5 Keys to Mobile Game or App Marketing Success with Instagram

Got a kick-butt mobile game or app?  Sweet.  Then Instagram is one marketing channel you cannot afford to ignore.  Instagram’s potential cannot be underestimated especially when it comes to marketing or promoting products and services.  Not just for ordering fast food, or driving foot traffic to a brick-and-mortar store or gym. 

A visually-oriented social media platform, Instagram can be leveraged to enhance app store optimization, discoverability and retention marketing for mobile apps and video games as well. 

 

Meaning, you don’t just use Instagram for sharing how you looked this summer. You carve out an Instagram marketing strategy that will help you not only introduce your mobile game or mobile app to your target audience but also drive major traffic to your product website.

 

However, it won’t be possible if you don’t take some of the most successful Instagram marketing tactics into consideration. Instagram marketing, especially for promoting a mobile game or application, is tricky. So, how do you get over the marketing hurdles and develop a highly converting video game marketing strategy? Stay with us till the very end find out!

 

5 Keys to Mobile Game or App Marketing Success with Instagram

 

Here are some of the most important revelations that you will need to introduce to your mobile game or app marketing for Instagram. We will go through each of them in detail to help you figure out the technicalities involved. 

 

1. Instagram for Mobile Marketers

 

Instagram is well equipped for marketers that are looking to promote visually appealing products. Well, to be honest, you don’t necessarily require a visually appealing product to run a successful marketing campaign on Instagram. The creatives, however, cannot afford to NOT grab eyeballs and hearts.  Native ads and formats that look like legitimate bonafide user-generated content or UGC.  

 

The social media platform has provided enough opportunities for mobile marketers to promote their products. No matter what your products are, it mostly depends on how you portray them in the creatives. The creatives you prepare should be designed appropriately to 1) be a scroll-stopping agent and 2) depict your product’s functionalities to perfection.

 

You have got to grab your target audience’s attention since you are fighting with other players for a place on the feed. Now, how can you do that? Well, the answer to that question is the content you produce, of course, to leverage the different functionalities Instagram has to offer.

 

Here the types of content that you can design and publish to promote your mobile gaming application on Instagram:

 

• Photo Ads

 

These ads look exactly like an organic Instagram picture post and give the users options to like, leave a comment, and share the content.

• Video Ads

 

Video Ads give you ample space and time to play with your content and grab attention for at least a minute. Capturing attention and coming up with effective CTA is crucial to make successful video ads on Instagram.

 

• Carousel Ads

 

You can give amazing effects using the Instagram carousel ads. Since you are a mobile gaming company, you can use it to showcase different features of your application by weaving a story.

 

• Instagram Stories Ads

 

The stories ads do what it says – create stories worth sharing. These are vertical ads that appear between stories. You can design your story ads or use Instagram’s creative tools to create high-quality stories for your audience.

But, you will never succeed in using the above content efficiently if you don’t have your Instagram marketing objectives figured out.

1. Mobile Marketing Objectives

 

When it comes to setting up mobile marketing objectives for social media platforms like Instagram or Facebook, will have to implement a full-funnel approach. In other words, we will have to map out our target audiences’ journey right from install to re-engagement and then retargeting. 

 

This is an important part of your overall App Store Optimization strategy and will have a huge impact on the strategies you will use for advertising your mobile application on Instagram. Let’s figure out how app installs, re-engagement, and retargeting are different and how they impact different parts of a funnel.

 

• App Installs

 

App installs usually forms the upper funnel advertising strategies that are implemented to attract both new and existing mobile app users. You need to find the right users because you are not just looking for people that will download your application but also for the ones that will actually use it. 

 

• App Re-engagement

 

App re-engagement campaigns on Instagram form mid-funnel advertising strategies. In this, you will be focusing on the audiences that have become inactive on the application. You will also be targeting the users that have uninstalled your application. The idea is to maintain an active user base.

