作者：Craig Palli

随Google Play繁荣发展

苹果逐步淘汰UDID的计划引起了应用营销社区的恐慌。UDID曾为广告活动提供了标准化且获得广泛支持的方法。不幸的是，目前没有单个可替代UDID的解决方案。iOS市场似乎已出现分裂现象，许多种技术都在争相吸引开发者的注意力。这使应用开发者更难以分派他们手上的资源。

这种不确定性导致部分营销人员开始更加重视Google Play，希望以此来促进其手机业务的持续成长。不幸的是，行业发布的众多报告表明苹果的iOS盈利能力显然较高，这成为许多营销人员远离Android开发的原因。理智的营销人员都知道，高层次数据统计往往与现实情况存在偏差。尽管我们不建议完全忽视iOS市场，但经过计算你会发现，Android的盈利机遇远远超过你的设想。

规模更大，成本更低

OS share(from Fiksu)

单纯从市场大小来看，Android平台就要比iOS更为出众。根据尼尔森统计数据所示，Android占智能手机市场份额超过48%，iOS的市场份额为32%。据谷歌所称，每天激活的Android设备数量约为85万，Google Play应用总体下载量已超过150亿。应用搜索公司Xyologic报告称，2012年3月美国地区Android应用下载量为6.17亿次，而iPhone上的应用下载量为3.93亿次。

Android还提供了更大的广告库存，而且成本较低。Fiksu近期分析称Android的广告库存比iOS多12%。此外，这些广告印象的估算成本比iOS低40%。

Android优势

Android与iOS相比还有大量的优势，使其成为营销测试和快速发布的绝佳环境。因为该系统没有应用审核过程，所以你可以快速更新设计，采用那些效果最好的功能。苹果的提交和审核过程使iOS应用更新需要花费数周时间。

从某种程度上来说，Google Play是个更容易进入的市场。iOS中的竞争异常激烈。对任何应用来说，营销都是一场挑战，而新应用的大量出现以及苹果政策的改变使应用在iOS中突出重围变得更加困难。Xyologic报告称：“在过去5个月内，iOS应用发行商的发展势头显著放缓。我们追踪的许多关键表现指标正在下滑，尤其是进入前100名的新应用数量。我们将此视为苹果环境给应用营销人员带来的新挑战。”

在iOS中，应用排名至关重要，而且获得好的排名往往需要付出昂贵的代价。与之不同的是，Google Play有个强大的搜索引擎，使用户可以较为容易地找到你的应用。根据我们自己的经验，Google Play中80%的用户来源于应用搜索。

最后，Android还解决了营销归属的问题，因为它提供了显示匿名身份的下载信息。这是个对行业极为有利的解决方案，提供了可靠的数据，同时又保护了用户的隐私。你能够由此准确地知道自己的广告成本流向何处。你能够精确地知道营销方法是否有效。iOS的跟踪解决方案并不能精确分析数据或用户体验问题。

盈利性的比较

当然，开发者最关心的还是Android的盈利问题。这两个平台之间的差别明显：来自Flurry的Peter Farago在去年12月公布的报告显示，Google Play的盈利约为iOS的24%。但是，我们应当注意到，这两个平台间的差距正在不断缩小。Flurry注意到，差距背后的最大影响因素是付费机制，期望Google Wallet和Google Checkout的整合能够使应用盈利得到改善。这种改变已经体现出成效：应用搜索公司Distimo表示，2011年12月至2012年3月间，美国前200名应用的日平均盈利已经提高了80%。TinyCo声称，Google Play和iTunes的每付费用户平均盈利已经与iOS相近，发现在Amazon平台的表现已经超越了iOS。

忠实用户获取成本

Google Play上的盈利统计的问题主要在于“平均”体验。我们已经发现，如果你准确定位目标用户且采用了合适的开发战略，Android应用转化和产生忠诚用户的比率与iOS应用几乎相同。更为重要的是，前者耗费的获取成本较低。

