# ASO Monthly #74 June 2022: WWDC22, Google’s Search Algorithm Change, App Store Connect Benchmarks, & More!

- Link: https://phiture.com/asostack/aso-monthly-74-june-2022-wwdc/
- Published: 2022-07-06T10:19:09+01:00
- Author: Ambra Percudani

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ios15spotthedifferences-3-300x164.
jpg)

In this ASO Monthly series, the Phiture team reflects on the previous month and 
sheds light on trends in App Store Optimization, algorithm changes, privacy changes
and tool updates.

Don’t miss the recordings of the ASO conference! Check it out [here](https://share.hsforms.com/1IaHMU5hIR4So0Ohd6tQrVg1ku04).

This update was prepared by our ASO Consultant, Ambra Percudani at Phiture. 

 

### **June 6 – The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference**

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image15-300x201.png)

The [Apple Worldwide Developers Conference](https://developer.apple.com/wwdc22/)(
WWDC22) took place from June 6 to 10 with exciting reveals and new opportunities.

Apple WWDC is an annual event where developers can attend sessions and meet with
Apple engineers. It’s mainly a software event since Apple gives a glimpse into the
latest version of the operating systems (OS) for its devices: iPhone, iPad, Apple
Watch and Apple TV.

There were lots of new  updates this year that have a direct and indirect impact
on ASO practitioners, in particular:

1. New App Store Connect review process 

Tedious app review processes can be a pain point as they slow down testing velocity.
At WWDC 2022, Apple announced steps to address this. You can now group multiple 
items in a review submission, submit items without a new app version release, and
there’s also now a dedicated app review submission page. This will allow for the
testing of multiple elements at once, with more flexibility and without losing any
time if you’re on a tight deadline. 

**2. App Store Connect API 2.0**

With API 2.0 you will be able to manage in-app purchases and subscriptions, customer
reviews, developer responses, and app hangs diagnostics. This will allow ASO practitioners
to have more control over creating in-app purchases and subscriptions, as well as
respond to user reviews in an easier way and fix app crash issues more easily.

**3. A new Game Center dashboard** 

With GameKit, you can easily integrate with Game Center. Players will be automatically
signed in ready to compare scores with other players on leaderboards and track progress
through achievements. This means having your game and all of its activities discoverable
in more places and in an easier way. 

**4. Updates to requesting a review**

Ratings and reviews are vital factors that determine app developers to convert users.

The new update provides you with a tool that makes it easy to request a rating from
your users. That way, you can let them know you’re listening to their feedback and
continue engaging with them. This will allow ASO practitioners to get higher app
ratings and better reviews.

In this [post](https://phiture.com/asostack/wwdc-2022-aso-updates/) prepared by 
our ASO consultants at Phiture, we outline how these WWDC updates can improve your
work.

 

### **June 7 – Google Play Safe Initiatives impacting ASO performance**

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image12-173x300.png)

Source: blog.google

In the past few months, Google launched different safe [initiatives](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/06/keeping-google-play-safe-progress.html).
Below you can find the most relevant from an ASO perspective:

 * [Google Play SDK Index](https://developer.android.com/distribute/sdk-index): 
   this initiative provides insights and usage data for popular commercial Software
   Development Kits (SDKs) on Google Play, so developers can decide consciously 
   which SDK is right for their business and users. 
 * [Data safety section](https://blog.google/products/google-play/data-safety/):
   developers will be required to give people more information about how apps collect,
   share, and secure users’ data. 

Importantly, showing the data safety info on the store listing page could potentially
bring down the CVR, unless you request for more privacy than user expects. Otherwise,
this section is not expected to have too much impact, as it is situated below the
first screen and the new initiative applies to all apps. 

ASO practitioners should check its impact in the conversion rate, once you have 
filled the Data Safety form. 

If you want more insights about this Data Safety, take a look [here](https://blog.google/products/google-play/data-safety/).

