SmartNews is one of the most well-known news aggregator apps today, with 50 million downloads and 20 million monthly active users. The app leverages machine learning algorithms to offer each reader a quality news experience packed with the most relevant and important stories. Looking to acquire high-value users who would enjoy such a unique and tailored experience, SmartNews started leveraging on-device distribution with Aura in 2018.
"Aura hit all three qualities we’re looking for in a user acquisition channel: quality, scale, and cost-efficiency. Finding that by distributing on devices through Aura has been a gamechanger for our user acquisition strategy."
- Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, VP of US Marketing at SmartNews
SmartNews’ main KPI is retention, meaning they are looking to acquire users who will engage with the app over the long-term. With an initial goal of 7 days retention for acquired users, SmartNews ran campaigns across a variety of Aura’s placements, including the setup manager, in which Aura recommends SmartNews to new device owners as they’re going through the onboarding flow, and full screen offers. Because Aura leverages opt-in and contextual data to power its recommendation engine, SmartNews is able to get in front of users who are likely to install and engage with their app for the long-term - at scale. In fact, Aura has driven 35 million on-device installs for SmartNews over 3 years, all while maintaining a low cost per retained user.
"Aura has been a trusted partner of ours for years. They hit all three qualities we’re looking for in a user acquisition channel: quality, scale, and cost-efficiency. This is what every growth team is looking for, and finding that by distributing on devices through Aura has been a gamechanger for our user acquisition strategy. Beyond the tech, the targeting and the unique placements, we can really count on the team to do whatever it takes to scale up our campaigns - and that includes building custom solutions for us when necessary.” - Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, VP of US Marketing at SmartNews
