Find the Best User Acquisition Strategy for Your Mobile App!

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You’ve finally finished the development of your app and now want to introduce it to the mobile world? The deciding factor for being successful is acquiring and building a wide user base. Not just any users! It is important to attract the right users, who want to engage with your app for a long time! In this article, we will explain the most important aspects and effective methods for your user acquisition strategy.

Piechart that shows how often users try new apps before stopping: user acquisition strategy

Users try new apps an average of 4.5 times before stopping © ayeT-Studios

Before Starting Your User Acquisition

Don’t dive into the user acquisition straightaway, even if you already have a rough strategy in mind! First, you have to be certain of a few remaining questions:

Is the Development of Your App Finished?

Make sure that the development of your app is truly finished before introducing it to the market. It should be as bugless as possible to ensure an enjoyable experience for the user. If this is not the case, no user will be willing to keep your app after downloading it.

Did You Set a Concrete Plan and Goals?

You should always think about your favored achievements before implementing a strategy or even starting a campaign. Determine the channels you want to use, metrics to measure your success, your time and your needed staff. In short, specify your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), which tell you if you are on the way of achieving your goals or not.

Did You Estimate Your User Acquisition Costs?

Before planning your definite user acquisition strategy, you should calculate your budget! A very important metric are the user or customer acquisition costs (CAC), which measure how much you can spend on each user. You can determine your CAC by taking all your marketing expenses divided by the acquired users within a specific period of time. Even if you haven’t acquired any users yet, you should always keep estimated numbers in mind. The CAC are a crucial factor for the success and profit of your business!

Take a look at this article to learn more about this topic.

What Is the First Step of Your User Acquisition Strategy?

You should start off your user acquisition strategy by identifying the right users for your app. Undoubtedly, it is important to understand your (potential) users before investing money in a big marketing campaign. The risk is targeting the wrong users, which makes even the best user acquisition strategy futile. Therefore, we recommend publishing your app in only one or two countries first, which is called a soft launch. This allows you to analyze specific user segments, who are interested in downloading and keeping your app. While doing so, you should also think about the following questions:

  • What are your (potential) users generally interested in?
  • What are they searching for on google or in the app stores?
  • Which other apps do they use?
  • On which social media channels can you find them?
  • What are they talking about?
  • Who are they following?
  • At what times are they engaging?
  • How long will they keep your app on their smartphone? You can gauge this by using tracking providers to analyze session duration and retention rate.
  • What about demographics like age, gender, marital status, education, etc.?

Consider the answer to each question while planning your mobile user acquisition strategy! Thereby, you are able to target a specific audience rather than too many users, who may not be interested in engaging with your app.

Which Tools Can You Use for Your Mobile User Acquisition Strategy?

After clarifying the remaining questions and determining the right user group for your app, you can finally start planning a definite user acquisition strategy. Of course, there are many different ways of approaching your users, though not all of them are appropriate for you. You have to choose the most suitable method according the kind of app you’re publishing and your targeted audience. Keep in mind that even the slightest changes in either of these factors should result in an adjusted strategy.

The statistic shows popular tactics for user acquisition and retention: user acquisition strategy

E-Mail marketing is the most popular tactic for both user acquisition and retention © ayeT-Studios

We collected quite a few organic, as well as paid tools, which we are going to explain in greater detail below.

Organic Methods

You can use many different channels for your mobile user acquisition strategy that are absolutely free of charge. They work well for generating new and interested users for your app, but often you have to invest time to be successful.

Activate Your Own Social Network

A very simple way of building a solid user base, even before you published your app, is talking to your own social circle. Tell everyone you know about your product and which feature makes it special and unique. Whether it’s your family, friends, colleagues, business partners or fellow students, each of them could start word-of-mouth publicity for your app. This is a great way of attracting potential new users since they will certainly trust the recommendation of someone they know well.

Focus on Ratings and Reviews

Carefully read all existing reviews! They indicate exactly how satisfied your users are with your app and sometimes even provide ideas for possible changes and improvements.

Additionally, think about submitting your app to app discovery platforms and review sites. These present, review and promote new and unknown apps. If they like your app, this presents a good chance of acquiring new users since many users have trust in the opinion of these sites.

Use ASO to Optimize Your App Store Appearance

Just like with most situations in life, the first impression is crucial. Users decide whether or not they want to download an app mostly due to its appearance in the app store. If your app visually attracts them and informs them of all features and benefits, they will most likely install and actually engage with it.

Click here to learn everything about optimizing your app store appearance to convince users of downloading your app.

Create A Website for Your App

Another important factor of ASO is creating a landing page for your app. This is a good way of providing important information about your app and showing its main features. The website should be well designed and include links to your app store page. Thus, the users won’t have any difficulties getting to your app. Additionally, include contact information of your support team in case active or potential users have any problems or questions.

Tweak Your E-Mail Marketing

A mailing list is a good opportunity to keep your users updated at all times. With services like MailChimp, you can compile a list containing your important contacts and send a mail to each of them with just one click.

Make sure your content is interesting and offers relevant information for the users since you don’t want to end up in their spam folders. Furthermore, don’t forget to include your contact information and links to your website, app store page and social media channels.

Use Social Media Channels for More Virality

You can create an account on the social media channels that you and most importantly your users prefer, for example Facebook, Twitter and/or YouTube. By doing so, you can reach out to your users and communicate with them on a personal level. Therefore, you have additional possibilities of reacting to feedback or occurring questions and spreading news or updates much faster.

Build Your Own Brand

Next to your social media presence, you should also focus on building your own brand. Within this endeavour, it is important to define key features like the overarching design, visual language and message of your brand and the experience that you want the users to associate it with. You should match these key features to your app since users will be more inclined to recognize it. This highly improves the chances of them downloading your app, as well.

Furthermore, think about creating a blog to inform your users about any news and updates of your app. Again, use the features you defined for your brand.

Talk to the Press

If you want to communicate with the press, make sure to prepare yourself! Have a complete media kit or press release including all relevant information about your app at your hands. Invest some effort into an appealing design to convince the journalist to write about your app. The chances of people reading an article and downloading your app will rise.

Talking to the press guarantees your app a lot of attention and far reach. This method enriches your user acquisition strategy since many people have trust in the press as long as it is credible.

The statistic shows which advertising channels users trust the most

Which advertising channels do users trust the most? © ayeT-Studios

Paid Methods

With the right budget, there are paid methods for your user acquisition strategy as well. Below, we will show you some of the most effective ones available.

Install Campaigns Based on CPI

With install campaigns, you are able to boost your number of app installs and as a result your ranking in the app stores as well. This leads to higher visibility of your app and consequently to more organic traffic and installs.

The pricing model for install campaigns is CPI, which means you pay for every completed install of your app. There are two different options you can choose from: incent or non-incent campaigns. The former describes install campaigns where users are offered a reward for downloading the app. Here, the results are immediate and your ranking improves significantly. However, there is no guarantee for long-term engagement of your users, which means the effects may be rather short lived.

In comparison, non-incent install campaigns don’t reward a user for downloading your app. They decide to engage with your app on their own accord. Since they are truly interested in your app, the chance of them keeping it for longer is very high. Though, non-incent campaigns are usually more expensive than incent campaigns and it often takes more time before you see any results.

Another, special, type of install campaign is called High Retention Installs – a unique offer by ayeT-Studios. The main idea is only to reward the user if he or she kept your app for at least three days. Like that, your retention rate increases distinctly.

Read a much more detailed article about this topic here.

Use Social Media Ads

Although social media platforms are mostly free of charge, you can also invest some of your budget in social media ads. Since Facebook is the biggest social network, with 1.86 billion monthly active users in 2016, it’s certainly one of the best choices in terms of reach. It’s still wise to consider other platforms such as Twitter, Instagram or YouTube as well.

Communicate with Influencers

Another way of using social media as a paid method for your user acquisition strategy is influencer marketing. Besides the press, as we mentioned earlier, you can also get in contact with so-called influencers. These are people who have large follower bases on different social networks like bloggers, YouTubers or other social media stars. Getting them to recommend your app offers you many potential users since most of these followers trust their idol’s opinion.

Cooperate with Professional Ad Networks

Ad Networks like ayeT-Studios that are specialized in mobile marketing provide a great platform for advertisers to implement user acquisition campaigns. Additionally, you can choose from different pricing models and combine them with your favored ad format. Which one you pick is entirely up to you, your target audience and what kind of app you offer.

Different Media Types for Your User Acquisition Strategy

As there are many different approaches, there are various media for your user acquisition strategy, as well. Below, we explain the most common media types and their main functions in greater detail. Furthermore, we compiled an overview of these types plus some examples for your better understanding. In general, a balanced mix of these media types works very well. However, you have to decide on the exact ad formats that best suit your marketing needs and goals.

The statistic shows the most common formats and channels for your user acquisition strategy

The most common user acquisition formats and channels © ayeT-Studios

Paid Media

This media type includes all kind of paid advertising campaigns during the marketing process. They can appear in the form of various ad formats on any media like tv, print, internet, radio, the cinema as well as out-of-home media (e.g. on billboards). Here, another advertising method is native advertising. The advertiser can decide through which format and content he wants to deliver his message. The downside: This kind of advertising requires quite a large budget.

Earned Media

Earned media describes various content that has been created outside of the company and wasn’t paid for or assigned in any way. These are primarily social media posts (which are organic and might go viral) and contributions or recommendations on review sites. If you practice authentic PR and sufficient CRM, independent media will draw attention to your company.

Owned Media

The term ‘owned media’ includes all content that has been created and published by the company itself. These can be websites, customer magazines, (corporate) blogs and various social media channels and accounts. Oftentimes, this kind of media is referred to as Corporate Publishing, which refers to the communication between the company and its own media channels. Companies check these contents permanently and mark them as company content for customers. However, this could lead to mistrust due to potential biases of the author/publisher.

Paid Media Earned Media Owned Media
Advertising Public Relations Social Media Posts
Sponsored Content (Non-paid) User Reviews Content Marketing
Marketing Collateral
Influencer Marketing Word-of-Mouth Advertising Website
App Store Page

An overview of different media types for your user acquisition © App Annie

A Few Last Tips

To make sure your user acquisition strategy is as successful as possible, we wish to give you a bit of advice. Use these tips during your actual user acquisition campaign!

Don’t Reveal Too Much Too Fast!

Make sure not to reveal everything at once! Announce updates and upcoming features one at a time to keep users curious and interested in what’s new to come.

Constantly Measure Your Success!

For every marketing campaign, it is crucial to know which channels provide the best results. Naturally, user acquisition is a process that changes permanently. Therefore, you have to measure its efficiency and success constantly and, if necessary, change your approach. Otherwise, you won’t be able to detect whether your current user acquisition strategy is worthwhile or pointless.

Continue Testing!

Again, the aim is to know which channels work best for you and your app. Therefore, you have to change your strategy and your methods regularly in order to compare the results and identify the most effective ones.

And Finally: Retain Your Acquired Users!

One of the most important factors for being successful with an app is user retention. Therefore, generating users should not be the only part of your user acquisition strategy. Keep in mind to update your app and reach out to your users regularly in order to retain them as well! For instance, if you chose an incent approach for your user acquisition, make sure to constantly reward your active users.

 

Why User Acquisition Costs Are an Important Metric For Your Business

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In every branch of industry, it is important to establish a wide customer base in order to be successful. To get there, you have to invest all your time, effort and sufficient budget into optimizing your user acquisition. In this article, we will mainly focus on the financial side and explain how to calculate your user acquisition costs. This is a necessary step to measure the efficiency and profit of your business.
The statistic shows average customer acquisition costs by industry: user acquisition costs

Average customer acquisition costs by industry © ayeT-Studios

The essential, and probably most difficult, part of user acquisition is reaching out to the right group of users! Basically, you have to attract interested and loyal users, who want to engage with your product, more precisely your app, for a long time. How do you accomplish that and does it affect your user acquisition costs?

 

What Are User Acquisition Costs Exactly?

