X Ads
App installs campaign
Ready to advertise on X?
Get more people to download your app
App install campaigns are the perfect way to connect with X’s mobile-first audience and drive more app downloads. This objective helps promote widespread visibility of your app to the people who are most likely to convert seamlessly from X to the app store. This is great if you’re looking to showcase new features or reach new mobile audiences. And with improved prediction, supply, and measurement capabilities, this campaign is stronger than ever.
X users are
more likely than Non-X Users to have downloaded an app directly from an ad online1
App installs campaign
Recent news
*Currently only available on Android
This solution gives advertisers the ability to reach people most likely to make a purchase within the app, for a lower cost.
On average, this new model sees a 33% decrease in cost per purchase than when activating against app install optimization alone3.
Our partners at Mega Tower ran a 2022 campaign leveraging APO and saw that users spent 3X more on in-game purchase vs non-APO X campaigns4.
Learn more here.
Best practices
Before you begin your campaign, make sure you’re integrated with a Mobile Measurement Partner (MMP) and Apple’s SKAdNetwork, have signed up for our Advanced Mobile Measurement Program, and are up to date with iOS 14 and its AppTrackingTransparency changes.
For the first 3-5 days after you launch a new app campaign, our systems will test and find the best users for your ads. We call this initial exploration phase the “Learning Period”.
During the Learning Period, you will likely see fluctuations in performance, but we strongly advise you to avoid making changes to your campaign to allow our systems to learn and calibrate as efficiently as possible. After the Learning Period, your campaign’s performance should stabilize. If you still are not seeing performance after the first 3-5 days, we suggest increasing your bids, widening your target audience, or refreshing your creative.
For app install campaigns, we recommend these top-performing ad formats:
- Image Ads with App Buttons
- Video Ads with App Buttons
- Carousel Ads
With Cards and Carousels, your mobile audience can easily transition from X to the app store. Include eye-catching images or videos, a tagline, and supporting copy in these ad formats. Your app rating, download count, price, and app icon will automatically import from the respective app store, depending on certain thresholds (ie. four-star or higher app ratings will allow app ratings to appear on the App Card).
Your creatives should reflect your real in-app experiences to establish a seamless connection. 47% of people on X want to see what features an app has when considering a download2. Your copy should be short and to the point of why people should download your app. This is a great place to highlight your key benefits, limited-time deals, or other value props.
In an app install campaign, you only pay for clicks that lead to your install page on the App Store or Google Play Store. We recommend using maximum bid if your goal is app installs, or target cost if your goal is simply app clicks.
X also offers three different bidding goals for app install campaigns to help you achieve the best ROI:
- (New!) App Purchase Optimization looks for people most likely to make a purchase and pays by impressions. This is recommended for advertisers looking to drive lower funnel outcomes with KPIs such as cost-per-purchase. At launch, this product will only be available for Android Apps.
- App clicks bids on and pays for app clicks. This is recommended for brands looking to achieve scale quickly with a narrowly-targeted audience
- App installs (recommended) bids on installs and pays for impressions or app clicks. This is recommended for brands looking to refine campaign performance with a broadly-targeted audience
X offers industry-leading targeting features, including event and conversation targeting. For app campaigns, you can also target people using specific device models, OS versions, carriers, and new mobile devices to reach the right groups.
Once your campaign is live, you can track real-time results in your Ads Manager dashboard. Important metrics to track include total spend, results, cost-per-result, and result rate. Your result will be either app clicks or app installs, depending on what you chose.
It’s also important to set up third-party mobile app conversion tracking to measure how many people are taking your desired actions after viewing or engaging with your ads.
You can also run measurement studies depending on the goals you want to achieve including brand lift, mobile app measurement, and buy-through rate.
1) Source: X Insiders US and Sparkler. MAP Phase 2 Survey. Q17 Have you ever installed an app directly from an ad online? That is, when you clicked the ad it brought you directly to the app store to download the app. Base: X Users (n=541), Non-Users (n=453)
2) Source: X Insiders US and Sparkler. MAP Phase 2 Survey. Q19 What would you want to see most on X when considering downloading a new app? Please select up to 3 answers. Base: X Users (n=541)
3) Source: X conducted and funded testing with 23 advertisers from May - July 2022. Advertisers selected their Android App to be used in testing that compared performance between App install campaigns using App Purchase Optimization and CPM Billing with App Install campaigns using Install Optimization and CPC billing.
4) Source: ARPU of new US users from X APO campaigns in August 2022
X allows us to reach a target audience very likely to download our app and helps us achieve fast and effective results. No doubt this is one of the best marketing platforms we have used to drive app installs and we will continue to do so in the future.
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