Marketing a global phenomenon

PicsArt was born out of a sheer frustration that no free photo app seemed to offer a robust feature set with multiple editing options. Using AdMob to monetize the app, PicsArt now has a worldwide presence, and consistently ranks in the top 50 free apps from Google Play. It’s also available on venues like the App Store and Amazon.com. With more than 50 million downloads and growing at more than 200,000 downloads per day for all of its apps, PicsArt’s growth has only just begun. On Google Play, PicsArt has garnered over 700,000 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7.

AdMob: a safe choice for advertising with global coverage

AdMob was the right marketing solution for PicsArt because it offered content safety. Although the technical team was able to adjust filters provided by other ad delivery networks, irrelevant content such as gambling or dating ads sometimes cropped up – an unacceptable outcome for PicsArt’s prime goal of maintaining customer loyalty and community among all age groups. Using AdMob, PicsArt can filter on age-appropriateness to help ensure that younger audiences don’t see inappropriate content.

Second, AdMob made it easy to configure a minimally invasive user experience – something PicsArt aims to achieve. Only four to five screens out of approximately 50 serve AdMob banner ads. AdMob also provides reporting transparency to ensure that ads are delivered only when PicsArt desires. In addition, PicsArt trusts Google and its policies implicitly.

A revenue model that works

For PicsArt, AdMob provides a near 99% fill rate and low cost per thousand impressions (eCPM), providing the basis for steady revenue growth – without any surprises. Click-through rates on ads remain steady, at approximately 37–39%. AdMob also runs smoothly from a technical standpoint, and provides global coverage that successfully reaches a massively diverse worldwide audience. This is a perfect fit for PicsArt, with its global target users. “While some other ad networks might be stronger in certain very targeted geographies, AdMob more than makes up for it in the ability to serve campaigns on a global basis to a massive number of users,” says co-founder and CTO Artavazd Mehrabyan.

“We’re happy with our revenue, which comes about 90% from AdMob, and we have a model that’s working. We get offers from other ad networks to switch every day, but we’d never do it. Our users and our business are too precious to introduce anything that would not provide the trusted consistency and global reach of AdMob.” Artavazd Mehrabyan, CTO and co-founder, PicsArt