For any brand that’s operating in the luxury space, typically, finding customers remains challenging. While we can certainly run ads on Google, and Meta, unless we have a wealth of first party data available, it’s difficult to find real users. As a result, people are left with the traditional ways of marketing their luxury goods, when it comes to digital, i.e. influencers, offline events, or ambassador based marketing. The limitation here is that it’s always limited by geography, especially if you’re a digital first business and want customers from around the country.
Here’s where this solution comes into play.
The hidden tool to acquiring luxury customers in India.
In India, typically, we need to use soft cues, or indirect proxy markers to identify wealth. Some of the wealthiest users or shoppers are not always obvious about their shopping choices. Here’s where you can gain a distinct edge.
Try Apple Search Ads.
As a proxy cue of wealth or income, it’s one of the most visible and easy ways to gauge a person’s disposable income if you cannot see them. Thankfully, with the Apple Search Ads ecosystem, unlike the iO14 block out of attribution affecting advertisers everywhere, you can attribute your impressions, and conversions to different user personas. Apple Search ads were designed to convert intent into downloads. Target users based on their state. But here’s where Apple always does things differently. Unlike Meta, Google and other ad platforms, where you might see some choice of being able to control your ads, Apple Search ads has a fairly higher amount of automation.
Once you select the app you want to advertise, the ad is automatically created from the app version available in the App store, using metadata, images and videos you have uploaded to the store. Just set the budget. This means that as an advertiser or app developer, your App Store Optimization should be impeccable. Right from keywords, to graphics –everything should be set up to ensure users understand your app easily and are choosing you.
What makes Apple Search Ads slightly different from other platforms is that it lets you even retarget users from the same interface, without the need for another tool. You can advertise to new users, old users, returning users, or even users of your other apps, if an opportunity arises to cross sell products. As long as each cohort has at least 5000 users, you can run those ads, which makes retargeting and remarketing simplified.
The role of creative in Apple Search Ads for luxury advertising.
When it comes to Today tab placement, you can create a custom page, without submitting the app, again. By following the guidelines on content, you can get the home page option as a placement. How’s that for awareness? Of course, this particular placement is also reviewed and comes with some strict guidelines which need to be followed. It’s a great way to build recall for the brand. Once you have set up the campaign basics, Apple’s automation comes into play. It predicts the most likely users to download the app. A client only needs to pay when a user clicks on the ad, or interacts with it. From the home page, search, to other recommendations of apps–there are a few placements available for advertisers to showcase their product. You are only charged at a cost per tap or CPT for when the user interacts with the ad. As per the classic way of reference, it’s a cost per click model. You can assign a cap to what you’re willing to pay for your downloads, which is the CPA or cost per acquisition of each Apple Ads user. After the campaigns have run for sometime, an understanding of keyword optimisation will help you eliminate underperforming keywords. Segment the campaigns based on the key categories, as you would, in any PPC or price-per-click campaign. Same as is the case for Google Ads, Amazon Ads, Flipkart Ads, Reddit, or others, you would set up the same ad groups: Branded, Competition, Generic ads. Apple Search Ads also allows you to mention the age, and location of your potential customers, but both their personal data, i.e. age, and device must be compatible with your app settings. For example, if you choose the minimum age of the app usage to be 18 years, you cannot run ads to 16 year olds. Based on users who have chosen personalised ads, they will see different types of ads served to them versus users who have opted out.
Efficiency for luxury advertising.
Now you might wonder where your work ends, right? Wrong. Once a user downloads an app, depending on the size, and the speed at which it launches, many users may not open the app, at all. As a result, your app must absolutely wow the user into opening it, and provide a UX which gets them to interact with the app, and make a purchase, if that’s the end conversion goal. Often, within 7-30 days, most app developers see an erosion of app traffic. Truth be told most users don’t open some apps on a daily basis until they find them to be extremely utilitarian, or serving a current use case. Take the example of Sotheby’s which has a free app available on the App Store for users. As a user who wants to participate in auctions, you can download the app, and place your bids. However, this is where we recommend using a bit of smart understanding of your buyer persona and investing in informing your customers outside the Apple ecosystem about your app, and why it gives them access to information not ordinarily available on the website. Bear in mind that as an advertiser you would need to invest in a customer experience that gets a consumer excited about using the app repeatedly.
As the newest and shiniest entrant in the app marketing world, Apple Search Ads are a great addition to your marketing campaign. More so for luxury brands looking to find customers at the right time, this platform ensures you’re not wasting budgets on unknown customers who may or may convert. As a result you have qualified your customers to some extent in terms of shopping power and the only thing standing between you and them is advertising. If you would like to know more about how we can help you with Apple Search Ads, reach out to us.
