Mobile app marketing is becoming more important, with a boost in app usage worldwide, making the need for app marketing companies and agencies more stronger than ever before. Find out about the top platforms that know how to promote your app best from our carefully selected list of only the best in the industry.
The times when tech media pundits talked widely about businesses transitioning from a desktop to mobile or about top level businesses adopting a mobile-first approach are long gone.
Now, it is mobile right from the get-go, by default.
So, keeping this picture of a highly competitive mobile app market in mind, can you imagine what it takes for an app developer to compete and run a successful app marketing campaign?
They Won’t Be Able to Click INSTALL Fast Enough
There’s a massive segment of people who want your app. It’s our job to make sure they see it, fall in love with it, and then grow your brand like crazy.
Start Your FREE Growth AuditPromoting and marketing an app is as tough as developing it. One way of mastering this challenge is to hire a mobile app marketing agency that helps marketing apps via multiple channels, and has the expertise in reaching your target app users.
But this is barely scratching the surface of what an app marketing agency can do for you. So, in this guide, let us first talk about what app marketing is in the first place, and introduce you to the top app marketing companies.
What is mobile app marketing?
Mobile app marketing means to make efforts so that your customers engage with your product and services on mobile. And it also means boosting your app’s presence in the app store with clever marketing techniques.
While the app marketing funnel may include similar stages to the traditional digital marketing funnel, it consists of these three prime stages:
3 stages of app marketing
This concept is therefore all about interacting with your users through all three of these stages in order to drive profitable, long term action. So, the question now lies in how exactly do you interact with them to successfully promote your app.
Let’s take a closer look at the three phases.
Awareness
The awareness stage occurs before marketers launch their apps, where it is all about creating a presence and building brand awareness. This strategy includes a clear brand purpose, communication and positioning – basically answering the who, when, why, where and how of your product and services.
The main goal in this stage is to interact with potential customers, by using methods, such as influencer marketing, and direct their attention to your upcoming brand.
Acquisition
In the acquisition stage, your app has already launched and you are implementing new strategies to continue to acquire users and generate installs.
Acquisition is an ongoing process that needs constant tweaking and extensions of previous strategies and methods of marketing.
So, the main focus here is to keep optimizing for the app store and implementing creative strategies to attract new users and continue to build a loyal customer base.
Retention
When you acquire target users, it doesn’t end just there – you want to keep them engaged and invested in your app. In the retention stage, also an ongoing process, you want to come up with creative methods to turn users into loyal customers.
In this stage, make sure you keep up ongoing communication with users, maintaining an interactive and trustworthy bond.
In this case, push notifications will become your best friend. Keeping users in the loop and sending them alerts and updates about promotions, special rewards or upgrades is a great way to keep up engagement.
User experience is also an important component of the retention stage. First impressions are crucial – and you only get one chance at it. So make sure users can smoothly browse through your app, and use your services at ease from the start.
Mastering these three stages belong to a successful app marketing strategy. If you are able to build a presence for your upcoming app, acquire new users effectively and keep a loyal customer base, you are doing it all right.
But a lot of research and analysis goes into this, so it is easier said than done. This is why app marketing agencies and companies are here to make your life easier by lifting the extra weight off your shoulders.
You still want to understand how the company you hire works their magic though. So, let’s dive into the inner workings of ‘how’ you market your mobile app.
What does an app marketer do?
Understanding how app marketers and agencies work is important to having an overview of the best strategies being used for your mobile app. Knowing the ins and outs of the different methods will inform your decision in choosing the best app marketing company out there.
And it always begins with market research. In 2021 alone, 143.6 billion apps were downloaded, with 55 billion of those downloads being games and 88 billion apps. So, you want to find out what types of users are downloading apps that have similar services to your business.
And don’t forget about the high competition in the app market currently. In 2022, 2.5 thousand new apps were submitted to the Apple App Store, which shows how important competitor analysis is when app marketing agencies come up with their own strategies.
App marketers and app marketing agencies are committed to fulfilling their users’ needs, and therefore create user personas to help create a solid app marketing strategy. The personas typically represent a kind of target audience, containing the characteristics of that particular group.
