Starting this holiday season, Facebook plans to extend the functionality of its popular and successful dynamic ads to cover the needs of brands looking for mobile app installs. The retail holiday season release date is a strategic move on Facebook’s end both to prove the ads can serve value to app companies, as holiday shopping is in full swing, as well to benefit brands most, seeing as app downloads typical increase in the beginning of the year after smartphones have been gifted in December.
This new advertising vertical to generate mobile app downloads takes on a similar format to the traditional, largely product-based Facebook Dynamic Ads, VentureBeat explains. Users browse through a select number of a brand’s products, finally landing on a call to action. Up until now the call to action was restricted to off site landing pages, but with the extended format brands can now prompt consumers to download their mobile ad instead.
Facebook believes this new method of attracting app downloads isn’t simply a small tweak in the call to action, but rather a large improvement to traditional mobile app download ads. The company claims their ads draw more valuable clicks, as users who have already shown an interest in the brand or product are more precisely targeted. And while ROI won’t be a clear cut as consumer purchases, these new ads do have the ability to deliver better results over time, considering mobile apps can act as reminders to consumers, even if they don’t make purchases through the apps immediately.
Head of Facebook’s mobile product monetization, Christine De Martini, elaborates, “It’s really not just about discovery — it’s not that simple anymore…It’s about discovery by the right people [who] will do valuable things in the app and engage over time.”Assuming the ads prove successful, this approach will finally allow those advertising mobile apps a chance to focus their Facebook campaigns on the quality of the consumer, or lead, rather than the quantity of downloads.
