A health and nutrition app was using auction ads on TikTok to drive user installs and in-app purchases. Over time, they saw that the cost per install was increasing day by day, reaching up to 20% above target. We concluded that the ad creatives had been used for too long, causing audience fatigue through repetition.
We worked closely with the company on performance-based optimizations to help stabilize costs. We advised that they pause the original ad group, and launch the new ad groups using the following strategies to optimize towards audiences:
1. Custom audiences
By having the client upload a list of existing app users, we were able to set up a custom audience and exclude these users from ad groups where the objective was Install, while targeting them in ad groups aimed at increasing in-app purchases.
2. Lookalike audience
Next, we set up a broad lookalike audience based on existing app users who had made in-app purchases. This allowed us to target an audience similar to those who made a qualified action.
To ensure the most effective creative and copy were being used, we also suggested setting up 2-3 ad groups using the Automatic Creative Optimization tool. This tests multiple creative, copy and call-to-action combinations to see what performs best with audiences. In addition we used TikTok’s App Event Optimization which allows app advertisers to more efficiently acquire users who have a greater chance of taking a specific action, such as register or make an in-app purchase. This advanced bidding method helped to achieve more installs and purchases while keeping costs under control.
As a result, app installs dropped to to 5-10% below target cost. These optimizations also led to a 20% increase in clickthrough rate and 10% lift in conversion rate.
