Mobile advertising platform Airloyal gets 35 advertisers, claims 240% MoM revenue growth
Google's Playstore has over 1.3 million apps, while Apple's Appstore has 1.2 million apps. In this crowded marketplace, how does one ensure that a new app gets attention? And after it's downloaded, how do you ensure retention and engagement? Most people download an app and use it a few times after which it slips into some unknown corner of their mind and phone too. Airloyal, a Tech30 company at TechSparks 2014, makes sure this does not happen anymore.
It uses gamification to increase the engagement on mobile apps and gives free recharge in return. For instance, Rs 5 for spending a minute on a specific app. Six months back they launched their first product Ladooo - a mobile advertising platform on Google Playstore to offer guaranteed engagement for mobile ad campaigns. Ladooo moves away from the traditional banner ad model which has become the de facto way of advertising on mobile.
We last covered Airloyal in August 2014 and it's now time to review them.
Growth
Airloyal has grown significantly since we last wrote about them. Talking about numbers, its app Ladooo has reached over two million downloads since its launch nine months back. At present, they are claiming a monthly active user base of around 60% installed users and claim a revenue growth at an average of 240% month on month.
The team has grown from six to 10 employees which is based in Chennai. This year, one of their biggest marketing initiatives was to sponsor IIT Delhi's cultural fest 'Rendezvous 2014' which gave them an exposure in front of over 60,000 students. Airloyal has a presence in 180 cities in India and close to 50% of its users come from tier-1 cities.
Till date, over USD 1 million of airtime has been given by Airloyal as rewards and it is looking to reach USD 1 billion mark in the next two years. At present, it has around 35 advertisers on board, including Flipkart, Snapdeal, Times Internet Ltd apart from small players like Voonik, Chaatz, and traffline etc. Airloyas claims that over 95% of its customers are running their fifth or sixth campaign with them.
Competitors
Though there are chances that other companies like FreeCharge and Paytm may enter this space, but Raja Hussian, Co-founder of Airloyal is unfazed by this. He says,
"We believe our vision and model is fundamentally different from theirs. We believe in rewarding consumers for their attention while solving a huge pain point of reaching targeted consumers in the most cost effective basis for advertisers. We come from the world of mobile gaming and we are applying those principles in engaging consumers. This is very different compared to transaction-focused businesses."
Getting users hooked to your app is a challenge, and engagement is a big deal whether it is getting a feedback or anything else. Airloyal is solving an important problem in this sector. Raja says,
"Building app engagement with millions of users is like creating magic. We are thrilled with the engagement levels we are seeing on Ladooo and how our consumers love it. Money can’t buy this!
Our unique position to leverage the app usage behavior data of the users without compromising privacy at all, gives us and our customers deep insights about consumers and their habits. This is helping us differentiate and have a huge impact on our customers compared with other me-toos incentive mobile app download apps."
Our take
The app has good numbers when it comes to downloads and and shows good engagement too. But driving engagement based on monetary rewards is not something which may work in long term and this also leads to drop in user retention. If this can be tweaked around and solved to retain users on the platform, they will have an easy time with users and this also will assist them in the long run as it helps build a strong business preposition.