If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for a mobile marketing agency. Your head is full of questions, and we’ll help you narrow them down to the most important ones. Mobile marketing is bigger than ever! Not only it surpassed traditional media like television, but also desktop advertising.
An average mobile user spends about 4 hours and 10 minutes a day on their mobile devices (Datareportal). They spend the majority of that time in apps. So if you’re not advertising on mobile, you’re missing a huge opportunity.
Many great apps don’t succeed because they don’t get enough users in the first weeks. With so many apps in the app stores, it’s hard to gain users organically. Once you finish your app, all that effort is for nothing if you don’t invest in mobile marketing.
One of the most important decisions you need to make is choosing who will be in charge of your mobile advertising. If you choose wisely, your partner, a mobile marketing agency, will grow with you. A great partner could change the outcome of your business.
We have encountered different questions from our clients and partners over the years. We’ve put together a list of 12 questions you need to ask your mobile marketing agency.
12 questions you need to ask your mobile marketing agency.
Top 6 Questions to Ask Your Potential Marketing Agency
1. Are You a Full-Service Mobile Marketing Agency?
Depending on your needs, you can choose an agency that will do the whole work for you. That process starts with market research, then creative development, and finally media buying.
If you’re looking for a specific service, you can choose a specialized agency that will only do one step of the process. Full-service mobile agencies will deliver a full solution.
A full-service agency has a wide understanding of the mobile landscape and will make sure to keep you alert with mobile advertising trends, best practices as well as potential challenges.
2. Are You Mobile-First?
Many traditional marketing agencies recently started rebranding to mobile marketing agencies. Mobile is huge and you shouldn’t miss that opportunity. Since you’ll be providing the budget, you need to make sure that the agency is good at what it claims to do.
A mobile-first agency has to understand everything about the client’s product and goals and create a mobile-focused strategy accordingly. These agencies place mobile experience above e.g. desktop user experience. Mobile-first is a wholesome approach: it puts mobile users at the center of design, development, and advertising strategies.
Furthermore, it has to show transparency by measuring and reporting everything, from mobile spending to acquisition costs.
A small agency specialized in mobile could be a better choice than a traditional marketing agency where mobile marketing is just one of their services.
3. Who Will Be in Charge of My Account?
The person on your initial call maybe won’t be the person handling your account. Check out the web page of the marketing agency and try interviewing the person that will be in charge of your account.
Think about how many people are working in that agency and how many will actually handle your account. In reality, one person will probably be handling more than one account. Get to know the person you’ll be chatting to, the person that will be sending you reports, answering your questions…
4. What Are Your Fields of Expertise?
Mobile is a broad term. Mobile games, products, and subscription services advertise on mobile. However, it is not the same if you’re trying to raise a customer base for an e-commerce app or gain users for a mobile game. It would be great if the agency had previous work experience with a product or a service similar to yours.
5. Will I Be the Owner of the Ad Account?
6. What Will the KPIs Be and How Often Will I Get Reports on How the Campaigns Are Going?
If you’re in the process of choosing a mobile marketing agency, you’re probably thinking more long-term. Plenty of agencies won’t send you any reports. For you, as a client, it is important to be up to date with what is happening in the campaigns.
If your KPIs (key performance indicators) are well defined at the start of the campaign, it will be easy to track its success. You can ask for a sample report to see will it meet your expectations. Then you can define how often you’ll be updated on how the campaigns are going. You can do that even before you sign a contract.
Some essential KPIs in mobile app marketing include:
- CPI (cost per install)
The agency’s main job is acquiring users at the lowest possible cost. This metric can help you grow your audience, organize your budget, and increase your revenue.
- LTV (lifetime value)
The monetary value of a single app user. Show you how valuable acquired users are for your app.
- DAU (daily active users)
The number of unique users who used the app within a single day. Shows if acquired users are returning daily to use your app.
- Retention rate
Shows how many users returned to your app in a given time period (1 day, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days)
How to Get Professional Answers From Your Mobile Marketing Agency?
7. What Networks Would You Recommend We Buy On?
When mobile marketing was just starting, there weren’t many options to choose from. Nowadays, three of the biggest players (Google, Facebook) will account for the majority of the total global digital ad market.