在第1季度，Fiksu研究了6个在iOS和Android上运营相同应用的客户，关注其获取成本和忠诚用户转化率间的差异（游戏邦注：忠诚用户指那些不断回到应用中并很可能为你带来盈利的人）。就获取单次安装的成本而言，Android比iOS低24%。因为上述盈利问题，我们可以推测iOS的忠诚用户转化率应当较高。然而，我们发现的结果是，应用获得用户后，这两个平台间的忠诚率几乎相同。唯一的不同之处在于，在Android上获得用户的成本比iOS低24%。

但是，在某些方面iOS确实比Android更具优势。比如，平板电脑市场上iOS处于统治地位。除了Kindle Fire外，没有Android平板电脑能够与iPad相匹敌。此外，iOS上的付费过程也更为强大。Fiksu数据显示，iOS上付费用户的忠诚度远远超过Android。但是，因为Play的运算法则看重总下载量和使用量，市场中的这些问题终归会得到解决，Android上的应用也会取得一定的优势。

如何在Google Play上获得发展

很显然，许多应用在Google Play环境下的发展步履维艰，但是有些应用确实表现得很棒。以下是我们认为有助于Android应用获得成功的技巧：

优秀的设计：提升应用竞争力的关键就是针对Android系统进行应用设计。许多开发者匆忙将iOS应用移植到Android上，结果得到的自然是优化不佳甚至充满漏洞的用户体验。以ESPN为例，在近期的在线研讨会上他们表示公司的移植应用表现与预期存在偏差。当他们针对不同环境改变设计时，他们发现Android系统上应用的表现与iOS无异。另一个例子便是游戏开发商TinyCo，他们将自己的成功归功于对系统的了解和设计。

分清设备和操作系统支持的优先次序：因为Android系统的分裂性，开发者发现他们需要决定支持何种设备。所幸目前有近20种设备覆盖了80%的Android市场，所以问题也许并不像人们想象的那么复杂。同样，90%的Android设备支持2.2以及更新的版本。

展望未来：随着接受谷歌付费机制的用户越来越多，备受关注的盈利问题渐渐得到解决。正如上文所述，已经有证据表明情况正在迅速好转。此外，谷歌排名运算法则还更具优势。

利用较低的用户获取成本：许多开发者因为用户获取成本过高而抛弃iOS市场。Android为他们提供了新的机遇，可以用较低的成本来提升市场份额和测试新战略。

可借鉴的措施

下列可借鉴的措施将会使Android应用的回报达到最大化：

1、最大化应用标题的搜索潜力：找到你最成功的关键词，确保将其用于应用标题中。事实上，这一点对成功至关重要，或许你应当考虑更换应用名称，用最棒的关键词来描述。将应用标题添加到应用描述中，用户很可能会因为搜索标题而看到内容。与iOS不同的是，Google Play中的搜索涵盖应用描述。

2、使用但不能过分使用关键词：尝试在应用描述中使用5次关键词。这会让搜索排名提升10到20位。超过5次便会适得其反，所以不要过分使用。

3、测试你的搜索参数：以上推荐是基于经验得出的结论，许多因素都会影响到搜索结果。

4、长期稳定的努力：Google Play排名运算法则倾向于长期用户获取，获取并保持用户满意度的应用会获得更高的排名。广告营销应当长期进行，维持2到3个月的时间，而不是像iOS市场那样短期聚集大量用户。

5、使用封闭循环属性，以长期用户为目标：因为留存用户会对应用排名产生重大的影响，所以使用封闭循环影响能够确保你识别和利用可以带来忠诚用户的广告资源。

大胆地在Android上尝试各种营销战略。你也可以将其运用到iOS环境中，减少成本和风险。

结论

手机生态系统不断为品牌提供良好的成长机遇。虽然以iOS为中心的开发者额可以不断探索在UDID取消后维持成长的方法，但这样一来iOS就失去了发展的机遇。Android有着更大的市场，更好的营销前景，更低的用户获取成本，而且在某些应用中，用户的参与度和忠诚度也比iOS更高。也许，我们现在该重视Google Play了。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How Android Developers Can Thrive With Google Play

Craig Palli

Thriving with Google Play

Apple’s planned phase-out of the UDID has introduced considerable angst in the app marketing community. The UDID provides a standard, widely supported method for attributing performance of advertising campaigns. Unfortunately, there’s no single solution to replace the UDID and it appears the iOS market is fragmenting, with multiple technologies vying for developer attention. This is making it difficult for app developers to allocate their resources.

