Following the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a huge debate on whether a company should focus on ramping up marketing or cutting back costs.

While some are opting for the latter, others are being more perceptive and coming up with innovative ways to engage customers during the crisis.

In an interview with e27, Marketing Director of AppsFlyer (APAC), Beverly Chen points out how marketers are using retargeting method as a popular choice to gain traffic or installs during the pandemic and some ways to measure its effectiveness.

Also known as remarketing, retargeting is a method used by marketers to keep customers hooked on to a brand after they leave a website or an app.

This can be done by showing targeted ads to users that have previously shown an interest in a brand or similar brands. Popular brands such as Instagram and Facebook are notoriously known for utilising this.

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Measuring effectiveness

On being asked about the KPIs that can be used to measure the effectiveness of the retargeting marketing campaign, Chen notes that measuring conversions is the most effective technique to check the efficacy of a retargeting marketing campaign.

She lists down two ways to look at the type of user conversion:

1. A re-engagement is recorded when an existing app user opens the app after engaging with a retargeting campaign

2. A reinstall is recorded after a past user engages with a retargeting campaign

She concludes saying that retargeting is often looked by marketeers as “the holy grail” and can be an effective solution to shopping cart abandonment.

Retargeting trends during COVID-19

According to Chen, app marketers in APAC have the highest rate of retargeting across all verticals, compared to other regions.

“App stores have become increasingly crowded and marketers find it more difficult to gain the attention of users and drive conversions. In this scenario retargeting proves to be a reliable engagement tactic, with conversions the highest
in APAC at 36.4 per cent,” she says.

Also Read: What you need to know about digital marketing for the new normal

During a time when app usage and sessions were peaking due to the lockdown, companies are using retargeting methods to meet user expectations and keep customers engaged to avoid stagnant apps.

“Indonesia recorded a growth of 400 per cent in two weeks (from February 24 to March 3) in retargeting conversions.  However, the rates decreased considerably after ‘living with the pandemic’ became more normalised.”

Chen continues to elaborate that, according to the company’s report, shopping is one of the verticals with the highest share of retargeting.

“It has also rapidly grown by 27 per cent in the Asia Pacific,” she says.

“Finance apps also grew by 30 per year on year, reflecting the increasing popularity of this vertical in Asia-Pacific. With finance known for the diversity of solutions and high adoption rate by users, Indonesian marketers turned to owned media to ramp up their marketing with paid media to increase their emphasis on retargeting through owned channels like email, push notifications and SMS,” she continues.

In addition to finance and shopping, gaming was also the vertical that experienced significant growth during the pandemic. In fact, they are often dubbed as the winners during the global health crisis.

AppsFlyer is one of the market leaders in mobile attribution and marketing analytics that empowers marketers to grow their business and innovate with a suite of comprehensive measurement and analytics solutions. Some of the brands it works with include giants such as Grab, Agoda, eBay, and Nike.

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