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Here you go - you'll need to be logged in to see it, and choose "last 30 days": https://appfigures.com/reports/ranking#products=334002684324&category=grossing&country=US&device=iphone

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:

1. Reach out to journalists and try to get them to mention your app. If you don't feel like your app is good/unique enough for them to cover it consider bringing it to that level because otherwise it'll be very hard to compete with existing apps that have downloads/ratings/etc.
2. Optimize your app store page. We published a guide about that you may find helpful (https://appfigures.com/resources/secret-to-aso-optimizing-for-people)
3. SEO you landing page. There's a lot of wisdom out there about basic SEO - just google for it.
4. Try to get you app featured. It's definitely not simple/easy, but if you have a good app that's Google-friendly that would help.
5. Get more ratings. Users rely on that to make the decision of which app to get.

Track how everything you do effects downloads, rating, and ranks and do more of what works.

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Good luck!

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)

It's a successful product because of the internet, the most open and collaborative platform that has ever existed, and because software is fundamentally interoperable and portable between platforms.

Most of what it sells is cross-platform software and games and media, and tons of it predates the iPhone -

YouTube, Instagram, HBO, Facebook, Gmail, Spotify, Amazon, Google Maps, Netflix, Disney, TurboTax, Twitter, Google Chrome, Hulu, Roku, Pinterest, PayPal, McDonalds, Call of Duty, Walmart, Minecraft, Five Nights at Freddy's, Bloons, Geometry Dash, Monopoly, Plague Inc, GTA, Papa's Freezeria, Game of Life, Clue, Terraria, Stardew Valley, Earn to Die, Paramount, Pokemon, Peacock, LinkedIn

And that's what I can recognize at a glance, easily more than half of the most popular apps on iPhone.

https://appfigures.com/top-apps/ios-app-store/united-states/iphone/top-overall

This is what they said about YouTube earnings:

>"YouTube was the highest-earning app in the U.S., earning $88M of net revenue, according to our estimates. And that's only from the App Store because it's charging directly on Android. Massive!"

Very pretty! The more interesting thing is that they’re most likely heavily A/B tested, so not only are they nice to look at but they probably also convert amazingly.

I interviewed the guy who does those A/B tests a few months ago and the process is pretty insightful.

https://appfigures.com/resources/chats/gilad-moburst-ab-testing-2

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.

>Microsoft is regularly the largest software developer and most valuable
company in the world (and maintains the React Native for Windows &
Mac project),

I heard that someone found that Microsoft is shipping React Native code on their every mobile app (or at least part of these app's code base). Here is the article link.

The original AppFigures article mentioned that there are ~400 new monthly Mac App Store apps vs 40,000 new iOS App Store apps. I find that mind-blowing. Even if we assume that 90% of mac apps are distributed outside of the App Store, it's still 10× less desktop apps than smartphone/tablet apps.

It's Korean, but I agree. English speakers don't care. Screenshots should be localized in the language of the store.

The screenshots should list more features. They look great but lack details: see this https://appfigures.com/resources/guides/optimizing-screenshots-creatives

Yes and no and maybe, or.. it depends.

1. First - Apple doesn't use written reviews as part of its ranking algorithm, so those written reviews are mainly social proof as the other comment says. Google does use them.
2. Ratings and review count different and attribute to different things - Google uses written reviews to identify keywords to consider your app for. So, the more reviews the more types of keywords Google will be able to find.
3. Ratings help with pushing you up the ranks once Apple/Google identify a keyword as relevant. More ratings = higher, if... you're generally on par (or lower but close enough) as far as downloads with the competition. If you are too far download-wise ratings on their own won't do too much. However, more ratings = better.

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.

They still managed to get a good amount of new downloads for their mobile apps, so while there may not be an immediate impact there’s long term potential.

Considering the big wave came earlier in the year, I expected Prime day to be mostly ignored. I think overall it wasn’t a flop just not as big of an event because everyone is already showing amazon...

https://appfigures.com/resources/insights/twia-20201016

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'm not sure all app, but a part of it is React Native.

https://appfigures.com/resources/insights/microsoft-goes-all-in-on-react-native

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

1. You cannot gather system logs manually, because you as a user never get to see them. I would have to implement a way to record them in the background, as I have with Firebase Crashlytics.
2. You really should stop using the Google play store if you think firebase is the only thing tracking you. The Play store itself is collecting data like device, language, processor and so on. This is standard stuff, which I can't disable even if I wanted to. It's not about just tracking you. This is useful information for the developer. As I said it's used to recreate crashes to be able to fix them or just to check which language have most of my users set so that I can prioritize translations.
   

