Since most users find app through app store search, picking the right keywords for your app is crucial. However, not all keywords are suitable for your app so you need to have a better understanding first before selecting them.
There are 3 important keyword criteria that you need to consider:
1. Relevance and specificity.
2. Level of competition (Chance Score).
3. Search Volume: Number of searches.
First of all, the most important criteria when it comes to choosing the right keyword is relevance and specificity. You want to pick the most relevant keywords that are related to your app.
For example: “Free mp3 downloader app”. Most relevant keywords:
Mp3 downloader
Mp3 Download
Music downloader
Most irrelevant keywords:
Music
Mp3
Song
There are 2 types of keywords: short tail keywords and long tail keywords.
Short tail keywords are the most common keywords, they have a lot of search numbers and high traffic. However, they usually come with high competition.
– Examples for short tail keyword:
Photography
Photo
Photographer
Pictures
Long tail keywords are more precise and specific. They often describe your app
in details. They usually don’t have high search numbers but the level of competition is very low
– Example for long tail keyword:
Photo editing
Photo effects
Photo filters
Selfie filters
Because of this, when it comes to choosing keywords for your app. You should try to use long
tail keywords. Because it’s difficult to compete with hundreds of apps using the
most common keywords. Your app won’t be able to perform effectively. More
precise keywords will have less competitors and you will have more chance on ranking your app.
Most common mistake when it comes to choosing keywords is that people tend
to only look for keywords that have high number in searches. You should always consider 3 criteria when it comes to picking the right keywords for your app.
You should always start small to get a base of downloads. Once you have built
the foundation for your app, you can start with higher competitive keywords.
It can be hard sometimes to start from scratch when looking for keywords. Here
are some tips that you can use when you’re choosing keywords for your app:
1. Brainstorming keyword ideas: Make sure to write down some ideas for
your keywords and keep them for future use.
2. Research your competitor apps: Research your competitors, see what
keywords they use. Make a list of what you can find from them and try which one works out for you the most.
3. Keyword suggestions: You can use some of the online tools that provides you some suggestions.
4.App store autocomplete suggestions.
5. App store reviews: Look throw user reviews for keywords that they use.
Once you have selected the keywords that you want to use for your app. You need to know exactly where to put them.
In Google Play Store, the most important place to put keyword is your app title.
You’re only allowed to have maximum 30 characters in your App title, so you
need to put your most relevant and specific keyword there. After the app title, you
can put the rest of your keywords in your App description.
In Apple App Store, you can have up to 50 characters in your app title. Same
like Google Play Store, your app title is your main priority to put the most related
keywords. Unlike Google Play Store, Apple App Store has an iTunes Connect
Keyword Field. It allows you to enter 100 characters so you should make the most out of it. This will give you more chances of getting downloads.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
For more articles on Game/App Marketing, please find it here.
If you need consultant on how to generate and optimize revenue from your app, click here
It seems like everywhere we go (creative forum, Quora, so on…), there are the same common questions needed to be answer about the marketing process of mobile game & app:
What is the best way for a solo developer to market their mobile game?
How to market your game/app mobile with zero budget?
I have a low budget, what marketing strategy should I use to promote my mobile product?
… and what a void of endless answers.
Needless to say, mobile app and game industry is currently one of the most developing industry all over the world. This, is a growing market for competitions. So, if you are solo or a small developer team, you have a product, and want to put it into the intense reel of App Store rivalry, you will have to have the “Book of Survival”.
With this detail step-by-step checklist, you will be able to prepare a marketing plan, and execute your marketing strategy to maximize the potential of your app’s success in the competitive app market. Let’s begin with the first phase of Mobile App/Game Marketing: Pre-launch.
The pre-launch phase is arguably the most important step in the app marketing process. Typically, the first phases of your mobile app marketing strategy should focus on brand awareness and visibility. Here are the 4 steps we recommend to help you successfully market your mobile app to your target demographic.
1. Build a marketing strategy:
Besides building a visualized product composed of game feels, game plot, art visualisation plan,… it is a must for you, the developer, to build a marketing-based criteria for your product. Below are the main sectors:
a. Identify your target audience:
The first thing you need to keep in mind is that who you are making the game for. They will be the one who are interested in, like and download your game. Finding this group will save you a lot of time and money and stop you from pushing your game on an audience that have no interest in it.
If you don’t know where to start, take a look at your competitors to see where they’re investing the most effort, replicate and target users accordingly. Later on, you can consider the whales, and ad whales (if you use in-app advertising as your business model) that you need to target.
The concept behind this is pretty simple. If you wanted to create a spelling game for kids, you wouldn’t pay to have it advertised late at night. Similarly, you wouldn’t recommend manga reading app to audience over 30 years old. Identifying your target audience means getting the results you want, without wasting time.
b. Decide the business model of your game:
You need to identify the way you monetize your app so that the monetization procedure can be clear and fixed. Are you going to:
Charge for the game (Premium)?
Provide free game but charging for additional content (Freemium)?
Charge for in-app items or virtual goods (In-App Purchase)?
