Facebook has become one of the most effective channels to promote mobile apps, providing higher conversion rates and better return on investment than other approaches, according to app engagement company Fiksu.

Speaking to Mobile World Live, Oliver Clark (pictured), Fiksu director of sales for the EMEA region, said that although Facebook is not the cheapest for app promotion, it is the most productive non-incentivised source for generating return on investment.

With 10 times greater cost per click compared to other app promotion tools, Facebook offers conversion rates that are 11 times higher, a purchasing rate increase of 1.4 and a 28 per cent improvement in cost per purchasing user.

Reasons why Facebook has the ability “to optimise ad campaigns to a high degree of efficiency”, according to Clark, include its reach and ability to target users very specifically.

“It’s the scale of Facebook that means that there are lots and lots of variables,” Clark said. For one international game campaign, Fiksu identified 3.6 million potential campaign variants by segmenting users by sex, age, interests, geographies and mobile platforms.

Alternative approaches, such as ad networks, incentivised ad networks, video ads and real-time bidding exchanges are unable to offer such granular targeting.

Facebook is particularly good for promoting mobile games, which are often updated and need to find large audiences regularly, according to Clark. The social network is able to show what demographics link different titles, something that games benefit from more than other kinds of apps.

Another reason why Facebook performs well is that its ad formats of the news feed and app installer ad units are not particularly intrusive and allow users to go directly to apps.

As a result, Facebook has gained significantly on other app promotion approaches over the past 12 months.

“Facebook has attracted a very large proportion of our media spend,” Clark noted, adding that it has the potential to be the most productive non-incentivised app promotion tool available.