What is Calendar traffic

‍

iOS Calendar Push is a new ad format that allows you to send push notifications exclusively to iOS and macOS devices, via the Calendar application. It is considered to have higher quality leads and a higher CR than push. 

The user receives a calendar opt-in subscription. Once they subscribe, the user receives Calendar push ads that appear as an upcoming event on their calendar. They will also be alert of new events as they get closer. 

How iOS Calendar Push works 

They work with the same system as Push ads, which is a Subscription-based model. 

In order to see this kind of ads, the user has to subscribe to receive notifications, and they can unsubscribe at any time. 

1. They get a subscription notification
2. They confirm and see a confirmation message
3. They receive events in their iOS inbuilt calendar app 
4. They open the events and see the link and text 
5. They click on the link and see the ad in Safari new tab 

The format specifics: creativities

iOS Calendar ads are much simpler than other formats. They don’t have an icon and a big image, however, they do count with a title, link and description. Once they click on the link, they will be taken to your landing page. 

The title will appear in the user’s locked screen as a notification. This is why you should pay special attention to it. Emojis are proven to work great with calendar push. 

The body (description) is only visible when the user opens the calendar event. 

What you need to know about 

Differences from classic push 

iOS mostly 

Unlike push, which works mostly with Android, Calendar ads audiences are 90% iOS and MacOS users. This means that you’ll get more qualified and expensive leads. 

Creativities

There’s no image and icon, as they appear as events in the Calendar App. 

As specified earlier, the creativities consist of a title, a link and the description. 

Ad body priorities

Unlike other formats, the most important part in the iOS calendar ad is the title. Make sure your title is clear enough and correctly matches the offer. 

Longer intervals between clicks and deliveries 

Because the ads appear as events, the users can click on them before, during or after the event. This means that you can still receive clicks even 3 days after the original delivery, and this may produce an overspending of your budget. After 72h, you will not be charged for clicks. 

Fast landing pages 

Calendar push ads perform much better with fast-loading landing pages. Also, take note that optimizing the landing pages for iOS devices which have Safari as a default browser will also improve the performance. 

Advantages 

• Higher quality traffic
• More visibility, ads are delivered on the locked screen
• Higher CR 
• Unsubscribing is difficult. It can be done by the user at any time but it’s complicated, this means a long user life. 
• Like with the other formats, in Pushground we check and track the traffic on a daily basis using Opticks technology, making sure there’s no fraud and that we deliver the best quality traffic.

Limitations

• No user age (yet)
• Higher risk of overspending. Because of the longer intervals between clicks and deliveries, the risk of overspending is higher than other formats. Sometimes it’s not easy to control how much you’re going to spend for a campaign. 

Calendar traffic

What works

So far we have seen that the best performing offers for this format are those which are more expensive (because iOS and MacOS users usually have higher disposable incomes). It also works specially good for Tier 1 and 2 countries. 

• iOS app downloads
• Antivirus
• VPN
• Financial
• Crypto
• Gambling
  
  

Volumes compared to push 

With over 3.000 million impressions, we offer iOS calendar push traffic in a large number of countries (US, DE, RU, UA, VN, GB, JP, BR, FR, MY, KZ, IT, CA, TH, ES, IN, PH, NL, AU, MX, KR, SA, PR, HN, MR, BE, Si, LT, MD, TM, UZ, MN, NP, HK, ID ). Once it’s finally established on our platform and as the demand grows, more GEOs will be available. 

Volumes are expected to rise as we grow and publishers start to adopt this ad format. 

Most of the traffic comes from smartphone devices (97%), with only 2% of the traffic coming from desktop. 

Best performing GEOs

CPA

JP $183,1

US $103

PH $90,8

AU $39,9

CA $28,1

SA $27,2

RU $23,9

FR $22,8

VN $19,4

DE $19

GB $12,9

IT $9,3

SI $6,9

NL $2,1

ES $1,4 

IN $1,2

BR $1

MX $0,6

TH $0,5

Top feeds

From all the available iOS Calendar feeds, the ones performing the best right now are 994, 1481, 1392 and 1875. 

However, the performance as always depends not only on the traffic but also on the quality of the offer and the proper targeting & further optimisation. 

How to run Calendar Ads

Steps to creating a profitable calendar campaign 

For running an iOS Calendar campaign, first you need to select this format on the campaign creation page. In the same way that you would do for other formats, it is strongly recommended to use a tracker. 

‍

‍

Make sure you decide on a testing budget first, taking into account that overspending is likely to happen when running this format. 

Select the most basic and advanced targeting options, like country, carrier, device, iOS version, etc. 

Make sure you select a competitive bid. iOS Calendar traffic is more expensive than the other formats. You can take the recommended bid as an indicator of what a competitive bid might be for that country and targeting selection. 

After that it’s time to decide on the creatives (title and description). Make sure you add at least 3-4 versions, for more variation and rotation. 

Last but not least you can create Automatic Rules that will help you have more control over your campaign and optimise it in advance! Check what the best practices are here. 

As always, make sure to optimise your campaign regularly using our Stats Page. Do not hesitate to contact your AM in case you need help or insights, we’ll be happy to help.