# The App Store Optimization Stack [1/4]

- Link: https://phiture.com/asostack/the-app-store-optimization-stack-7443936050c5/
- Published: 2017-05-04T08:42:18+01:00
- Author: Moritz Daan

#### Introduction of a framework for ASO and our 󠀁[ASO eBook](https://phiture.com/asobook/)󠁿

_NB: Phiture is hiring for a key role to lead our evergrowing ASO team. You’ll be
responsible for leading and overseeing the success of our App Store Optimization
service team and help Phiture to lead the way in mobile growth. Read more about 
the role [here](https://phiture.com/careers/)_

With the app stores nearing their tenth anniversary, the field of App Store Optimization
has matured, albeit with added complexity, not least by virtue of Apple’s announced
changes to the App Store with iOS 11. To help people interested in ASO to get a 
better grip on what **App Store Optimization (ASO)** is and how to be successful
at it, myself ([Phiture](https://phiture.com/) — Berlin, DE) and [Gabe Kwakyi](https://medium.com/@incipiagabe)(
[Incipia](https://incipia.co/) — Detroit, US) have partnered to write a **complete
guide to ASO. **The [**eBook was launched in September**](https://asoebook.com/)**
2017****_._**

Leading up to the launch, we previewed the select content of the book with the industry.
This is the first post in this preview series. One of the first things we set out
to do when writing this [book on app store optimization](https://phiture.com/asobook/),
was to build a framework illustrating how all the pieces of ASO are linked together.

We present that framework here today and would love to gather your feedback:

![aso stack framework-min](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/aso-stack-
framework-min-1024x699.png)

The** App Store Optimization Stack **is a cheat sheet for mobile marketers that 
want to better understand what levers they can pull to improve their app store presence.

In these series of four posts, we will unpack the stack and give an overview on 
all the tactics out there. The eBook that’s coming later in the summer, will be 
an all-encompassing work aiming to give you hands-on advice on how to effectively
optimize each of the elements.

The four posts will each unpack one of the layers:

 1. **Increase visibility: **how to get your app in front of more people inside of 
    the store?
 2. **Increase conversion: **how to convince people to download your app?
 3. **Tools: **how can ASO tools help you speed up and optimize your app store presence?
 4. **Outside of store: **what impact do outside influencers have on ASO and how do
    they overlap with your ASO work?

### **Increase visibility**

![increase visibility later in aso stack-min](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/
2017/05/increase-visibility-later-in-aso-stack-min-1024x314.png)

The first goal when doing ASO is to increase your app’s visibility. You can do that
by getting it in front of more people who are trying to **discover** new apps or
games, or who are **searching** for a specific app title. In the next subchapter,
we will describe the various aspects that should be kept on mind for increasing 
your app’s store visibility.

### **Getting featured**

Some publishers have established such strong relationships with the App Store and
Google Play Store teams, that a huge chunk of their installations are derived via
prominent featuring. The Berlin-based recipe app “Kitchen Stories” comes to mind
as such an example. Next to a great product they actively worked on building up 
a strong relationship with representatives of both companies as well as thinking
ahead about the promotional calendar to come up with relevant app updates that tie
in neatly with that calendar.

Some game publishers have full-time roles dedicated just to facilitate the conversations
with regional and global app store managers. But even indie developers with a high-
quality app are often featured if they pitch the app store managers in a timely 
fashion about an exciting new app or update they are bringing to the market. In 
our upcoming eBook, contributor [Peter Fodor](https://twitter.com/petrfodor?lang=en)
will unfold how you best pitch your updates to Apple and Google.

⌊ASO Tool SensorTower has its own scoring system for the impact of featuring-min⌉⌊
ASO Tool SensorTower has its own scoring system for the impact of featuring-min⌉

_Screenshot: ASO Tool SensorTower has its own scoring system for the impact of features._

### **Top charts**

Another common app discovery method for users is browsing the charts to see what
apps are popular. Both platforms have three types of charts, one each for showing
the top **free apps** and **paid apps **with the most downloads and the third listing**
top grossing apps **that generated the most revenue via paid download or in-app 
purchases. Google also provides a fourth top chart for **top trending** apps. Top
charts are tied to app and play store **territories** and are available for apps**
overall **and within each **category **of apps within a territory. The higher you
rank in these charts, the more eyeballs you will get that can lead to installs.