Before we can dig deeper into any calculations, we want to give you a short definition of customer, and more specifically user acquisition costs in the case of mobile apps.

Customer acquisition costs (CAC) portray the estimated costs for every new user you acquire for your business. The CAC is an important metric while figuring out if your marketing and user acquisition strategies are effective.

In detail, you can explore the value and worth of every single user to your company. By comparing your user acquisition costs to their lifetime value (CLTV), you can calculate how much you can spend on a potential customer and finally your return on investment (ROI). If your CAC is higher than your CLTV or your ROI, it is time to fix your acquisition strategy immediately!

Click here to learn more about finding the best user acquisition strategy.

Example of an unbalanced business strategy: User Acquisition Costs

Example of an unbalanced CAC to CLTV ratio © ayeT-Studios

How You Can Calculate Your User Acquisition Costs

To calculate your user acquisition costs, you have to determine all the resources necessary to acquire one single new customer first. These resources portray every effort you have to invest, from reaching potential users to converting them into active customers.

Cost Per Install

When calculating your user acquisition costs for mobile apps, this metric correlates with the general understanding of CAC. Since CPI, or cost per install, portrays the costs for ads that trigger installs of your app, this can be compared to the traditional costs of customer acquisition in e-commerce.

However, how much you actually have to pay depends on what kind of ad format you use. Thus, you probably have to invest much more in non-incent banner ads than in incent campaigns through an offerwall.

Cost per install: User Acquisition Costs

CAC

In general, consider the following expenses of your own marketing department when calculating your customer acquisition costs:

  • Employee costs & salaries
  • Paid advertising & agency fees
  • Your own advertising campaigns
  • Digital marketing: maintenance of your website and various social media channels
  • Direct marketing: e.g. mail or email campaigns
  • Print media & company publications
  • CRM & gifts or discounts for your customers
  • Software licenses
  • Events & sponsorships

Try to figure out the amount of each matter of expense as precisely as possible! Your entire calculation will be much more precise.

The general formula for calculating your customer acquisition costs can be applied to any industry. Here, you have to sum up all marketing expenses and divide it by the number of users you managed to acquire in a specific period of time.

calculation of customer acquisition costs: user acquisition costs

However, you aren’t finished just yet! Now, you have to define the lifetime value (LTV) of your users, or in other words your ability to monetize a customer.

Customer Lifetime Value

The customer lifetime value predicts the amount of financial profit and revenue your business generates through any acquired customer. In general, it portrays the worth of your relationship with this customer and refers to his entire lifetime at your company.

Furthermore, the more satisfied users are with your service, the higher their lifetime value. Therefore, you should focus your efforts on providing a great experience for your customers. Depending on what your products and services are all about, you should set relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

For instance, if you have an e-commerce business, you should concentrate on optimizing and accelerating the buying process. Don’t prolong these sessions needlessly since users might abort the purchase – which results in losing a potential customer.

In other fields, like app development, your goal should be to create a flawless product to attract and engage users for longer. After all, you’ll want to maximize retention, session duration and total usage for every user acquired.

Overall, the customer lifetime value depends on these three factors:

  • Monetization – The amount a certain customer contributes to the revenue of your business.
  • Retention – How often a customer returns to your business.
  • Virality – The value of additional users a customer refers to your services and products.

Now, before you can calculate your CLTV, there are a few more metrics you have to gather first.

Average Revenue Per User

The ARPU reflects the average revenue a certain active customer contributes to your company in a specific period. You can use the following formula:

Average Revenue per User: User Acquisition Costs

Churn Rate

The churn rate represents the number of users who no longer engage with your app. Therefore, it indicates the satisfaction of your users with your company. Use this formula to calculate your churn rate:

calculation of the churn rate: user acquisition costs

With these additional calculations, you are finally able to determine your customer lifetime value:

calculation of the customer life time value: user acquisition costs

As a last step, you have to contrast your customer acquisition costs to your customer lifetime value. If the former is higher than your LTV, then your business is not beneficial. In fact, it indicates that you are investing too much in acquiring users without the ability to make any profit in return. In the end, this might lead you and your company to failure.

Therefore, keep in mind to never spend more than you’re able to gain with your active users!

Example for a well balanced business strategy: user acquisition costs

Example of a well balanced CAC to CLTV ratio © ayeT-Studios

Return On Investment

The return on investment, or ROI, helps you measure your profit or loss relative to your budget spend. Hence, you can figure out how beneficial your business really is and compare the efficiency of different investments. Don’t forget to include all further costs of your business as well – like rent, HR, infrastructure, etc!

Return on Investment: User Acquisition Costs

Like CLTV, your return on investment should always be higher than your customer acquisition costs!

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate shows the percentage of users who take a desired action and therefore convert into active customers. These actions can vary from business to business, depending on which products and services are offered. Typical actions are downloading content, signing up for a newsletter, joining a community, getting in contact with a website owner or clicking on display ads.

Additionally, the conversion rate portrays the value of each individual user to your company.

When calculating your user acquisition costs for apps, there are two types of conversions you should mainly have an eye on:

  1. Install / Active Users: Here, you can calculate how many users installed your app based on your mobile user acquisition campaign and converted into active customers by taking a predefined action.
  2. Active Users / User Generated Revenue: This helps you calculate the amount of users that actively engage with your app and take actions to generate revenue, for example through in-app-purchases.

Conversion rate: User Acquisition

How to Reduce Your User Acquisition Costs

After you formed an overall perspective of what you’re spending on acquiring new users, here are some tips to reduce your user acquisition costs. As we learned by now, this is necessary if you want to make a profit with your business.

1. Raise Your Expectations!

Don’t make the mistake of setting your expected user acquisition costs too low! When calculating before you finished the development stage of your company, you have to estimate the result. At this point, you should consider a few challenges that might arise:

  • Exactly know your potentially effective acquisition channels!
  • Expect time delays that might affect your costs!
  • Adjust your numbers according to real-life experiences!

Because of these possible challenges, you should double, or even triple, your calculated costs to prevent any misestimating.

2. Know Who You Should Be Targeting!

To avoid wasting your resources for ineffective marketing channels, define a target audience by creating a specific persona. Then, adapt all your efforts and investments according to the characteristics and interests of this persona.

3. Leverage Your USP!

Give users a good reason to buy your product! The USP, or unique selling point, defines a specific feature of your product that makes it stand out in comparison to your competition.

Emphasize it for your potential customers and focus most of your branding strategy on this information. If you don’t have a USP, users won’t see any advantage in buying your product of all things.

4. Improve Your Content Marketing!

By implementing so-called long-tail keywords into your website content, you automatically improve the chance of generating organic traffic. Since users generally search for longer and more specific keywords if they want to purchase something, they are more likely to find your content!

5. Don’t Just Acquire – Retarget As Well!

Most of the time, it’s much more expensive to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one. If you haven’t establish a customer base just yet, your answer is retargeting. Basically, all you have to do is get in contact and communicate with your potential customers. This is someone who visited your website but didn’t make a purchase.

6. And Last but not Least: Testing!

All these tips won’t have any lasting effect if you don’t know which changes are actually effective. You have to test any content, like your landing pages, home pages or marketing funnels, after modifying them. Even more ideas of possible improvements will arise and you will realize which of your changes work best.

Therefore, doing split or A/B tests regularly is a qualified method to lower your user acquisition costs.

Conclusion

To answer the question we asked at the beginning: Targeting the right users does indeed affect your user acquisition costs! For one, acquiring active, long-term customers plays a major role in the success of your business regarding CLTV. Furthermore, by identifying your most rewarding target audience straightaway, you can even reduce your CAC in the long run.

That’s why you have to calculate and observe your user acquisition costs constantly in order to optimize your strategy.

 

Buy App Downloads – Improve Your App’s Visibility!

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If you want to be successful with your app, the development itself won’t be enough: Publishing your app the right way is the key! You have to promote your creation in order to stand out amongst the competition. As one way to improve visibility, you can buy app downloads. How? We are going to answer your question in this article.

In Google’s Play Store alone, there are more than 2.6 million apps available, and the number is continuously growing.

The number of apps in the app stores grows continuously: buy app downloads

The number of apps in both app stores is growing continuously © ayeT-Studios

As you can imagine, it is very easy for you to get lost in the crowd. But don’t worry: We will show you how to make your app go viral!

Buy App Downloads As Part of Your Marketing Strategy!

To see your own app fail after months of hard work and effort is every developer’s worst nightmare. You can avoid this by creating a sophisticated promotion strategy. Think about your target audience first and find suitable methods to approach these users.

There are many possibilities for you to promote your app. For instance, ASO (App Store Optimization) can help you impact your app’s ranking position before it’s even published. In order to improve findability, you can optimize the name and description of your app along with its app store keywords. Furthermore, by creating an inviting icon and adding significant screenshots or videos, you can optimize the appearance of your app and attract the user’s interest. Read this article for more information and tips on how to use ASO.

Of course, there are many different promotion strategies after you published your app, as well. Depending on your budget, you have the options of free or paid app promotion. Again, feel free to click here if you want to learn more about this topic.

Free App Promotion

For one, you can always use social media platforms or relevant app promotion sites to advertise your app. In addition, you should consider creating a website, a blog and multiple social media channels for your app, to be able to reach out to your users.

Paid App Promotion

In this article, we will focus on explaining how to buy app downloads as a way of promoting your app. Paid installs result in a sudden increase of your app’s ranking, but there are a few things you have to keep in mind.

When you buy app downloads, and the same goes for paid app promotion in general, there are two options to choose: incent or non-incent.

Incent App Downloads

With incent install campaigns, the user will get rewarded for any interaction with your ad. Due to higher ranking positions, this leads to much higher visibility and eventually to an increase of organic traffic. There is also a downside: the effects are rather short-lived and permanent usage of your app can’t be guaranteed. Furthermore, Google and Apple use various criteria next the number of installs to determine your ranking in the App Store and Play Store.

Read more about the factors influencing your ranking in the section below: App Store Keywords.

High Retention Installs

This campaign is a special offer from ayeT-Studios. When you buy app downloads, the user has to keep your app for at least three days before getting a reward. Thereby, your retention rate improves significantly.

Non-Incent App Downloads

In comparison, non-incent install campaigns don’t reward the user for interacting with your app. Users show real interest in getting active, which can be more beneficial for the advertiser in the long run, simply because the chances of further engagement increase significantly. Make sure the rate of loyal users to installs is higher when buying non-incent app installs as opposed to incent installs. This campaign type can be leveraged by banners.

Before you decide on your campaign, beware that higher a retention rate alone won’t make any advertising material more favorable. You have to analyse retention rate in comparison to cost per paid install. The table below clarifies this kind of calculation.

Incent Non-Incent
Cost Per Install 0,10$ 1,00$
Loyal User (Retention Rate) 5% 25%
Cost per Loyal User 2$ 4$

Costs per loyal user as a result from cost per install and retention rate © ayeT-Studios

Nevertheless, every developer has to determine his own concept of a loyal user. For some, this user engages with the app for longer than thirty days. For others, it might be anyone who completed a transaction or the tutorial within the app. As soon as this is set and measurable, the developer can compare different marketing channels and advertising formats.

Buying Incent or Non-Incent App Installs?

In general, there is no clear answer to this question. Every developer has to decide how to buy app downloads. This decision depends on different aspects:

  • Your Marketing Goals – Do you want to boost your app’s ranking while users might not keep it for long? Or do you prefer to generate potential long-term users who show real interest in your app?
  • Your Time – With non-incent install campaigns, it can take quite some time before seeing any positive differences in your app’s ranking.
  • Your Budget – How much money are you able to spend? Often, incent install campaigns are much more cost-effective than non-incent campaigns.

With sufficient budget, combining these two campaigns might be the best option for you to buy app downloads. Initially, you can enhance your app’s ranking to generate organic traffic directly after its launch. At the same time, you are able to reach lasting, interested customers, which improves your retention rate and long-term ranking.

iOS or Android?

This is the question every developer asks himself before creating a new app. In the table below, we compared different features of both app stores to help you decide.