Other unique identifiers, such as demographics and mobile preferences are also dissected in order to create accurate personas to work out the typical user journey of this group. This allows app marketers to tailor their app marketing strategy to drive profitable action.
Top Mobile App Marketing Companies:
Doing a competitor analysis, market research and creating user personas will help you answer the following key questions in the early stages of the process, enabling you to effectively and successfully market your app:
User persona questions
Mobile acquisition
The first step for users to interact with your app directly is to get them to download and install your app. Mobile acquisition is therefore a must and app marketing agencies work hard to master the art of it.
In order to attract and acquire new users, you want to nail the messaging part, which belongs to a good app marketing strategy.
Here are some messaging formats that are commonly used by app marketing agencies to get people to use your app:
Social
Posting on your social media channels to relevant followers to gain more traction and build brand awareness.
App Store Optimization (ASO)
Optimizing your profile on the app store, including title, keywords, ratings and other ranking factors, to acquire new users and increase app installs.
Paid advertising
Creating social media ads and PPC campaigns, using Google Adwords, native and interstitial ad formats can push your app to the forefront, gaining a wider audience.
Influencer marketing
Getting influencers to advertise your brand will allow you to gain your audience’s trust and therefore a loyal following that will increase your credibility and traffic instantly.
Email marketing
With global the email marketing market reaching 7.5 billion U.S. dollars of value in 2020, this method of mobile acquisition can massively drive customers to your app when promoting your app content, services and any offer discounts via email.
When it comes to app marketing, mobile acquisition is a key component of app marketing agencies’ strategies. You need to implement a good balance of acquisition techniques to secure the long term success and revenue of your app.
But mobile acquisition belongs to a sea full of app marketing strategies and techniques that app marketing companies will focus on.
What are the best app marketing strategies?
A marketing plan that an app marketing agency team will devise for your app, will usually consist of the following concepts:
App marketing concepts
The app marketing best practices also demand an agency to carefully measure KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) of such app marketing campaigns. And there is one main app promotion method that stands out from the rest – growth hacking.
Essentially, growth hacking is about finding ways for a particular mobile app to grow its number of users and revenue by integrating non-standard app marketing techniques, preferably on a low budget. Growth hacking focuses on driving scalable growth, in a short period of time, to produce ‘quick wins’.
But growth hacking and the techniques mentioned above belong to the greater process of your app marketing plan, and is integrated in a larger mobile engagement ‘loop’. Like traditional marketing, app marketing takes users through the marketing funnel that consists of the stages of awareness, acquisition and retention.
We call it a loop because users can go back and forth between stages as illustrated in the graphic below:
Mobile acquisition cycle
In essence, app marketing is all about finding ways to reach, attract and retain your customers as well as analyzing and monitoring their behavior and the performance of your app to improve the experience.
Users look for services that fulfill their ‘needs’ and ‘questions’. So, you want your app to be the number one place they go to to get the answers they are looking for. Integrating these strategies and methods, and partnering with top app marketing agencies will help you reach your goals at a higher rate to start making revenue.
How much does marketing an app cost?
Now, your next pressing question must be how much it actually costs to market an app.
Because the main challenges of marketing an mobile app are both to reach and retain your users, there is a swarm of competition for users’ attention in the app store. Therefore, it is worth investing in the best app marketing company to successfully market your app and make it stand out from the crowd.
But you certainly don’t want to overspend your budget, and instead want to get the most value out of your marketing strategy at a reasonable price. Mobile app marketing costs usually consist of components that cover the entire lifecycle of an app:
Mobile application lifecycle
You will find within these stages that there are individual costs that will apply. Here is a brief estimation of the key data points that you can expect when working out your budget to market your app:
Key data points
Element | Cost |
---|---|
App market research | $5k - $15k |
App beta testing | up to $5k |
ASO tools | $250 - $1,500 / month |
App marketing agency | up to $25k / app |
App PR outreach | $100 - $300 / hour |
Influencer marketing | $10k - $18k / month |
Average Cost Per Install (CPI) | $1.75 / install |
Cost Per Action (CPA): Register | $3.5 / install |
CPA: In-app purchase | $87 / install |
CPA: Purchase | $75 / install |
CPA: Subscribe | $37 / install |
For a more detailed overview of the costs you can expect, take a look at our App Marketing Costs guide for extensive data.
