BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Dec 30, 2013) - Fiksu, Inc. (www.fiksu.com), developer of award-winning app marketing technologies, today published its latest Fiksu Indexes which reflect the beginning of the holiday rush, with a spike in app marketing costs and a slight uptick in app downloads in November 2013.
The Fiksu Cost per Loyal User Index jumped 10 percent in November, or 16 cents, to $1.79 from October's $1.63 -- a 25 percent increase in costs year-over-year. The November index includes the Black Friday kickoff to the holiday season, which traditionally sees a huge uptick in download volume and an increase in marketing costs. This month's increase follows suit with the increase seen in November 2012 following the iPhone 5 launch, although the swing isn't nearly as drastic since costs in October 2013 didn't drop to October 2012's historic lows. Looking ahead, Fiksu Labs models indicate a continued surge in marketing costs in the final month of the year, predicting app marketing costs will reach the $1.80 mark.
The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index (which measures the average aggregate daily download volume of the top 200 free U.S. iPhone apps) saw a slight increase of two percent to 5.7 million daily downloads in November from October's 5.6 million -- a 30 percent increase year-over-year. Fiksu expects downloads to soar through years' end, reaching between 6.6 and 7.4 million daily downloads in December, as many consumers unwrap new devices and immediately begin loading them up with apps.
"The November Index data is an indicator of what's in store for the 2013 holiday season, especially when coupled with Fiksu's device usage tracker," said Micah Adler, CEO and founder, Fiksu. "We can expect marketing costs and app store competition to continue to climb from November through December as advertisers spend heavily to drive up app store rankings in preparation for the rush of user activity and app discovery around Christmas."
The Fiksu Indexes measure monthly fluctuations in competition for rank in the Apple App Store and the cost to acquire loyal users1, helping mobile app marketers benchmark their performance against industry trends.
For Fiksu's full analysis, visit http://www.fiksu.com/resources/fiksu-indexes#analysis.
Fiksu has accumulated more than 194 billion app actions including launches, registrations, and in-app purchases, as well as massive amounts of data from real-time bidding requests and mobile advertising networks. This data is used to drive real-time optimization of ad campaigns, to help app developers acquire large volumes of loyal users at very efficient costs. Additionally, the company has driven more than 2 billion app downloads for its customers.
About Fiksu
Fiksu is the leading provider of mobile app marketing products that help app and game marketers reach their user acquisition goals. The company's patent-pending Programmatic Mobile Demand Platform applies intelligent technology to proprietary big data to master ALL the challenges of mobile advertising -- including tracking, optimization, media buying and integration. This cohesive approach spans the entire mobile ecosystem and ultimately delivers the best marketing performance. Additionally, Fiksu offers FreeMyApps®, the world's largest app discovery platform where users are rewarded. Based in Boston, Mass., Fiksu is venture-backed by Qualcomm Ventures and Charles River Ventures. More at www.fiksu.com, @Fiksu, and on the Fiksu blog.
1. For the specific purpose of the Fiksu Indexes, a loyal user is defined as someone who opens an app three or more times.