Google Play Store iOS App Store
Higher amount of downloads and installs than Apple. In turn, the number of uninstalls affects your ranking position. In comparison, Apple developers generate higher revenues with their apps. The Apple algorithm considers these numbers for the ranking.
Fast admission process and more freedom with the app’s content. However, there is less guidance which can be detrimental for inexperienced developers. Long process to get the app approved. Developers get a lot of feedback in terms of improvement and why the app was rejected.
Users mostly install free apps. Developers have to find different ways to make profit with their apps. iOS users are generally more willing to pay for great apps.
Featured Positions
Apps get featured in the section “Editor’s Choice” and in each category. The section “Featured” highlights apps for every category on the store’s front page.
The categories “Top New Apps” and “Top New Games” present new free apps, while “Top New Selling Apps / Games” highlight new paid apps. Apps get much more visibility by getting featured in special categories like “Popular Apps”, “App of the Week” etc.
Top Charts: Order by free, paid and top grossing apps, the category “Games” is presented individually. Top Charts: Each category is sorted by “Paid, Free and Top Grossing”.

Some features of both App Stores in comparison © ayeT-Studios

As you can see, both app stores have their advantages as well as disadvantages. Analyze both of them to decide which one will satisfy your own marketing goals and needs.

What to Keep in Mind When You Buy App Downloads

In this last part of our article, we would like to give you some advice for buying app downloads the right way and promoting your app successfully.

1. Free vs. Paid Apps

If you want to buy app downloads, make sure your app is free and available worldwide! This is a requirement of many providers of app downloads and installs.

2. What Happens after Buying App Installs?

Many providers assure you that users will open your app at least once after downloading it. Therefore, your app should be as bugless as possible and catch the user’s interest. If you can convince him or her of its value, the user will be more likely to keep your app. Nevertheless, few download providers can guarantee permanent engagement even after the install and first interaction with the app. Even so, ayeT-Studios offers a great possibility of increasing your retention rate with its High Retention Installs.

3. App Reviews

Don’t buy app reviews, please! We know, many providers offer app downloads and app reviews in combination, which is very compelling. In fact, users often prefer downloading an app with many positive reviews. Imagine: Isn’t it rather conspicuous than believable if your app gets tons of positive reviews in a short amount of time? Yes! Users will notice this contradiction and probably refuse to download your app. Furthermore, both Apple’s and Google’s guidelines prohibit any manipulation of ratings and reviews. Our suggestion would be to try to reach out to your users on a personal level. As an example, you could set up an option for ratings within your app.

4. Volume

Most providers work in a programmatic manner, like ayeT-Studios. As soon as you set a bid, available ad spaces of publishers will be requested in the ad network. Hence, there is no guarantee for any amount of volume as supply and demand determine the market. This is similar to securities trading at the stock exchange. When demanding higher volumes, the price per install or download rises simultaneously since the supply of ad spaces remains stationary over short periods.

To Summarize

Think about your marketing goals before choosing your campaign! Determine your target audience, your time and available budget. In the end, these are the Key Performance Indicators to measure your success and achievement of your goals. ayeT-Studios offers different and fair install campaigns for you to buy app downloads as well.

How to Buy Mobile Traffic – An Important Factor for Your Success

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Today, approximately 2.32 billion people own a smartphone. Reaching these users is crucial when aiming to be a successful entrepreneur. You have to invest all your efforts and budget in acquiring visitors for your app or mobile website. To generate an immediate boost of traffic or app downloads, you can buy mobile traffic. In this article, we show you which options and pricing models are available.

Especially when operating a mobile website or developing an app, you have to understand the importance of mobile traffic and view it as part of your marketing strategy. The following chart shows the increased popularity of using smartphones and tablets to browse the web. By now, smartphone usage even surpassed the usage of desktops or laptops.

Distribution of internet usage worldwide between mobile and desktop: buy mobile traffic

Distribution of internet usage between mobile and desktop © StatCounter

Therefore it is necessary to take a look at your already existing traffic. You can use statistics regarding your mobile website or app traffic to locate any errors in your marketing strategy. This will help you find quick and effective solutions.

The data you get from these statistics portray the visitors of your site and common devices. These are:

  • Page Views – Which site gets the most views? This indicates which subjects, products and services attract new users.
  • Hits – The number of total hits your site gets within a day.
  • Country – Information about the location of your users.
  • Mobile Devices – Manufacturer, operating system (iOS or Android) and exact model of the used device.

For instance, Google provides such statistics plus a thorough report highlighting important data of your mobile traffic with Google Analytics. Thus, it can be of great assistance while optimizing your mobile site or app.

How Google Analytics Helps You Improve Your Own Traffic

Google Analytics shows you which factors affect mobile success. This knowledge can be beneficial when planning your marketing strategy. The report includes mobile websites as well as mobile apps. We explain the main contents and features of this tool below.

Mobile Apps

Additionally to the tool’s basic functions, here you are able to measure your app’s performance in different aspects; such as:

  • Mobile App Audience – Get to know your active users! This data shows how often and long your app is being used, lifetime values and locations of your users. Furthermore, you get an idea of your audience’s demographics (age, gender, etc), interests and preferred devices and operating systems. This information will help you optimize your services to target and retain the right users.
  • Acquisition – See what’s happening from search to download! This includes relevant data about new users, popular market places and your most effective marketing campaigns.
  • Behaviour – Understand your users’ interests! You can see which screens and app content attract and engage users the most. The reports “Crashes and Exceptions” along with “App Speed” locate technical difficulties for you to optimize.
  • Goals and E-Commerce – Measure your conversions and completed actions in order to evaluate your goals! Additionally, you can record your app’s total revenue and required sessions to generate a transaction.

Mobile Websites

If you own a mobile website, you can analyze and optimize various aspects. These include:

  • Amount of Mobile Users – How many of your website visitors use a mobile device? Information like bounce rates, session duration and returning visitors mirror how satisfied users are with your mobile site.
  • Audience – Similar to mobile apps, here you get relevant data about your users’ demographics and interests to target them directly.
  • Platforms – Find out which mobile devices, in detail model and operating system, are predominantly used by your visitors.
  • Locations – The report “Map Overlay” shows you where most of your generated traffic comes from. You can now identify regions which will likely grow in traffic and which are worth targeting.

All in all, the data and information you get from these statistics and reports should help you decide which traffic and form of advertising to invest in. This makes it easier for you to calculate the estimated costs and budget when you buy mobile traffic.

How Can You Buy Mobile Traffic?

After figuring out why you need to buy mobile traffic, it is time to find the right campaign. Ad agencies specialized in mobile marketing, like ayeT-Studios, offer various options for you to choose from. Oftentimes, they are connected to other ad networks – a great possibility for you to reach even more users! This also increases the chance of acquiring users on better terms and generating a large number of new visitors.

We would like to explain in greater detail which different ad formats and pricing models are available.

Which Ad Formats Can You Use to Buy Mobile Traffic and Gain Visitors?

When advertising on mobile websites and in apps you should only use formats that are made particularly for mobile devices. Meaning: They should be adapted to smaller display sizes and entirely visible on every device.

Mobile ad formats come in two types: incent and non-incent. The main difference between those two is the advantage for the user. With incent ads, the user gets a reward when interacting. However, there is no guarantee of further or constant usage of your product by this user. In comparison, non-incent ads won’t reward the user for an interaction. Instead, he acts due to pure interest and is more likely to actually use your product.

Incent Ad Formats for Advertisers at ayeT-Studios:

  • Offerwall – Through an offerwall, you can combine various campaigns within one ad. Here, CPI, CPA and CPE campaigns are the most common.
  • Rewarded Video – This ad format rewards the user for watching a video while generating installs. The assigned pricing model is CPV.

Non-Incent Ad Formats at ayeT-Studios:

  • Banner – Banner, or display ads, appear most commonly as text or image ads on websites or within apps. The campaign types available are CPM, CPC and CPI.
  • Interstitial – Interstitial ads cover the entire screen and typically appear at interruption points. These ads can be part of CPM, CPC and CPI campaigns.
  • Video – Videos are suitable for video distribution channels, but also to indicate the accomplishment of different actions within an app. Videos appear as CPC, CPV and CPI campaigns.

You see, there is a variety of advertising formats you can pick from and combine with your favored pricing model. In the end, your goals and marketing needs determine which campaign fits your product the best.

Click here to get a more detailed insight into mobile advertising and its different ad formats.

How to Buy Mobile Traffic Based on Different Pricing Models

To help you understand the financial side, if you want to buy mobile traffic, we exemplify some of our campaigns and related pricing models below.

Install Campaigns Based on CPI

With the help of install campaigns, you are able to generate new users through an offerwall. The advantages: The user is rewarded and you only pay for every completed install.

Action Campaigns Based on CPA

Action campaigns allow you to set specific actions and goals a user has to accomplish in order to receive a reward. These are actions like completing a level or signing up an account. The offerwall guides the user directly to your app to accomplish your predefined task. At the same time, this results in much higher engagement rates.

Engagement Campaigns Based on CPE

This campaign is a special offer by ayeT-Studios: The user won’t be rewarded for installing your app but for actual engagement time. The longer he/she uses the app the higher the reward – hence the significant increase of total engagement.

Campaigns Based on CPC

CPC stands for Cost-Per-Click, meaning you pay once a user clicks on your ad. This pricing model can be combined with most available campaign types and ad formats.

Campaigns Based on CPM

With CPM campaigns, short for Cost-Per-Mille, you pay for every thousand impressions of your ad.

Video Campaigns Based on CPV

When using the Cost-Per-Completed-View, or CPV, model you pay as soon as a user watches your video ad completely. This campaign type works well as a demonstration of your app’s or your product’s features.

To learn more about this subject, please read our article about Mobile Media Pricing.

ayeT-Studios provides various campaign types to acquire great numbers of new visitors. At the same time, you benefit from our own traffic as well as traffic from cooperations with other ad networks. If you look at our services, you will get an insight on how you can buy mobile traffic.

 

How to Successfully Find New and Non-Competitive App Store Keywords

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To attract potential users for your mobile app, you have to be visible in the app store. One thing to consider is app store optimization (ASO) and especially finding the best app store keywords – one the most difficult but most important elements of ASO.

In the following, we will explain how to find the best app store keywords possible for mobile apps and give insight into appropriate tools and strategies.

The Main Factors of ASO

There is a great variety of adertising formats you can choose from to promote your mobile application. Typical types, as well as special ones for the mobile world, can be used and mixed to generate as much traffic as possible. We have listed the most important models for mobile advertising in this article.

These two key factors lure more users to your app store page: Findability and Appearance.

Findability

To improve findability, the name of your app is a very important point. It should be catchy and already have one or more of your targeted keywords in it.

The description should mention all the features and experiences the user can expect when using your app.

You should also think about creating a brand for your app and promoting it on social media channels to build a remarkable amount of backlinks.

Appearance

The icon is one of the first things users notice about an app. It should be unique and appeal to the user to cause him/her to visit the app store page.

Additionally, screenshots and videos on the app store page emphasize the sales arguments of your app.

A well-produced video can give an overview of the look and feel users will have with your app.

Findability is more important than appearance but one can’t work without the other:

  • If you put all your work in the appearance of your app, maybe nobody will find it.
  • Or your app store page looks plain, having a great name and very potent app store keywords but nobody is attracted by its design

You have to balance these two factors to ensure success for your app. If you are looking for more detailed information, you can read this article about App Store Optimization.

App Store Keywords: Research and Selection

How to find good keywords? One thing is to make sure to choose keywords that are not overused while still being able to compete with other apps.

