Marketers should look to boost their mobile game campaigns around Halloween and Thanksgiving as well as Christmas to fully maximise the potential for selling in-app purchases.

This is based on a new study from marketing analytics firm AppsFlyer on the best app marketing practices for the holiday season.

The study uses data collected during Q4 2015 to inform marketers about what practices should be implemented in 2016. The data is based on 50 million installs from over 500 games and shopping apps.

Spooky

The study found that in-app purchases peak during specific holidays in the US. Halloween, Thanksgiving, shopping day Black Friday and Christmas all see the highest IAP activity.

Organic installs also increase during these periods. Thanksgiving and Black Friday both saw organic app installs increase by 50% more than the November average.

Non-organic installs see increases through the entirety of Q4 as marketers increase their spend to catch the holiday audience.

The study compared both iOS and Android installs, but found little difference between the two. The main difference is that conversion rates decrease on Android as non-organic installs increase.