Provide free game, but with ads (In-App Advertising):
This is a frequently seen and recommended model for low-budget developers to monetize. In this business model, you remove the cost-barrier to purchasing your app and allow free downloads. Working with a mobile ad partner is a plus, so you can research for the perfect partner. For example, check out Gamob for a solution to boost your revenue.
Overall, you really need to consider which model suits you the best at the beginning as it has a big impact on the overall game design (we will talk about this in a post later). Quite a lot indie developers make this decision too late on and try and add in the monetization or business model at the end, so DON’T. DO. THAT.
c. Identify budget, channels, measurement plan:
Budget
Any marketing strategy should give careful consideration to the available budget. For developer team or solo one with low budget, building an effective budget plan is even more important in order not to lose money over time.
First, you need to list down every possible items that needs budget and items that do not. After that, if you have enough available human resource (or capable of doing it all) to make website, ask for download,… and chances to access free or low-cost material, it would optimize your expense effectively. You should also put a limit to your budget so that you can know when to stop spending.
Channel
For restricted budget, many developers may consider not to use big marketing channels like TVC, online & offline events, KOL network, and so on. Instead, some effective channels may be Word-of-mouth, social network or its existing customer base on other games it has launched. The easiest way to promote your mobile game/app is considered to be WOM – asking for relatives, friends, coworkers and any other potential users you may know. Start somewhere and continually build a loyal audience from there across a range of titles. You could also introduce your product on social network and invite them to download for a broader scale.
Measurement
One of the most important things to do in advance of spending money on marketing is to set up the measurement and reporting tools so that you can tell exactly what return you are getting from various channels. By far, you can consider Firebase – a product from Google providing you everything needed in game/app marketing, including Analytics feature. Every statics and data like retention, engagement or revenue will be tracked and updated on time, helping you control your product better.
d. Perform market analysis
Once you have set up your marketing strategy, you have to compare your mobile game/app to your current rival for better competition. Make a list of your top 5 competing apps, their current price, monetization model, ranking, pros and cons, and notable reviews. Be sure to check out for their target audience, marketing channels, ASO example and so on. Make sure your app doesn’t repeat any poorly made features or UX elements that users have negatively reviewed, therefore fix these features. Think about what would make your app stand out in contrast to your competitors. These are important considerations that should influence your entire app marketing approach.
2. Build an ASO strategy:
You’re a mobile developer. You must know how important App Store Optimization is to your product’s budget, as it is the most common way with low cost to optimize your mobile game/app revenue. App icon, app name, app description,… All of that affects your promotion process. Looking at our blog, you can certainly see that we are very passionate about ASO. Please refer our articles and especially our ASO E-book for more tips on ASO process.
3. Build a social media plan:
Social media marketing has become a proven strategy to gather customers’ attention. It is always recommended to implement social media into your mobile game’s launch campaign as a way to better connect with your customers, to stir up excitement, and even to integrate social media into your app so that your customers can share their gaming achievements.
a. Create landing page, website or forum for your mobile game/app:
The first phase in your social media plan should be designing informative, beautiful landing pages. These are critical for both websites and apps, and giving your app a home on the Web is an important part of your app marketing campaign with one main goal: to install the app. Later you can use App Indexing in ASO procedure to boost up your ranking. Your landing page should be able to help you turn up the volume on generating leads, collecting demographic information about your target audience, understanding potential customer engagement, providing fuel for additional marketing channels, and offering insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies. When designing, you should remember a few key components of an effective landing page:
Gripping headlines
Relevant keywords
Easily accessible social sharing buttons
Beautiful images
Smartly placed CTAs
b. Attract social media:
After building your own landing page or website, it is time to execute the achievement you made above. The first thing you need to decide is the release date of your game/app, therefore you can design a countdown clock on the landing page, which helps drum up excitement. You should also showcase some promo video of your product and images to demonstrate its plot and experience. Social networks’ link should be attached so people can share your game/app as well.
Moving on to the social media aspect, some popular networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even Reddit should be the platforms for your first step into the media. For example, Facebook has many Mobile Game/App group all over the world, so you can try to post pre-launch info about your game and see who’s interested in your project. Try to share game graphics, storyline previews, or else look for pre-launch feedback on certain ideas. You can also add links to your landing page from your social profiles which helps to funnel people to your game, as I have mentioned above. Leave hints everywhere you can go to convert trails into sales.
4. Spread & Test:
The last step is probably the most common thing that every developers would do. Spread your mobile game/app to everyone and every potential users you know. Ask them to download, try the game or app, and then ask for feedback. On Quora, this is considered the low-budget (almost) effective way to increase your downloads while testing the experience they receive. This process can still develop after the release date, and even bring about much more opportunities for you to improve your game. After that, you can test your retention and monetization model to decide which steps you should go next.
The first phase – Pre-launch – of the implementation is considered to be the most important phase of all. All of these areas above need to be considered carefully at the beginning of your game project and the analysis and conclusions are what make up your marketing strategy. Over the coming weeks we are going to continue to publish new posts. the Second and Third Phase, in this series about Game Marketing that deal with the channels that should make up most indies’ marketing plans. Thank you and stay tune!