 

### **June 8 – Re-downloads data missing in App Store Connect**

On June 11, ASO Stack Slack community member, [Muhammad Adnan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/muhammad-butt/),
noticed that re-downloads in App Store Connect have been stopped reporting. It seems
the data stopped being available from June 8. [(ASO Stack](https://asostack.slack.com/archives/C628Z5M7X/p1654933190529209))

### 

Source: App Store Connect

 

Other members of the community confirmed the same issue, which has been solved around
June 15. We suggest keeping this in mind when analyzing the performance of the month.

 

### **June 9 – Google’s search algorithm change**

Google announced via Twitter the release of a broad core update named the May 2022
Core Update. This update began on May 22 and was completed on June 9. 

Google make substantial improvements (core updates) to their overall ranking processes
several times a year. The main focus of these updates is to increase the overall
relevancy of Google search results and to make them more helpful and useful for 
everyone. 

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image3-1-300x157.png)

Source: nextgrowthlabs.com

 

At Phiture we performed different tests in order to understand the impact of this
algorithm change, analyzing the impact on brand and non-brand search results. 

**Branded keywords search results**

Before the update, more apps were shown in the search results if you searched for
branded keywords. Now, just the first and second ranked apps are shown in branded
keyword results and to see other applications, users need to click the “More Results”
button.

### 

**“You might also like” has been removed**

“You might also like” and “Similar Apps” sections have been removed from the search
results screen in some countries or for some users. For example in Turkey, the old
search results screen is still displayed, while in the US, these sections are not
displayed to users.

This means that Google Play apps that receive a lot of conversions from their competitors’
search results may experience a significant drop in store visitors.

### 

**Different Search Results**

In branded keyword search results, other applications of the brand are highlighted,
but the number of results differs for each search. While the competitor app appears
in second place when searching for “Snapchat,” only official apps appear in “Instagram”
search results. 

For example, 7 different apps are shown in the “Facebook” search result. In the “
Instagram” search result, only 3 applications are listed. Searching for most other
brand keywords is fetching up to 250 results, whereas in some cases there are only
3 results in a single card. Whereas, a search for most non-brand keywords is returning
11-250 results. 

### ![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image2-1-192x300.png)

**Category Ranks**

Before the update, we could get a maximum of 200 apps ranked in a specific category,
but now, we are able to get many more, with a maximum of 1000 ranked apps.

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image7-185x300.png)

With these updates in mind, you might notice a drop in your main metrics if your
downloads come mainly from competitors’ keywords and you may need need to adjust
your ASO strategy accordingly. We would suggest you do not rely too much on competitors’
keywords and try to get more downloads from generic keywords. 

Thanks also to [Sergi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sergirodriguezmartinez/), a member
of the ASO Slack community, who pointed out the algorithm change. ([ASO Stack](https://asostack.slack.com/archives/C628Z5M7X/p1654770080115119))

If you want more information, take a look at the full article [here](https://nextgrowthlabs.com/index.php/2022/06/22/may-2022-google-play-update/).

 

### **June 10 – Benchmarks will be available later this summer in App Store Connect**

App Store Connect will introduce later this summer a new section: Benchmarks. Apple
said it will show to its users how to use the new App Benchmarks tool and how you
can use Product Page Optimization and Custom Product Pages to improve your ranking
on the App Store.

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image16-300x141.png)

Source: Apple

 

ASO Stack Slack member, [ilia Kukharev](https://www.linkedin.com/in/iliakukharev/),
shared with the community some insights about the new feature.

According to Ilia, data will be available by category and monetization model, and
the metrics to compare will be:

– Conversion rate

– Retention rate

– Average proceeds from paying users

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image5-1-300x167.png)

  Source: Apple

 

As you may have already noticed, in terms of conversion benchmarks it’s similar 
to what we have already in Google Play Console and will give users the possibility
to compare their conversion rate with the one of their competitors in their category.

 

### 

The data of the launch is not defined yet, but [here](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/10044/)
you can find more details provided by Apple with which to align your ASO strategy.

