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iOS being served 3454% (34.54 times) more impressions during Android Game Twitter Campaign.

Why is iOS served 3454% (34.54 times) more impressions during a Twitter Campaign for an Android Game?

EDIT: The answer to this is that the vast majority of android devices do not support the twitter ad api. An important consideration when retargeting.

dominic cerisano, Blogger

February 11, 2014

4 Min Read

Thought I might share some very recent practical information here.
Obviously success in the gaming vertical now relies on marketing penetration, a very sobering reality.

The following is an actual screenshot from an exploratory one-week Twitter campaign for a recent android game launch from Standard3D.com that ends tommorow (1/14/2014). Small, but 7K served impressions serves as a solid statistical sample. A larger sample would not be expected to deviate from the engagement results.


Stare at this table for a while.

  • First thing to note is that iOS is by far the most "popular" target for impressions.

  • Secondly, the engagement rates for these ads are astounding. Usually, 0.5% is considered "good" for online campaigns.

  • Thirdly, the fact that these ads were clearly marked as an Android-only game did not make a significant difference in engagement (<2% delta between iOS and Android).

According to most research, there are more Android users out there than iOS users. But this table does not support that, to say the least.

So Android users simply don't use Twitter, and iOS users are equally interested in Android only games? Mind-blowing revelations, if so.

This campaign was configured with Twitter's default targetting. Absolutely no preference was given to any platform. The intent was to get the word out to all, and so no preference to device or platform version was given.

 

The distribution of impressions should have given us an idea of the ratio of Twitter users by platform, no?

No.

The next campaign was to target Android only. But these numbers do not support that strategy. Do Android users have some bizzare aversion to Twitter?

Why is iOS being served 3454% (34.54 times) more impressions? Is Twitter really that much more popular with iOS users?

Food for thought. Please contribute your own experiences (and supporting data please!)

 

EDIT: Some Gamasutrans asked for the following data about distribution by os version

 

EDIT: End note, the above campaign eventually made the 100% percentile in its category (games)

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