There is plenty of other networks to choose from. Each with a different user base, different campaign requirements, different targeting options…
If your app is a mobile game, you want to reach the right audience. A mobile-first agency will know you should try out mobile ad networks such as ironSource, Applovin, or Unity.
When it comes to targeting, there are also a variety of options. For example, if you want to reach a younger audience on mobile, Snapchat ads might be a good choice.
Look for agencies with previous experience working on platforms you wish to advertise on and agencies that have successfully spent $1M per month while keeping the ROI constant.
As you grow, your agency should grow with you, another reason for choosing an agency that has previously successfully managed mobile campaigns at scale.
8. Why Should We Choose a Mobile Marketing Agency vs. Hiring in-House?
It all depends on what you’re looking for. Agencies will have more experience in advertising and have more resources. The right partner will be more than somebody you hired just to “get the job done”.
Besides this, you may benefit from some out-of-the-box thinking and fresh insights. The thing is, in-house teams often work on the same project for a long time. With time, everything can become familiar and you may overlook some major issues. Hiring an external partner can bring you some objective input, detect problems, and help your business grow.
They will be an extension of your in-house team and a partner in crime. Yes, you could hire a person to manage mobile advertising for you, but will one person be enough for everything you’ll need?
9. Do You Have a Client Reference?
Comments from previous clients will be very valuable when determining which marketing agency to choose. You can search for a reference from a client of your potential account manager or check out reviews on some of the review directories like clutch.co. Social media is also a great representation of a marketing agency. Are they active on social media? What are the comments and reviews?
Moreover, take a look if the agency has a portfolio. Based on that, you will be able to see what kind of projects they did in the past and what they can do for you. For example, at Udonis, our portfolio features the best video ads we’ve made for our various clients.
10. What Can We Expect From Our Mobile Advertising Budget? (How Many Installs…)
This is a tricky question because every app is different. The number of installs is only a number. Your ultimate goal is to grow your business and have a long-term customer relationship.
One of the KPIs you should have a mutual understanding of is ROAS (return on ad spend). You should set up a proper ROAS goal and ask the agency if they can make that happen. The goal has to be high enough to make your app sustainable and profitable.
Of course, you can’t expect good ROAS overnight. This will take a lot of time, testing, and effort.
11. How Much Does Your Biggest Client Spend per Month With You?
If you’re looking to spend $20K per month, and the agency you’re speaking to has a client with a spend of over $1M per month, your campaign probably won’t be a priority to them. The opposite is also true. If you’re looking to spend over $1M per month, and the agency you’re talking to doesn’t do that activity with other clients, think again.
12. What Platforms Do You Use for Analytics and Attribution?
Marketing agencies that truly understand how mobile marketing works will know how to do mobile attribution effectively. Creating an app is only half the job. After that, it all comes down to analysis: from tracking how you acquire users, to their behavior after the install.
There are plenty of mobile attribution platforms that can be integrated with a game or an app.
Attributed installs are growing at a rate of 39%, while non-attributed installs are growing at a slower pace. That means more marketers are tracking the user journey to their app or through their app.
Some of the mobile attribution platforms are:
- Firebase
- Tenjin
- AppsFlyer
- Kochava
Mobile attribution platforms are usually closely connected to analytics. The platforms mentioned will offer you attribution and more. Nowadays, most of them come with tools to help you grow your app and give you valuable market insights. Mobile app analytics are the key to understanding your users. If you are wondering how often do your users open your app or how long do they stay in-app, analytics have the answer
Today, mobile attribution is especially important. Ever since Apple introduced IDFA changes, mobile attribution for apps and games drastically changed. App publishers have very limited data on their audiences.
As a result, advertisers are dealing with a huge lack of data. They are not able to accurately attribute ad spends to different ad networks and campaigns. This makes campaign optimization very, very challenging.
For this reason, if your product is an app, you should pay special attention to this. You can even ask the agency how they are handling IDFA changes.
13. [BONUS QUESTION] What Makes You Different from Other Marketing Consulting Firms?
Here at Udonis, we’re driven by results. We have years of industry experience and knowledge that allows us to create a marketing strategy that will produce the results you’re expecting. That’s what makes us stand out from other marketing consulting firms.
We have the best tools and technologies coupled with insider knowledge of marketing trends. That enables us to focus on executing marketing plans and producing measurable results.
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