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
For more articles on Game/App Marketing, please find it here.
If you need consultant on how to generate and optimize revenue from your app, click here
It would be tragic and excessive if I said that building and running an App is always extremely difficult, because we all know it. The “promotion” for your product is not easy, exactly. However, there is one thing you need to know, that we can completely remove the difficulties mentioned above with support from a number of smart platforms available as useful App Marketing tool.
What tools will help you advertise your App Marketing in a simple and effective way? Please follow the article below!
App Marketing toolkit for App Marketers to promote app downloads
First of all, please confirm that all of the following tools possess a lot of marketing support features for the application.
However, in the article below, I will only mention the preeminent aspects of each tool – which can help you focus on each specific strategic stage.
Crashlytics – App Marketing tool that tracks application errors
Let’s start by looking at our products, are you sure that it’s a perfect application?
Of course it is impossible, because there is not anything in this world that is considered perfect. Therefore, even if there is a terrible big error or just an unnecessary trouble to use.
The problem is still how to minimize the ability of users to discover them? More than anyone, you are the one who understands the importance of this. Of course, don’t want those errors to repeat in the next upgrade of the application, right?
Talking about this point, Crashlytics is the solution available to help you eliminate these worries. By analyzing the stack trace in the program and providing real-time data, Crashlytics will help you improve application quality and be more secure when you bring them to the market.
Optimizely Marketing App Tool – Solution for implementing A/B Testing
After solving important issues such as application errors, it’s time to consider the needs and interests of users.
How to have a “common voice” between the application and customer expectations?
Very simple! Try offering two versions of your app to potential users and gathering their opinions on them.
Between version A and version B, customers will automatically make their own choices. Your job is to rely on those chosen trends to make the final decision.
If you remember, I mentioned the need for A / B testing and the best way to get feedback from customers.
However, it is difficult to do so without a proper tool to help deliver the desired results
Optimizely is the tool that can assist you in this by providing the ability to optimize and conduct A / B tests quickly. The author of the tool also understands the purpose of increasing interaction and allowing to change the application as soon as you have the right solution.
App Radar – The best ASO (App Store Optimization) tool
If you’ve ever watched our posts, you probably understand the importance of optimizing the App Store. Of course, we affirm that you can still do it yourself.
But this job requires you to spend a lot of time and knowledge to comply with the App Store display rules. When you don’t have those resources, you can rely on experts. They will help you optimize the whole, or at least perform the most difficult steps such as finding keywords to describe your application.
App Radar is one of the best choices. This App Marketing tool will increase application visibility. With smart AI built-in based on ASO application store optimization tool platform.
App Annie – Professional market research
It’s great to be able to take care of your application, but you also need to remember the success of the product depends on many factors that directly affect how you manage your work.
Being one step ahead of your opponent and being aware of the application market is essential every time you want to make an important decision. The mobile world is constantly changing and you need to know it to get the best results.
One of the most popular services that can provide solutions when you need a panoramic view of the application market is App Annie.
If you regularly monitor blog posts, you may realize that you often check the data listed on this platform before giving specific explanations.
Annie Intelligence application is the best App Marketing tool available to help you carefully plan your strategy.
App Samurai – Search for the right user
Now is the time to think about how to attract as many users as possible.
However, do you need everything for your plan?
Or is it only those who will contribute to increasing the value of the new application?
The worst is that you can’t attract customers to pay for your product. As well as headache when witnessing your application uninstalled by customers after the campaign ends.
If you wonder how to avoid falling into that situation, the answer is selection.
Focus on real users who need your application and those who inspire you to build it. App Samurai provides professional tools that allow you to create effective strategies to achieve your goals and avoid the risks of advertising fraud.
In addition to the user-friendly navigation panel, this app offers you 3 options: Acquisition campaign, Price increase campaign and Video advertising campaign.
TUNE – Value distribution
Even if you own the best App Marketing tools, you still have to measure and analyze the results to predict and plan for the next step.
If in the previous stages, you can do everything yourself without any professional support, to this point, to understand deeply and reliably about the campaign of I find it necessary to find a smart solution.
The App Marketing tool that tracks the distribution of contributing values (Attribution) provides the right elements to eliminate guesswork and help you focus on the elements that really matter.
By optimizing your strategy and getting the best results from your advertising campaign based on understanding the return on advertising spend (ROAS). TUNE is one of the most suitable tools for this stage, especially when it is able to prevent fraudulent mobile ads.
AppsFlyer – Improving the status of users removing apps
After improving the application, “taking care” of the app store (App Store), researching choices and attracting new users, you think this is the time to sit back, relax and enjoy. result?
It is impossible, because this is the ideal time for you to observe the operation of the strategy and evaluate its effectiveness.
Try answering the questions below:
How many customers continue to use your application?
If some users decide to uninstall the application, do you know what the reason is?
