It’s time again for another insightful report from our friends at Fiksu. On Tuesday, the folks behind the well-respected Fiksu Mobile App Marketing Platform reported that mobile app marketing costs continued their “upward trajectory” as 2012 wound to a close.
Not surprisingly, the holidays played a major role in this development. Fiksu says the volume of mobile app downloads surged in December as millions of new tablets and smartphones entered the daily lives of individuals around the world.
For December, the Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index jumped 21 percent, or 29 cents, to $1.67, from November’s $1.38. While costs continued to climb from November to December, as expected, the 2012 holiday season presented a steadier, more cost-effective landscape than the 2011 season, as marketers implemented best practices they’d learned and tested throughout the year.
“Mobile app marketers are a year older and wiser, and we saw this reflected in the December Fiksu Indexes,” says Micah Adler, CEO of Fiksu.
“Unlike the spending frenzy we saw in 2011,” Adler admits, “many opted for a value-versus-volume approach in 2012, collectively applying a more conservative, sophisticated strategy to their Q4 campaigns and largely avoiding big gambles on a long App Store freeze.”
“As a result,” the Fiksu boss concludes, “marketing dollars were spread to the long tail of apps outside the top 200, and the peaks in volume and cost per loyal user, while still significant, weren’t as extreme as they were in 2011.”
For full analysis from Tuesday’s report, click here.
