A success story about promoting a mobile app for learning foreign languages on Facebook and Instagram
Edutainment is a trendy interactive learning method. Put simply, it is educational content served in an entertaining format. Edutainment is gaining particular popularity among developers in the fast-growing category of educational mobile apps. In 2018, educational apps hit first place on Google Play with a share of 8.29% and third place in the Apple App Store with a share of 8.5%.
Source: Top-10 Google Play App categories as of 1st quarter 2018, Statista
Source: Top-10 Apple App Store categories in September 2018, Statista
Among edutainment apps, Lingo Vocabulary Trainer from Easy Language is growing rapidly. It is an assistant for memorising words in English, French, German, Spanish, and seven other languages. Within the app, users either readily learn languages or practice online with other players from all over the world.
Source: Lingo Play – English Lessons Online
Lingo Vocabulary Trainer set up a promotion on Facebook and Instagram. First, the goal was to increase app installs, then the founders went further and tracked product payback metrics, aiming to increase in-app purchases. We applied Aitarget’s tunnel budget automation strategy at both stages and got a positive performance results in both cases.
Stage 1: double growth in installs with reduced CPI
Lingo Vocabulary Trainer app earns money from subscriptions. Users from Russia, the US, the UK, Spain and other countries can learn languages with their monthly subscription to the Lingo app.
App developers from Easy Language searched for a way to increase app installs globally in the long-term with a cost per install not extending beyond a fixed number.
To ensure that the campaign CPI did not go beyond the limits, Aitarget applied a tunnel automation strategy that adjusted the budget depending on ad results.
The campaign showed the desired result right at the end of the first week on the back of chosen strategy. Campaign budget decreased, the banner CTR increased, CPI reduced by half, and install numbers grew up to 50%.
The success of the tunnel automation strategy is even clearer in the results for the second stage, where it helped to achieve almost two-fold growth of in-app purchases.
Stage 2: automatic growth of purchases by 170%
Together with Easy Language, we identified four marketing objectives:
- Get as many in-app paid subscriptions as possible;
- Keep cost per purchase at the same level as before to keep the margin;
- Help Service during a Facebook campaign teamwork; and
- Achieve stability – important to predict installs, costs, and LTV for a growing business.
We provided sustainable traffic to the mobile app within the first stage when the campaign experienced a halving of CPI and install numbers grew up to 50%.
So in Stage 2, we focused on in-app purchase cost. Without the rules of automation, the number of purchases per day did not exceed 50, while the cost per purchase was unstable.
To improve the results, we set up three optimisation rules with different action scenarios for each. In Facebook Ads Manager, we set the CPM bid and optimisation for CPI.
We also chose a narrow band for the cost of in-app purchase between Х_max and X_min, setting up the bid for cost per purchase.
Ruleset 1
If the cost of at least one in-app purchase exceeds Х_max, while the bid starts increasing from 0.31 USD, then the robot reduces the bid by 0.05 USD.
The output: if traffic is expensive for us, we’ll turn off the ad set.
Ruleset 2
If the cost of at least one in-app purchase is less than Х_min, while the bid doesn’t exceed the set maximum of 3 USD, then the robot increase the bid by 0.05 USD.
The output: when the cost of purchase is acceptable, we are likely to buy such cheap purchases more.
Ruleset 3
Our third ruleset was an Accelerated Delivery. For this spend, bid, and a particular hour of performance should be set. Depending on whether the ad is shown before a certain hour or after, we limit spending for the previous hour and increase the bid so that ads perform faster.
For example, if the amount spent and a bid are less than 2.3 USD by 7am, then the bid will grow by 0.05 USD. We will also grow the bid if the amount spent and a bid are less than 3.1 USD after 7am.
The output: we accelerate the delivery of ads depending on the time of day, and therefore, user activity with the corresponding spend.
With Aitarget automations, Lingo Vocabulary Trainer sales increased by 170%. At the same time, the cost per purchase inside the app was kept within the set tunnel.
Thus, Lingo Vocabulary Trainer generated sales with a high scale and buoyant profit with Aitarget advertising on Facebook & Instagram.
“This is a great tool for Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns optimisation,” founder of Lingo Vocabulary Trainer. “It helps to achieve your KPI in a way you cannot approach via Facebook tools. Thanks to Aitarget’s solution, our CVR went up to 10%, we see profit growth, and two-times ad cost reduction.”
