As an app marketer or growth manager, you acquire app users from paid install ads platforms: App Store, Google Play Store, Facebook, Tiktok, Reddit, Instagram and so on.
However, with so many install ads campaigns, how can you measure their performance individually? “Track the installs”, you may answer. Well, that’s partly true. But installs don’t necessarily mean revenue for subscription apps. So besides tracking installs, you also need to track the post-install events of paid acquisitions, one of which is generating revenue.
Measure Install Ads Performance by Tracking Installs
It is obvious that the basic goal for install ads is to entice users to install the app. Even though installs don’t necessarily mean high-quality users, they are an important indicator of the install ads' performance.
That’s why ads platforms offer the install report for you. You can see how many installations are from each ad campaign clearly, so you will get a general idea of your ads campaign performance.
If you are using several ad platforms and want to see all the install data on one dashboard in real time, you can make use of mobile attribution and analytics tools, such as Adjust and AppsFlyer, which offer solutions to attribute user acquisition across platforms. From the dashboard, you can know where your most valuable users are coming from and which marketing channels perform better in acquiring installs.
While keeping taps on the install numbers in different ad channels and campaigns, you should also track their post-install events respectively, in order to understand their true value.
Measure Install Ads Performance with Post Install Events
As mentioned above, merely tracking installs can not tell you whether you gain profits from install ads or you are just wasting your marketing budget.
To further explain, if users download your app but don’t even launch it before they delete it, App companies will not get any revenue from these kinds of installs. That’s why a simple analysis of the number of installs is not enough for understanding the success of the ads channels and campaigns.
Post-install events, in this case, can help evaluate the real value of the acquisition ads, let’s see what they are for subscription apps and how you can measure them across platforms.
Post-Install Events for Subscription Apps
Post-install events are what users do in your apps after they click the ads and install your app. For subscription apps, the main crucial post-install events we need to keep an eye on are trials, subscriptions, and renewals. Other in-app events to track depend on your app service.
For example, if your app offers subscriptions for digital books, apart from subscription events, you may also want to track whether users have clicked on the book and read the content after they launch the app.
Track Post-install Events Using Appflow.ai for Subscription Apps
Tracking post-install events for subscription apps can be time-consuming and require much technical work. However, if you are using the right kind of tools, things will be easy.
What is Appflow.ai?
Appflow.ai is a subscription analytics platform to help build, manage, analyze, test and grow in-app subscriptions. Its funnel analysis is designed for tracking post-install conversions of app users from different paid marketing channels and campaigns. App marketers and growth managers can analyze the post-install conversions at the level of ads channels, ads campaigns and creatives (or keywords).
Note: Appflow.ai’s funnel analysis is available on the Free plan, create an account and begin tracking post-install events for your subscription apps today.
Tracking post-install events with Appflow.ai is easy. Now it supports attribution integration with Adjust and Apple Search Ads(more supported data platforms are coming soon). Once the integration is done, it will start tracking your subscription apps' post-install events(installs included).
The default events are Installs>Trials>Subscriptions>Refunds>Reactivations. You can also send custom events to the subscription data analytics platform and use them in the funnel. The conversion rate and ROAS filtered by channels and campaigns are also shown on the dashboard to help you get a general idea of the ad's performance.
Step-by-step Guide on Tracking Post-install Events Using Appflow.ai
If you promote your subscription apps mainly using Apple Search Ads, you can set up Apple Search Ads key into Appflow.ai to track the post-install events, by following this guide.
However, if you use multiple channels to promote your apps and want to track the post-install events on one dashboard, you can integrate Adjust into Appflow.ai. Well, the premise, for now, is that you are using Adjust for ads acquisition attribution. （The Appflow.ai team is working on enabling direct integration with more data platforms. So stay tuned for the updates.)
Now let’s see how we can track post-install events of users from different install ads platforms in one dashboard.
1. Step 1: Install Appflow.ai SDK into your subscription apps
Sign up and follow the SDK set-up instructions:
Note: you can skip this step if you are already using appflow.ai for tracking in-app subscription data.
2. Step 2: Integrate with Adjust
Set up built-in Adjust integrations on the dashboard by following the step-by-step instructions.
Note: You may need technical support in the above two steps.
3. Step 3: Start Tracking Post-install Events
When all the above settings are done, Appflow.ai will start receiving the data and track the post-install events.
You can check the acquisition revenue at the channels, campaigns, and creatives(keywords) level. Just choose the time period and the ads channel you want to track, then the whole conversion funnel will be present for you.
Note: Remember to send the custom events to Appflow.ai in advance if you want to track unique KPIs in your apps.
For example, suppose you want to see the performance of Facebook ads at the level of the ad group. In that case, you need the following steps to view the result:
- Choose the time period at the right top of the time filter
- Select the ads channel: in this case, “Facebook”, and ads campaign “Chrismas Greetings”. For ad groups, let’s select “All ad groups”.
- Create the funnel: Once you select from the channel filter, the default funnel (installs>trials>subscriptions>refunds>reactivations) will be present for you.
You can also customize the funnel by sending custom events and defining the order of events. Turn the toggle button “on” or “off” at the right of the event name to decide whether the event will appear on the funnel.
Note that if you are tracking the custom events, you should drag the events from the “Available event” list to the top “Select up to 5 events” (Yes, that’s right, you can create up to 5 events to be in the funnel); - Check the report: on the funnel, you can see the event names, the exact count of the events and the conversion rate between each event.
Below the bottom, you can choose to view the data at the views of “Next level” or “Day”.
From the “Next level” report, you can see more detailed data on the next level, for example, if you choose the post-install funnel at the “All Channels” level, you can see the post-install events of every channel—Facebook ads, Google ads, Apple Search Ads, organic, etc.
From the “Day” report, you can see the post-install event data by day.
Check the RoA: at the right bottom of the funnel, you can see the “Check your RoA”, clicking it will lead you to the RoA report where you can see the return of advertisement.
You can also see how your SKUs are selling at the bottom of the pages.
The above is a three-step guide on how you can track the post-install events for subscription apps at the ads channel, campaign, and creatives(keywords) level. This will help measure the true value of each install ad.
Final TakeAway
The final goal of the install ads for subscription apps is to acquire high-quality users who perform the post-install event—subscriptions. Installs and post-install events represent essential KPIs to measure install ads performance. You should track both of them to get the best understanding of the true value each install ads bring to your app. In this way, you can adjust your install ads marketing budget and take your subscription app to the next level.
How to Measure Install Ads Performance for Subscription Apps