Great App Store Keywords and Practical Tools

The following steps outline how you should prioritize the different characteristics of keywords:

  1. Relevance – How likely is a user going to download your app if he uses the keyword you’ve chosen?
    You really need to check the environment you’re trying to rank in. If you rank #1 for the keyword “bicycle” and have a shopping app for bicycle parts, it is great, but not precise enough. Ranking #1 for “bicycle shop” would be much better.
  2. Competition – If you rank #431 for a keyword that gets millions and millions of searches, nobody will see your app in the app stores. The majority of users will not scroll that far in the search results. It is better to use keywords, which have less search traffic but for which you are able to rank in the top 10.
  3. Searches – In the end, the amount of searches is what counts! However, it’s very important to work on the first two factors before looking at the number of searches a keyword collects in the app stores.

The importance of this factor is decreasing. The number of searches is not the most important thing for finding app store keywords – it’s the last thing you should take care of. Start with concentrating on 1. and 2. Only work on 3. if you’ve figured out the first two.

Tools To Use

Having talked about the fundamentals of the right approach to picking good app store keywords, we will now introduce you to some services you can use to find the right ones.

There are quite a lot of different platforms you can choose. We listed some of our favorites:

Google Keyword Planner – More Than SEO

Google does not just provide one of the best tools for SEO: You can also extend it as an ASO tool to find the best app store keywords for your mobile application.

It can help you find out how competitive your keyword is in comparison to other apps and how it ranks in a predefined region.

Due to differences in the search volume of web searches and searches in app stores, you cannot expect the ratio to be “1:1”.

Informations about the Keywords "puzzle game" when using the Google Keyword Planner

Results in Google Keyword Planner for the app store keyword “puzzle game” © Google

Reversedictionary.org

Another way to optimize keywords is reversedictionary.org, where you can search for keywords you want to find an alternative for.

This website provides a humongous amount of possibilities. Combining them with, for example, the Google Keyword Planner, you will find awesome new app store keywords.

With reversedictionary.com you can find good working alternatives for your app store keywords

Reversedictionary.org shows words that are connected to your targeted app store keyword © reversedictionary.org

Thesaurus – Finding Synonyms

thesaurus.com offers considerable potential to finding synonyms for an application keyword you have never thought of. The only negative point is: You can only use it in English.

Like reversedictionary.org, it is a good additional tool to find non-competitive and new keywords.

SensorTower’s Keyword Spy Tool – Check Out Your Competitors

A word of warning about this tool first: Please only use the results from SensorTower as an inspiration for your own keywords. Apple and Google don’t plainly disclose keywords.

However, this service can be very useful when trying to find out which keywords your strongest competitors rank with. You can also compare them with the rank of your own app store keywords. Furthermore, you get enormous input for finding new keywords.

You will find a list of websites, which can be used to find the most fitting keywords for your mobile app below.

These providers can help you find new app store keywords or can even tell you which keywords competitors use.

Please keep in mind: You usually have to pay in order to use the full service of these platforms. So you need to find the tool that best fits your needs and budget. If you want to know more about free app promotion check out this blog post.

Keyword Ranking

Finding the most successful app store keywords means you should try to understand what causes a keyword to thrive. The problem is that Google and Apple keep their search algorithms a secret.

Nonetheless, the following aspects can be optimized:

  • Number of ratings: How many users have reviewed and rated your app?
  • Ratings itself: How high/low are they?
  • Amount of downloads: How many downloads can your app generate?
  • Uninstalls: How many people uninstalled your app?
  • Download growth: How did your downloads grow over the last 30 days?
  • Usage frequency: How often is the app used? How long per session is the app used? How many app screens does a user see per session?
  • Links to store page: “Getting people to write about your app improves your search rankings in the Play Store” (Google I/O June 2012).

You will find many tools that help with promoting your mobile application, not only regarding ASO but also in general. Click here to find the best app promotion services available.

App Store Optimization in Google and Apple

Let’s start by comparing factors that influence your app’s ranking in the App Store and Play Store:

Play Store App Store
Downloads ✓ ✓
Revenue (only paid apps) ✗ ✓
App Starts (usage) ✓ ✓
Number & Value of Reviews ✓ ✓
Keyword Relevance ✓ ✓
Recently Updated ✗ ✓
Retention/Uninstalls ✓ ✗
Country ✓ ✓
Social Proof ✓ ✗
Backlinks ✓ ✗

Factors that influence your rank in the app stores © ayeT-Studios

50% percent of traffic on app store pages comes from direct searches in the app store, so you definitely need to optimize yours as much as possible.

The right app store keyword and app name are vital factors for success. Although the App Store and Play Store appear quite similarly, the use of app store keywords and a good app name is very different.

In the next paragraphs, we will describe aspects and differences you should consider of the main two app stores.

Keywords in the App Store

Let’s take a look at how Apple deals with its keywords and where you can place them for your mobile app.

App Name

The app name is limited to 50 characters. You may want to get one of your app store keywords in it but keep it user-friendly at the same time.

Make sure not to use any special characters in your app name (like “copyright” or “trademark”) because your app name defines the URL of your app in Apple’s App Store.

Keywords

When it comes to keywords, Apple has clear guidelines about how many to use and where to put them. You can use 100 characters for your iOS app store keywords. Separate them with commas and use plurals if these fit better to increase your app’s reach.

Sensor Tower offers an easy-to-use tool that helps you count the amount of characters. Like this, you can see how many characters you have left for your keywords.

The keyword character count helps you to optimize you rgiven space in iOS

Counted characters for your app store keywords © sensortower.com

Some more tips regarding app store keywords:

  • Make sure to use all the provided space.
  • Don’t use trademarks as keywords, this could become a problem with its rightholder.
  • It is better to be ranked in the top 10 results with an ordinarily-searched keyword than in the top 100 for a keyword, which is well-searched.
  • Try to find a synonym for an app store keyword if you feel that it’s overused.
  • Never use complete phrases made of several words like “spanish lesson”. It is better to separate them: “spanish, lesson”

Publisher Name

The App Store search algorithm also includes publisher names in its ranking calculations. However, it can be a bad idea to use a keyword in the publisher’s name or at least opinions about this topic are divided. Our tip: Focus on app store keywords in other aspects of your app.

Name of In-App Purchases

This is an unproven factor for ranking in the App Store. It may happen that users find your app by searching the name of your in-app purchases. Only if the search term matches the IAP name exactly. So, this factor should be considered last when trying to optimize your app in the App Store, using your keywords in this section.

Please always keep in mind: Optimizing keywords for iOS is not a thing you do only once. It needs constant measuring, testing and analyzing.

Try your keywords for some time, then change some of them and take a close look at how your downloads increase or decrease or how many new users come to your app. Nothing is constant and static, neither should your keywords.

Curious about more information regarding iOS app promotion? Then check out this article.

 

Keywords in the Play Store

The process of how app store keywords work in general resembles the Play Store. There are some differences in how to integrate them in your app store page. We have gathered how to find, analyze and select the perfect keywords.

Finding

When trying to find good working keywords for Google, you should always think of keywords, which cause the user to download your mobile app. Be creative and don’t use generic keywords.

You have 30 characters for the app name. Google recommends to use “brand + key function”. A very good example is the app “hotels.com” because it combines all aforementioned elements.The app name of "Hotels.com" is a very good example for good ASO

This is how the app “Hotels.com” looks in the Google Play Store © Hotels.com / Google

You should also make sure to use long-tail keywords. Especially if you are a new developer/publisher and don’t have a big brand behind you (yet).

It is always a good idea to take a look at reviews of your app to get input for new or better app store keywords. With this method, you use the language of your users and find suitable keywords for your app more effectively.

You already gained some downloads? In this case, it can be very helpful to use a tool that looks through all the reviews in order to find good new app store keywords, like the one for Mobile Action below.

Take a look at the example below: All reviews were browsed through for the word “fun” and results are shown on the right side. 

With the help of Mobile Action you can search specific words in the reviews of your app.

With the help of “Mobile Action”, you can search your reviews for keywords © Mobileaction.co

Now, you can read through them to find hints for keywords that users associate with your app and the word “fun”.

Like finding app store keywords for iOS, you can also use the service of Sensor Tower for Google and find out what your competitors’ keywords look like.

Reminder: The Google Play Store does not openly reveal the keywords for apps published on its platform. So, please only use these results of your research as educational input.  

Analyzing

You’ve gathered a decent amount about app store keywords and you think they will lead your app to success. Now it’s time to get some hard data and metrics on each keyword.

It is necessary to get the help of an analysis tool for this step. Here, we will use the metric system of Mobile Action. There are two important factors to consider when using this tool:

  • Search Score is the relative number of searches that a keyword receives. The higher the number, the more traffic it gets.
  • Chance is the possibility of the app store keyword ranking in the top 10. The closer you can get to 100%, the better.

This metric system is specific for Mobile Action only. Other providers like Sensor Tower use different calculations to rate the app store keywords.

Selection

Now you can select the app store keywords you want to rank in the top 10 charts with.

In Google’s Play Store, you place the keywords in the description up to 5 times, therefore keyword length is not a big problem.

Don’t make the mistake of targeting keywords, which are highly competitive since it will be really hard to get a decent rank. Try to find easy keywords users will search for to download an app but don’t make the mistake of using generic phrases.

You should choose keywords based on the following criteria in decreasing importance:

  • Download relevance – As mentioned before, you have to select a keyword what users search for to download an app.
  • Ability to rank – Especially for new apps, you should choose keywords with a good chance of ranking highly or that are not difficult to rank with in general.
  • Searches – In the last step, you should look at the amount of downloads your aimed keywords has.

Always remember that the numbers you get from these services do not cover all factors that influence the ranking of your mobile app. Make sure to add well-designed screenshots and videos as well.

Need more information on how to promote Android apps? Click here for more information.

If you are unsure about how to start the search for app store keywords, you can contact ad networks like ayeT-Studios. Not only will they help you with your app store page – they can also push your app’s visibility with various multichannel ad solutions. Like this, you will get the best possible traffic for your app.

 

 

ASO – How to Do App Store Optimization the Right Way

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After months of hard work, you finally finished the development of your mobile app. Now it is available in the app store(s) – but did you consider app store optimization?

This aspect of mobile app promotion is a crucial part when you ask yourself: What makes people download my app and how can I reach more users?

About the App Stores

Various factors are part of app store optimization – visible and invisible for the user. Are there several app markets you need to take into account?

Yes, however within iOS, it is impossible to download apps outside the App Store. Within Android, the number of downloads outside the Play Store are negligible. So, we will focus solely on the two main app stores.

For a start, we have some recent facts about the app stores.

New Apps

In 2016, there were thousands of new apps published in Apple App Store and the Google Play Store:

With these gigantic numbers, it is nearly impossible for your app to be successful without further help from app store optimization techniques.

You must become active to let your app thrive. Of course, there are many different ways to advertise your app: You can place a banner in print magazines, buy a radio or television spot or even rent a billboard. Click here for more information about ad formats that you can use for app promtion.

User Behavior

82% of users never look below the top 25 search results in order to find apps in the app stores.

Additionally, 30% download the app, which is ranked #1, 17% download the app #2 and 12% download the app ranked in third place. If you analyse download rates for search results below the #10 or even further down, it is close to 0%.

From this data, you see how important it is to get a good position in the app stores. If you are lucky, you can get featured in the app stores and get a more visible position.

These featured positions cannot be bought. Instead, apps are chosen by the managers and editors of the respective app store. So, it is in your hand by making use of app store optimization.

Number of new apps per month in 2016

Downloaps per month in 2016 for iOS and Android © ayeT-Studios

You have to optimize your app store page as much as possible to achieve a high rank in the app stores. That’s the only way to receive a good amount of organic downloads and leverage your app.

In this article, we will show you the different aspects of app store optimization and what you have to pay attention to.

There are two important aspects of app store optimization:

  • Findability includes factors that play a role in optimizing the way people find your app. They affect Apple’s and Google’s search algorithm and are mostly text-based: app name, description, keywords and brand name.
  • Appearance includes everything visual about your app in the app search results or on your app store page. With these visual features, you try to convince users to download your app: icon, feature graphic, screenshots and videos.

Findability

Optimizing the findability of your app means taking into account the ranking algorithm and improving your rank with the textual content on the app store page itself.

This is a very important point if you consider using ASO.