Which agency is best for digital app marketing?
So which agency is on the top of the list for digital app marketing?
In order to simplify the answer, let’s dive into the types of app marketing agencies that are out there.
There is a range of types of mobile app marketing companies that can help you with your marketing campaign:
- A specialist mobile agency can serve your app’s marketing needs via some particular marketing channel, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram ads, App Store Optimization, and PR.
- A general agency, with a mobile app marketing agency within it, with added mobile experience.
- A mobile advertising agency, focusing on mobile media buying: Media buyers negotiate and purchase audience-targeted time and advertising space to convey a marketing message.
- App marketing agencies that focus purely on App Store Optimization, and are capable of driving mobile app user acquisition via Apple’s App Store, Google Play or both.
- Agencies that focus on mobile campaign strategies, analytics of a mobile app user in-app behavior as well as traffic attribution.
Partner with the best mobile app marketing agencies and companies
Having now a picture of the mobile app marketing industry, we’ve gathered facts and created a guide that covers the best mobile marketing companies to consider.
Our list includes big international agencies, with broad creative marketing capabilities as well as boutique marketing companies, focussing solely on mobile apps. Each of the companies listed has something different and unique to offer.
List of mobile app marketing agencies, companies and services
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | 11-50 | $17m+ | 3k+ | 20,000 |
Moburst is a mobile growth marketing agency founded in 2013 with branches in the US and Tel-Aviv. Moburst’s clients include some of the biggest brands in the world such as Google, Uber, Reddit, YouTube, Samsung, and many other amazing startups, gaming companies, and brands. Its team of growth experts promoted 600+ products in the past seven years and helped many start-ups gain more organic users, boost ROI on paid media and improve their products. Its user acquisition is achieved through a selection of hyper-targeted, remarketing, influencers, and brand engagement campaigns get the right message to the right user, at the right time. Its mixture of media channels are ideal to fit your goals and budget, including RTB/exchanges, social, ad-networks, premium publishers, video, retargeting, influencers and search.
- Services: Mobile Campaigns, Media Management and Optimization, Influencers Marketing, Mobile Strategy, App Store Optimization and SEO, A/B Testing, Product Consulting, Creative Production, Video Production, Social Management and Website Production.
- Offices: New York, San Francisco and Tel-Aviv
- Tagline: Mobile Done Right
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | 11-50 | - | 5k+ | 1,000 |
Yodel Mobile is the leading global app marketing consultancy and Mobile Agency of the Year 2019, specialising in launching and scaling apps.
Since their inception in 2007, they’ve launched and aided the growth of over 200 apps. They work with clients from single territory start-ups to established, multi-territory, international brands such as mytaxi, NBCUniversal, UKTV, Bauer Media, Fujifilm, The Economist, Teletext Holidays and Gymshark.
- Services: Launch or scaling strategy, Organic acquisition, Paid user acquisition, Retention and engagement, Data
- Offices: London, UK.
- Tagline: Global and local marketing expertise for app driven businesses
Learn more about Yodel Mobile
Founded | Employees | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
- | 51-100 |
Phiture is a multi-award-winning mobile growth consultancy and agency working with the teams behind leading apps. Using the company’s industry-acclaimed Mobile Growth Stack as a strategic framework, Phiture team offers 5 key services: App Store Optimization, Performance Marketing, User Retention/CRM, Subscription Revenue Optimization services and Growth Consulting.
- Services: Mobile Growth, App Store Optimization, Performance Marketing, Subscription Revenue Optimization, User Retention / CRM, Growth Consulting
- Tagline: We Help Apps Grow
Founded | Employees | Social | Traffic | |
---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | 10-50 | 5000 | 3000 |
We’re Favoured. A results-driven performance marketing agency specialising in app marketing to drive growth, stickiness, and retention. Formed in 2017 by a former Apple Marketing Lead who wanted to bring his experience from “inside the machine” to app companies directly.