That happens comes from how you build the application, because the customer experience has not been as good or the problem lies in the mistakes you make when developing the product?
All these questions will be revealed by an intelligent App Marketing tool called AppsFlyer.
I mentioned this platform because of the ability to find errors in strategy and why users decided to uninstall its application. In this way, AppsFlyer will help you quickly change plans and take the right steps to retain customers.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
For more articles on Firebase, please find it here
Mobile phones have limited screen size, which means that careful planning for ad placement is especially important for publishers. Close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app is one of the biggest causes of accidental clicks, leading to incorrect estimated revenue for publishers. Google always ensure that advertisers only pay for valid clicks, which in turn protects our broader advertising ecosystem. Publishers can watch this video to better understand about banner ads guidance.
Below are examples of poor banner ad implementations that often cause high levels of invalid activity due to the proximity of the ad to app clickable elements:
Ads adjacent to interactive elements
Close proximity of banner ads to other elements within an app is one of the biggest causes of accidental clicks. To avoid accidental clicks, banner ads should not be placed immediately next to interactive elements and app content, which can include:
Navigational buttons, such as a “next” button or a custom app menu bar.
Interactive content like a text chat box or an image in an image gallery.
On a game play screen where users are continuously interacting with the app.
Ad sandwiched between app items
The banner ad sandwiched between different areas of the app content can lead to invalid clicks or accidental clicks from users, create bad experiences for users, for example, the interactive app content and the custom app navigation/menu buttons at the bottom. Users are likely to cross this banner ad multiple times while at a higher level of engagement with the app. Consequently, they are more likely to click on the banner ad in this scenario accidentally. This banner ad placement can put your app or your account at risk if too many accidental clicks occur, and we recommend against such an implementation.
Ad overlapping with app content (against policy)
Banner ads should not float or hover over app content. If an app has a scrolling menu, banner ads should not pop-up or be placed over the content of this menu.
Banner ads should not move as a user scrolls, as users may try to click on the menu but end up clicking on the ad accidentally instead. This specific implementation is against policy and Google reserve the right to disable ad serving to your app.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
For more articles on Firebase, please find it here
What makes Firebase to become a powerful tool is the ecosystem built with functions strongly aligned and cross support to each other. Firebase functions play a huge role in collecting data then analyzing those data to help developers to improve their apps even better. One of the functions strongly supports developers to observe and analyze their apps is called Remote Config.
Change your app behavior immediately with remote config.
Normally, when you want to change the behavior of an app, you will need to change the code, rebuild your app then release an update. However that process will need time to update apps, it takes even longer for the user to receive the updates.
Of course, Remote Config is not a miracle tool that can help you transform your apps just by few value changes. However, this function helps you to build an extreme customizable app, define your replaceable elements such as layout, colour etc… only by using a few clicks, you will have a whole new interface for your apps.
We use a famous game – Flappy bird as our example. If you want to customize the game’s difficulty by changing some value: Bird’s speed, the distance between water pipes etc… we need to pre-define those values, we can create key-values on remote config velocity for bird’s speed and distance for distance between 2 pipes.
Of course you will need to add some code to process the data from server, based on the returned value to set the value for bird’s speed and distance between pipes. The amazing thing about Remote Config is the client library can process issues related to network with catching mechanism. Your work is only calling an API function, Firebase will take care of returning a value for you.
Hence, you only need to increase velocity and decrease the distance if you want your game to be more insanely difficult to annoy your users. Then click the update button to save the changes to your apps.
Different tactics for your user segmentations.
We still keep Flappy Bird as an example, if you want to set higher difficulty in Japan region and lower difficulty in Vietnam, what you need to do?
With Remote Config, it is much easier for you to provide different treatments to user segmentations. RC supports you to divide your users into different groups by using condition on user properties (Could be nation, language, or custom properties defined by yourself), or use set of audience you have already defined. After that return different set of value to different set of users.
We try increasing the velocity, decrease the distance for Japan and do the reverse to Vietnam.
Create condition for users from Vietnam
Set longer distance for Vietnamese users and shorter for Japanese users
And here is the result..
Condition of Remote Config is powerful, when you use all data obtained by Firebase Analytics to group your users into segmentations. From app version, Operation system, language, randomly etc…
The moment users receive updates from Remote Config allow you create/schedule some fixed value. with this function, it is easier than ever for you to schedule your promotional campaigns, sub-quest,tournaments in a certain date time.
A/B testing with Remote Config – Power of synergy.
Customizable and serving behavior is good. However, how do you know which is the best value? Once again, Remote Config and Firebase Analytic provide perfect solution for testing and finding the best value, that is A/B testing.
A/B testing is the work you provide sets of solution/value/experience for different user segmentations. Then analyze statistics to find out which set of values provide the best benefits for you. Remote Config already support divide users and customize experience for them, also integrating with Firebase Analytics allow you co observe how metrics changes on each group of customers.
We go back to the Flappy Bird example, the question is which difficulty is most suitable for game developers – not game players? The main method of monetization in casual game is money from displaying ads, balance between displaying ads and keep user playing your game.
