Mobile RoI Outruns Traditional Models-Study

New report from Fiksu may have more brands looking to the mobile space to engage and interact with consumers as mobile is returning more on the ad investment, especially in terms of engagement and cost-effectiveness.

Fiksu made up of a team of entrepreneurial mathematicians, technologists, and online marketing veterans, report finds that the cost per engagement of a mobile app ad is up to 10 times lower than paid search.

Researchers also found that mobile CPMs (cost per mille) are the second lowest, behind social network advertising, and that mobile display CPCs (cost-per-clicks) are about 90% lower than for desktop CPCs.

"Brands are waking up to the fact that mobile apps provide an incredible and very cost-effective canvas for marketing. But using CPM and CPC as sole measures of ROI eclipses the powerful engagement that mobile apps bring and which brand marketers seek," said Craig Palli, vice president at Fiksu.

"Fiksu's new CPE metric is a far more meaningful tool for brands to use for planning and decision-making."

Mobile Cost Per Engagement (CPE), according to the report, is about 1/10 of desktop keyword clicks.

For the report, Fiksu studied more than 2 billion app marketing data points from global app brands to come to their results. Researchers compared the cost effectiveness of mobile app advertising and reach to traditional ad channels.

The company's new mobile metric, the Cost Per Mobile Engagement (CPE) should help mobile brands better understand the cost of an app's launch, and then quantify that with in-app purchases, registrations and app engagements through the cycle of the app.