Five key figures for app marketers looking to scale UA in Australia

Australia’s app market is buzzing with consumer demand for mobile apps, and is projected to reach US$5.2 billion in revenue by the end of 2022 and US$7.8 billion in revenue by 2026. Let’s look at a few important elements for user acquisition (UA) in this expanding market.

For mobile app developers and marketers looking to scale their app in Australia, here are a few considerations from Adjust data to keep in mind.

1. There are more iOS app users than Android app users

On average throughout 2022, iOS users have surpassed Android users by 23%. However, the gap between platforms has been closing rapidly. At the start of the year, iOS towered over Android at 36% more mobile app users; by the end of September this difference had fallen to only 13%.

It’s important to note, however, that this trend is flipped for the gaming vertical, which consistently favors Android over iOS.

Action item: If your resources are limited, continue to focus on iOS; but prepare to place a higher emphasis on Android UA in 2023.

2. App tracking transparency (ATT) opt-ins are lower than the global average.

Critical to iOS marketing success is maximizing your opt-ins. Across verticals, the global opt-in rate for iOS users currently sits at 27%. Australia sits just under the global average with a 22% opt-in rate.

Action item: Developers need to spend a little extra time and care on Australian opt-ins. Design a persuasive pre-permission prompt, leverage design with careful consideration, and A/B test messaging to get a definitive answer as to what works for your audience, ensuring you’re communicating the benefits of opting in.

3. Organic installs surpass paid installs by 62%

On average throughout 2022, organic installs have been 62% higher than paid installs. Looking at the change in installs over the year, the balance between organic and paid fluctuates quarter-to-quarter.

Action item: Don’t forget to do your core organic work before you drive paid traffic. Continually look to improve your app store optimization (ASO) and customer reviews. Keep an eye on your app’s organic/paid ratio to help direct resources efficiently.

4. Sessions are up YoY in 2022

Although we are seeing a slight decrease in app installs in Australia compared to last year, sessions were up 3% year-on-year (YoY) between H1 2021 and H1 2022. This tells us that although consumers are becoming more selective of the apps they choose to download, they are more loyal to the apps which they do install.

Action item: Foster this loyalty. Introduce customer reward programs, incentives, and hyper-personal discounts. Action feedback from your existing customer-base before focusing on bringing new customers in.

5. The travel and social verticals are the fastest-growing

Between Q2 and Q3 2022, installs among the travel app vertical increased by an impressive 27% quarter-on-quarter (QoQ). Meanwhile, installs of social apps grew 5% QoQ.

Action item: If your app is in the travel or social vertical, now is the time to jumpstart your UA campaigns. Other verticals may need to emphasize brand awareness while developing a competitive differentiator.

As we can see, the growing Australian mobile app market will provide plenty of opportunity for mobile app developers in the coming years. But how can app developers and marketers truly make the most of this market growth? The competitive advantage lies in fine-tuning campaigns and maximizing return on investment (ROI) while simultaneously scaling user acquisition (UA) and revenue.

Above all else, to efficiently scale your app you’ll need reliable analytics. The most dependable method of getting consistent data across all of your marketing channels is through a mobile measurement partner (MMP), like Adjust. With the essential solutions an MMP provides, you can effortlessly identify what works best for your users. From app features to marketing campaigns, view the direct, unbiased correlation between your company’s efforts and the resulting impact on installs, sessions, revenue, stickiness, and more.

“We have partnered with Adjust because they approach mobile marketing with a proactive mindset. They’re always looking to stay at the forefront of this ecosystem, including iOS 14.5+ attribution requirements.”

— Richard Phillips, Co-founder, Switch On Media

The bottom line: Attribution data provided by an MMP is critical in successfully measuring campaign performance and scaling UA while improving your ROI.

Mobile app attribution data is needed to objectively determine the amount of money spent on advertising to reach key performance indicators (KPIs). However, it’s unlikely that the place that bought or sold you an ad will provide objective data. Naturally, they will want to display the insights in a way that favors their channel so you will increase your ad spend with them.

This is why an MMP is so important. At Adjust, we combine unbiased results from your campaigns across platforms in one streamlined dashboard called Datascape. We make sure that all installs are measured correctly and consistently, providing accurate, transparent data. Speaking of transparency, in a mobile landscape hyper-focused on data privacy, we help you manage and leverage user-level and aggregated data, and help you keep your data safe and compliant.

“My team was stretched thin trying to piece together a clear, compatible view of campaign performance across our chosen channels. We needed to improve the effectiveness of our budget, but we couldn’t get data reliable enough to truly enable us to do so. Adjust completely changed the game. Datascape unscrambled our analytics and gave us the no-fuss view of performance we had been looking for.”

— Stephen Henderson, Chief Growth Officer, Hello Clever

The outcome: Mobile app marketers can spend UA budget where it’s proven to be most effective. Plus, they can use real-time insights to change and improve almost every aspect of their app features and marketing efforts, including ad creatives and distribution of ad spend.

If you’re looking to improve the quality of users rather than focusing only on quantity, we have a solution for that as well. At Adjust, we help you drill into your audience segmentation. Determine what your most profitable users look like to see what features they interact with most, what their in-app purchases look like, and what demographics they fall under.

The outcome: Defining your most profitable users allows you to target a similar audience, in turn increasing revenue.

We can see that Australia will continue to be an important player in the global mobile app market as we enter 2023. Marketing needs and consumer trends, however, will vary across verticals. An MMP will help your app’s marketing team quickly adjust to keep up with these changes in order to drive growth and remain profitable.

Learn more about an MMP's critical value and how Adjust can help you scale your app successfully.