Hard game -> User lose more frequently -> Short session -> you can display more ads. However users may become over frustrated.
Otherwise, if your game is easier, you could display less ads, however user will feel relaxed and bond to your game even more.
Above opinion is more like theory. There is only way to check which one is correct by testing. We create 5 different groups to test different velocity/distance. The original group would have standard velocity of 100, other groups would be 80 – 90 – 110 – 120 perspectively. The same applied for distance. After that, Remote Config allows you to target users in different testing groups by many conditions. You can target users in Vietnam, then divided Vietnamese into 5 groups. Or maybe you can treat Vietnam, America, Korea, England as individual groups:
Divide users into 5 groups with different difficulty
Define user segmentations, after values are tested, you need to define ‘goal metrics’ you want to know. Firebase support you to select 6 statistic, some default on users engagement such as: daily engagement, user retention or using additional statistics customized by yourself. Even better, Firebase reports provides you know exact revenue comes from AdMob or IAP.
Choose related statistics to user to use as result
Complete steps to select users, we can double check before testing:
Last checking before testing
The interface above is also the one help you to check the result of the test. default group (control group) will be used to be the standard to compare different groups. You can learn the difference in result, how statistics change (+/- how many percent) compared to standard group. Then make the best decision for yourself.
Example on result of A/B testing
Remote Config cannot help you to decide 100% which one is best for you. However, it provides synergy between powerful tools for you to test all scenarios. At the end of test, you would have set of statistics/data to have a clear picture on how better/worse your updates gonna be when released. In conclusion, with Remote Config and A/B testing, there is no doubt that you would be able to judge what changes/update is most likely to succeed for your apps with confidence.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
For more articles on Firebase, please find it here
The last couple of years has been a massive growth for the mobile app industry. There are over 4,000,000 mobile apps on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. As a result, it’s quite a huge challenge for app publishers and app marketers to gain app visibility and rank in this oversaturated markets.
With App Store Optimization, publishers and marketers have the ability to maximize their potential in their apps. On the other hand, It’s not as simple as it seems if you are new to ASO. Many people can make mistakes during the ASO process even a senior app publisher who has been in the industry for years. Thus, our goal is to guide you through this complex process.
On the first stage of the ASO journey, you need to know these 15 fatal mistakes that most app developers and marketers often make and learn how to avoid them.
ASO is a process of growing and learning at the same time. Practice makes perfect. The more you fail, the more you can learn from the experience and keep getting better.
Not Aware of The Existence of ASO.
If this is the first time you ever heard about App Store Optimization. Congratulation! You have just made the first fatal mistake on the list. Not knowing the existence of ASO in the mobile app industry is one of the most common mistakes that most publishers and marketers make.
Up to 65% of app downloads is from app store search according to Apple. Keep that in mind that organic downloads are always a free resource for you to extract without spending any cost. Thus, App Store Optimization always has a direct impact on every mobile app business. ASO helps increasing your app visibility on the app stores in order to generate more organic downloads. The more downloads you have, the more revenue you will get.
As a result, not knowing ASO is a crucial mistake that no one should make while working in the mobile app industry.
Misplacing & Stuffing Keywords.
Keywords are one of the most crucial elements in ASO. They are gateways that lead potential users to your app. However, mobile app publishers and marketers are often misplacing keywords or putting too many irrelevant keywords on their app page. The reason for this is because they do not fully understand how and where to put keywords. It’s true that in order to find the right keywords is extremely difficult. Furthermore, putting them in the right place is even more complicated.
To avoid this from happening to you, first you need to do some research about keywords in ASO. Try to understand more about its mechanic and then practice it. There are plenty of ASO tools which can help you with keywords researching and keywords ranking analytics such as Google Trends, Mobile Action and Search Man, etc.
Neglecting Visual Elements of ASO
Another common mistake among app publishers and app marketers is overlooking visual elements in ASO such as App Icon, Screenshots, Video, etc. They often think optimizing only keywords will give them a higher conversion rate and that is the only thing they need. However, Keyword is not the only factor that has an impact on the conversion rate in app stores. The visual parts of the app page are where you can convince potential users to install your app.
The visual aspects of an app play a big role in making the best first impression. The app icon is always the first thing that users look at when they are on your app page. After that, users tend to look into screenshots and videos in order to find out what the app does then they would consider based on those aspects to determine whether they want to install it or not.
So to avoid this mistake, every publisher and marketer should also pay attention to the visual elements on the app page and put some effort on optimizing them. The higher the quality, the higher conversion rate.
Not Globalizing nor Localizing Your App.
In the digital world today, everything can be easily accessed by anyone anywhere and anytime with just a tiny device. There are at least 3,000 million smartphones around the globe so there is no reason to only targeting on just 1 market or 1 country. It’s time to globalize your product and target a vast majority of different audiences from different countries. By doing so, you will get a better chance to increase your downloads and revenue.
First of all, you need to do some research on different areas around the world and see where your potential clients are. Because your app might not be very popular in the United States but it may has a better chance among China users. You might be surprised what you have been missing out.
