Mumbai: Brands today are leveraging multiple channels to market their products and services to ensure their app's maximum reach and visibility. They must wear multiple marketing hats when promoting their apps, as app marketers face increasing competition in advertising across social and search domains.

This year, the magnificent FIFA World Cup 2022 is garnering colossal attention from brands across the globe as it is being held in a middle Eastern nation for the very first time, hosted by Qatar. As a result, Qatar 2022 is expected to generate $6.5 billion in advertising revenue, surpassing all the previous game tournaments.

As the World Cup progresses from the group stage to the knockout stages through December's first half, it is an optimum time for sports betting apps and game apps to reach users with similar interests. Mobile apps across categories will be spending thousands of dollars in the expectation of generating a positive ROI and app instals.

Mobile advertisers should make the most of their advertising campaigns and marketing activities during an event like this, where user activity and engagement are at an all-time high. Frankly, this is a once-in-a-four-year opportunity to gain maximum exposure for brands. Furthermore, the World Cup is being held for the first time at the end of the year (fourth calendar quarter), which is the most profitable advertising period due to the approaching New Year and Christmas holiday season.

Marketing your app during the FIFA World Cup 2022 means building brand credibility, trust, and influence, and creating a lasting impact among your targeted users in a particular app category. The growth of the sports betting industry worldwide reached a market size of 231 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. Such huge proliferation in the market means it’s high time for sports and game app marketers to evaluate and consider alternative ways to reach broader target markets.

Mobile OEMs such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, and Huawei and their alternative app stores offer prominent visibility for game and sports betting apps to advertise their marketing campaigns.

The potential of mobile OEMs and their independent app stores is immense if tapped into with a cohesive strategy. With the incremental reach offered by mobile OEMs, app marketers can expect a booming return on ad spend (ROAS) during the FIFA World Cup 2022 by promoting their app with unique and personalised advertising placements and, furthermore, optimising campaigns with the most result-driven ad placements.

Huawei, for instance, gives app developers a worthwhile opportunity to advertise within a dedicated section of its official app store, AppGallery, throughout the tenure of FIFA’s World Cup tournament.

On the other hand, Vivo is the official smartphone sponsor for this year’s FIFA World Cup. The reach offered by Vivo, Huawei, Oppo, and Xiaomi is more than 1.5 billion daily active users (DAU) to acquire fresh users. It is undoubtedly a sizable market for sports betting apps to tap into, with a targeting capability of generating more than six million monthly instals.

Mobile OEM app stores will allow sports app marketers to move beyond third-party advertising domains during the FIFA World Cup 2022 and create a scalable user acquisition channel. In addition, these mobile OEMs will help strategize with a relatively more cost-effective approach to garner fresh users, expand their user base, and breed real-time app downloads.

The best way to accelerate your game or sports betting app's growth goals during the FIFA World Cup 2022 is by consulting a dedicated, specialised app growth company. Agencies with exclusive OEM partnerships will help you deep-dive into the WHYs and HOWs of alternative app stores and their unique advertising placements, in addition to helping you understand all the nuances of advertising your app in the respective geos/regions you want to target. To avoid the hassle, they will also deploy a dedicated team of app growth experts to define the strategic steps and keep track of all campaign performances.

The author of this article is AVOW co-founder Ashwin Shekhar.