- Services: app marketing strategy, app advertising, full-funnel app marketing, email marketing, in-app and push marketing, app growth marketing, graphics and video creatives
- Offices: London, UK.
- Tagline: Award Winning Mobile Marketing Agency Founded By Former Marketing Lead At Apple
Learn more about Favoured
App Guardians Marketing | App Growth Network
North America’s Leading App Marketing Agency
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2018 | 11-50 | - | 200+ | 1,000 |
App Growth Network is a global app marketing agency with three major area of focus – App Product Marketing, App Growth Marketing (UA) and Analytics.
- Type: Marketing analytics, In-app analytics
- Platforms supported: iOS, Android.
- Offices: Vancouver, Canada
- Services: App Marketing, App Store Optimization (ASO), Analytics & Engagement, Paid User Acquisition, Prelaunch and Launch planning & execution.
- Tagline: Analyze, Optimize, Grow
Learn more about App Guardians Marketing | App Growth Network
Founded | Employees | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
2016 | 10-50 |
ConsultMyApp is a London based mobile marketing consultancy agency that provides brands and app developers with App Store Optimization, Customer Relationship Management and User Acquisition services. Since 2016 its team worked with such brands as The Telegraph, BBC, SEGA and more. The agency small independent team pays equal attention to both mobile app user acquisition and their retention and monetization.
- Services: User Acquisition, App Store Optimization, Apple Search Ads, PPC, Mobile Messaging.
- Offices: London, UK
- Tagline: Mobile Marketing Consultancy
Learn more about ConsultMyApp
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 11-50 | $14m+ | 9k+ | 2,000 |
PreApps is the app marketing platform for app businesses to launch and market their app to significantly boost the number of downloads and increase sales. From first time app creators to Billion Dollar apps, PreApps signature programs have helped thousands of apps reach over 550,000,000 downloads so far.
Over the past 9 years, PreApps has developed proven programs that take a first time app business owner through a unique and seamless process to launch their app successfully and reach their business goals.
- Services: Pre-Launch Beta Testing, App Review Submission, Publicity, Video Demo Creation And Distribution, ASO
- Offices: Boston, US
- Tagline: #1 App Marketing Agency
Learn more about PreApps
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | 11-50 | - | - | - |
There is a science to app marketing, and most companies do not know how to do it properly. We utilize every digital marketing tool at our disposal to get your app off the ground.
- Services: Paid Search, Paid Social, ASO, Influencer Marketing
- Offices: New York, US
- Tagline: Startup marketing experts
Founded | Employees | Revenues | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
2007 | 51 - 100 | $30M |
[masterslider id=\"420\"] V.O.X is an advanced ASO tool that provides users with comprehensive data-driven solutions to help them optimize their digital products for search engines and app stores. Using proprietary algorithms and insights gathered from Apple Search Ads (ASA), V.
Learn more about V.O.X by Liberteenz, Inc.Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 11-50 | $5m+ | 2k+ | 10,000 |
Gummicube revolutionized mobile marketing in 2010 as the first App Store Optimization company. Gummicube’s DATACUBE ™ software leverages proprietary ‘big data for mobile’ to understand search trends and the competitive landscape inside of the app stores. By using DATACUBE, mobile search data and user behavior is no longer a black box — resulting in greater visibility, more high-quality organic downloads and a lower overall cost of user acquisition.
- Services: App Store Optimization, Mobile App Marketing, Review & User Sentiment Management, Social Influencer Program,
- Offices: San Jose, US
- Tagline: We’re dedicated to helping your mobile app find its audience.
Learn more about Gummicube
Founded | Employees | Social | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
2015 | 100-200 | 30k |
SplitMetrics is a company behind an ecosystem of mobile marketing solutions for developers and advertisers. We help publishers to ensure app growth at every stage of their apps or games’ lifecycle. SearchAdsHQ is a platform for Apple Search Ads automation and optimization as an Apple Search Ads Partner. SplitMetrics is a solution for mobile A/B testing, app ideas & game concepts validation and provides app growth services by app marketing experts.