Once you have done your studies, consider to expand your market then localizing your app by changing the languages depending on the region or countries that you choose.
Prioritizing On The Wrong Keywords
This is another mistake that publishers often make while optimizing their keywords. App marketers and publishers tend to focus on only the high traffic keywords regardless of whether those keywords are relevant to their apps or not. Thus, this inaccurate practice can lead to using non-relevant keywords. Nobody searching for a messaging app is going to download a yoga meditation app. Additionally, some publishers also only focus on high-ranking keywords and short-tail keywords because of their high rate in user traffic.
To avoid this from happening to you, research your keywords and use only those that are relevant to your app. Furthermore, try to use more long-tail keywords for a better chance to gain visibility. Start small and work your way up to the big league.
Using The Same ASO Tactic On Google Play Store & Apple App Store
First of all, Google Play Store and Apple App Store are two completely different platforms. Mobile app developers usually use the same ASO strategy in both Google Play and Apple App Store. Indeed they do have some similarity but when it comes to App Store Optimization, they have their own particularities.
So when you are planning to put your app of both platforms, you should consider doing more research and rethink your tactics and strategy.
Only Implementing ASO Once
As you may already know that App Store Optimization is an ongoing process for mobile app. Like the mobile industry, it keeps on evolving rapidly every minute around the globe. App publishers and developers tend to think ASO is just a one-time implementation and they would stop optimizing once they have achieved the goal that they were aiming for. However, there is always something that can be improved for the purpose of maximizing your potential. The only limit is your own imagination.
New competitors are joining the market every second and new wave of audience are coming from the world. In this digital century, once you stop improving yourself, you will be left behind.
Not Researching Your Competitors.
In this new era of the internet, all of the good and the bad are available and public for everyone. This is one of the advantages that every marketer and app publisher should take. The reason for this is because you are not alone in this ocean of mobile apps. There are over a million of competitors that you have to compete against. Not monitoring and researching your competition is considered to be a major mistake that often be overlooked by many.
So practice and work on researching and understanding your competition because you can learn a lot from them and improve yourself based on your studies. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer
Black Hat ASO
For everything in this world, there is always going to be an easy way out. Black Hat ASO is a shortcut that some publishers and marketers use to cheat the system itself by using fake installs, fake reviews, bot users, etc.
These methods of earning revenue are often being used by many. However, what goes around will come around. The price that you might have to pay for doing Black Hat ASO can result in losing your app store account, suspended apps, lost in revenue, and so on. The best way to avoid falling into the same footsteps of others is NOT DOING BLACK HAT ASO at any cost.
Choosing The Wrong ASO Tools
Perhaps you might be familiar with some ASO tools out there in the market. There are numerous App Store Optimization tools that assist you on every aspect of the optimization process. However, not always do publishers and marketers choose the right tools for the tasks. It is a common mistake that everyone make even in other industries.
In order to pick the right tool for the right task, every app marketer and publisher should first understand how the app stores work, how the apps perform on the app stores, what aspect of ASO you work on, etc. Reconsider and summary your needs then start choosing the ASO tools that fit your requirements.
Not Updating With The App Store Changes.
Both Google Play Store and Apple App Store usually update and improve their store algorithm a couple times a year. Due to this factor, not being up to date with the app store changes is another mistake that publishers often make. So whenever an algorithm changes that affect your app page, you must respond as quickly as possible.
Mistaking ASO Is SEO.
If you have already known or heard about SEO, then you might think that ASO is just SEO for mobile apps. However, this is completely being mistaken by many publishers and marketers. Indeed, they both share some similarities but they are two entirely different processes.
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is the process of optimizing and improving website visibility in Google Search. SEO surely has some similarities with ASO but the most noticeable difference is: Paid campaigns do not have any impact in SEO,only in ASO.
Bad Quality Mobile App.
The reason why this is considered to be a mistake because a bad quality product can ruin your reputation and some publishers and developers often do this intentionally. In some cases, new developers don’t have enough experience in the field and they are still learning. On the other hand, others tend to use low quality app and trick users to download and use the app.
These developers and publishers believe that they can succeed by producing bad contents because it does not need much effort. However, the main goal is to satisfy users and keep on improving yourself. There are many aspects in an app that needs to be polished in order to be considered as a good app. So learn from the best and stay away from the worst. In the end, quality will always lead you to quantity.
Stealing Others Ideas.
In this oversaturated market, it is commonly known that everyone can steal anyone ideas due to the fact that every information and data are public on the internet. As mentioned above, there are over 4,000,000 apps out there and most of them might be clones. It is understandable that when there is a hot trending movement, people tend to follow it and try to get to the top at any cost. However, cloning a complete app is considered stealing and this happens in the mobile app industry all the time.
This is one of the most fatal mistakes that you should not make when getting into the mobile app world. Be unique and use your imagination. Create something for yourself. As Tim Ferriss once said: “ One can steal ideas, but no one can steal execution and passion “.
Quit Doing ASO.
