It’s raining, it’s snowing, and the app installs are growing this holiday season. The competition is tough out there with Christmas day app installs 2.2x higher than any other day in December. How will your app stand out and be downloaded on the newly unwrapped phones and tablets? By optimizing your app marketing for the holiday season — think new targeting, creative, and re-engagement campaigns for Facebook advertising — you can increase your chances of getting installs and be singing falalalala all year long.

Facebook Targeting

We know new devices are waiting to be unwrapped – but how can we know we’re targeting them with Facebook ads? First, target the newest devices by including Mobile Device User -> All Mobile Devices By Brand -> iPhone 7, 7 Plus, Google Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, and other top mobile devices for 2016 in the detailed targeting on your campaigns (separate iOS & Android devices when running your campaigns! – this is only an example of devices). Another great detailed targeting selection is “New smartphone and tablet owners” which pops 130 million+ potential results. When running app install campaigns, it is also always optimal to select “WiFi Connection” under Network Connections to ensure app installs can be completed due to Apple’s limit on app size downloadable off of WiFi. Depending on your app category, you can also select Behaviors -> Purchase Behaviors -> and a category (or two) that goes along with your app to target people who are already spending on what your app is offering.

Targeting new devices can help in optimizing holiday advertising!

Remember, the more granular the targeting the potential quality of the user increases – along with the CPI as you’re narrowing in on valuable segments to your app. Cost per install increases with the holiday competition as well – so staying broad may be the way to go if your budget is limited.

Facebook Creative and Copy

Everyone is in the holiday spirit – why shouldn’t your creative be as well? By optimizing holiday advertising to include holiday themed creative and copy in your Facebook ads it makes your app relevant to the user. It’s not just another generic app install advertisement – but something tailored to the season. Targeting also influences your creative and copy as your ad should say something different to an eighteen year old female in California who is an early technology adopter with a new iPhone 7 versus the married thirty three year old who lives in Nebraska who has a new iPhone 7 to talk to her grandchildren.

One suggestion is to update your app store creative to go along with the Facebook holiday ad creative. This creates a cohesive experience for the potential user as they seen consistency in your product. Unfortunately, we can’t tailor app store landing pages to go along with each individual piece of creative with unique targeting – so we suggest sticking to color schemes or cartoon versus realistic in both your app store creative and Facebook advertising. Nanigans has some great creative holiday Facebook campaign examples with a breakdown on their success.

Facebook Re-Engagement Ads

Acquiring new users is 6-7x more expensive than retaining users. So, why wouldn’t you run re-engagement campaigns this holiday season when CPIs skyrocket? You can re-engage users who have previously installed or purchased on your app by running an ad against a custom audience under your tools in Business Manager. To re-engage valuable purchasers, create a combined segment of your audience -> Action Taken -> Purchase -> Highest Value Users -> last X days -> Action Not Taken -> App Launch -> last Xdays. Now you are combining targeting with re-engagement and can add some great creative and copy that will get them back to your app.

You can also simplify this and run re-engagement campaigns on all users who have installed your app previously with a targeting of the new devices mentioned above. App marketers can not run Facebook re-engagement campaigns (or use any in-app custom audiences) if the Facebook SDK is not being used. We already mentioned the importance of the Facebook SDK – but we’re reiterating.

Want more advice on optimizing holiday advertising or user acquisition? We’re always happy to help with your questions – especially in this crazy holiday season. Email tsweeney@getbraavo.com for more information.