The impact of charts in ASO is three-fold. First, one should be aware of the fact
that an influx of installs can cause a higher top chart position and therefore additional
downloads. Second, some ASOs might have the remit and budget to do so-called “**
Burst campaigns**”. These campaigns are typically aimed at getting as many installs
as quickly as possible in order to go to the top of the charts. These often **incentivized
installs **typically don’t stick around as the users who download them didn’t have
much intrinsic intent to download the app in the first place: such campaigns are
all about the **organic uplift **that is caused by the change in chart position 
and thus visibility. Since the inception of these campaigns, they have seen a rapid
decrease in ROI as nowadays it requires a lot more downloads to get a valuable chart
position. Third, the ASO should (re)consider in what category an app should be placed,
with an eye for increasing visibility. This decision should be based on a variety
of factors, one of which being the rank that an app can achieve in a target category.

⌊ASO tool “The Tool” linking organic uplift to category rankings-min⌉⌊ASO tool “
The Tool” linking organic uplift to category rankings-min⌉

_Screenshot: ASO tool “The Tool” linking organic uplift to category rankings._

### **Keyword Optimization**

Search accounts for 65% of all installs (!). Nearly half of that traffic comes from**
generic searches** (“photo editor”), with a little bit over half coming from **specific
searches **for brands (“Google”), titles (“Facebook Messenger”) and typos or misspellings
thereof (“Facebook”). These are data points coming directly from [Apple and Google](https://phiture.com/asostack/aso-monthly-7-november-2016-a16cf91d4ac6/)
and just today the App Store release new analytics for source attribution from search:

⌊app analytics -min⌉⌊app analytics -min⌉

_With the [iTunes update from 4th of May 2017](https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/itunes-connect-update-app-store-browse-app-store-search-more/),
people can now see on their own app-level how much app units come from search._

Since this can be such a big opportunity, keyword optimization (KWO) is considered
by a lot of publishers to be the most important part of ASO next to conversion rate
optimization. For some apps, keyword optimization isn’t so interesting, such as 
a banking app companion where the user has to be an existing client in order to 
make use of the app. Ensuring that users are able to find the app on a brand name
or misspelling search might suffice in this case.

For most apps, however, KWO can add a great source of high-quality traffic, given
that targeting relevant keywords puts your app in front of users with specific and
relevant intent. Whilst with any acquisition strategy the goal is to acquire monetizable
customers, for keyword optimization you need to look at other lead indicators. The
main goal in KWO is maximizing your app’s rank on valuable keywords that are both
high in **search volume **and **relevance** to your app (industry best practice 
is to focus on earning keyword rankings of 10 or better)**.**

Heavily simplified, KWO is typically done in three steps. The first step is to research
a list of all the high volume, relevant keywords, search terms that users search,
and ideally those with a low level of competition. The second step is to integrate
those search terms into your app’s metadata. The third step is to analyze the impact
of the metadata optimization and iterate on the search terms for which it wasn’t
possible to earn an advantageous rank. Whilst the first round of optimizations is
often the most time-intensive and impactful, KWO is a continuous process full of
constant iteration due to changes in keyword ranks beyond your app’s metadata, such
as search trends and the competition per keyword.

In this post, we will not go through all the different ways in which ASOs can influence
how their apps can rank for a certain search term and how they can improve that 
position. Nonetheless, we do want to call a few key tips for managing this process.
Your **app title** will have the biggest impact on search, and on the App Store,
the hidden **keyword field **also impacts search rankings a lot, whereas in Google
Play, indexation of keywords mainly happens via **other metadata **such as the short
description, long description and your app package name. In our upcoming eBook, 
we will elaborate on how you can make sure your app store listing is properly indexed
for the right search terms.

Finally, it should be pointed out that apart from the hidden keyword field, all 
of an app’s metadata can be seen and thus impact the install decision positively
or negatively.

⌊visibility score after iOS app update-min⌉⌊visibility score after iOS app update-
min⌉

_Screenshot: ASO Tool AppTweak showing their “Visibility Score” after an iOS app
update to measure the keyword visibility across tracked keywords._

### **Search ads**

With Apple and Google realizing that 65% of all installs come from search, it was
clear to them that they could also take a cut already in the discovery process. 
Google launched global Play Store search ads in July 2015 whereas Search Ads hit
the US App Store in September 2016. This has of course had a minor negative impact
on the growth of organic downloads. Anecdotal reports of a drop in _up to_ 25% organic
installs have been reported with the switch from a top #1 organic result to a paid
result. In Google Play even the top two results are now ads, even though they take
in less screen real estate than Apple’s one search ad slot.

