ASO Best Practices to Grow App Installs
Having high visibility in app stores helps your app get noticed. It’s not unlike how organizations use SEO (search engine optimization) to get featured in search results. Since many app users begin by searching the app store for a solution (70% start here), app store discoverability is vital. So, how do you do this strategically and consistently?
We’ve talked to our app marketing experts, and they have put together this quick guide on app store discoverability. The term is somewhat interchangeable with ASO (app store optimization), so that’s where we’ll start.
Optimize Every Aspect of Your App’s Profile
ASO is certainly the most essential aspect of discoverability. Every optimization you include improves the app’s ability to end up in organic search results. ASO is critical for rank management and UA (user acquisition) campaigns.
There are slight differences between the Apple App Store and Google Play, but these are the fundamentals of ASO:
- Using the right keywords that define your app and why your users need it: Keywords are different for Apple vs. Google Play. For the former, keywords have a specific field. For the latter, the description field is indexed.
- Crafting a description that is appealing and focused on why the app will deliver value to the user.
- Improving reviews: Reviews count toward ranking factors, so you’ll need to urge users to leave a review. You can reward them for doing so by using offerwalls.
- Creating a compelling, search-friendly title: Consider how someone would search for your app and spin this.
- Highlighting the experience with high-quality screenshots and quick videos that lead with benefits and features.
Delivering an offer: Promote an exclusive offer to new installers on your page, just as you would if you were using a CPI (cost per install) campaign.
Invest in Discoverability
Organic app store discoverability is great but rising the ranks like this isn’t easy. So, push some dollars toward it with CPI campaigns. When using CPIs for rank management, your singular objective is to get the download. Here are some tips for making this investment fruitful:
- Create CPPs (custom profile pages) on Apple correlating directly to the ad’s content, including the target audience and the top features touted.
- Develop highly-targeted CPIs across channels that speak to a specific audience segment. The segment you choose could depend upon data you have on current users, increased search traffic for a term, or a new subgroup you want to acquire.
- Launch a performance-based social influencer campaign that has a CPI framework. You’ll need to identify influencers that have expertise in your category and the ear of valuable users.
By putting ad spend behind app store discoverability, you will gain paid users. However, you can also win some organic because the installs will propel rank increases. It’s called organic uplift and is the real aim of CPI rank management.
Leverage Offerwalls to Gain Users and Enhance Discoverability
Offerwalls are the alternative ad unit that doesn’t look like an ad! Users self-initiate interaction with these and receive a reward (e.g., in-app currency, offers, exclusive content) for completing the action. The action, in this case, would be installing a new app.
For this to be successful, you need three things:
- An offerwall platform that has significant reach and can hit unique audiences.
- A compelling offer to drive action.
- Data regarding usage spikes, which could be the result of seasonality, so that you deploy offerwalls when they are most likely to attract engagement.
You can build a campaign with the best return by combining this information.
App Store Discoverability Is a Journey, AdAction Ensures It’s a Sustainable One
App store discoverability has many facets. It’s both ASO and using different campaign types to increase rankings. It’s an ongoing strategy that never stops and changes all the time. It can be challenging to respond to market shifts and user demands. We can help. Our solutions and expansive network ensure you can sustain rank management and drive installations.
Find out more about how we support app store discoverability today!
