Introduction
When your goal is to find users who must perform certain actions in your app, you’ll first need to decide which in-app actions are most valuable to your business. Some in-app actions will be primary goals, while others may be secondary goals that help advance a user toward the primary goals. Primary goals could be in-app actions like buying video game upgrades, purchasing items in a shopping app, or paying for a subscription service.
Success Actions
The most valuable in-app actions for your business are called “Success Actions.” If at least 10 users a day perform a Success Action in your App campaign, the campaign will have enough data to identify new users with similar characteristics who are most likely to complete the same action. You can then set a target cost per action (also called CPA bid) in your App campaign based on how much the user who completes the Success Action is worth to your business.
For example, if the value of the Success Action is a $20 profit for your business, it would make sense to pay up to $20 in a campaign for a user who completes the Success Action.
Proxy Actions
If the Success Action you wish to measure isn’t completed daily by at least 10 people in the App campaign, the Success Action won’t have enough data for the App campaign to find similar users.
You will instead need to choose a “Proxy Action” that is highly likely going to lead to your Success Action. A Proxy Action is an event that’s expected to lead to the Success Action.
For example, if your campaign’s conversion data shows that a high percentage of users who add their payment information to the app also purchase an upgrade - you could use “add payment information” as a Proxy Action in place of the Success Action.
Once you’ve selected a Proxy Action, you’ll need to figure out how much the user who completes that in-app action is worth to your business. For example: let’s say 60% of users who add their payment information buy the $20 upgrade. You can pay up to 60% of that $20 for someone who completes the Proxy Action “add payment information,” or a $12 cost per action.
You might pick a Proxy Action that is completed by many people because it happens very early in your user’s journey, but this Proxy Action might be less likely to lead to the Success Action. So you’ll have to be strategic when choosing a Proxy Action with enough data to qualify, but not so much that it doesn’t automatically lead to a Success Action.