Search ads (provided by both Google & Apple) affect ASO in several different ways,
but described today is the special impact of Apple Search Ads on ASO, from an organic
point of view.

Whist search ads were received with a lot of disdain from developers and ASO marketers,
the smarter developers & ASOs learned to use the positive upsides to their benefit.
Those benefits of Search Ads on ASO are three-fold:

 1. **Search Popularity**: For the first time ever, we can compare the popularity of
    search terms against one another, using first-party data directly from Apple (as
    an index number between 5 and 100), rather than relying on 3rd party estimates (
    the accuracy of which was unknown and often factored in less relevant sources of
    data such as web searches or the general popularity of words in a language). Using
    this data, ASOs can now more effectively prioritize and compare keywords to determine
    the most efficient mix of keywords within metadata. That said, the exact number
    of monthly searches per keyword is still unknown.
 2. **Identify high LTV / good retention keywords**: Search Ads also allow ASOs to 
    track install-attributed data (e.g. first-opens, registrations and purchases) down
    to a keyword level, which represents another first-party data point that previously
    required relying on ASO tools to estimate. An initial low-budget Search Ads campaign
    can help you uncover what search term you should target in your title based on 
    conversion rates (via [Thomasbcn](https://twitter.com/Thomasbcn)). Using data from
    Search Ads campaigns adds a brand new layer of confidence in optimizing an ASO 
    keyword strategy.
 3. **Search Ads influence organic rankings: **In addition to helping inform your ASO
    strategy, downloads from Search Ads have been proven to have a direct impact on
    actually improving your keyword ranks. This means that ASOs who have the budget
    to run Search Ads campaigns can achieve much more success than their counterparts.
    As a note, there is no easily definable correlation between the number of Search
    Ads downloads and the number of organic rank spots moved, as this depends on factors
    such as the competition for that keyword, your app’s keyword relevance and current
    rank for that keyword, as well as your app’s organic historic performance. Generally,
    the higher your app’s relevance for a keyword and the lesser the competition, the
    fewer Search Ads installs your app will require to climb through the keyword ranks,
    and vice versa.

**Search Ads reduce organic volume**: this point is also important to understand,
as it indicates another paradigm shift that has occurred with the release of Search
Ads. While Search Ads have become a significant tool to help an ASO achieve results,
Search Ads also represent a type of app store tax that apps must now pay. This is
because Search Ads are a brand new search result that, when present, supercedes 
the first organic result in a store search, causing some percentage of downloads
to now be captured by ads. There is as of yet no data on how many downloads go to
Search Ads vs organic results, however, it is important to realize that store searches
are no longer guaranteed to go to an organic app result, whether #1 or other. Furthermore,
brands must also defend their brand term, lest competitors use Search Ads to siphon
high-value brand downloads away.

### **Trending Searches**

A lot more apps and websites these days enrich their search functionality with suggestions
for the searcher. Some apps offer a history of searches as soon as you hit the “
Search” box. This is extremely handy when for instance you’re trying to revisit 
the Medium post or Tweet that you searched for earlier. For app stores, this makes
generally less sense, and so the App Store shows trending searches, which are more
relevant for a platform geared towards the discovery of new apps. Every 4 hours 
the lists are refreshed, and as a result, anomalies in search patterns will be put
on display. Whilst the algorithm for these trending searches are largely unknown,
cheaters have succeeded in pushing apps into this list with shady tactics (see: 
Black Hat ASO).

Trending searches are playing a role in ASO in two ways. The first way is discovering
the latest user search trends. ASOs and especially some indie developers seem to
keep watch on the trending searches and quickly incorporate the trending searches
into their keywords in hopes of capturing some trending search-sourced downloads.
Whilst in some cases this is considered to be irrelevant and even shady, in other
cases it’s actually a sound strategy. One can think of News apps or community-focused
apps such as Reddit who can benefit from this strategy. They incorporate the trending
topic in their keyword (i.e. “super bowl”) and turn one of their first screenshots
into a representation of that news item / community around that keyword. Bigger 
brands are leveraging the Trending Searches in the opposite direction. Instead of
tapping into an existing trending keyword, they actively push the keyword with TV
ads or a YouTube influencer campaign to make a topic trending. Often after these
shortly-lived campaigns, the brand will become trending and can add a boost in organics
too.

⌊trending searches-min⌉⌊trending searches-min⌉

[_Image_](https://techcrunch.com/2014/09/29/ios-app-stores-trending-searches-section-shows-evidence-of-gaming/)

### **Search Term Conversion**

Treated as a separate topic in ASO is the conversion you get on certain search terms.
As a banking app you could target a keyword such as “music streaming” and even temporarily
rank fairly high for it, but you will never be able to build a sustainable position
for this keyword if your app is not relevant.

