At Salesforce, one of the biggest questions that we get from our customers who promote mobile app installs, especially customers at gaming companies, is how their costs to install an app compares to that of their peers.

In our most recent advertising benchmark report, we published data on how mobile app install costs on Facebook varied widely by country in Q1, and we want to give you look at how those numbers have changed in Q2 in a few of our key markets - a wider range of countries will be examined in a future blog post. Overall, mobile app install costs on Facebook have started to flatten out and not vary by large amounts quarter over quarter. In Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, install costs ticked up by between four and 10%. In France and Germany, costs declined by 13% (France) and 8% (Germany). 

For the first time this quarter, we also looked at how costs varied between iOS and Android campaigns.  Unlike other types of mobile ads, for mobile app install ads, advertisers must target Android and iOS devices separately to ensure that they are driving clicks (and installs) to the correct app store for the device that potential customers use.  It turned out that the relative cost of an Android install and an iOS install varied widely by country, but in all five markets examined, Android was more Expensive than iOS. In Australia, Germany, and the UK, Android was substantially more expensive than iOS; up to 89% more in Germany.  In France and the US, the difference is much smaller; as little as 4% in the US. 

Finally, we looked at the overall amount that Social.com customers spend on mobile app install ads for iOS versus Android.  In Germany, 78% of our customer spend is on Android versus iOS mobile app install campaigns, but in the UK, only 36% is. This aligns to recent data from Kantar Group about smartphone adoption in these markets; in Germany, 75% of smartphone users have Android phones versus only 13% who have iPhones, but in the UK, 66% have Android phones and 34% have iPhones.

For a deeper dive into the Q1 mobile app install costs for sixteen top countries, including Brazil, Canada, and Japan, check out our Advertising Benchmark Report.