With all this uncertainty, some marketers are looking more closely at Google Play to fuel their continued growth in mobile. Unfortunately, many marketers are sidestepping Android development based on several published reports indicating that Apple’s iOS monetizes significantly better. Savvy marketers know that high-level statistics often mask a much more complex reality. While we’d never suggest that the iOS market be ignored, once you do the math you may find that Android represents a much more compelling (and profitable) opportunity than you thought.

Here’s why and how you can thrive with Google Play.

Bigger yet cheaper…

For sheer size, the Android platform has no equal. According to Nielsen, Android has more than 48 percent of the smartphone market, versus 32 percent for iOS. Google indicates there are 850,000 Android device activations per day and total Google Play app downloads have reached more than 15 billion. App search firm Xyologic reports that in March 2012 there were 617 million app downloads on Android versus 393 million app downloads on iPhone in the U.S.

Android also provides more advertising inventory, and at a lower cost. A recent analysis Fiksu did of available impressions concluded Android is able to deliver 12 percent more ad inventory than iOS. Further, the estimated cost of those impressions was 40 percent lower.

Android Advantages

Android also has a number of practical advantages over iOS that make it a great environment for market testing and quick rollout. Since there is no app approval process, you can quickly iterate your design and determine what features or offers work best. Updating an app can take weeks with iOS due to Apple’s submission and approval process.

In some ways, Google Play is also a more accessible market. Competition in the iOS sphere is extremely intense. Marketing any app is challenging, but the explosion of new apps and changes in Apple policy have made breaking a new app into the iOS market a much tougher hill to climb. Xyologic reports they “have seen the momentum of iOS for app publishers slow down considerably in the last 5 months. Several key performance indicators we track are down, especially the amount of new apps which make it to the Top 100. We view this as evidence of the new challenges the Apple environment puts on app marketers.”

Unlike iOS, where rank is critical and often expensive to attain, Google Play has a strong search engine that makes it easier for interested users to find your app. Our experience is that 80% of the organic users in Google Play come from searches.

Finally, Android also solves the problem of marketing attribution, since it provides referrer information that anonymously identifies the source of a download. This is a single industry-wide solution that provides reliable data, yet balances the need for user privacy. You know exactly where your ad dollars go. You know exactly what is and isn’t working. And there’s none of the data ambiguity or user experience issues seen with some iOS tracking solutions.

What About Monetization?

Of course, the big concern about Android is monetization. There’s clearly a gap: an oft-quoted post last December by Peter Farago of Flurry indicates Google Play monetization is roughly 24 percent of that of iOS. It’s important to note that the gap is closing. Flurry notes that the biggest factor behind the gap is payment mechanisms, and expects this situation to improve with the integration of Google Wallet and Google Checkout. Evidence of improvement has already surfaced: app research firm Distimo indicates it saw an 80 percent improvement in average daily revenues for the top 200 US apps between December 2011 and March 2012. Furthermore, in a post titled Treat Android as a first-class citizen… it’ll pay off! TinyCo noted that Average Revenue Per Paying User (ARPPU) for Google Play and iTunes is about the same as iOS, and found that Amazon performance surpassed that of iOS by a significant margin.

Beating the Averages

One problem with the monetization statistics on Google Play is that they cover the “average” experience. We’ve seen that if you target users effectively and you employ the right development strategy, Android apps convert and generate loyal users at roughly the same rate as iOS apps. More significantly, they do so at a lower acquisition cost.

In Q1, Fiksu conducted a study of six clients running the same apps on both iOS and Android to determine differences in acquisition cost and loyal usage conversion rates. (Loyal users are those who return repeatedly to an app and are most likely to monetize.) The cost of acquiring an install was 24 percent lower for Android than iOS. Given the monetization issues noted above we expected a higher conversion from installs to loyal users for iOS. Instead, what we saw was that once a user was acquired, the loyalty rate was exactly the same for both platforms. The only difference was that the cost of acquiring those users on Android was 24 percent lower.