Both Google and Apple look at a keyword-level to determine how well you are able
to convince a user into clicking through to your app store product page and/or download
the app. Whilst based on the ranking behavior, it seems that the App Store primarily
only looks at CTR and install rates, Google Play appears to look at retention and
engagement on a search term level.

For ASO search term conversion comes into play when thinking about the search optimization
beyond the individual keyword and making your search result relevant to the search
term.

⌊arrows point at examples that increase relevancy to search term-min⌉⌊arrows point
at examples that increase relevancy to search term-min⌉

_The arrows point at examples that increase relevancy (and with that, CTR) to our
search term._

### **Localization**

Described here from three angles, in the first place localization helps with increasing**
visibility**; by providing metadata localization, locally relevant search terms 
can be added. Furthermore, it goes without saying that successful localization goes
beyond simple translation. One way is that a sports app must target differences 
in English for differences in dialect, such as “football” versus “soccer.” Or, a
slots app needs to target “slots” in the US and “pokies” in Australia. Visibility
uplifts can produce excellent gains for ASOs looking for growth. Incidentally, SoundCloud
saw an uplift of almost 400% in downloads just by translating the app store keywords
field intro Russian.

Secondly, localization helps with conversion optimization. Making the app visible
for locally relevant search terms (“soccer news” instead of “football news”) is 
a good first step, but without going any further to localize the app store listing
for the relevant audience’s intent, a UK “football fan” or a US “soccer fan” may
just skip your app and download the next. Local country teams in ASO should go one
step further and make sure that everything about the app screams local culture relevancy:
local content, local currency, app functionalities that are locally most used, and
so on. In another case for a big publisher, we even heard that showing a local mobile
carrier in the screenshot can have an impact on conversion.

Localization also has an impact on the ability to keep and engage users: the ability
to keep users after the download is believed to have a direct impact on search rankings.
And indirectly the ability to retain users helps with review volumes and better 
ratings too.[⌊localizing screenshots for the app store-min⌉](https://medium.com/u/f1cd0fec5e5b?source=post_page-----7443936050c5----------------------)

_[Andrew Frost](https://medium.com/@frostaloha) wrote a piece on localizing screenshots
for the app store._

### **Ratings and Reviews**

Both Apple and Google allow users to give a 1–5-star rating of an app, as well as
add a review of the app that can be read by others browsing your store listing.

The **number of reviews**, the **review velocity**, and **the star rating** all 
have a big impact on visibility. Whilst retention and engagement metrics can be 
great indicators for app quality, they are also problematic as not every app (i.
e. think flight booking apps) are used on a daily basis. Apple and Google thus logically
use review & rating metrics as better signals of the quality of the app in cases
such as this. These metrics are especially used for sorting search results.

Apart from an increase in visibility, the sheer number of reviews and the app rating
have a significant impact on conversion, too. [Qualitative surveys](https://www.apptentive.com/blog/2016/06/23/mobile-ratings-good-bad-ugly/),
as well as anecdotal reports on the impact of a drop or increase in star rating,
clearly depict this. And it’s not only the star rating that impacts conversion rates:
[heat maps](https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/mobile-strategy/aso-best-practices-optimizing-app-store-page-part-1/)
show that people do indeed also read each other’s reviews in order to establish 
the trust in an app. Next to the metrics, the **quality of reviews** is therefore
very important.

The ASO can work with the product team or with a mobile marketing automation tool
to encourage more people to leave a positive rating and review by triggering a rating
request at the right time to ask for a review. It’s industry best practice that 
these triggers are preceded by some kind of filter so that happy users are redirected
to the app stores, whereas unsatisfied users are asked for feedback. This has [incidentally](https://twitter.com/pietbrauer/status/791883047373246464)
been rejected by Apple but remains a common practice. Additionally, having a rating
trigger is especially on the App Store as ratings are ‘reset’ after each update 
for the current app version, making it crucial to place the trigger.

Finally, the ASO should be aware of the impact that developer responses (Google 
Play allowed them for longer, App Store just as of March 2017) can have on conversion
rates. Not only can the individual user be helped and sometimes turned into a promoter
instead of a detractor, but the developer engagement also helps build trust among
potential users reading the reviews. Incidentally, replying to reviews can encourage
users to revisit their 1-star rating after having been helped, which helps the star
rating itself to increase.

