Congrats on actually doing it!
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When it comes to marketing, organic traffic is always preferred but does take effort and time to build. A mix of these should set you up for long term growth:
Track how everything you do effects downloads, rating, and ranks and do more of what works.
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Good luck!
Both, the ads average about 0.3$ a day and seem to get an iap of 1.4$ every two days. My app is a game called Alfasnake https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.susapp.colorize adding an spellchecking api for English this week so hopefully I get more users then.
Those categories are definitely legitimate. Our top lists have them (free resource) https://appfigures.com/top-apps/ios-app-store/united-states/iphone/graphics-and-design
The reason for their existence is to unify iOS categories with Mac categories for universal bundles.
The things is... they aren’t very popular. Both because they’re new and also because developer tools isn’t bit on the desktop, let alone a small screen.
Depends on what your app does, you’ll probably have better luck competing in search results (aka ASO)
Like others have said, Google's not super fast when it comes to changes, so you'll need more time.
But, there's one other question to ask that's important - are the keywords you picked the kind your app can actually rank in? Google takes a lot of different things into consideration, but ratings are an easy number to look at.
If your app is getting more new ratings than the ones that currently rank for the keyword(s) you're targeting it's likely a waiting game (if everything else is right) but if not, you're much better off with more keyword research.
I've written a lot about Apple's algorithm (https://appfigures.com/resources/keyword-teardowns), and while Google is very different, some of the fundamentals are still the same.
I plan on writing about Google in the new year.
Wow. Thanks for the great article.
I also enjoy reading another article from you https://medium.com/augeo/why-are-these-screenshots-just-a-waste-of-time-until-you-have-at-least-4000-downloads-per-month-ccff8216513e You really know your stuff very well :-)
Currently, we want to perform A/B testing on both screenshots and store description text. But, since we think screenshots have bigger impact than description text, we will start with A/B testing for screenshots first. Is a huge tasks as we have 30+ different localisation. We will start with localisation with most impact.
This is the product we are now trying to tackle on
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yocto.wenote
Yes and no and maybe, or.. it depends.
This guide, about getting more ratings, is on of our most popular guides: https://appfigures.com/resources/guides/grow-app-ratings-overnight, so I'd highly recommend giving it a read.
One other important thing - ranking in a keyword doesn't necessarily mean more downloads. If the rank is not in the top 5, if the keyword isn't relevant, or if your store page isn't optimized, better ranks will only = more views.
YMMV but with that targeting in mind and considering there’s a bunch of competition including heavy hitters I think your CAC will be a lot higher than $3 and conversion much lower. And that’s if you had a freemium offering.
Without a freemium offering it’d be very hard to get traction IMO.
I’d recommend doing some market research first. Who’s currently leading/competing (search the App Store for the type of keywords you’d expect your users would), look at their revenue model + pricing, and then use a competitor intelligence tool to figure out how many downloads they’re getting per month vs their revenue.
That would give you a glance into what you can expect.
Good luck!
I’d highly advise against any service that states that “Apple and Google will never know you've paid for reviews”, and also against buying reviews in the first place. A permanent ban isn’t worth it.
There are many other ways to get downloads that are fully above board and are free.
Here are a few: https://appfigures.com/resources/promotion/13-ways-to-promote-your-mobile-app
Interesting to see Flutter mentioned so many times. From a popularity standpoint, Cordova/Ionic is the big one, and React Native for more serious apps. Unity for games.
Like other comments have said, ASO is a great way to get your app in front of more potential users, but there are quite a few other things you can do:
Taken from https://appfigures.com/resources/promotion/13-ways-to-promote-your-mobile-app
Injecting keywords into the app name is as much of an art as it is science...
Your real success will come not from stuffing keywords, but rather finding the better ones in my experience. Which is where an ASO tool comes in handy.
Was this for an Android app, or an iOS app? The speed at which things update on the two stores is very different...
Here you go - 30% off for the first 3 months on any paid plan 😃
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This can only be redeemed by 5 accounts, so upgrade quickly before they’re all taken.
ASO tool here (Appfigures), so biased towards us but without mentioning tools I can just say that the benefit tools have is keyword discovery. You probably know what your target users are going to use because you know your features but from experience I can tell you different people think differently about accomplishing tasks and that changes the words they use.
The right ASO tool will use some sort of AI/ML to find keywords that are related/similar and perform well, or look at similar apps and what works for them/what they're optimizing for, etc. which you can use to optimize and rank for. In addition the right tool will also give you insight into which keywords have more potential, so you don't waste time on the crappy ones.
I'd love to take a look at your app and see if there's anything I can help with. Just DM me with your app's name.
Should have guessed that :)
UA for apps is very similar to UA for a website. If you want to offer the “full package” you should be able to tackle ASO (Not just keywords but also optimizing for conversion - https://appfigures.com/resources/secret-to-aso-optimizing-for-people), SEO (for the app’s landing page), paid ads (including, but not limited to Search Ads or Google’s Sponsored listings), managing a mailing list, and social media.
Each one of these is a topic worthy of its own set of books, but that should give you a good foundation. You can choose to focus on one/few and not all, but should have some knowledge of all and how they come together.
Ultimately, the name of the game is promotion and the ways to achieve that are very much conceptually similar. Find users. Convert them into downloads. Retain them.
Selling to app developers/publishers is tricky because everyone is already used to untargeted spam emails blasted to the support/developer url from the app stores.
The key is to find the right developers, meaning those you can actually provide value to and can afford your service, and then reach out personally and not using a static template.
We published a guide about how to use app data/insights a couple of weeks ago you may want to check out: https://appfigures.com/resources/sales-prospecting-for-mobile-sdk-companies
The gist:
You’ll need to start by defining who your ideal customer is. If right now you’re saying to yourself “anyone with a game” you need to think about who knows they need testing? (Ex. Developers who have published a game before and are working on a new one), “who can afford my service” (ex. Developers who make more than $30K/month or who are getting more than 1K downloads per day), etc
Find out what those developers are up to and get to understand how they operate and who their audience is. Are they releasing weekly updates? A new app every month? Is their audience young women? etc.
Figure out who at the company would be responsible for buying your services. Is it the head of engineering? Marketing?
Find their information and send a personalized email using data from #2.
If you need any pointers or information on tools to help with this don’t hesitate to DM.
Well, you have seen lots of Apps around there....I would like very much you to tell me your opinion about an App that is already in Android, but not still working properly (I know, this is not the best situation). It is my baby since 3 years, dont be too hard. This is the link to download and install https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.felipe
My template was similiar to(but in Swedish ;] )
Yo, im working on a game that unique mix of Scrabble and the classical snake called Alfasnake. Collect letters and then build words with the collected words. I'm aiming for a release at the end of this summer after I've gone through the feedback of the betatesters. (I know that you usally don't do android reviews but) I would be awesome if you could test and review my game. It is available at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.susapp.colorize Love to hear from you,
Thanks for the write up!
I added my social accounts to the bottom of my description now. Can you take a look at my ASOd app description quickly and tell me if there is anything else that jumps out for improvement?
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.sprocket&hl=en
Not sure if you have a busineness helping with something mobile and want app-related optimization tips or if youre asking for mobile business ideas in general.
Heres my app description page for example. I just went through the description and AppSearchOptimized (ASO'd) it further today. If you already have a page I recommend Googling the term as well as searching for articles on Medium.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.retrographic.sprocket&hl=en