There are, however some exceptions where iOS does beat out Android. For example tablet based shopping apps are an area where iOS excels. Other than the Kindle Fire, there is no Android-based tablet that can challenge the iPad. Further, payment processing is stronger on iOS. Fiksu data shows that for such apps loyalty is far stronger on iOS. However, these issues are being addressed in the market and those shopping apps that move to Android now will have a significant early mover advantage since Play’s algorithm rewards total downloads and usage.

How to Thrive with Google Play

It’s clear that there are many apps that are struggling in the Google Play environment, yet some are doing extremely well. Here are factors that we’ve found have made for a successful Android implementation:

Good design has its rewards: A key to rising above the averages is simply to design for Android. Many developers port iOS apps to Android as an afterthought, resulting in a sub-optimal or even buggy user experience. ESPN for example, shared during a recent webinar that their ported apps originally did not perform to expectations. When they took the approach of developing specifically for each environment, they found that performance was on par with iOS. Another example is game developer TinyCo. who specifically ascribes its aforementioned success with Android to taking “the Android pledge” to treat Android as a first class citizen. The result was that TinyCo doubled its market opportunity.

Prioritize device and OS support: With the large number of form factors in Android, developers can find themselves stretched trying to determine what devices to support. Fortunately, a subset of roughly 20 devices makes up about 80 percent of the volume for Android, so the problem is more manageable than one might suspect. Similarly, more than 90 percent of Android devices are addressed by supporting OS version 2.2 and later.

Look forward: In hockey, there’s a saying “skate where the puck is going” (not where it is now.) The monetization issue that has received so much press is being addressed as more consumers adopt Google payment mechanisms. As noted above, there are already indications that this situation is improving rapidly. In addition, Google’s rank algorithm benefits longevity yielding an early mover advantage for apps debuting on Play sooner.

Leverage lower customer acquisition costs: The enormous scrum of developers scrapping over the iOS marketplace has resulted in higher acquisition costs. Android presents an opportunity to develop market share and test new strategies at a lower cost.

Best Practices

The following best practices will maximize the return on an Android implementation. Here are some practical tips for success:

Maximize search potential in your app title: identify your most successful keywords and make sure to include them in your app title. In fact, this is so critical to success (potentially 80 to 100 places in your search ranking), that you should seriously consider removing your app name from your title and focus your description on the best keywords. Include the app name in the body of the app description – users will still be able to find it by name. Unlike iOS, the body description is searched under Google Play.

Use, but don’t overuse, keywords: try to use the best keywords at five times the body of your app description. This can affect search ranking from 10 to 20 places. Anything over five times has no additional benefit, so don’t overdo it.

Test your search parameters: the above recommendations are guidelines based on accumulated experience, but search results can vary based on many factors.

Steady efforts work best: Google Play’s ranking algorithm is tilted towards long term user acquisition – apps that acquire and retain satisfied users are rewarded with higher ranks. Advertising campaigns should be run over a longer term and sustained over two to three months, as opposed to the short bursts of activity often seen in the iOS market.

Use closed loop attribution and target long term users: since retained users have an important impact in ranking, use closed loop marketing to ensure you are identifying and utilizing ad sources that bring loyal users.

Don’t be afraid to experiment and test market your strategy with Android. You can apply these learnings to your iOS versions and reduce your costs and risks.

Conclusion

The ecosystem continues to provide an unprecedented growth opportunity for mobile app brands. While there are several options that iOS-centric developers may explore to maintain their growth in the wake of UDID deprecation, perhaps the biggest opportunity has nothing to do with iOS at all. Android offers a bigger overall market, increased amounts of marketing insight, lower user acquisition costs and, in many cases, users who are at least as engaged as their iOS counterparts. Perhaps it’s time that we all thrived with Google Play. (Source: Techcrunch)