The ad creative is the representation of everything the app stands for, or the face of the app if you will. We'd even say that a mobile ad artwork can be a crucial ally or enemy in an advertiser's campaign to increase iOS or Android app installs.
If you’ve been looking for a cheap and efficient way to increase user downloads, you made the right choice to advertise your mobile app. But now that you’ve signed up for mobile ad networks like AppFlood, you might be procrastinating the final step - getting your mobile ad creatives approved - because you’re just not sure how to design mobile ad creatives.
To help you, we’ve identified four examples of some of the best performing ad creatives by click-through rate on AppFlood. By analyzing mobile ad creatives of all sizes and styles, we’ll highlight mobile advertising design best practices that we hope will serve as a guideline for new or even veterans designers of mobile ads.
Ayakashi: Ghost Guild
App Publisher: Zynga
What is Ayakashi: Ghost Guild: “Ayakashi: Ghost Guild is a free role-playing / card battle game with a rich story line of the battles with ghosts and other agents.”
Why these ad creatives attract clicks:
Call-to-action: The Ayakashi: Ghost Guild's full screen ad creative uses an eye catching call to action button that highlights the fact that the app is free to download.
High-quality artwork: Both the full screen ad (displayed within interstitial ad formats) and banner ad showcases custom art, and features an female in-game character to boot.
Well positioned descriptor: A bite-sized description of the app sits right below the title of the game. Because one of the first things people do when viewing an ad is to read the title, their eyes may naturally in this case wander to the subtext (the description) that explains the game genre of Aakashi: Ghost Guild.
MoboMarket
App Publisher: Moborobo
What is Mobo Market: “Real-time updated app market helping you discover the top free Android games & apps”
Why these ad creatives attract clicks:
Optimized ad sizes: Instead of resizing a full screen ad creative – a strategy that we see many advertisers opt for – Mobo Market's ad creatives feature customized artwork that’s optimized for each mobile ad size.
Call-to-action: The app’s creatives use a call-to-action “Download” button, size permitting.
Clear value proposition: The text within all of Mobo Market's creatives states, “500,000 Free Android Games & Apps in your pocket!” or a variation of this depending on the size of the ad format. The value proposition of the ad is clear enough for viewers to understand that Mobo Market offers a robust library of Android apps.
Opera Browser
App publisher: Opera Software ASA
What is Opera Browser: "The best mobile web browser for Android phones and tablets.”
Why these ad creatives attract clicks:
App in action: A screen shot of the Opera Browser is displayed within a smartphone to showcase what the app might look like on a user’s mobile device.
Clean and uniform design: If you look at the Opera Browser ads closely, you’ll notice that the theme of the ad creative is uniform with the app’s user interface: from the grey on white color scheme to the minimalistic, flat and clean design.
Short and punchy descriptor: Without resorting to a lengthy description of the app, the Opera Browser ad creatives use “Super smart. Super quick.” which is a description short enough to describe the mobile browser, and more importantly punchy enough to lure users into clicking.
Little Empire
App Publisher: Camel Games
What is Little Empire: Little Empire is a 3D strategy mobile game. You'll play a hero with a mission: Deploy Trolls, Mages, Wolf Riders, and more, for a total of 12 different unit types, in thousands of different formations and countless challenges, using your brains and your brawn to build and defend an empire all your own.
Why these ad creatives attract clicks:
Engaging artwork: The full screen ad creative for Little Empire is engaging as it features in-game characters mid-battle. And by limiting the size of game’s title and call-to-action, the ad creative minimizes distractions from the artwork that might pique your curiosity enough to click on the ad. The designer uses the same design principle to highlight the menacing, albeit curious glare of the in-game character within the banner ad version.