It is true that App Store Optimization is a challenging process that requires a lot of hard work and efforts. People tend to quit and it is understandable. However, success is no accident, it is hard work, perseverance, failing, learning, studying and sacrifice. So if you are truly love what you are doing, work hard on it. Because once you stop optimizing and improving, you have reached the end of the line.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
Phone applications become so familiar to all users around the globe. An eye-catching and powerful application will provide a valuable experience with the user’s choice.
Important things we need to consider while developing a phone application are UX and UI. Before going deeper into the features, we need to understand the target audience you target for your application. No matter how much effort you put into design, the last thing you need is a nice and easy-to-use application interface for users.
Have you heard about “Bad experience design?” Yes, most of the reason they come from too bad UI design. Bad designs do not bring the feeling of wanting to try from users, from which the desire to provide experience for them goes bankrupt. To avoid that, see some small tutorials that you might consider designing.
1. The image is the right size
When it comes to graphic elements, programmers often type “one size for all”, this is the wrong approach. There is no doubt that it will help them manage things more simply but it can restrain the “beauty” of the application. In order for the app to look attractive, the graphic elements must also follow with each type of device.
2. Full Responsive
It should be noted that the user interface should be designed in the direction that the application is fully usable on all open devices and systems. Pay attention to all the issues that are feedback on every device.
3. Format appropriate
We have problems when the application loads a large graphic file. It is not just about wrong size but also the use of inappropriate formats. Android can use formats like PNG, JPEG, BMP and WebP. PNG is suitable for high quality images and JPG is good enough.
4. Color to notice
Should use small movements to switch between screens and set different UI colors to inform the status of the application. For example, changing the color of buttons when interacting (pressing, holding, dropping) helps users get feedback from the application.
5. Keep things simple
This is not really about using minimalist style in design. Keeping things simple means an approach in the way that the first user can immediately use the application without having to see the tutorial or a video. Of course, a simple user interface is the type of application that helps users to do many things with the least help.
6. Large enough font
Like the above, using a large, easy-to-read font will help readers feel comfortable. Stay away from fonts smaller than 12pt.
7. Contrast to look
What makes your eyes uncomfortable when you receive an email with colorful fonts comes with flashy wallpaper. Stay away from such things by using a color scheme that is recommended to make the content better read.
8. Follow the platform instructions
Many applications look for the benefit of user familiarity. They create simplicity and an intuitive interface for easy control of what was created. Do not try to go back to history with too new interfaces that users have to learn from the beginning.
If you are trying to be creative, use A / B testing to have an effective comparison with your UI.
9. Always have Back button
The Back button is a button that users use a lot. If you are on iOS, you should have a Back button in the left corner where the user desires.
10. Use Beta Testing
What is observed is that developers are not very interested in QA or beta testing. Once the application is available, it would be good to start with a few users who will comment on the design and purpose. By placing the application right in front of the user, you can capture the unforeseen issues before launching the official version.
11. Popular icons are effective
There are dozens of icons that have been released for decades. If you are a UI design, you should have a set of favorite icons that you can use, but pay attention to their common characteristics to help people realize its meaning.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support.
Thank you and have a nice day!.
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An ad server is a web-based platform used to store ad content to be served to pages and apps. Most ad servers now provide functions that include:
Placement management
Inventory administration
Reporting
Invoice tracking
Ad tag creation
And other online identifiers along with online deploying and monitoring of ad campaigns automatically.
Ad serving platforms target at advertisers, publishers, ad networks, and advertising/media-buying agencies. For this complex audience, these servers are provided as:
Hosted service: Operating on a provider’s servers
Self-hosted service: Operating on internal company servers.
While these are technically similar, they differ in the type of data that is being optimized for tracking purposes.
Ad revenue is the money apps produce from in-app advertising. This revenue is calculated by multiplying ad impressions by eCPM.
Ad revenue = No. of Impressions * eCPM
To measure their ad revenue, app developers should consider other app metrics including ARPDAU, ARPU, and ARPPU.
However, there are many different types of ad, leading to a variety of revenue. In order to distinguish each source of income, app developers use reporting tools, so they can learn which sorts of ad placements make the most money. This data advises better app monetization decisions. Therefore helps developers form a solid ad monetization strategy: what type of ads to put in. The key to boosting ad revenue is placing high-performing ad units, such as rewarded video ads and playable ads, at high-converting points in the app flow.
In this post, we will look at 3 important aspects of Firebase Analytics: Event, User property and Audience
Event
Firebase Analytic operates based on Event mechanic. All user’s interaction will trigger an event (Along with parameter), Event will respond to the database of Firebase and it will save all the changes in Firebase Dashboard which are calculated based on data of Event.
After you integrate Firebase Analytic SDK, Even when you do not intentionally track events, Firebase Analytics will still display data on DAU, retention, etc. Because by default, Firebase is automatically tracking these important events like:
First_open: Activate when user open application for the first time after installing (Reinstall app is counted). This event would be used as a factor to calculate retention. A small notice is Firebase Analytics count user from all the source (even APK files), then this number would be considerably higher than daily install in Store Dashboard (AppStore, PlayStore)
Session_start: Activate when user engagement is longer than 10 seconds (This value may be changed). Session would be ended if there is no interaction in more than 30 minutes, the session will automatically be ended. Based on this event, Firebase Analytic will count number of session using app from user daily.