 

• App Retargeting

 

Lower-funnel marketing strategies involve in-app advertising. In this, marketers can use machine learning to understand the real-time behavior of the active users. The information will help them come up with personalized ads to bring the users back once they leave the application.

 

1. Targeting New Prospects

 

Targeting new prospects to drive more app installs on Instagram is not complex at all. However, you will have to consider a few points, especially when it comes to developing an advertising strategy.

 

• Choice of Ads

 

As we mentioned earlier, you have several Instagram ads that you can run for mobile app advertising. You have got photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, stories ads, and collection ads. The best thing is that you can optimize these ad types for your advertising objective, which in this case, is getting mobile app installs.

 

• Call to Actions

 

You don’t just want the users to consume your advertisement and scroll away. The users should be encouraged to take action once they are done consuming the content. This can be done using a well-drafted call to actions or CTAs. In this case, you will be using CTA buttons like ‘Install Now’ or ‘Learn More’. There are almost 10 different CTA buttons available on Instagram, so you better select the right one.

 

• Creativity

 

The online user is inundated with a barrage of content every single second. How would you make a space for yourself? Well, you do that by being extremely creative and mindful while designing the ad creatives. In other words, you have to figure out what exactly stops people from scrolling and triggers them to click on your ad or perform the desired CTA. This requires many rounds of A/B testing, so create a budget for that as well. You can also run ads on user-generated content that will give you more credibility.

 

• Audience Targeting

 

Lastly, you don’t want to show up before the wrong people on Instagram. Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, you can easily access the latter’s targeting options and improve the conversion rate of your ads.

 

1. Targeting Re-Engagement

 

Re-engagement campaigns are, as we mentioned earlier, run to bring the user back to your application. The targeted users have stopped using the application (inactive users) and can be brought back by introducing them to new exciting features or updates in your application. How do you do that? Let’s find out.

 

• Start with the right users

 

Use mobile analytics to figure out the right people to target on Instagram. Spend a good amount of time setting up an audience for re-engagement campaigns because running ads against the wrong audience might result in bad publicity.

 

• Opt-in Push Notifications

 

Always try to make your application users opt-in for push notifications. This will ensure that they are in contact with the application even if they don’t open it for a long time. This is quite a basic strategy to keep your users actively engaged.

• Advertise using Rich Media

 

Then, you can also attract inactive users on social media applications like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. However, you will have to focus on creating high-quality content and implement a structured App Store Optimization strategy.

 

• Deep Linking

 

Deep linking is a phenomenon that you can leverage to redirect your users to the desired application screen. All you have to do is pick some of the right keywords, select the precise app screen for the link, and then advertise using the same link on various online marketing platforms. This will not only help you improve your conversion rates, but also boost customer retention.

 

1. 3 Notable Instagram Ads in Mobile Games & Apps

 

Here are some of the best examples of Instagram ads for mobile games:

Certain mobile games are better with friends! What better way to celebrate a common love for “candy crushing” than a dance challenge?  The below Instagram Candy Crush Saga mobile game campaign, positive captured the spirit.  The lovely eye candy that the mouth-watering, visually stunning candies…  Topped and amplified with a properly laid-down challenge…with friends!

Here are some of the best examples of Instagram ads for general mobile applications:

In case anyone questions the marketers and agency at KFC Italy?  Be certain this simple catchphrase “How Dip Is Your Love?” has been tested thoroughly.  Extensively tried and tested over and over, via consumer insights and market research.  Marketing genius, backed by data!

 

 

Final Words

 

Instagram, if we go by design, is perfect for branding mobile games or applications. But you are not going to harness its potential if you overlook the above mentioned key aspects of Instagram marketing. The reason is simple. Instagram is evolving every minute and the factors that lay the foundation for evolution have been covered in the post. We highly recommend kickstarting your mobile game or app marketing on Instagram by understanding the ‘What-How-Why’ of it. Are you using Instagram to market your mobile game application? Do share the challenges and obstacles you have faced during the course in the comments section!