commons-app
Advertisement brainstorming
I started advertising the app on Google Ads, 1$ a day, for fun and to gain some experience.
If you want to join the fun, please comment with headlines (30 characters max) and descriptions (90 characters max) that you think may help us reach some of the goals below, and I will include them in my experiments:
- Reach people who are underrepresented on Commons (for instance ads in German might not be as necessary as ads in Swahili). So headlines/descriptions in different languages are very welcome.
- The cost is fixed per install, which means that we should aim for people who are really willing to contribute (=will upload pictures), rather than people who install the app but have no interest in it.
- Maybe appeal to photographers?
- We should not overpromise, or we might see our Play rating drop.
- Any other goal that you think is worth aiming for (please explain).
By the way, below are the headlines/descriptions I am currently experimenting with. The word "Wikipedia" is trademarked so we can't use it (it might work in other languages though) so I tried to paraphrase. I focused on Wikipedia because it is probably the only Wikimedia project that people know. The only targeting we can do is by country and by language.
After 3 months, the ads got 1000 Commons app installs. Details about these installs:
Top 10 countries: Algeria, Ethiopia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Morocco, Kenya, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia (full list). 98% on mobile phones, the rest on tablets. Half on Google Search, 40% on Google Display Network, the rest on YouTube. Target cost per install (TCPA): 0.2 USD for English, 0.18 USD for French.
Assets:
Play Store statistics seem to corroborate the increase:
Feel free to propose localization of these assets to other languages (only languages spoken in underrepresented countries), thanks!
We could really benefit from an updated video without the logo intro nor final links, and generally much shorter and focused on the benefits of uploading to Commons. It could go like this:
- Street video shows someone taking a picture (in landscape mode) of an impactful+notable building.
- Screencast shows the picture being shared by intent to the Commons app (make sure no private information of your contacts is shown when sharing)
- Screencast shows quickly filling all metadata correctly
- Screencast shows the picture embedded inside a Wikipedia article
- Maybe street videos showing people looking at their smartphones (no need to see what is on their screen) in very different parts of the world, as a background to a call-to-action text such as:
Easy with the official app. Install now..
Before the call-to-action, large subtitle should say what it's about, as mobile users often mute sounds and especially ads:
-
Upload your photos to Wikipedia.
The video should be in mobile-friendly format, probably 300x300 pixels or 320x480 pixels (or mezzanine thereof).
Wow, that's great news @nicolas! Thanks for helping out with this. :)
We could really benefit from an updated video without the logo intro nor final links, and generally much shorter and focused on the benefits of uploading to Commons (maybe showing someone taking a picture of a building and then the picture embedded inside a Wikipedia article).
I agree re: the video. The main reason I've been hesitant to change that is that it was made by a volunteer professional videographer, and frankly I am very unfamiliar with the process of taking and editing videos. But if someone wants to take it up I would be more than happy to make the switch.
5000 installs. Top 10 countries: Myanmar, Ethiopia, Algeria, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Morocco, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, DR Congo. 98% on mobile phones, the rest on tablets. 65% on Google Search, 32% on Google Display Network, 3% on YouTube. Target cost per install (TCPA): 0.18 USD for English, 0.16 USD for French.
Installs caused by English-language ads:
Installs caused by French-language ads:
Not visible on these maps, Haiti has English and French conversions. I targeted a few Latin America countries too but very few conversions there so far, probably because we have no ads in Spanish... Any Spanish-language volunteer to translate the assets? 🙂
Even though I have not touched anything since August 5, September/October were somehow the best months (constant 1$/day budget since the beginning):
That's awesome @nicolas-raoul !
Any Spanish-language volunteer to translate the assets?
I wonder if we could ask translatewiki for help with this. @Nikerabbit
Notes for potential translators:
- Headlines are 30 characters maximum.
- Descriptions are 90 characters maximum.
- Assets get banned if they use the word "Wikipedia" (or any other trademarked word I guess). WMF would probably be able to help with this, but it is probably not the best use of their time. So instead I used the word "Wiki", which is not too bad I think: not trademarked, shorter, and anyone who knows that "Wiki" is not an exact synonym of "Wikipedia" is probably contributing already 🙂.