User_Engagement: Activate when a session ends (For example: Application is inactive for more than 30 minutes) in order to track the duration of session. It could be considered as a session_end.
Screen_view: Activate when user switch between screen on app. You can define and name the screen freely, then based on events to understand the amount of time users spend on each screen.
App_remove: Special event are only available on Firebase Analytic at the moment. Because Firebase Analytic can connect and share a part of data with Google Play Service, and particularly for Android, this event would be activated when user uninstall an app. This is a powerful tool because we can use it to gain insights from user and learn why they uninstall the app in order to improve the quality of our apps.
Apart from default events on Firebase, you can create up to 500 different events for your application with label and parameter for those events. Firebase Analytics also suggest set of events base on genre of your application here (https://support.google.com/firebase/answer/6317498?hl=en&ref_topic=6317484)
When creating an event with parameters, you can chose to break down an event into different parameters. Tracking the number of events occur on each parameter (Maximum 10 parameters for the whole Firebase dashboard).
For Example, the image above shows the number of event level_start occur on each level (Parameter Level_Name).
In summary, all of the default events created by Firebase can track basic information. Along with it, you can actively track more event depend on your app to understand your users better and gain insights on what they do while using your apps.
User Property
If event used to track what users have done on your app, then User Property is used to define who your users are. By creating properties for users and giving them some values, you can gain more information about an user: Who they are, where they are from, what is their current status.
Once again, Firebase Analytic provides default User Property to define who your users are: Gender, Nation, Age, Devices, etc…
More importantly, you can create up to 25 different properties for your users, to define your user’s status. Property can be their current level, the amount of money/gold that they have in the app, the number of items they own, the number of games they play etc.. 25 properties is very limited number, so you need to consider carefully before creating a user property because Firebase Analytics do not support deleting or editing property.
Everytime user triggers an event, all user_property of them will be sent with that event. This helps you to answer question “My user is in status x when they trigger action y”. For example: when finish Level 5, how many gold does my user have? When user is buying the first item, how many free item does my user have successfully unlocked before? Especially, when deleting a game, how many level my user have played, how much gold they earnt, how many items they have unlock?
Notice: To use user property with event, you need to use BigQuerry. Follow us more for further information.
Audience
Audience is a function which allows you to divide your user into segmentations which share the same attributes. Then you can come up with different actions for each group of users.
You can define Audience by conditions for events that user triggered or through user property to which display user status. In short, Audience displayed by following conditions:
What did your users do? and how many times did they do it?
What is your user’s recent status?
Notice that the Audience function works in a funnel model. After you create a group of audience, it will not have initial data, Firebase Analytic will track all your users to update data. Anytime a user triggers an event, that user will be checked by condition of Audience. If it meets the group of audience’s condition, that user will be included in new audience. The group of audience will be filled.
Some ways to use a group of Audience:
Divide user base on country: Use property county to filter user by US, UK, JP, ID v.v.v -> to find your top market.
User use a special function in your app: trigger events such as ‘buy_gun’, ‘Build_coffee_shop’, ‘use_booster’.
User surpass ‘checkpoint’ in your app: Trigger event such as: ‘Finish_tutorial’, ‘Finish_level_5’.
Top users, having potential to interact more in an app: using user property such as ‘highest_score’, ‘current_level’, ‘rank’.
The way to create an Audience: Recently Firebase support to sort condition based on many factors. Recently 2 of the most important factors are event and user property. However you can still base on app, source of user (This is highly effective when you run an advertising campaign especially on Google ads – Adword):
We just try to create a group of Audience. For example you want to define top user – users with ‘Top users’ bigger than with the amount of ‘hint’ higher than 500 and smaller than 1000, used to complete tutorial in classic mode, win over level 5 of puzzle mode, having interaction with quests more than 5 times in 7 days. Then the condition would be like:
In this example, the targets are Android users.
Use event finish_tutorial_classic with the condition is trigger more than 0 time
using event quest_engagement with condition more than 5 times in 7 days straight.
Using event finish_level_puzzle with the condition with parameter level higher than 5. Another way to use user property is current_puzzle_level higher than 5.
Using user property hint with condition higher than 500
In the meantime, create a group exclude the condition hint higher of equal to 1000 because we only need user with hint higher than 500 and smaller than 1000.
Trying filter a group of audience dashboard we will see most of statistic updated:
Using Audience, try to divide users into smaller groups based on suggestions above or based on the reality of your app. Then you would find out group of audiences who are most valuable to you to come up with different advertising strategy on them.
If you find this post provides you with useful information, please support us by completing our survey and get free access to our “ASO: App Store Optimization Vol.1 ” E-book. We appreciate your time and support. Thank you and have a nice day!.
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