I totally get your intentions, but its not possible to not be tracked. Every website, service whatever will collect data and not everyone has evil plans. Most of that data is used to improve the services you are using.

According to this website 95% of all apps in the Google Play store are using Firebase, so it's nearly impossible to get around this without cutting the internet access to your device.

I found links in your comment that were not hyperlinked:

• appfigures.com

I did the honors for you.

^delete ^| ^information ^| ^<3

Keyword-wise, 2-3 weeks, but depends on what you changed.

The App Store’s index updates very fast and takes into consideration short term performance so its normal to see results very quickly.

But... it really depends on what you actually changed. For example, if you’ve optimized for very competitive keywords but your app doesn’t have enough downloads to compete you may see some movement, but not enough to be serious.

The most important thing to do is first, make sure all of your keywords are within reach and two, monitor keyword ranks.

We (Appfigures) Update keyword ranks hourly so you can see it as soon as it happens, but if it’s just a few you can search the store.

You might find this article useful https://appfigures.com/resources/aso/which-keywords-to-optimize-for

Good luck!

I second that! “if you build it Thiry will come” is a myth for apps.

There are a few things you can do to market your app that aren’t paid ads:

• mention it in forums/groups where it can add value
• reach out to bloggers/journalists and ask them to write about it
• make sure you optimize for keyword searches that are relevant

I write a guide with a bunch of tips you can use: https://appfigures.com/resources/promotion/13-ways-to-promote-your-mobile-app

I’ve just started using Amplitude for analytics internal to my apps. Number of daily users, rough location, and actions performed in app.

I also use the App Store Connect analytics for sales, and impressions, and AppFigures for keyword ranking tracking.

That’s pretty awesome. Lots of apps have seen a surge in downloads, especially business, education, and games. But not all apps fare the same.

We’ve got a dashboard for market trends here: https://appfigures.com/alpha/mobile-download-index which is free for developers who track with us.

You can see the impact of the lockdown across different countries and categories.

Not really. The relationship between downloads and other publicly visible factors has drifted a lot since the stores opened up.

We use statistical models and machine learning on top of billions of data points to create our download estimates, which have a very high accuracy rate but still keep access to this fairly affordable.

If you need a few numbers DM me the details and I’ll look this up for you, and if you need ongoing access consider signing up to our platform (https://appfigures.com)

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.

Based on: https://appfigures.com/top-sdks/development/all

Happy to help!

1. It’s always more challenging to target, but the reward is worth it.

2. I’d suggest “Find the Words - Trivia game”. The reason is that the algorithm sees every word just once, and handles singular and plural automatically so “word” and “words” is the same.

3. Another suggestion for optimization, since you’re paying to get people to the page, is to AB test. On Google Play it’s pretty easy.

I’d try adding another screenshot that’s a solid background with big text that explains what the app is. You can also test the icon (making it more of less complicated).

I wrote a guide about how to set up an AB test on Google Play that might be helpful https://appfigures.com/resources/aso/how-to-ab-test-google-play

Would love to hear the results of all of that in the future (others probably would too).

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:

• Post Your App to ProductHunt
• Answer Questions on Quora <- one of my favorites
• Get Your App Listed in Roundup Lists
• Write Guides & Tutorials <- another favorite
• Optimize Your Keywords (ASO) <- how you’ll get most of your downloads in the long run
• Get Influencers to Use Your App
• Talk to Journalists
• Get Active in Relevant Forums, Subreddits, and FB Groups
• Create a Referral Program
• Get Your App Featured
• Make it Easy to Share Content from Your App
• Submit Your App for an Award
• Speak at Events Related to Your App

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...

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.

I'm not aware of a solution that pulls directly from the stores -- perhaps someone else is.

In my company we use a service called Appfigures (free for up to 5 apps, quite affordable beyond that), which can pull the data from the app stores and then provide them through an API. Power BI has a connector for Appfigures which makes it easy to get the data out, and alternatively it's not too difficult to do it manually in Excel using Power Query.

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:

1. 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

2. 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.

3. Figure out who at the company would be responsible for buying your services. Is it the head of engineering? Marketing?

4. 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.

The ad account is publisher's and they will pay our cut of the ad revenue on a regular basis. We have also access to AppFigures (https://appfigures.com/) where we can find statistics also on ad revenue. We have also decided together what ad networks we are going to use.