Want to grow your app business with ads? Here are the strategies

Building a strong user base requires the developers to connect with the right people at the right moment.

The growing penetration of smartphones, internet, and increasing competition have fuelled the growth of the mobile app development market, globally. According to Market Research Future, the global app development market is estimated to grow at 14 percent CAGR during the forecast period (2016-2022).

In 2018, global mobile users spent USD 71.3 billion on in-app purchases, subscriptions, and premium apps on the App Store and Google Play, 22.7 percent higher amount than the USD 58.1 billion in the previous year, as per Sensor Tower Store Intelligence estimates.

Given the market trends, the app developers need better strategies and tools to build a profitable business, meet consumers' high expectations and thrive in the highly competitive, rapidly-growing market. So here are a few ways how developers can build their app businesses and grow revenue using Google's growth and monetization solutions:

Connecting with app-happy users at the right time

Building a strong user base requires developers to connect with the right people at the right moment. Google via App campaigns helps developers to promote their app across its platforms including the Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, Gmail, and within other apps and mobile websites on the Display Network.

"Connecting with the right people at the right time is key to building a strong user base. Google App campaigns make it easy for you to find app-happy users across Google Search, Play, YouTube and over 3 million sites and apps in our network," says Sissie Hsiao, VP of Product, Mobile App Advertising at Google.

Google has introduced new reach opportunities for app developers to expand their business via app campaigns. Let's have a look:

• Discover, previously known as Google Feed, which helps 800 million monthly active users to stay up to date on their interests, will serve as a potential platform for app developers to make a strong impression on more users with relevant and visually engaging ads. App campaigns running in the United States will now automatically reach more potential users on this platform. Also by 2019-end, Google plans to expand app ads in Discover to all available markets.
• YouTube: Advertisers will now be able to use the top slot of YouTube's mobile search results for app promotion.

Image: App ad on YouTube Search

• Additionally, advertisers will now be able to connect with more people via in-stream video ads, skippable video ads that play before, during, or after a video, on mobile apps and sites across the Google network.

How to grow profitably while delivering a great user experience?

With an aim to help app developers earn revenue while delivering better ad experiences, Google has designed a new open ad format that allows developers to show ads to users while they wait for the app to load. Earlier this year, Google announced new smart segmentation features that show ads only to those users who are predicted not to spend on in-app purchases. The feature is now available for rewarded ad units. Rewarded ad units allow advertisers to reward users with in-app items for interacting with video ads, playable ads, and surveys.

"Finding the right users is important, but developers need to think about growing overall revenue in order to build sustainable businesses. By integrating ads during natural breakpoints in your app you can build a new revenue stream and deliver better user experience," says Hsiao.

Image Credit: Google Ads Blog

And to protect the user experience of the purchasers, Google has introduced a new Insights feature called 'AdMob Insights' that will instantly notify advertisers or developers if abnormal changes to key metrics like eCPM, impressions, and revenue in the app are impacting the user experience.

For businesses to grow profitably, it's equally important to also consider how much revenue they generate relative to the cost of driving those installs and actions, says Hsiao. With innovative tools and automated solutions, Google continues to support the growth goal of app developers.