or otherwise, you will be the target of online backlash (and that’s the worst kind there is):
8. Blending Proven Strategies: Visual DX
There are different mobile marketing techniques to promote your online app, but that doesn’t mean you should choose just one.
If more of them make sense at a particular moment, go for several rather than one.
Visual DX is a medical app that helps medical professionals keep better track of their tasks.
Partnering with resident Dr. Kaydo helped Visual DX:
- Improve their audience targeting. As such, those who watch the video by the end and click the purchase link are more likely to purchase (because they’re qualified leads).
- Explain how this app works in depth. The video focuses on specific issues that medical professionals help thanks to the excellent insights offered by Dr. Kaydo.
- Build rapport and authenticity. Dr. Kaydo is a credible influencer with a good engagement rate.
Besides, the 75% Black Friday sale offers a large enough discount to be worthwhile. Simultaneously, purchasing the app during this period automatically enrolls buyers into a giveaway for an additional prize.
Lesson learned: Mix and match the most persuasive strategies for your social media users. However, ensure your content marketing strategy is top-notch.
9. Guerilla Marketing: Burger King
Burger King’s famous “Burn That Ad” campaign ran a few years ago and used guerilla marketing.
People had to download the app to burn Burger King’s competitors’ banner ads in virtual reality using their cell phones.
Here’s why the strategy worked:
- People like trying new and fun things. And they are also fatigued by traditional marketing.
- The brand metaphorically destroyed its competition, and that's what attracted user attention.
- The campaign was actually a contest. Participants could win free Whoppers, but the fun, “naughty” side of the campaign was arguably the biggest incentive.
- Burger King is already an established brand. To increase customer engagement and app usage, it had to think outside the box.
- The burning game isn’t random. The concept is intimately tied to the brand because Burger King is renowned for flaming its burgers (the campaign’s ads remind people about that part).
Lesson learned: Create innovative app experiences when trying to outtake your competitors through app advertising, but make sure your brand stays front and center.
Wrapping Up
Mobile advertising is easy if you adapt your strategy, channels, and messages to your audience.
There are plenty of things you can try, and hopefully, the examples above gave you lots of ideas.
But if you need additional help, remember that inBeat is here to help.
Our agency has years of experience working with mobile app brands. Whether you need paid ads, an influencer marketing campaign, or something else entirely – we will find the right solution.
If you’re looking for a way to get started, you probably want to find the right kind of influencers for your campaign.
We can help with that too - try our tool for free today and see how!