How In-App Promotions Bring Publishers Extra Revenue and Engagement

There are periods for all app publishers when everything turns quieter on the engagement front. Revenue for some publishers especially stagnates or slows down over summer.

Successful publishers, instead of accepting these periods of “downtime”, find ways to continue connecting with their users and remain profitable all year round. Because no matter what time of year it is, users are still spending up to seven hours per day on their phones.

The savviest monetization managers turn seasonal downtime into opportunities to upgrade their app’s UX – and rewarding users with in-app promotions has allowed some publishers to boost revenue by up to 150 percent.

Publisher Promotions Generate Extra Revenue All Year

In-app reward promotions are the most proven and effective way for publishers to boost user engagement and maximize ad revenue with Playtime. 

That’s because advertisers directly partnered with adjoe will raise their bids for these high-traffic opportunities They know that these in-app promotions mean greater quality traffic and visibility for their app.

This is why publishers enjoy up to 40-percent higher eCPMs when they participate in Playtime promotions. Top global apps from various verticals see their users earning extra rewards through in-app promotions – while they earn between 50 and 200 percent extra revenue during these promotional periods. 

And no matter what the occasion, publisher profitability is never compromised.

This is how in-app promotions with Playtime work:

1. Advertiser pays more for a set period of time to receive a top placement with Playtime’s offers
2. This ensures a publisher sees an uplift in eCPMs during this time frame
3. Advertiser attracts more users to their app due to this increase in visibility
4. Publisher promotes the opportunity to earn extra rewards in the app or via other channels to bring the advertiser even more users
5. Publisher enjoys higher app engagement and higher revenue, while advertiser enjoys a greater volume of high-quality traffic and visibility

Analyses have recently shown just how much publishers promote these limited-time attractive earning opportunities (through marketing and media plans) can even increase eCPMs by 60 percent.

More Users and More Excuses to Connect with Them

In-app promotions give publishers a powerful opportunity to activate their users and drive them to engage with an app more regularly. This is especially crucial during slower timeframes, such as over the summer.  

But users will only give apps their undivided attention if apps can give them unparalleled value – and communicate this value with them. 

Imagine this: You’re on your daily commute or scrolling aimlessly on your phone in bed. You check for new unread emails in your inbox and discover that you can earn double points to spend – let’s say – on your next grocery shop for playing some quality mobile games for just a few minutes.

You’re already on your phone, and the promotion ends tomorrow evening, so you open the app to discover which games you can play … and you start playing. 

This experience connects users with publishers throughout the day – not just within the app, but during all the time they spend on their phones. Publishers can fully customize and give the Playtime user interface a native look for each occasion or promotion, which ensures users maintain this all-important brand connection. And also keeps in-app content looking fresh. 

And it works: Results from adjoe’s current publishers show that user engagement more than doubles when publishers send their users various notifications or emails about Playtime promotions.

These extra interactions with users inject extra app engagement spikes and revenue during these periods. A rewarded walking app this year saw a 50-percent increase in revenue after sending its users push notifications every other day to remind them they could earn extra points by engaging with fun games for just a few minutes of their day.

Complete Control Over Participation in Promotions

In a world where monetization managers want greater control of their revenue, Playtime promotions cater to this need. 

Publishers can participate in these in-app promotions as regularly or as occasionally as they want. Whether it’s over the weekend or during seasonal events, such as Black Friday, St Paddy’s Day, Christmas or Halloween. 

The more regularly publishers participate, the more regularly they will see greater revenue and app engagement spikes over the year. Some publishers working with Playtime participate regularly over weekends; some participate at certain special events.

These promotions can last from anything between two days and two weeks, which gives publishers flexibility to work with experienced adjoe account managers to test and monitor how revenue and app engagement spikes during this time. 

It’s during tests that one app partnered with adjoe decided to pivot its strategy from weekend promotions to longer promotions for more than four days. The app saw its revenue increase by 15 percent during this time period. Another partner saw recurring spikes in revenue after participating in consecutive weekend Playtime promotions – the highest peak of which occurred when the app combined two promotions together, without compromising on their profitability.

In another scenario, the adjoe team worked with an app that participated in at least two Playtime promotions per month throughout the year. They benefited from repeated spikes in extra revenue during these extended promotions.

There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution – it depends on an app’s dynamics and user base. But one thing that is certain is that all publishers remain not only profitable but manage to squeeze extra revenue and engagement from their users during these promotional periods.

Inject Revenue Spikes into Slower Periods

Steady revenue streams are good.

Extra spikes in revenue on top of this is powerful.

Monetization managers shouldn’t let the curse of seasonality slow down their revenue. Downtime can bring greater opportunities to actively test and plan new strategies to bring users back to the app for longer. 

Playtime promotions don’t only promise publishers this engagement and revenue lift – they deliver greater publisher loyalty and better value for users, who want to collect meaningful rewards.