 

### **June 16 – No data available from Google Play experiments**

One of our ASO Stack Slack members, Juhui, highlighted a bug in the number of downloads
showed by Google Experiments from June 16 to June 19, noticing they weren’t changing
across the days. ([ASO Stack](https://asostack.slack.com/archives/C627GR668/p1655708736884859))

### 

Source: App Store Connect 

 

Other members of the community, confirmed that it’s a reporting bug, and it won’t
affect new experiments. 

As always, do not forget to consider this when analyzing any test results. 

 

### **June 16 – Privacy Sandbox Developer Preview 3: support for conversion measurement, custom audiences, and ad selection**

![](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image6-300x90.png)

Source: Android Developers Blog 

 

The Privacy Sandbox on Android wants to develop new solutions that maintain user
privacy and enable effective and personalized advertising experiences for apps. 
It includes APIs and developer resources for conversion measurement and remarketing
use cases.

These APIs permit developers to measure when an ad click or view event leads to 
a conversion and to the download of a new game. 

You can also: 

 * Register attribution source and trigger events
 * Receive event reports and unencrypted aggregable reports.

APIs also provide the possibility to serve customized ads to users based on previous
app engagement, without third-party data sharing. You’ll be able to:

 * Manage Custom Audience membership and analyze how parameter values may affect
   auction outcomes
 * Fetch JavaScript auction code from remote endpoints
 * Configure on-device ad auctions
 * Handle impression reporting

These updates might be crucial for ASO practitioners as it might give us the possibility
to analyze user behaviors on conversions. At the moment, it’s only available for
gaming apps. Take a look at the full [article](https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/06/privacy-sandbox-developer-preview-3.html)
to learn more about it, in order to not miss any important updates to include in
your ASO strategy.

 

### **Upcoming Events**

Droidcon Berlin – Onsite – July 6th

Japan Marketing Week Tokyo – Onsite – July 6th

App Growth Masterminds Seattle 2022 – Onsite – July 28th

### **Tool updates**

Splitmetrics: [Apple Search Ads Important Updates and SplitMetrics Acquire Role](https://splitmetrics.com/blog/apple-search-ads-important-updates-and-splitmetrics-acquire-role/)

Data.ai: [Reviews Speak Volume!](https://www.data.ai/en/insights/product-announcements/reviews-speak-volume/)

AppTweak: [Get Advanced Insights About Your App’s Featurings](https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/get-advanced-insights-about-your-app-s-featurings)

### **Interesting reads**

[Turning Your Product Page Audit into Robust Experimentation](https://phiture.com/asostack/turning-your-product-page-audit-into-robust-experimentation/)
| Phiture

[7 App Store Creative Trends You Can’t Miss in 2022](https://www.apptweak.com/en/aso-blog/7-app-store-creative-trends-you-can-t-miss-in-2022)
| AppTweak

[MAU Recap: Privacy Changes, Emerging Channels, and User-Generated Content](https://sensortower.com/blog/mau-recap-2022)
| SensorTower 

[ASO Conference Series: Qualitative and Quantitative User Research to Understand Conversion Rate](https://phiture.com/asostack/aso-conference-series-qualitative-and-quantitative-user-research-to-understand-conversion-rate/)
| Phiture 

[Non-game apps need 37% more daily downloads to rank in top 10](https://www.businessofapps.com/news/non-game-apps-need-37-more-daily-downloads-to-rank-in-top-10/)
| BusinessofApps

[How to set confidence level for the new Play Store experiments?](https://medium.com/@mateuszw/how-to-set-confidence-level-for-the-new-play-store-experiments-8d61435bdd13)
| Mateusz Wrzeszcz | medium.com

### **Before you go:**

One of the members of our ASO community, [Vadim Lysenko](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vadim-l/),
highlighted that “Story featuring” or “Story collections” in search results is counted
as Browse visibility. This is something we wanted to mention since it could be confusing(
considering we are in search results). ([ASO Stack](https://asostack.slack.com/archives/C628Z5M7X/p1655302085755589))

Each ASO practitioner should keep it in mind while analyzing their traffic sources
of downloads