CashNews.co
Despite the booming US$ 340 billion global fintech market in 2024, many promising finance apps struggle to gain traction, with a significant 75% failure rate among fintech startups. One of the key challenges they face is navigating the complex landscape of regulations.
In this article, we explore how Exness, a leading multi-asset broker founded in 2008, has overcome these obstacles and achieved remarkable success in user acquisition for their mobile trade app.
The Turkish fintech scene is one of incredible growth and immense potential, with 662 fintech companies currently active and who call Turkiye home. These companies have been the movers and shakers in this landscape, with 5-year fintech mergers and acquisitions activity till 2022 reaching close to US$500 million.
International recognition has followed this Turkish fintech boom, with the World Economic Forum ranking Turkiye 10th in Europe when it comes to attracting investment. In fact, Turkiye has been granted Super League status, reserved for countries that have attracted between US$1 billion to US$10 billion. Thus it comes as no surprise that fintech apps are starting to gain traction in Turkiye.
Challenges of a Regulated Industry
Financial apps encounter unique challenges in user acquisition, particularly with stricter advertising regulations on platforms like Google and Facebookwhich limit their ability to reach new audiences, as well as stringent guidelines enforced by mainstream app stores. These hurdles underscore the importance of innovative strategies, such as those employed by Exness.
Exness has successfully utilized mobile OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) channels and alternative app stores, including partnerships with mobile OEM specialists like AVOW, to effectively acquire users in the face of regulatory constraints.
These partnerships have allowed Exness to target specific demographics and regions — such as India and Indonesia where regulations do not permit apps like Exness to run any sort of financial ads on Google’s platform — through multiple device inventories aligned with their target countries, such as Xiaomi, Vivo, Oppo, or Huawei.
One major hurdle for just about any app in this mobile ecosystem pertains to the kind of billing and payment systems that are used. Many trading and fintech apps direct users from the app to their own web store or payment portal, in order to avoid paying Google and Apple that 30% cut for each transaction.
However, both Google and Apple have “non-steering” rules in place, which effectively ban apps from directing users from within the app to another payment system or web store. These rules have been enforced even with some of the biggest players in the space, such as Netflix and Spotify. While these rules in itself can pose many a problem for fintech apps, an even bigger problem comes from Google’s recent actions.
Back in February and March of this year, Google removed over a dozen very popular and well-established apps from their Play Store for not complying with their payment regulations. These apps totaled close to or over 250 million downloads by Google Play Store estimates. This led to the cofounder of Kuku FM, one of the removed apps with over 50 million downloads, labeling Google as “the most evil partner to do business with” whilst stating that the “Indian startup ecosystem was completely in its [Google] control”.
He ended by saying:
“We are now faced with no option but to accept their terms. This will destroy our business and make Kuku FM unfordable for the majority of the country, but when have a monopoly cared about anything beyond itself”.
The Rise of Mobile OEMs as a Solution
In response to these challenges, Exness turned to diversifying their acquisition channels through mobile OEMs, navigating some of the restrictions imposed by traditional advertising platforms, and directly tapping into a broader audience base, enhancing the overall growth of their app and improving their user acquisition efforts.
Mobile OEMs have become a critical component in Exness’s user acquisition strategy, providing access to integrated features that enable more effective reach and engagement with potential users This approach has allowed Exness to achieve impressive results and maintain a competitive edge in the heavily regulated fintech industry.
Mobile OEMs can provide fintech apps with unparalleled means of advertising and user acquisition as compared to the competition. The less saturated nature of alternative app stores allows for a more prominent app store featuring, where your app is put front and center. This also allows for better app promotion within the finance category of the app store.
The robust mobile OEM targeting capabilities even allow app developers to target users based on device typefor instance, allowing apps to target users using more high-end devices who might be more predisposed to use fintech apps or who have more disposable income in general.
Take all of that and add in a mobile OEM user acquisition partner who operates on performance and who can offer performance based down funnel events such as app or account registrations, and you have a recipe for mobile OEM fintech success.
For apps — and fintech apps in particular — to not be held hostage by Google, Apple, and other players, it is imperative to diversify their app presence. This also gives app developers the further benefit of being able to negotiate the rate and cut for payments with each mobile OEM, or to use a third-party billing solution entirely if they so wished.
As Victor Chistyakov, Director of Business Development for AVOW succinctly put it:
” It is this freedom of choice that truly defines and sets mobile OEMs apart”.
Partnering with AVOW for Mobile OEM Success
Exness strategically partnered with AVOW, a leader in mobile OEM advertising, to access high-quality traffic from popular smartphone brands like Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo, and Oppo, of which Xiaomi and Vivo take up the number 1 and number 2 spot for mobile market share in India. This collaboration streamlined campaign management and facilitated rapid testing and scaling across diverse regions.
Success Story: Indonesia
A specific campaign in Indonesia highlights the effectiveness of this approach. Working with AVOW, Exness transitioned users from an APK campaign to a Play Store app. This resulted in a significant improvement in user acquisition:
“With the same spend, the CPI campaign drove many more registrations at a 14% lower CPR (cost per registration) and reduced our cost per FTD by 66%, which led into an expected revenue increase by 10x, which is amazing!”
Sotiris Sotiriadis, Paid Media Team Lead at Exness
The Benefits of Mobile OEMs
Sotiris Sotiriadis, Paid Media Team Lead at Exness, firmly asserts that mobile OEM marketing is a permanent fixture in their strategy. He highlights its benefits: delivering high conversion traffic with minimal fraud risk. Sotiris acknowledges AVOW’s expertise in OEM marketing as instrumental to their success, underscoring their reliance on these advantages to drive effective user acquisition campaigns.
“(Mobile) OEM marketing, at least for Exness, is here to stay. It offers us high conversion traffic and a low fraud rate, and we are glad to have the experts of OEM marketing, AVOW, to help us succeed”
Sotiris Sotiriadis, Exness
Watch the Full Interview with Exness
Learn more about how Exness enhances app acquisition performance for their mobile trade app through mobile OEM marketing.