Why ASO is Vital to Your App Marketing Strategy

MarketingDigital MarketingApps
Written By Pursue Persuade

Every marketer knows the benefits of SEO.

It is the number one organic marketing tactic used for websites to increase search engine visibility and ranking in search results. When a user searches for “free online games” in Google, pages of websites appear whose content has been optimized to target that search term.

So if websites can optimize their content to favor highly in search engine results like Google, what about apps on Google Play store or the App Store?

Enter – ASO: App Store Optimization.

Why ASO?

According to Mindsea, there are just under 3 million apps available in the Google Play Store and nearly 4.4 million in the Apple App Store. That’s a lot of competition. But the market is worth it. Gen Z spends 71% of their digital media time using apps and in 2019, they spent 3.8 hours per app per month in apps. And in terms of revenue, mobile apps are projected to hit $1 trillion in revenue by 2023.

So yeah, apps are a big market. And while paid ads are an important aspect of an app’s user acquisition strategy, AppsFlyer found that new users who find apps through search results are typically more engaged and have a higher retention rate than those who discovered an app from a paid campaign.

With such a large market, the challenge for developers is making an app that users want and will stand out in a sea of millions of other apps. The challenge for marketers then becomes bringing that app to the right users and increasing its visibility – also among a sea of millions of other apps.

Keywords

The two main goals of ASO are to increase visibility in search results and increase conversion rates. To increase visibility, the most fundamental aspect of any ASO strategy is choosing the right keywords.

When is the last time you searched for an app? What query did you use? Did you search for “budgeting” or “money management” or “track my expenses”? These are the questions that every app marketer must ask themselves when brainstorming relevant keywords.

Narrowing down which keywords to include involves considering each keyword’s relevance, search volume (how many times are users using this keyword in search?) and difficulty (how many other apps are competing for this keyword? How many other apps are in this space?).

Overtime, keywords are cycled in and out of an app’s metadata according to that keyword’s conversion rate, fluctuating volume / difficulty and the app’s ranking on each keyword. It’s important for app marketers to keep an eye on their keywords and constantly test different combinations of keywords to optimize search volume and ranking.

The most important of those keywords are then incorporated into your app store listing’s metadata: app title, subtitle, description, keyword field and all of the creative elements that a user can see when they click on an app.

Creatives

So, the user types a keyword into the App Store or Google Play Console and finds an app. Once they find an app (because of a stellar keyword strategy based on user and competitor research that is constantly evolving and being updated), the next goal is to get them to convert - aka install the app.

Pairing compelling and accurate copy that highlights an app’s most important and stand-out features with beautiful screenshots and icon is key to converting users. Along with visuals and copy, the number of positive reviews and overall rating of an app is an important deciding factor for users considering a download. Although marketers may not be able to directly impact this factor, they can work very closely with developers to ensure high app quality.

4 app store or google play store screenshots for food delivery app (ubereats, postmates, grubhub, doordash)

Best Practices

Like every marketing tactic, there are some best practices that app marketers should know before diving into the world of ASO:

  1. Don’t keyword stuff – Google & Apple can detect when you’ve overloaded your metadata with a plethora of keywords just for optimization date. It’s important to still prioritize clean, professional copy.

  2. Don’t repeat keywords in Apple, but you can repeat keywords up to 3x in Google.

  3. Avoid terms like “free” or “best” to keep from being flagged by Google or Apple.

  4. Choose the right category for your app by reviewing competitor categories.

  5. Don’t copy & paste your strategy for one store to the other. The Google Play Store and App Store operate differently and have different users, so it’s important to have different strategies.

  6. Test, test, test on a regular basis and constantly analyze your store traffic and keyword conversion rates.

App Store Optimization is a vital aspect of any app marketing strategy. Ensuring your app’s store listing attracts the right users through relevant keywords and can convert those users with compelling and complimentary creatives is key for organically growing your app audience base.

Author: Alyson Maguire

A Digital Marketing & Analytics Senior at Duquesne University, Alyson is currently a Marketing Intern for Arkadium, an online games company, where she assists in organic app acquisition, promotions, and social media.

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