Cost Per Install Advertising: The Best Guide For 2024

What is Cost Per Install (CPI)

CPI is a well-known statistic, even though key performance indicators (KPI) can vary depending on their purpose. Pricing models like CPM, vCPM, or CPC are utilized for brand recognition and traffic-building strategies, whereas CPI is used only for mobile app installs.

When buying based on CPI, there are many important considerations to look for because each affects the cost per install pricing. The attributes of advertising platforms, geo area, platform (iOS or Android), ad type, size, and the time of year can all influence how much a CPI varies over time.

Factors that affect CPI

Factors that affect CPI

Understanding the CPI Formula and How to Calculate It

What is a Good CPI

Different sectors, app types, marketing styles, and other factors will impact a good cost per install.

The CPI pricing model puts more emphasis on conversions than views or impressions because the advertiser only pays the publisher after the app install.

Costs-per-install are much higher because an app install has such a high value, especially compared to a straightforward ad impression.

Average Cost-Per-Install Statistics:

How to Lower CPI

How to lower Cost Per Install

Businesses can increase ROI and save costs by lowering CPI in mobile app advertising campaigns. Here are some ways how companies can reduce their CPI:

1. Targeting precise users: Businesses can lower cost per install by focusing their advertising on audiences more likely to install the app.
2. Retargeting: Businesses can target individuals who have already downloaded their app or visited their website with retargeting advertising. This is a practical approach for getting more app installs from users already acquainted with the brand.
3. Review and tweak your bids: Businesses can optimize their ad spend for better ROI by monitoring CPI and adjusting bids accordingly. Setting the best bid price for various target audiences and ad placements entails reviewing data from the last campaigns.
4. Optimize creatives: By experimenting with various versions of the ad text, images, and videos to select which ones perform best, businesses may optimize the effectiveness of their ad creatives. Besides, companies may boost the probability of app installs and lower CPI by creating engaging and relevant ads.
5. Utilize social proof: People are more likely to take action if they see others behaving in a certain way, thanks to a psychological phenomenon called "social proof." By including positive reviews or user ratings, businesses can use social proof in their advertisements to increase the likelihood that users will download their apps.

Key Benefits of CPI at a Glance

1. Monitor the cost and efficiency of your ads

   You get what you pay for is the main benefit. If you want to improve the number of app installs, you can adjust the CPI to achieve more installs from a particular medium. Alternatively, you might modify the pricing to hit your return on ad spend (ROAS) targets for a specific channel.

2. Improve your rank in mobile app stores organically

   Spending a lot on paid acquisition may increase downloads. Also, your app's ranking will improve, boosting the visibility of the app. Additionally, CPI can enhance the brand awareness of your app, increasing install potential and popularity.

3. It carries less risk for advertisers than CPM

   A high level of user intent is required to install an app. By paying for users genuinely interested in their app and more inclined to interact with it, advertisers are getting value for their money. In other words, this price strategy reduces the time, money, and marketing resources spent.

But, cost per install benchmarks are only one statistic you may use to gauge your marketing plan. In addition to the CPI, several other measures might help assess the actual effectiveness of your marketing effort.

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Let's look at some more metrics.

Why is Pay Per Install better than paying for clicks or impressions

In pay per install pricing model, the ad network bears all the risk, not the advertisers. This is a performance-based pricing strategy, which means that advertisers pay only for results and that there is significantly less risk than with a pay-per-click specific impression approach.

Why does there seem to be less risk

Well, primarily because click and impression-based payout models force marketers to pay every time people see or click their ads - even if they don't necessarily download the app and sign up as users. As a result, unlike PPI advertising, where they only pay for actual installs, marketers may spend money on those who never become users.

Additionally, pay-per-install campaigns for apps have a payout for each install delivered by the campaign, and this payout can either be set or differ depending on DSPs and ad networks. App marketers often favor cost per install advertising campaigns since it bears less risk.

Understanding why PPI is one of the best pricing models available will be easier if you look at alternative price models. Of course, several pricing measures are better than PPI and require marketers to pay only when a specific activity takes place. Here are a few of them:

What is CPM

CPM is a metric used to measure the cost per thousand impressions of an advertisement, which represents the number of times a target customer or website visitor would see the ad.

Since everybody can view an advertisement, but not everyone will install your app as a result of seeing one, CPM advertising costs are substantially lower, but they also offer less overall value for your money.

What differentiates CPI from CPM

CPI, refers to the price associated with installing a piece of software, a game, or an app, whereas CPM refers to the cost associated with every thousand ad impressions.

While CPM is a well-liked marketing metric for ad networks running banner advertisements, native ads, and hover ads, mobile app developers frequently use CPI marketing to acquire new users and boost installs.

What is CPA

In a Cost Per Action (CPA) pricing model, an advertiser pays a publisher each time a user conducts a different activity. This can include downloading an app, but it can also involve subscribing to a newsletter or loyalty program or signing up for an email newsletter.

What differentiates CPA from CPI

CPA allows activities that take place after the installation, unlike CPI. Marketers who desire users to take actions further down the sales funnel sometimes prefer CPA.

Now let's talk about the cost per install advertising campaigns.

What is a Cost Per Install Advertising campaign

A CPI campaign is when advertisers run app install ads on several digital platforms to nudge users to download the promoted app from the developer. Because conversion is the main objective of this user acquisition campaign, payment is on app installs rather than how many people saw or clicked on the advertisement.

If you want to increase the user base and boost the visibility of your app, you need a cost per install advertising campaigns. With less risk and a higher ROAS, the advertiser can save money by this method.

But you should also consider the differences between Android and iOS users if you are launching a CPI campaign. Due to their exceptional purchasing power and location, iOS users spend more money than the average Android user (GDP countries, mostly).

In light of this, here are three things to be aware of while running an effective cost per install advertising campaign:

• Choose your target market first
• Understand your metrics and re-engage users
• Focus on post-installation activities

Best Practices for Cost Per Install Advertising

Cost Per Install Advertising: Best Practices

List of Best CPI Networks

You become an excellent marketer once you recognize the value of benchmarking and measurement. Your ability to monitor your progress and understand the average cost per install is necessary.

If you work in marketing, understanding the cost per install advertising may assist you in specifying the number of user downloads for a particular application after reading or seeing an advertisement.

Unlocking the power of CPI is useful for several grounds, including the fact that it is a reliable measure of your advertising campaign and entails less risk for advertisers than other pricing models.

However, no matter what you do, ensure a comprehensive overview of your CPI and other metrics, like LTV and ROAS. Otherwise, you'll only have a limited understanding of how your app is doing.