- Services: Mobile Marketing, Apple Search Ads, A/B testing, Growth Marketing
- Tagline: Unlock mobile growth
Airshipis global mobile app marketing automation platform that helps brand owners to grow their business. Plus to the extensive suite of app marketing tools, it provides sophisticated mobile analytics system. It features user-level customer intelligence tool to reveal mobile app users cohorts that drive revenue, tools to predict and prevent mobile app churn, as well as to track mobile users behavioral patterns.
- Type: in-app analytics, Marketing analytics
- Pricing: available upon request
- Demo: available
- User guide: available
Learn more about Airship
Remerge provides a seamlessly integrated app retargeting platform by combining audience management and segmentation tools with a high-performing programmatic infrastructure. We are dedicated on scale, performance and security to offer the best app retargeting experience possible.
Learn more about RemergeFounded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2013 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Studio Mosaic is an award-winning mobile app marketing agency based in New Delhi, India. We are a growth-oriented company that has been helping appreneurs & enterprises launch and promote their mobile apps worldwide, since 2013. We specialise in user acquisition and revenue generation for app-based businesses and have worked with over 300 clients on over 600 app projects till date. Along the way, we have generated 25 million+ app downloads and driven 75+ apps to the top of the app store charts.
- Services: App Marketing, ASO
- Offices: New Delhi, India
- Tagline: Your App Growth Partner
Learn more about Studio Mosaic
Founded | Employees | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | 500+ |
User analytics and engagement platform for mobile apps, MoEngage is heavily focused on geo-targeted app push notifications and in-app messages. Tracks uninstalls (for iOS), integrates with MobileAppTracking, Appsflyer, Apsalar and is the largest marketing platform in India.
- Type: In-app analytics, Marketing analytics
- Pricing: Starter, Growth and Enterprise plans, pricing is available upon request.
- Platforms supported: iOS, Android, Windows Mobile
- Demo: available
- User guide: available
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2002 | 135 | - | 19k | - |
Perform[cb] is the #1 Performance Marketplace in the world, offering strategic plans tailored to meet their clients’ specific marketing goals – all while only paying for new customers versus simply impressions or clicks. Perform[cb], formerly Clickbooth, Adperio, and Ignite OPM, empowers brands to acquire new customers through incremental digital channels on a pay-for-results model. Our proprietary technology, specialized strategy development, and highly curated partner marketplace align “cost-per” pricing with customer lifetime value.
- Products: Performance Marketing, Ad Fraud Tools, App Installs, Affiliate Marketing, App Marketing, Mobile Marketing
- Tagline: #1 Performance Marketing Network Worldwide
Learn more about Performcb
Founded | Employees | |||
---|---|---|---|---|
2014 | 101-200 |
Zorka.Agency is an influencer and performance marketing agency focused on creating ROI-forecast strategies with a risk assessment that helps businesses scale up. At Zorka.Agency, we treat our clients as our partners.
Learn more about Zorka.Agencydata.ai (formerly App Annie)
Understand, benchmark, and optimize mobile and digital performance with data.ai.
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2010 | 201-500 | 100M+ | 70k+ | 3m+ |
App Annie is now data.ai! But what (or who) is data.ai? Is it worth paying for the premium service? What kind of competitive edge does it provide over competitors? That’s what this guide is for. It’s divided into the following sections: Company overview Key facts Products Pricing Why data.
Learn more about data.ai (formerly App Annie)mFilterIt
Eliminate invalid traffic from your app campaigns running on biddable and non-biddable platforms for both performance and brand campaigns
Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
---|---|---|---|---|
2011 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Recognized as an elite influencer agency, at HireInfluence we develop intent-driven influencer marketing campaigns that merge the needs of brands, audiences, and influencers. We hand-select influencers for each and every campaign to ensure an organic fit and authentic feeling content.
As a full-service influencer marketing agency we source and cast right-fit talent, develop creative content strategies, execute comprehensive, interactive, cross-channel influencer campaigns, and report back on campaign analytics.
- Services: Marketing campaign strategy, Influencer relationships management, Campaign reporting
- Offices: Houston, LA, New York, USA.
- Tagline: Connecting Brands and Audiences Through Influence