Mobile Advertising is a very complex term. Even the smartest players in the industry get puzzled while dealing with its various anagrams like CPI, CPA, CPC etc.
Two strikers in Mobile Advertising Industry is Mobile CPI Network and Mobile CPC Network. In this blog, we will help you understand these two models and give an insight into their pros and cons. This way, you will be able to figure out the best out of these two and choose what suits your business better.
Let’s sort out all the advantages and disadvantages of CPI and CPC models:
CPI Model:
CPI stands for Cost Per Install. Under this module, an application developer pays a mobile ad company for every user who installs the app.
Pros of Cost Per Install Advertising Model:
While working with CPI module the foremost benefit is the cost. When compared with CPC, the bid prices for CPI are way too higher, but when comes down to the payment Cost Per Install proves to be cheaper as it leads to a lower ad spend on a total campaign than that of runic Cost Per Click campaign. Here the spending only goes on those who are interested in your app and not un-necessary traffic that doesn’t convert into downloads. Probably, this is the most important reason why advertisers opt for CPI advertising models.
Cons of Cost Per Install Advertising Model:
a. Limited Control on Traffic:
Despite all the cost savings and paying only for what you are getting, the advertisers might find it very difficult to be working with non-transparent ad networks. You cannot control the quality of traffic to whom your ads are being catered. Ad networks are well aware that they are getting paid for every install, they won’t mind funneling the low-quality traffic towards you. Apps Discover, however, is an ad network who stresses over quality and transparency while working.
b. Difficult to Track User-Behaviour:
Ad networks only focus on getting more and more downloads, they do not bother to check the quality of the traffic. Once the campaign gets over it becomes very difficult to filter the quality traffic. It is quite difficult to monitor the user’s long-term behavior, as the CPI model do not identify the information on types of user who have downloaded the app. Most of the CPI mobile Networks are not even able to provide metrics like bounce rates, time spent, browsers being used etc.
c. Lack of Creativity in CPI Ads:
Performance advertisers, unfortunately, do not focus on making the CPI ads more creative, they opt for an average looking ad in order to seek cost saving. They believe that CPI campaigns do not require much creative optimization.
CPC Model:
CPC stands for Cost Per Click, under this model the advertiser pays the publisher for every time a user clicks on their ad. This model is used to direct the traffic to the advertiser’s website.
Pros of Cost Per Click Advertising Model:
a. More Insights on Campaign:
Unlike CPI, CPC provides you full insight into your campaign. For example, the average time spent, the bounce rates, the browser used, IP addresses etc. the access to such data helps the advertiser to understand the success or failure of the campaign and you can prepare your next campaign even better.
b. CPC Can Sometimes be Cheaper Then CPI:
yes, you heard it right. believe it or not, but when it comes to acquiring users CPC results better than CPI advertising model. Campaigns based on CPC models are more optimised by the advertisers as they want more conversion and value for each and every buck spent. While optimizing the ads properly, you are most likely to get more conversions with the same amount spent. However, most of the small and mid-sized advertisers do not have much funds to invest in optimization.
Cons of Cost Per Click Advertising Model:
CPC is more insightful but, its advantages are also its disadvantage. The advertisers who have got enough funds to optimise the ads or to maximise conversions can easily go to CPC over CPI mobile networks. On the other hand, the smaller brands with low or minimum resources will choose to go for CPI.
To avoid getting conned by the not-so-transparent ad networks, choose your ad-network wisely. Good Ad-networks will not only do its work ethically but also help you to decide what is good for your brand. One such example is Apps-Discover work closely with advertisers and set the parameters for displaying your ads, your way.