App name

The name of your app is relevant regarding different issues:

  • It is one of the first things a user recognizes when he or she looks through the app store.
  • The name plays a key role for the search algorithm of the app stores.

So, you should balance your efforts when creating an app name. It should be catchy and unique and furthermore include one main keyword.

The name should also indicate the purpose of the app and represent its main message.

A very good example for this is the app Letgo: Buy & Sell Used Stuff

 

The icon and head title of the app letgo: Buy & Sell Stuff

The name and icon of “letgo” as it appears in the Google Play Store © Google

In this example, potential users get all the important information about the key functions of the app, and it also has an emotional conjunction.

Do not try to cram as many keywords as possible in the app name. Users will recognize it as spam and won’t visit your app store page – the opposite of what you actually wanted to achieve with your app store optimization.

Description

If you managed to get users to your app store page, you can now show them what your app is capable of in detail.

Both stores offer full descriptions with up to 4000 characters. For app store optimization, we do not recommend using the entire space because most users won’t read that much text. You should instead focus on the main aspects. 

Try to find a compressed phrasing in the beginning because this is declared for the short description. It is always displayed, so if it is interesting and inviting enough, the user will be eager to read more about your app. Your chances for a download increase, so make sure to get straight to the point in this element of app store optimization.

The description should be well-structured and show clearly what the app is about. Try to keep it simple and inviting and list the main features and functionalities of your app. 

A checklist for the perfect app description if you think off app store optimization

A checklist on how to write a good app description © www.appradar.com

Keywords

Keywords are one of the most important things to consider when you doing app store optimization. They help you get a good position when a user searches for a mobile app.

There are three important factors in order to find the best keywords:

Relevance

How relevant is the keyword for your app? Ask yourself how likely it is that a user downloads your app if he or she searches a keyword you have chosen.

You should check the environment you’re trying to rank in. For example:

Ranking #1 for the keyword “bicycle” when operating a shopping app for bicycle parts is great, but maybe a little too inaccurate. Try to rank #1 for the keyword “bicycle shop” instead.

Competition

Try to imagine:

If you rank #481 for a highly frequented keyword which has millions of searches, your benefit will be quite small – nobody scrolls down that far.

Try to rank in the top 10 for a keyword with less traffic instead.

Search Volume

Our tip for app store optimization: Work on relevance and competition before looking at the quantity of searches that a keyword receives in the app stores. The amount of searches is important as a last step.

Click here to read a much more detailed article with insights about finding the right keywords for app store optimization.

Brand & Backlinking – Website, Social Media and Other Channels

Next to the basic information about your app and its features, you also need to insert more detailed information about your app and your company, too.

Brand Name

For app store optimization, you should create a brand relating to your mobile app. Like this, potential users can recognize your app and associate all the benefits they will get from downloading.

At first, you should decide what your brand should be like:

  • Overarching design
  • Visual language
  • What it stands for
  • What experience users should associate with your brand

Landing Page

It is always a good idea to begin with a website for the app. It should be informative and well-designed. Users should get access to all the information they need to learn about all your app’s features.

Make sure to include links to your app store pages in order for the users to get to it without any hurdles. Also ensure to provide contact data to your support team in case a user has a problem or a specific question. Connecting the website to Google or Apple is vital for app store optimization.

Blog

Another factor when creating a brand is to write an interesting blog. This is a good way to keep your users informed about updates of your app and the brand in general. Always use the design and visual language you previously set for your brand.

Social Media

If you create social media channels, you can reach out to many (potential) users very easily. You add all your social media profiles to your app store page so users will be aware of how they can always be up-to-date.

Be sure to choose the right platform and consider to use not only one platform but two or more. All channels that can be used to present your mobile app are important for your app store optimization.

Check out this article for more details about how to use social media for your app promotion.

Try a few channels and analyse which one generates the biggest benefit. There are some more possibilities to leverage social media channels for successfully launching your app.

If you click here, you will find more detailed information about this topic.

Appearance

This category includes all factors that should lead the user to your app store page and download your app. It contains the visual elements that are necessary for your app store optimization.

Icon

The icon is one of the first things potential users see of your app. Thus, you should create an extraordinary and distinct icon that every user understands and recognizes easily. It should invite the user to visit your page in the app store and finally download your app.

Try not to use words in your app icon (but there are good working exceptions!) and keep it simple. The most successful apps, like Spotify, Instagram or Snapchat just use a simple symbol, which makes it easy to recognize their app – a great advantage for app store optimization.

Feature Graphics, Screenshots and Videos

A picture is worth a thousand words; at least if you add screenshots that make it easier for users to understand what your app is about.

Great screenshots emphasize the app’s sales arguments and its unique selling point. Don’t use the same or same looking image twice because users want to get a broad overview of your app.

If you look at the app store page of our app Giftpanda, you will find a good example for simple but useful screenshots. It’s a simple but highly important element for app store optimization.

Examples for the screenshots of the app Giftpanda

This is how the app store screenshots of our app “Giftpanda” look © ayeT-Studios

Differences in App Store Optimization – Google vs. Apple

The App Store and the Play Store are the two main players in the app store market. Although they may look quite similar: The way of optimizing each app store page is different.

Google Play Store

  • The main title can be a maximum of 30 characters long. Use one of your main keywords in the app name.
  • The maximum amount of characters for the description is 4000. Try not to include each of your targeted keywords more than 5 times.
  • The first 167 characters are the most important ones, because the user will definitely see them. For further description, he/she has to use a drop-down menu. So, make sure the beginning of your description is as inviting and interesting as possible.
  • Keywords are pulled from the description, so make sure not to waste characters by using your targeted keyword too often and thus, spoiling your app store optimization. Google will recognize a keyword a maximum of 5 times.
  • Adding screenshots, feature graphics and videos helps a lot with improving the appearance of your app. Make sure these visual elements are well-produced and show the benefits and experiences the user can expect when downloading your app. The maximum amount of screenshots on your app store page is 5 and you should really take advantage of all of them for your app store optimization.

Apple App Store

  • The app name can contain a maximum of 50 characters. Apple advises to choose a length of around 23 characters or less in order to present the full name on every device.
  • Keywords are placed in a designated keyword field. You can use 100 characters to define your keywords. Try to use as many characters as possible, but don’t use generic ones. Don’t double the keywords by using their plural form. You shouldn’t use the keyword “app” itself or unauthorized trademark terms or celebrity names. This can cause legal problems so be sure to use correct terms in your app store optimization.
  • Choose the right category. You can define two categories that your app will appear in. When displayed in the search results, your app will be shown for the first category you’ve chosen. Make sure you select the category that best describes the main function of your app.
  • You can upload up to 8 screenshots of your app, which should show the main functions of your app. A preview video about your app will give potential users even more insight into your app but this feature is only available on iOS 8 or later. Nevertheless, you should use all elements available during app store optimization.
Play Store App Store
Downloads ✓ ✓
Revenue (only paid apps) ✗ ✓
App Starts (usage) ✓ ✓
Number & Value of Reviews ✓ ✓
Keyword Relevance ✓ ✓
Recently Updated ✗ ✓
Retention/Uninstalls ✓ ✗
Country ✓ ✓
Social Proof ✓ ✗
Backlinks ✓ ✗

Differences in factors that influence your rank in the app stores

The main difference in app store optimization between Apple and Google is the utilization of the keywords:

  • In the Google Play Store, the algorithm pulls the embedded keywords from the description.
  • In the Apple App Store, you define your keywords directly in the keyword field.

However, the three important factors (relevance, competition and search volume) mentioned above for keyword use in app store optimization apply to both app stores.

Example Apps

Now that you know about all the different aspects of app store optimization to generate more organic downloads and improve your app’s ranking, we will look at two example apps and analyze their ASO.

Good Example

At first, we will look at a very successful app: “Runtastic – Running & Fitness” managed to be one of the leading apps in the fitness sector, using all elements of app store optimization.

App name

It may seem surprising but you should consider changing your app name for the sake of app store optimization. A search optimized app contains its most important keyword in the app name.

The App “Runtastic – Running & Fitness” is a great example for the use of app store optimization regarding your app name.

Currently (January 1 2017) Runtastic is ranked

  • #1 for the search term “ running”,
  • #7 for the term “fitness” and
  • #7 for the keyword “run”.

For the keyword “run”, the app is even able to compete with endless runner games (a game type that typically tries to target that keyword).

For the user it is also very clear what the app is about. It has a great portmanteau from the words “run” and “fantastic”. Also, two of the main keywords are in the title.

The icon shows a conventionalised person, who is running along a trail. Users get a very good idea of what the app is about, just from the icon – the perfect basis of app store optimization.

The icon and head-title of the app Runtastic: Running & Fitness

This is how the app “runtastic” looks when a user sees it in the Google Play Store © Google

Screenshots & Videos

The app store page of “Runtastic” is flawless in all aspect. If the user visits the page, the second thing he sees is a video and screenshots. To see the video, he/she has to start it but the thumbnail already gives a first impression of it, showing a smartphone with the opened app.

The first screenshot alone gives the user crucial information what the app does in detail. He/she sees that the app tracks basic fitness metrics like workout duration, running distance and calories burned.

It also shows a map so that the user understands the app’s tracking function and path visualization. These visual elements of app store optimization are applied in the best possible way.

The presentation of screenshots and video of Runtastic in the app store.

The screenshots and the video of “Runtastic” are very well chosen © Runtastic

Description

The user already gets an idea about the app’s functions just reading the app name and/or watching the screenshots.

However, the first sentence of the app description is a very good example of how to start your description during app store optimization. It directly introduces a key function of the app: GPS tracker.

The description of the app runtastic

The description of “Runtasic” is very well written © Runtastic

From this optimized app store page, the user gets all important information within 10-15 seconds. If the user is for a fitness or running app, he or she is very likely to download it.

Bad Example

In the final part of this article, we do not want to mock a specific app but rather analyse which aspect could be improved regarding app store optimization. Every app needs refinements to get a better ranking.

App name & icon

In this section, we will take the app “Santa Park – Running Game” as example.

Theoretically, the name of the app is quite good. It is not complicated, can be used with regard to branding and also has two main keywords in it –  app store optimization was well implemented.

Is the app name well chosen in terms of relevance, competition and search volume? We will discuss that in more detail below.

The icon is not on the same level as the app name:

  • On one hand, it is neatly designed and has a connection to Christmas.
  • On the other hand, it doesn’t hint at what features to expect from the app.

The developer could think about adding gaming elements to the icon, e.g. an element regarding movement since it is a jump and run game.

The name and the icon of the app Santa Park - Running Game

The icon and keyword of the app “Santa Park” © Fuboo Games

Keywords

Using Sensor Tower, we found out that “Santa Park” ranks for the keywords

  • “Santa”,
  • “Park”,
  • “Running” and
  • “Game”

However, the app is not able to rank in the top 10 (or even top 100) in any of them.
First of all, these keywords are all simply part of the app’s name and very unspecific. It definitely requires app store optimization to make the app competitive.

Imagine the following situation: If a user searches the word “game”, he/she will maybe already have a specific type of game in mind and will not download a jump and run game.

It is a good idea to use a more particular keyword like “Santa Running Game” or “Santa ´Game” because users who are looking for this combination are more likely to get to your app store page.

Secondly, 3 of these keywords (“Santa”, “Running”, “Game”) are in a very competitive environment when it comes to the value of searches and number of searches. This lowers the chances of ranking within the top 10 significantly.

Another negative aspect is that “Running Game” is quite a generic term. The app developer should try to think of better keywords for his app store optimization. We recommend to use less competitive keywords with lower search volumes but also a lower number of apps targeting for those keywords.

Screenshots

Looking at the screenshots, we recognize another issue: There are only 4 screenshots and no video to present the app visually. Every screenshot looks pretty much the same and the first and second screenshot are in fact the same.

This is not the best way of generating potential users. For app store optimization, we recommend adding some additional screenshots, which show various parts of the game, like the main menu or i.e. the level selection.

