More rewarded mobile ads = higher user engagement

Tapjoy published a new study showing that the more rewarded advertisements a mobile app user completes, the higher their engagement, retention and in-app spend metrics climb. While previous Tapjoy studies have focused on the relationship between rewarded ads and specific metrics such as spend or retention, this report is the first the company has done to analyze the impact of the number of ad completions on these key metrics.

The study, titled “Maximum Impact Report: Exploring the Effect of Rewarded Ads on User Value,” discovered that users who complete 20 or more rewarded ads demonstrated 89 percent higher engagement, 76 percent higher retention, and an incredible 705 percent higher in-app spend than users who complete just five or fewer ads.

Rewarded advertisements - also known as “value exchange” ads - allow users to earn in-app currency or unlock premium content in exchange for watching videos or engaging with other types of advertising content. In a detailed analysis of ten high-volume apps, Tapjoy found a strong, positive correlation between the number of ads completed during a user’s first two weeks and their subsequent app engagement, retention and in-app spend during the following 30 days. The more ads a user initially completes, the more they eventually spend, the more often they engage with the app, and the more likely they are to be an active user after 30 days.

“While other studies have previously demonstrated a positive link between rewarded ad conversions and key engagement metrics, such as total user sessions, retention and spend, today’s report is the first of its kind to show just how much ad engagement can influence the value of a user,” said Ben Chen, SVP & GM, Developer Relations at Tapjoy. “These findings negate the notion that ads take away from the user experience or distract the user from engaging with the app, or that rewarded ads may cannibalize in-app purchases. Rather, it shows just how important it is to expose users to ads early and them offer frequent opportunities to convert.”

Other findings from Maximum Impact Report include:

• Ad Engagement and In-App Spend: Users who complete 6-10 ads in their first two weeks spend almost three times as much on in-app purchases ($1.23) than those who complete 0-5 ads ($0.43). Of all three metrics studied, ad engagement appeared to have the strongest impact on in-app spend.
  
  
• Ad Engagement and User Sessions: Like in-app spend, the average number of user sessions increase as consumers complete more ads. Users completing 6-10 ads demonstrate an average number of monthly sessions (19) that is 48 percent higher than those who completed 0-5 ads (13).
  
  
• Ad Engagement and User Retention: Almost half of users who complete 6-10 ads in their first two weeks are likely to be active in an app after 30 days, versus about one-third of those who complete 0-5 ads. 62 percent of those who complete 20 or more ads are active after 30 days.