Get App Downloads for Free by Legally Hacking YouTube Ads

Last week I launched a new strategy for marketing my latest app and got more more than 6,800 downloads for less than $10 in around 12 hours. Yes you read that right I was able to get downloads for as low as $0.001. If this is not practically free downloads then I don't know what is.

Now this app had an average lifetime value for its users of about $0.30 which basically means that I can completely exhaust all the available inventory on YouTube and scale this channel up to see huge success.

Why Is This Strategy So Important?

Whenever you are picking a marketing strategy there are three things which determine if it is a worthwhile strategy or not.

That is why contacting bloggers, or getting press coverage or doing PR stunts is not a marketing strategy. It is not guaranteed to work everytime and more often than not just depends on a lot of factors which you cannot control.

Similarly, spamming about your app on Facebook groups is of no use because even if people like your app you are going to get just a few hundred downloads. If you are doing this it just means that you are desperate and basically scraping the bottom of the barrel for downloads.

Now coming to the YouTube App Marketing Strategy which I am going to explain below, it satisfies all the three criteria.

It is extremely reproducible - after you read through this blog post you can just go ahead and start implementing this strategy.

This strategy is also allows you to access any type of demographic you can think of. If you want zombie fans, you can get them, if you want Bieber fans, you can get them as well, if you want to target crazy weirdos like me who like experimenting which new app marketing strategies and applying them to getting more app downloads, you can find them on YouTube as well.

What The YouTube App Marketing Strategy Is NOT

Whenever I discuss with people about marketing apps on YouTube they always talk about creating viral videos.

Creating Viral Videos is NOT YouTube Marketing. Creating Viral Videos as a marketing strategy is same as betting all your life's earnings on the toss of a coin.

Trying to get downloads via creating viral videos fails the very first criteria I mentioned above. It is not reproducible. You might get lucky and create a viral video but next time if you try to do it again, you will fail miserably.

The YouTube App Marketing Strategy Which Works

Now let us look at a YouTube App marketing strategy which really works. For getting downloads on Youtube you need to use their adnetwork which is called as TruView. You can setup the ads for TruView through your adWords account. I will not go into the details of how do create your account and setup an ad. If you have any questions about that, just drop a comment below and I can reply to that.

The way TruView works is that, YouTube charges you money everytime a viewer watches your ad for at least 30 seconds or the full length of the ad, whichever is earlier.

example: if you ad is 10 seconds long then you get charged if somebody watches the full ad. If your ad is 50 seconds long then you get charged if people watch at least 30 seconds.

Magic Starts Here

Now with this understanding, you can get thousands of people to view your ad and download your app without having to pay a single penny for the ad.

Can you think any other channel which will give you downloads from the exact demographic for free?

To get the free download this is what you need to do. You need to create an ad which is about 50+ seconds long. Now this ad needs to be created in such a way that it has the following components.

I know what you are thinking, all this is fine but how do I apply this to my game app. The solution for you is - stop making gam... ummm excuse me, I mean give them something which will attract them to your app. Talk about your key value proposition, what is interesting about your game, just like SuperCell does here.

The Trick

Now the real trick to this strategy is putting the call to action at around 20 seconds and making everything after that just a template video/ logo with nothing but simple music as background.

What you will notice is that people will engage with the ad in three different ways. A few people will skip the video and that is fine, you do not pay anything for these people. Another set of people will watch the ad over the 30 seconds point and not download the app, these are the people who have wasted your money.

Finally you will have people who will watch the ad and then click on the Call To Action. Since your call to action is before the 30 second limit, you basically get a free visitor to your app landing page.

These are the people who are going to land on your app landing page and download your app.

Since YouTube only charges per true view, you only pay for a fraction of the people who visited your landing page.  ~~~~ Magic ~~~~

Edit: A lot of people have reached out to me about having to pay for a click when running TruView ads. Actually TruView has 4 types of ads. The which is being referred to here are the original TruVuew ads which are now referred to as "TruView In Stream Ads".

IMPORTANT: If you want to receive more of these strategies from me just enter your email address and as a bonus get the Guide which will teach you how to get 5,000+ downloads in 2 Days:http://eepurl.com/1xx-r

The Script Of The YouTube Video Which I Created  

Script:

"Hey YouTube viewer,

Are you trying to lose weight but having a tough time finding the motivation and making space in your busy calendar for a looong workout?

I had the same problem till I discovered the 7 Minute Fitness Workout.

This has been called the Beast Workout by New Your Times and the best thing about this is that it takes just 7 minutes to complete.

I have created this app for you which allows you to do this workout anywhere, anytime and for FREEE.

Just click on the button on the screen to download the app."