Especially for a mobile game, a demo video is crucial. The user can see, for example, how fast/slow the game runs and whether or not it satisfies his expectations.

Description

The description has been worked out better. It uses 3996 of the 4000 given characters and the is well structured. Although, the description tends to be pretty generic.

From a user’s point of view, we don’t see any benefit from downloading “the most addictive mobile game ever created”, especially if the description does not further describe why it is so addictive.

We cannot get this information from the screenshots, nor can it be found in the description. The developer missed the chance to make clear the real value of his app, which can be corrected with app store optimization. 

There is a link to a website of the app but unfortunately it’s just a website to leave comments for the developer without additional information.

Social Media

There is also no activity on any social media channel. That makes it more difficult to get attention for your app or to stay in touch with your users for receiving important feedback for improvements.

All in all, there are some aspects regarding app store optimization the developer of “Santa Park – Running Game” needs to edit. If he/she improves them, the ranking of his app will increase and more traffic will come to the app store page of his/her game.

Getting the Best Results in App Store Optimization

App store optimization is not a one-off: You need to monitor and improve your app’s settings permanently to give your app a good ranking. This implies hard work in all elements of your mobile app. If you are not sure about this process and you want to pass this task to experts:

ayeT-Studios offers a personalized app promotion strategy for Android and iOS app developers. With their multichannel ad solutions, they can reach a bigger audience to help your application go viral.

 

At the end of this article, we want to give you a comprehensive infographic about all the things you should take care of in app store optimization. Feel free to share it and put in onto your website!

Icon of the Google Play Store

How to Effectively Promote Android Apps

/in /by

If you’ve picked Android as your operating system, you need to promote your Android app in the most effective way to get awesome results.

Navigation

1. The World of Android Maket Share | Play Store
2. Free Android App Promotion ASO | Free Channels
3. Paid Android App Promotion Ad Agencys | Incent vs Non-Incent
4. Insider Tips Alternativ App Stores | Google AdWords

The World of Android

Before we start, let’s look some basic information about Android itself.

Market Share

According to TechCrunch, Android hit 86.2% market share in Q2 of 2016 (while iOS had a market share of 12.9%). Android can be used by different mobile manufacturers, hence it isn’t surprising that it is so popular worldwide.

This popularity makes it harder to publish and promote Android apps: Since every device manufacturer has different standards, it’s a tough road to provide the best UX for all Android users.

Statistics about how the amount of sold smartphones grew in the last years

The need for good mobile app promotion has risen in the last few years © ayeT-Studios

The Play Store

There are +2,000,000 Android apps available on Google Play Store, with thousands of new mobile applications being published on a monthly basis.

Most apps downloaded from the Play Store can be downloaded for free by the user. The statistics of Statista show that only 4% of the 100 highest-grossing apps in the U.S. require payment for usage.

So, choosing the right monetization model is an important factor for Android app promotion to increase their apps’ popularity. Android users do not like to spend money for mobile applications unless they are really worth it.

Promote Android Apps for Free

Let’s get started: How to promote Android apps in the most effective way without paying any money for it?

You can choose between many services that are ready to boost your app’s visibility. Let us show you steps you can take by yourself first.

There are several things you can do to promote your Android app’s discoverability. Since they are for free it is the perfect solution for a tight budget.

ASO on Google Play

To give your app the best ranking possible, the first thing you can do within your Android app promotion strategy is optimizing its page on the Play Store.

Nobody knows how Google’s algorithm works in detail. But be sure: The information on your app’s Play Store page is one of the most important factors, so arrange it right.

App Name

This is where ASO to promote Android apps starts:

The app name is the textual flagship of your mobile app and the place you have to combine creativity, function(s) and keywords – all in one title with 30 characters.

App Description

In the app description, you’re also limited by a maximum of possible characters (4.000). Set your focus on the first 167 characters to promote your Android app because they will always be displayed.

The description contains all the information about your app that is necessary for the user. If you can make it attractive, users might want to take a closer look at your app.

You should make sure to use your keywords no more than 5 times in the description. Google will filter them out for keyword searches.

Keywords

Relevance, competition and search volume – these are the elements that will count for the correct choice of your app store keywords when promoting Android apps.

If you are not sure how to select the right ones, you can click here for detailed information about ASO keywords.

App Icon

App name and app icon: These two things are the main focus of attention when mobile users first check out new apps.

When you create the app icon, it needs to be consistent with your app’s design. Otherwise, it will have a negative effect on your Android app promotion.

You can take a look at competitive apps in your app category to catch some ideas.

Screenshot & Feature Graphics

Mobile users have access to the so-called feature graphic, which is the small picture at the top of the page. It is a plain yet expressive picture, containing app name or icon only. Make sure not to forget it when you promote Android apps.

Potential users always want to see what your app can do before downloading it. With screenshots, you can perfectly show them features, feelings and use of your Android app.

Video

People love videos, so you can take advantage of it when you promote Android apps and create a short clip. Demonstrate what your app can do and why users should download this app.
The amount of Android Apps in the Play Store from 2009 to 2015

The amount of Android apps in the Play Store is growing steadily © ayeT-Studios

Your Channels for Your App

Now that your Play Store page is perfectly curated, you can get down to all the other channels. Spread the word and promote your Android app wherever possible.

Social Media

The perfect place to let your app circulate around the worldwide web is social media. Everybody knows about social media outlets and, for example, with an average of 1.15 billon active mobile Facebook users in December 2016 (as stated in the Facebook newsroom), there is quite a big potential for attracting new users in there.

You can take the chance and register your mobile app on the main channels and share

  • a post (Facebook),
  • a tweet (Twitter),
  • a picture (Instagram) or
  • a short video (Snapchat)

with your target audience. Check out this article about the perfect app promotion with social media.

App Website

Users don’t want and need every single detail on the Play Store page. However, if you create a landing page for your app, users can take some time and take in all the information about your mobile app, your company and all other channels.

You will convey way more reliability by presenting a well-designed website for your Android app promotion and your company. Bear in mind to make it suitable for mobile devices, too.

External Websites, Forums and Blogs

Another step you should definitely take when working on Android app promotion is publishing it on other websites than your own and in hopes of making it go viral.

There are many review websites where mobile apps are rated and tested (just like nearly every product nowadays). Users might take a look around and search for certain app categories or even app names.

When you are listed on such websites, you can increase your app’s discoverability. The good thing is: There are app review sites where you don’t have to pay for such a service. All you need to do is register your app or contact the website admin. You can very easily promote Android apps this way.

In forums, like-minded people chat, discuss and share information about their favorite interests. Mobile technology lovers could be interested in your app, so you should definitely take the chance to register as a user and examine potential forums. Maybe you will find some to promote your Android app.

Another idea to promote Android apps are blogs. You can either create your own and give users insight on your app, news, updates, and so on.

Furthermore, you can contact bloggers to give a word about your app. If you can convince them of your app idea, they will show it to their audience.
More app promotion sites are listed here.
Distribution of paid and free apps in Google Play Store

How paid and free apps are distributed in the Google Play Store © ayeT-Studios

Paid Promotion to Promote Android Apps

The afore-mentioned strategies already represent a great start to promote Android apps.

Is there more you can do to give your app a real kick? Yes, there are plenty of promotion services you can choose from if you invest some money.

Ask an Ad Agency

Many steps to promote Android apps can be taken by professionals in this business. Ad agencies have access to a widespread network they perform in and work with.

Furthermore, they collaborate with various people and channels on different media to offer the best adjusted service to promote Android apps.

Incentivized or Non-Incentivized?

This is an important question, not only for your budget, but also for your traffic and user behavior.

We will explain both types to you with regard to promoting your Android app. However, our tip is: It’s always a good choice combining both strategies to get the best effect.

Incentivized

This ad model includes the exchange of items (e.g. virtual currencies or game items, upgrades, discounts, etc.) for user interaction.

More precisely: When a mobile user downloads/uses/interacts with your Android app, he/she will receive a reward for this behavior.

This model is cheap when choosing it for Android app promotion but leads to early abandonment of your mobile app, too. The most common ad formats exercising this model are offerwalls and rewarded videos. There, users have the chance to receive rewards if they complete tasks at hand.

Non-Incentivized

The non–incentivized ad model promotes Android apps without the exchange rewards. It simply means that engagement generated with the app were solely out of initial interest in the app, yet there is no guarantee the user will complete any further action.

The main advantage of non-incentivized app promotion strategies is that the users have no virtual benefit associated with the install of the app and that is why they are more likely to keep it and use it lately. This will bring great results when you promote Android apps.

The basic mobile ad formats for non-incentivized strategies are banners, interstitials, natives and videos. Users will start using the displayed mobile app if the ad attracts the sheer interest of the people in the app.

Click here for more detailed information about mobile app promotion and ad formats.

Pricing Models Incent – Ad Formats Non-Incent Ad Formats
CPI Offerwall Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPA / CPE Offerwall –
CPC – Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPM / CPV Rewarded Video Banner
Interstitial
Native
Video

Typical ad formats and their pricing models © ayeT-Studios

Pricing Models

There are various pricing models available for Android app promotion. To make sure that you receive the best results with your strategy, here are some of the basic media pricing models:

  • CPA: Cost Per Action (payment for a certain action)
  • CPE: Cost Per Engagement (payment for an interaction – ayeT-Studios offers this type for direct engagement time!)
  • CPI: Cost Per Install (payment for an install)
  • CPM: Cost Per Mille (payment for every 1,000 impressions)
  • CPV: Cost Per Completed View (payment for watching a video)

You want to learn more about the most common pricing models? Check out our mobile media pricing article.


Insider Tips


Promoting your Android app with the methods we discussed will already improve your app’s discoverability noticeably.

Now, we have some tips that might lead to even more success for your app.

Make Use of Alternative App Stores

Google Play is the biggest and most famous store for Android apps. Additionally, there are way more app stores that contain apps based on this OS.

Although publishing an Android app directly in Google Play seems to be the most attractive option, there are many advantages for choosing third party app stores to promote your Android app.

Target Audience

It is hard to get access to some countries and their users, either due to national regulations or because of the popularity of regional app stores. If users have more trust in these stores than in Google Play, you will barely attract potential users from these regions.

Take China as an example, where Google Play is not even available to promote your Android app at all.

App Category

When users want to download an app from a specific category (e.g. games) there are app stores available that specialize in certain classes.

For example, the Chinese app store “D.cn Games Center” has set its focus on mobile gaming. If you promote your Android app in such stores you can be sure to reach the perfect target audience for your application.

Revenue Share Model

While Google offers a 70/30 revenue split, some alternative app stores offer app developers a higher percentage. “Soc.io Mall” distributes revenue 80/20 – in favor of app developers.

Furthermore, these app stores also offer various tools to promote your Android app’s visibility. Such elements are not given in the major app stores, which is a great benefit for app developers.

Mobyaffiliates gathered some data about alternative app stores, their users and downloads. These numbers are quite impressive: AppChina has 30 million users, with 600 million apps downloaded monthly.

These facts prove that publishing and promoting Android apps in other app stores mostly carries advantages for your app. It should be definitely worth a thought.

Get Connected with Google AdWords

This online advertising tool by Google lets you promote products via various ad formats, displayed on different channels. You can promote Android apps with it, too.

There are two campaign types you can choose from:

Universal App Campaign

This option lets you promote Android apps via different ad formats and on several networks available by Google. Text and visual elements are taken from your app’s app store page (one more reason for ASO).

This campaign type is based on a CPI bidding system, meaning you can choose how much you are willing to pay for users installing or first-opening your Android app. Thus, you can promote your Android app and increase your marketing budget if results are great.

Mobile App Installs Campaign

With such campaigns, you target only one network to generate app installs. Depending on the specific campaign model, you can choose between CPA, CPV, and CPI as bidding option to promote your Android app.

There are three different campaign models, each of them target a different network:

  • Display Network app installs campaigns (text or image app install ads)
  • Search Network app installs campaigns (text app installs ads on)
  • TrueView for app installs campaigns (video ads on YouTube)

According to your Android app promotion strategy and your target audience, you can select the campaign type that best fits your needs.

