Google urges brands to think smarter to win the mobile 'arms race' in developing markets
With many people in Asia Pacific being much heavier users of mobile than in the US and Europe, Google has conducted new research to find out how brands can gain cut-through.
Google urges brands to think smarter about app optimisation
According to James Tan, head of performance products at Google APAC, brands need to think smart when launching and optimising their apps, otherwise it’ll be an “arms race” with escalating costs.
“In developing markets such as Indonesia there is a land grab with VC money to acquire users. Marketers should think about the value of the user and then create a cost per acquisition per user and make sure they are not willing to bid higher. They need to use these optimise, otherwise it’s an arms race,” he said.
“It’s hard for developers and marketers to acquire users, our advice is to measure the lifetime value of the users and use analytics. You need to set the right bids to be profitable,” he said.
The research, conducted alongside TNS, analyses Asia Pacific consumer’s app behaviour. It found big variations in behaviour among different users in APAC. For example, markets such as South Korea and Singapore had an average of 53 and 44 apps installed on their phones, respectively. This compares to 33 for users in Indonesia, India and Vietnam, where smartphone penetration is rising but is dominated by more affordable models with less memory. According to Tan, the likes of Singapore and South Korea fall much higher than the US too.
Google highlighted three lessons from the research, firstly that search is a strong discovery tool for apps, with at least 20 per cent of people using it to find apps in APAC. Tan said this was more pertinent in markets where this was higher, such as Vietnam (45 per cent), India (38 per cent), and Korea (31 per cent).
Secondly, Google said the research confirmed that people were comfortable spending money in apps as 58 per cent of those surveyed said they’d spent money within an app.
Finally, it concluded that people were fickle when it came to app use and needed a reason from brands to stay engaged. With little storage on many devices, it’s critical that brands make sure they are used and not deleted, according to Google. In Indonesia, one out of every five installed smartphone apps are never used. However, the study found that if brands can keep people interested, they will keep the app installed. The vast majority of app users across the region (Indonesia 66 per cent, India 61 per cent, Vietnam 51 per cent) said they would use apps again if given a relevant reason to do so.