Mobile Video Monthly #5 February 2019: Facebook ad changes and Reddit App Installs
Mobile Video Monthly
March 30, 2019
We’re back with a new Mobile Video Monthly, the series where we discuss the biggest news, finding, changes and trends regarding video in the mobile app space. This can be related to ASO, app store videos, user acquisition or other types of videos leveraged by developers and publishers
Subscribe to our newsletter to make sure you don’t miss any of our blog posts. Check out the previous editions here:
- Mobile Video Monthly #4 – January 2019 edition
- Mobile Video Monthly #3 – December 2018 edition
- Mobile Video Monthly #2 – November 2018 edition
- Mobile Video Monthly #1 – October 2019 edition
Campaign Budget Optimization on Facebook to Become Fixed Default in September – February 4
Big news on the Facebook Ads front.
Campaign Budget Optimization (CBO) will become the fixed default (i.e. you don’t have a choice) starting in September. This means that you won’t be able to set a daily or lifetime budget at the ad set level.
You will only set a budget at the campaign level and Facebook takes care of the rest. Hopefully better than you would have done it yourself.
Does it work better than if you were to do it yourself? Asking on the Mobile Dev Memo Slack group it seems that it depends. But if you’re currently running Facebook ads that might be something interesting to A/B test, in case you’re better off making the switch right now. Or need to change your campaign structure in preparation.
Even though it does seem that you will still be able to set minimum and maximum budgets per ad set, this feels like a move that puts Facebook Ads closer to Google’s App Campaigns.
With less control from advertisers on their campaigns, it makes creative optimization even more important since this is where you can make a difference.
Here is an excellent post with more information.
IGTV previews in the Instagram Feed – February 7
With IGTV, Instagram made a space for people to create longer-form vertical videos. In order to further push the feature, Facebook is now going to also put previews of IGTV videos from people you follow.
The objective is clearly to get more people to use that feature (and standalone app), since they could then monetize it heavily with in-stream ads.
Reddit – After CPC, App Install as a Campaign Objective and Attribution Partners – February 13
In last month’s Mobile Video Monthly we mentioned that Reddit was now allowing Cost-Per-Click ads, making it an interesting platform for performance marketers.
Reddit has now added App Install as a campaign objective which of course makes it that much more interesting now for mobile marketers.
What does it change? If App Install is the campaign objective, mobile app users are targeted with native mobile ads and only pay if the ad converts to an app store visit. It also gives the possibility to target iOS and/or Android users specifically.
Plus, Reddit integrated several app install attribution providers amongst which Adjust, Tune, Appsfluer and Branch.
It also seems that you are now also able to track eight different conversion events: ‘Page Visit,’ ‘View Content,’ ‘Search,’ ‘Add to Cart,’ ‘Add to Wishlist,’ ‘Purchase,’ ‘Lead,’ and ‘Sign Up’.
Universal App Campaigns is now just “App Campaigns” – February 25
Granted this is not very impactful news, but for anyone that regularly talks about these types of campaigns it is good to know that Universal App Campaigns are now called just App Campaigns. Seems like the term UAC is therefore obsolete.
Facebook introduces Showcase, allowing to advertise in high-quality video content – February 28
The minute Facebook launched the Watch tab in their app, we expected that it would be quickly followed by monetization through advertising.
And indeed we’ve started seeing more and more in-stream ads during the videos on the Watch tab. But with In-Stream Reverse (delivering in-stream ads in news feed videos, pre-roll or mid-roll in other places like the watch tab) you could not really control where your ad will appear (besides choosing content categories).
What’s different with Facebook Showcase (limited to US audiences for now) is that it allows advertisers to buy premium inventory upfront and at a fixed cost. Since this premium inventory is composed of shows created for (or even by) Facebook it is not only likely to attract more viewers but also “brand safe”.
Here is Facebook’s presentation about Showcase and a more detailed blog post.
That’s it for this month! Have we missed anything important related to mobile video? If so let us know in the comments below!
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