With its bidding system, you can adjust it to your current marketing budget. Click here for more information about mobile app installs campaigns with Google AdWords.

Get Connected with ayeT-Studios

Ad agencies like ayeT-Studios provide different kind of app promotion services for both Android and iOS. With their multichannel ad solutions, they can tap into a wide variety of different channels to optimize campaigns across publishers. Facebook and Google only combine for around 50% of the mobile advertising market, leaving behind a big chunk of other (often times cheaper) opportunities to promote your Android app.

Combined with the optimization across ad formats and pricing models, ad agencies like ayeT-Studios can offer a highly competitive alternative to Facebook and Google to promote your Android app. Try it yourself!

Beneath, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$

Apple in rainbow colours

Effective Strategies to Promote iOS Apps

/in /by

There are many criteria for developing a mobile app for Apple’s App Store. Developers need to have an idea about how to promote iOS apps to make sure that its visibility improves constantly.

We collected some basic facts about proper iOS app promotion.

Navigation

1. Andoid vs iOS The App Store | Distribution
2. Basic Knowledge ASO | Own and Other Channels
3. Paid iOS App Promotion Incent vs Non-Incent | Pricing
4. Promotion via Apple Search Ads | Editorial Choice

Android vs. iOS App Market

People mostly decide between the two big giants of the mobile world: Android and iOS.

The same decision goes for app developers because they rarely upload an app to both operating systems. Here are some facts about the rivals.

Apps In The App Store

As an iOS app developer, you should first analyze the desire and behaviour of your target group to understand what your future users will expect from apps like yours. Regarding differences between iOS and Android apps, it is shown that:

  • There are less indexed iOS app downloads than for Android.
  • The aggregate app revenue is higher in the App Store than in the Google Play Store.
  • Prior to release, Apple’s review process conducts more thorough app checks in comparison to Google.


Android’s number of downloads is pushed by many different markets and their demand. Apple users are willing to pay more money in the App Store.

Furthermore, Apple sets its focus on high-quality apps for its users and monitors more strictly with regard to iOS app requirements.

Distribution of OS Versions

Both Google and Apple constantly publish updates of their operating systems to provide the best possible service. How many users are really using it?

Many different devices use Android as their operating system, meaning there is a wide range of factors that should be kept in mind to reach as many potential app users as possible. Additionally, according to the official site for Android Developers, most of these mobile devices have Android 4.4 (21.9%), 5.1 (23.1%) or 6.0 (30.7%). Only 1.2% are used with its latest version Nougat.

The Apple Developer site, in contrast, states that 79% of its users have iOS 10 and 16% of their mobile devices are used with iOS 9.

This leads to the following conclusion: iOS users have a high-quality standard and are technically up-to-date in most cases.

These quality standards also affect the concept of your App Store promotion.

A world map where you can see which mobile OS is used most in which country.

Where are iOS and Android predominant? © DeviceAtlas

Basic Knowledge on How to Promote iOS Apps

As an app developer, it may seem difficult to figure out an app store promotion concept by yourself. Don’t worry, there are some basic steps that everyone can realize to promote their iOS app and give it the best start position possible. The good things is that they can all be performed by yourself, meaning you can save money, too.

App Store Promotion: DIYs

There is no special know-how you need for taking the basic steps in iOS app promotion. The following ones only require a little time investment for improving the app’s appearance and discoverability.

Click here to find a complete guide for your free app promotion.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Even before publishing your app, you can already optimize its features and appearance in the App Store. If you improve these factors to promote your iOS app, it will improve its rankings and consequently guarantees more organic users.

There are various elements that play an important role for your app’s ranking:

App Name

Here you need to make a good first impression since this one of the two elements users take a look at. Apple has set the limit to 50 characters so no keyword spamming, please!

Your app name should present its main idea, combined with your brand name and some creative features. In combination with the main keyword(s), this is the perfect start to promoting your iOS app.

Keywords

100 characters are allowed for your app’s keywords, so they should be choose wisely.

Our tip: If you avoid spaces (and use commas instead) you create more opportunities of keywords combination. You will rank for far more keywords than if you separate them.

There are many criteria for which exact keywords app developers should use to make the best of their iOS app promotion.

  • Relevance
  • Competition / Rankings
  • Search Popularity / Volume

The right choice of keywords can have an important impact on your app’s visibility. You can find various ASO tools for the App Store that will help you create a list with the best keywords to promote your app in iOS. Learn all about how to find the right keywords for your app in our detailed article.

App Icon & Screenshots

The app icon is THE visual eye catcher in the App Store. Make sure it is coherent with your whole app design and its idea as well.

When uploading screenshots of your app, try to show the main features of the app. Users will get a feeling about how your app works and what visuals they can expect.

Of course, they should be of high-quality, so don’t hesitate to hire a graphic artist for this task: It will definitely be worth it! Great design means great results for your App Store promotion.

App Description

Here you can present all the great features of your iOS app to convince new users to download it. You need get to the heart of your app in the first 3 lines because this is what users will see first.

Before uploading your app description, make sure that there are no grammatical errors or typos. The same goes for translations: If you hire a translator, you will get the better results and promote your iOS apps more effectively.

We have set our focus on only some elements in this article. Click here to find a more detailed explanation about ASO.

Comparing App Store Revenue in 2014 and 2015 by different countries

App Store Revenue in China, Japana and the United States increased from 2014 to 2015 © ayeT-Studios

Creating Your Own Channels

Now that your app is perfectly embedded in the App Store, it is time to take the next step to promote your iOS app.

There are many ways to use online and other media channels to promote your iOS app. Nearly everybody has some kind of profile in the world of social media. But not only people are registered on these channels:

Companies use Facebook, Twitter & Co to present their services and products to their audience, always keeping them up-to-date.

You can create your profiles and start your iOS social media app promotion straightaway.

Why not create a landing page for your iOS app? On this website, you can present all the information about your app and also provide brand and company details. Make sure that the website is also suitable for mobile devices. Like this, you can be sure to reach all potential users during your iOS app promotion.

Other Channels You Can Take Advantage Of

To help your mobile app go even more viral, you should not only use your own channels but also contact other people to write an article or a review about your app. This way, you can expand the reach of your media coverage when promoting your iOS app.

There are many websites that offer app reviews and promotions for free. You can let your app get listed and let the admins write a review, giving basic information about your app and its features, too. Check out this article for more information.

You can also get in touch with editors and ask them to publish a line about your iOS app. Since they receive many requests every day, you should be well prepared and gather all the needed information in a press release – if your app is good enough, some editors might give it a try; a nice extra for your iOS app promotion.

Nowadays, there are blogs or video channels about every topic that people might be interested in – even techies find websites with gossip and news about mobile devices, equipment and apps. Share your app with these kinds of influencers and give them a good reason why they should promote your iOS app on their channel. If it suits their content, they will at least tend to take a look at it.

Most of the afore mentioned optimization tricks will directly help you improve your app ranking in the App Store. You will drive organic downloads, which is the cheapest way of generating installs.

Other channels like social media or building a website are a more passive way of driving installs. They won’t help with improving your ranking directly (at least not for the Apple App Store), but will build your brand in the long run, leading to word-of-mouth advertising and hence more downloads.
Check the table below to see what works best for iOS and for Android ASO.

Play Store App Store
Downloads ✓ ✓
Revenue (only paid apps) ✗ ✓
App Starts (usage) ✓ ✓
Number & Value of Reviews ✓ ✓
Keyword Relevance ✓ ✓
Recently Updated ✗ ✓
Retention/Uninstalls ✓ ✗
Country ✓ ✓
Social Proof ✓ ✗
Backlinks ✓ ✗

Differences in rank-influencing factors in the app stores © ayeT-Studios

Paid iOS App Promotion

If you are not sure about how to set up and start your iOS app promotion concept, you can take experts on board, too.

Ad Networks

Contact ad networks, who offer various kinds of services to promote iPhone apps. Depending on your budget, they will create a personalized app promotion strategy, including various mobile advertising formats.

Click here if you want to know more about ad networks.


Incent vs Non-Incent

You can choose if you want to use a method of rewarding users or not.

So-called incentivized offers give users an incentive for interacting with the app. The greater the attraction, the more users are willing to use the app. Such rewards can be items or other currencies for apps.

Potential users can also be encouraged to install and use a mobile app that is displayed on their mobile device – without receiving a reward for it. This is called non-incentivized offers, based on the true interest of potential users in your iOS app.

Which type of offer you should use for your iOS app promotion mostly depends on your app promotion strategy and your marketing budget. There are big differences in pricing for both types. Take a look at this article for more information about these 2 offer types.

Ad Formats

These are the most common ad formats used in mobile advertising for iOS app promotion. You can divide them into 2 groups.

The typical incent ad formats are:

  • Offerwall: Several offers are shown. When completing one, users will receive a reward.
  • Rewarded Video: Like non-incent videos they will play and show an end card at the end. However, in this case, users receive an incentive for watching the video. The install itself is always non-rewarded. Therefore, this ad format is basically a mixture of incent and non-incent advertising.

And these are non-incent ad formats:

    • Banners: The cornerstone of mobile advertising. They are obvious ads on the mobile display.
    • Natives: The modern banner, which is integrated seamlessly into the rest of the mobile content.

  • Interstitials: A full-screen banner that needs to be closed for continuing your activities.
  • Videos: They play on the user’s display and show an end card (interstitial with an invitation to download the app).

Pricing Models

Depending on your iOS app promotion goals, it can make sense to choose different pricing models. To help you get an overview, we created a table below to match pricing models to the most common ad formats for incent and non-incent advertising.

You want to learn more about the most common pricing models? Check out our mobile media pricing article.

Pricing Models Incent – Ad Formats Non-Incent Ad Formats
CPI Offerwall Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPA / CPE Offerwall –
CPC – Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPM / CPV Rewarded Video Banner
Interstitial
Native
Video

Typical ad formats and their pricing models © ayeT-Studios

Promote Your iOS App Via Apple


Apple itself also offers some services to iOS app developers for boosting app discoverability.

Search Ads

With Search Ads, iOS app developers are able to place their app on top of search results. Since more than half of the app downloads are generated through search resluts in the App Store, this is a great opportunity to promote your iOS app more effectively.

With its self-service dashboard, creating a Search Ad campaign is very easy. There is no minimum spend for it and costs are only incurred if users tap the ad. Apple has set a bidding system for this feature, which makes it possible to set a price according to your current budget.

Earlier in this article, we talked about ASO and how important it is to provide the best possible information and graphics. You can take advantage of this metadata through “Search Match”. This feature takes metadata about the app from the App Store for your iOS app promotion.

You can also either use keyword recommendations made by Apple or select keywords on your own, just like with Google AdWords. However, it is not possible to change the ad creative, this data will only be taken from your metadata.

Furthermore, relevance is more important than bidding regarding apps being displayed via Search Ads. Here, Apple again shows that it prefers high-quality to monetization. So, when you already did a great job on your ASO, you can draw on it.

Check out Apple’s website for more detailed information.

Apple’s Editorial Choice

This is no direct promotion tool for app developers but it may attract them to create the best app possible. Apple’s editors continually choose great iOS apps that are displayed in these special sections of the App Store – so Apple will promote your iOS app.

Next to its appearance, features and quality, your app can also get the chance to be placed by lowering its price for a limited time. So, you might consider offering a discount from time to time.

Statistics about how many free and paid iOS apps are online in contrast to Android

Free and paid app distribution for iOS in comparison to Android © ayeT-Studios

Last But Not Least: Monitoring

This aspect affects every piece of your iOS app promotion, no matter if you started it on your own or with an ad agency. You should always keep an eye on your data, statistics and results for your iOS app to make sure you invest in the right place at the right time.

Basically, this means that you have to change information and elements to see which way works best for your app. Especially in ASO, keywords can be switched to measure which ones are returning the best results.