⌊A Yahoo Study showing the importance of ratings & reviews -min⌉⌊A Yahoo Study showing
the importance of ratings & reviews -min⌉

_A Yahoo study showing the importance of ratings & reviews_

### **Third-Party Android stores**

Last but not least, leveraging third-party Android stores can generate an increase
in visibility. Moreover, in China, these third-party Android stores are really a
requirement to succeed, as the Google Play Store is blocked over there. But even
outside of China, third-party stores can bring in substantial traffic. As fewer 
developers publish their apps in these stores, it might also be easier to build 
meaningful relationships with the store managers and acquire lucrative features.

For keyword optimization, it’s important to note that third-party stores all have
their own algorithms: some, such as the Amazon App Store, draw keywords from a keyword
field, while others operate based on inputs from other metadata fields.

## ⌊keyword optimization-min⌉⌊keyword optimization-min⌉

### **Black Hat ASO**

Apple and Google have their guidelines of what is and isn’t allowed in their app
stores. Their guidelines are complementary to existing unfair competition regulations
which already deems certain unfair practices illegal. For example, one law fines
companies like Bell in Canada for [$1.25M](https://9to5mac.com/2015/10/14/bell-fake-app-store-reviews/)
for leaving fake app store reviews. However, it’s the App & Play Store guidelines
that control whether you risk getting [talked to by Tim Cook](https://www.engadget.com/2017-04-23-apple-ceo-threatened-to-drop-uber-app.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9waGl0dXJlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEtfn_ZVNLPO5DIXb3hBGqLoMjKEAX8wnFulLngMH1o1ya1P0dk39X6Dti4NX5fmKdxd5FNrb5wKhAta8XZJ9DTp4gnQvCHktvIo_4l1h7WnAQ939qkY60RPfRzf2lhjGe32yvav-tbKkc5TXnFCuRXnYuREgH4sgoaYJAP8ukit),
a ‘penalty’ or even get expelled from the developer programs.

The ASO should know “where to draw the line” on gray hat tactics (literal quote 
from the App Store Review Guidelines) and not only to stay out of harm’s way, but
also make sure their competitors aren’t using shady tactics to gain an unfair advantage.

Whilst it might be enticing for developers to rate their own app or incentivize 
their users to do so, they should stay clear from these behaviors as they can get
you expelled from the stores. The same goes for bot downloads and [other Black Hat tactics](https://phiture.com/asostack/black-hat-aso-where-to-draw-the-line-eef10df05d0a/).
Some examples of less-stringent edge-cases can include going against guidelines 
that say that you should clearly depict in your screenshots if a feature is behind
a paywall. Still, if your competitor is not clarifying this, but you are, you will
always be one step behind. It’s therefore one part of the ASO’s job to draw the 
line and steer clear from any fraudulent behaviors, as well as detect and report
these behaviors if competitors are crossing the line.

![Example of a so-called keyword burst campaign-min](https://phiture.com/wp-content/
uploads/2017/05/Example-of-a-so-called-keyword-burst-campaign-min.png)

_Example of a so-called keyword burst campaign, which increases your ranking for
a particular keyword._

#### **See you in the comments**

Next time we’ll continue with a post on conversion rate optimization. We’d be happy
to see you sign up for our ASO eBook newsletter, so that we can keep you in the 
loop on the eBook and upcoming posts.

In the meantime, also look out for the 12th post in the [ASO Monthly edition](https://phiture.com/asostack/).
If you liked this post, leave us a ❤ and share it on your social media. If you have
suggestions or questions about the Stack, please do let us know.

_P.S. At the end of the month I’m presenting the stack at _[_Applause in Barcelona_](https://applause.io/)_—
hope to see you there._

#### **Thanks!**

A big thank you for our industry experts [Emily Grossman](https://medium.com/@emilygrossman),
[Peter Fodor](https://medium.com/@Peter_Fodor) and [ThomasBCN](https://medium.com/@thomasbcn)
who participate in the eBook. Also a shout out to all ASO tool vendors that offered
their help with the book (so far: AppBot, AppFollow, AppRadar, AppTweak, ASODesk,
PrioriData, Raisemetrics, SensorTower, SplitMetrics, Store Maven, TestNest and The
Tool).

### ![aso stack framework logo-min](https://phiture.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/aso-stack-framework-logo-min-1024x561.png)

#### [2/4] 󠀁[The App Store Optimization Stack: Increasing Conversions](https://phiture.com/asostack/the-app-store-optimization-stack-part-2-8383b26092bd/)󠁿