Can AI-led user acquisition strategies redefine the next era of mobile advertising?

AI is now part of our daily lives. Domains like healthcare, education, marketing, small businesses, retail/eCommerce, public relations, recruitment, etc actively use AI to make their processes efficient, empowering decision-making and enhancing customer experience. In terms of marketing, AI’s involvement can be seen in each functionality. Content or creative creation, targeting, or campaign optimization utilize artificial intelligence to streamline marketing spending and secure higher ROIs.

The role of AI in amplifying mobile advertising

In the contemporary marketing landscape, hyper-personalized targeting has emerged as the cornerstone for maximizing the efficacy of advertising budgets. Through the application of artificial intelligence (AI), marketers can now delve into vast swathes of user data encompassing demographics, past interactions, and interests, enabling them to identify the most receptive audience segments for their campaigns. This benefit extends further as AI evolves to predict user responses to advertisements and constructs leaner lookalike audience pools for targeted outreach.

The impact of AI on mobile advertising transcends the targeting stage alone. By analyzing in-app behaviors, purchase frequencies, and product preferences, AI empowers mobile advertisers to create impactful, time-sensitive and curated retargeting campaigns specifically tailored to highly engaged users. In the context of multichannel acquisition and retargeting campaigns, AI can be harnessed for dynamic, real-time creative optimization (DCO) based on targeted cohorts, leading to significant time and resource savings compared to the manual, often guesswork-driven approach employed by marketers in the past. Furthermore, considering the utilization of creatives in multiple formats and languages in mobile advertising, AI steps in to assist marketers in efficiently generating ad variations at scale for diverse publishers or campaigns. This technology can also be utilized to discover search queries in non-English for app scale in emerging markets.

When it comes to optimizing budgets, AI proves invaluable in comprehending the successes and failures of mobile advertising campaigns. Initially, AI can predict the potential success of upcoming campaigns through analysis of past initiatives, empowering marketers to make informed decisions from the outset. AI’s ability to manage data-intensive tasks allows for the simultaneous testing of multiple ad variations, providing a comprehensive understanding of the final campaign elements, including text, creative elements, targeted audience pools, campaign timings, media mix, and budget distribution. In advanced applications, AI can even be trained to make autonomous decisions on real-time campaign budget adjustments.

AI-led user acquisition and the next era of mobile advertising

The demand for privacy-oriented strategies has marketers looking at ways in which users can be discovered and acquired without dependency on first-party data signals. In this regard, search intent marketing and keyword-led acquisition channels have a greater potential to help marketers redefine their marketing approaches..

If one were to look at iOS user acquisition post-ATT, the landscape has considerably changed with the launch of SKAN. iOS user acquisition has also been possible with Apple Search Ads and keyword-driven search intent marketing, leveraging the power of AI to enhance user discovery and install.

The search queries or keywords are the anchors to devise a targeting strategy. This requires marketers to analyze a large volume of data across popularity scores, conversion scores, region-based performance scores, and Share of Voice(SOV) to come up with a strategic set of keywords to target. Beyond the analytical score, marketers also need to have a deep understanding of their targeted audience and geos, to identify how that specific cohort of users searches for an app. To run global acquisition campaigns, they also have to consider linguistic nuances to identify the right keywords to target. This creates a massive volume of manual work, highly prone to errors.

In the current ecosystem with GenAI as an emerging technology, there is greater potential to integrate this within the keyword recommendation tools. GenAI-based keyword search enables advertisers to discover and leverage new, high-potential keywords based on vast data analysis and predictive modeling. It also allows advertisers to reach and engage vernacular audiences who are searching for apps on iOS, going beyond basic English search.

Increased measurement across the funnel is another area where one can see the impact of AI-driven tools. On keyword search, for instance, post-install data analysis helps marketers give insights into which keywords performed better and make informed decisions in real-time to optimize their strategies and generate similar high-value, untapped search queries. This enhances future campaigns to reach newer, but highly-relevant users Additionally, smart bidding ensures app marketers no longer need to take educated guesses on how to distribute their bid budget. With reasoning automation, iOS marketers can deactivate underperforming campaigns or adjust bid distribution without manual intervention.

Adapting to Evolving Trends with Apple Search Ads and AI

We stand at an exciting future of mobile advertising that is being shaped continuously by evolving trends and technology, and AI has a significant role to play in driving the next era of user acquisition. The transformative potential of AI reinforces the idea that advertisers can unlock unprecedented levels of personalization, efficiency, and performance in their campaigns. Apple Search Ad’s ability to harness AI-driven insights not only optimizes user acquisition but also positions advertisers at the forefront of a dynamic and competitive landscape. Whether it’s the incorporation of new search behaviors, changes in user preferences, or advancements in technology, the AI-driven capabilities of Apple Search Ads ensure that advertisers remain agile and responsive to the ever-shifting dynamics of the market.

About the author:

Viraj Sinh, Chief Strategic Initiatives Officer, Affle