Promote Your iOS App with ayeT-Studios

ayeT-Studios is specialized in app promotion for both iOS and Android. With its mobile ad solutions, it belongs to the leading ad agencies in the mobile market.
Below, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$

Basics of Mobile App Promotion

The Basics of an Efficient Mobile App Promotion

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Nowadays, people browse the internet through mobile devices and – more importantly – spend more than thrice as much time in apps compared to mobile browsers. Consequently, you need a waterproof concept for your mobile app promotion.

In the following, we will present great strategies to ensure that people find and download your app.

When Mobile Overtook Desktop

Since the mobile sector increased with reference to internet usage in the last years and finally overtook desktop computers, the need for mobile apps and mobile app promotion grew, too.

Companies, brands, traditional media – they are all adapting their services to mobile formats to expand their audience and stay in contact with their customers more easily.

In 2016, the average time spent in mobile apps per day was more than 3 hours, which is triple the amount in comparison to 2011. The time spent in mobile browsers didn’t even double in this time period to an amount of approximately 50 minutes per day (according to eMarketer).

Since the general time spent on mobile devices is increasing steadily, the amount of usage of mobile browsers amounts to 10% only. This emphasizes the need for a well-designed mobile app promotion.

The average time US users spent with mobile internet

Time spent with in-app vs. mobile web in the U.S. © ayeT-Studios

You can see the consequences of this process in the masses of competitors if you want to build an app.

Business of Apps released statistics stating that the total number of mobile app developers worldwide is higher than 8.7M. The amount of mobile apps available is even higher.

This high level of competition also underlines the necessity of a successful and well-planned mobile app promotion.

The 5 Factors for Successful Mobile App Promotion

What makes a strategy for your mobile app promotion successful? It’s not about taking only one measure and expecting tremendous results.

We collected the 5 main factors for your mobile app promotion that will make your app go big.

Paid Ads – User Acquisition

With mobile app promotion, developers want their apps to become popular. This can only be achieved if as many people as possible use the app on their mobile devices.

Acquiring users can be tricky since there will be various apps with the same character as your mobile app.

To attract users for your product you need to think about:
(1) Where should it be promoted?
(2) How should it be promoted?
(3) Who should promote my mobile app?

Here are some basics about these aspects for your mobile app promotion strategy.

(1) Media Channels

You can use all media channels that are present today to start your mobile app promotion. If it’s social media pages that you create, websites for your product or a TV clip:

The more budget you have, the more channels you can use to advertise your app during your mobile app promotion.

Since you want to attract new users, you should choose ways to get in touch with them directly on the channels they frequently use.

(2) Ad Formats & (Non-)Incent Advertising

If you choose an ad network for your mobile app promotion, they will offer you different kinds of usable ad formats. Each company has its own focus on certain aspects but there are some basic advertising formats for mobile app promotion we want to present:

Incent AdFormats:
– Offerwall: Several offers are shown to users. When they choose and complete an offer they will receive a reward in exchange.
– Rewarded Video: People love videos and their importance in mobile advertising has grown in the last few years. So-called rewarded videos also offer an incentive if people watch the full video. At the end of the video an end card (interstitial) is presented to the user with an invitation to download the app.

Non-Incent AdFormats:
– Banners: Banners are the classic part of advertisement in the mobile market, being shown in some part of the screen. You can clearly see that banners are ads because of their inconsistency with the rest of the screen.
– Native: In contrast to banners, their modern brother – a native ad – is built into the website or app in a way that it is perceived as part of the original content of the app or website.
– Interstitial: It works the same way as a banner with the difference in its size because interstitials cover the full screen. You need to click it away to continue the game, return to the menu, or to start the next level.
– Video: Just like with rewarded videos, users will watch the video and see an end card afterwards. The only difference is that the users won’t get rewarded for watching the video.

5 different ad formats that can be used for user acquisition

Basic ad formats for mobile app promotion © ayeT-Studios

You can also buy incent and non-incent installs for your app. This article will show you how to use them for your mobile app promotion.

(3) Ad Networks

Many companies nowadays offer mobile advertising to boost your app. They help you increase popularity and visibility of mobile apps with a personalized mobile app promotion strategy.

Of course, you need to pay for their services, however, you will get good results. So your money is well-invested.

Marketing through Influencers

Influencers who are active on social media channels can also push your mobile app promotion by publishing content about your app.

This will spread the word about products and since the audience is interested in the same topics as the influencer, you can be sure that these people tend to download and use your app.

Do you want to know more about mobile user acquisition? Click here for detailed information.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

App Store Optimization is an aspect for your mobile app promotion you can either do by yourself or pass it on to ad agencies who are specialized in this field.
Improving certain elements can clearly help your app ranking, which makes it the key factor of your mobile app promotion. Click here to get a very detailed description of ASO.

App Name

This is where mobile app promotion starts. The app name needs to make a good impression straight away, combining app function, creativity, and attraction at the same time.

App Design and Icon

The first visual object that is seen of your app is the app icon. It should match the general design that was chosen for the app to convey consistency.

Screenshots and Feature Graphic

Good screenshots give users an insight into your app. The more features you show, the more convinced they can be.

Feature graphics are only available on mobile devices but it should not fade into the background. With mobile app promotion, you need to reach all potential users.

Video

You can present your app in a short video. People like watching videos more than reading text, so you can easily convince potential users to download your app if you create an appealing clip.

App Description

Catch your user’s attention in the first paragraph and, depending on the app store, you can implement some of your main keywords. An enthusiastic and informative text can be persuading and push your mobile app promotion some more.

Keyword Search and Optimization

Each app store page works with keywords, the same goes for your mobile app. Finding and testing the right keywords is the first step. However, the permanent optimization of them is more important for mobile app promotion. Monitoring and, if needed, changing the keywords could lead to better results.

Eager to learn more about your perfect keywords? Then take a look at this article.

Building Your Own Brand

A brand name can be catchy and attract new users for your app. It’s a tough road until it becomes popular on the market but you can make a good start by creating more media coverage.

This aspect of mobile app promotion can be executed by the app owner. If you are not familiar with digital media, you can hire experts.

Build Brand Assets for Your App

You can establish your brand by creating a well-designed website where you publish all necessary information about your product. Add links to the app store and your social media profiles and make sure the website gives all information new users might need.

  • Build a website for your app
  • Include app download links on your website
  • SEO matters here
  • Create a blog section on your website
  • Feature the app in your emails
  • Consider alterative app stores
  • Always collect emails
  • Cross-promote your app (if you have other apps)

A graphic about how much time is spent in apps and the mobile browser in the US

Apps are clearly preferred when going online with a mobile device © ayeT-Studios

Leverage Social Media

It’s one of the most powerful channels you will find: Many products have already gone viral through social media. You can take advantage of these channels for your mobile app promotion by publishing content about your app and letting it circulate.

  • Use Dubbler
  • Post on Pinterest
  • Share your content
  • Get in touch with your users
  • Join developers & entrepreneur groups on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on)

For more information about social media app promotion, click here.

Get a Ton of PR

Press releases will help you spread the word about your mobile app in other media institutions. If you can convince editors with a piece of paper, you can be sure that they will mention your app in a future article.

  • Apply for awards
  • Contact bloggers who would care
  • Do “real-life” marketing / recruit customers locally
  • Run a contest on your social media channels
  • Reach out to influencers
  • Comment on blogs
  • Exchange shares with other influencers
  • Get speaking opportunities

 

App Promotion Sites

You will find different websites on the internet to spread the word about your mobile app.

Forums, blogs, or review sites list and rate various mobile apps to give a first impression to their audience. A great way to promote your app! So try to get featured on mobile app review sites of official blogs.

Do you want to know more about it? Click here and read about app promotion sites in detail.

App Improvements

Improving an app is not a shame, even famous apps have not been perfect right from the start. You adjust your app to the needs of your users.

What exactly does your app need to become better and which feature is even superfluous? We have some tips and tricks on how you can revamp your app:

Get Feedback of Other Developers

A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. Since other developers have the same problems, you can ask them for support. You can expect a professional advice because they know about this process.

Check Out Competitors

You can learn from the mistakes of developers with apps that have the same function as yours. Especially reviews and users’ reactions will tell you what you can do better and what you should pay attention to.

React to User Feedback

App developers rely on their users and their experiences with the app. So, start mining your apps reviews.

You should be truly interested in constructive criticism and suggestions because they are worth a mint. Users will be happy if they are heard.

Respond and Try to Resolve All Your Negative Reviews

This measure has 2 big advantages:

  • It gives you a better ranking because you take care of your users and their sorrows and criticism.
  • You can collect ideas for improvements for your app since they will explain what exactly led them to give a negative review.

Updates

When you have fixed the weaknesses of your app, the next thing to do is to update your app.

You don’t have to this for every single error. However, permanent updates show your users the dedication you have for your product.

Take Advantage of Localizations

To localize your app implies hard work, if you do it 100%:

Matching app name, screenshots, and description with the respective target language is the beginning of catching the attention of new users.

To make sure that these users can properly use your mobile app, you need to localize your app itself and its whole content, too.

Push Notifications to Push Engagement

Users only use a few apps regularly, the rest will be rather untouched or even deleted. You can remind users of using your app more frequently by integrating push notifications.

Integrate Social within the App

Of course you can place a button for your social media profiles in your app. What about a tool where you can invite new friends via social media?

You can give your mobile app a real push if users spread the word about your app, especially if they get a little reward for inviting new users.

Statistics about how the app abandonment has changed in the last 5 years

App abandonment has increased in the last 5 years © ayeT-Studios

Differences in Mobile App Promotion for iOS and Android

The two biggest app markets are Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Hence, most app developers focus on creating iOS or Android applications.
Mobile app promotion in these app stores is similar in many aspects. However, there are differences you need to consider when customizing your mobile app promotion to the respective OS.

Specialized Online Channels

As mentioned before, you can publish articles and posts about your mobile app to increase its reach. There are different industry-specialized websites for iOS and Android. So, make sure to choose the right channels for your mobile app promotion.
The world of social media offers many groups, forums, channels, and blogs that specialize on one operating system. So, keep an eye on the right ones.

Ranking Algorithm

Google and Apple created their own ranking algorithms, by which apps end up in their position in the charts. They are updated on a more or less regular basis to prevent any misuse or fraud.
As an app developer it is important to follow these changes and updates and match your mobile app promotion with them. Algorithms consider e.g. installs, ratings, uninstalls, and usage.

ASO

You will also find differences when creating the app page in the respective app store. They consist of nearly the same elements and structure. But there are things you need to consider if you want to get the best results for your mobile app promotion.
Android and iOS have some common elements (e.g. design, wording, content) but they vary the most in usage and integration of keywords:

  • Find the right keywords: For iOS apps, you only have 100 characters to set your keywords, so you have to choose them wisely. In contrast, Android apps have their keywords implemented in the description where the developer is not tied to character limits.
  • Keyword implementation: While Apple has a keyword field, Android apps contain keywords in their descriptions. App developers can palce them in the text but it is recommended to use a keyword a maximum of 5 times to prevent spamming.
  • Design a video: The big advantage for Android developers is to the possibility to create a promotion video for your mobile app that you can place on your app store page. A well-designed video can lead to more traffic for your page.

In these articles, you will find more details about Android App Promotion and iOS App Promotion.

PLAY STORE APP STORE
Downloads Yes Yes
Revenue (paid apps only) No Yes
App starts (how often the app is used) Yes Yes
Number & value of reviews Yes Yes
Keyword relevance Yes Yes
Recently updated No Yes
Retention / uninstalls Yes No
Country Yes Yes
Social proof Yes No
Backlinks Yes No

Comparison of App Ranking Factors for Google and Apple © ayeT-Studios

How to Begin Mobile App Promotion

To optimize your results, you constantly need to surveil, evaluate, and improve the strategy of your mobile app promotion. Click here if you want to know the first steps for your personalized app promotion.

App developers can also take advantage of ad networks like ayeT-Studios. With multichannel ad solutions, they can acquire massive amounts of users right after your app launch and also grow and engage your user base at a constant level.


Beneath, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$