Icon of the Google Play Store

How to Effectively Promote Android Apps

/in /by

If you’ve picked Android as your operating system, you need to promote your Android app in the most effective way to get awesome results.

Navigation

1. The World of Android Maket Share | Play Store
2. Free Android App Promotion ASO | Free Channels
3. Paid Android App Promotion Ad Agencys | Incent vs Non-Incent
4. Insider Tips Alternativ App Stores | Google AdWords

The World of Android

Before we start, let’s look some basic information about Android itself.

Market Share

According to TechCrunch, Android hit 86.2% market share in Q2 of 2016 (while iOS had a market share of 12.9%). Android can be used by different mobile manufacturers, hence it isn’t surprising that it is so popular worldwide.

This popularity makes it harder to publish and promote Android apps: Since every device manufacturer has different standards, it’s a tough road to provide the best UX for all Android users.

Statistics about how the amount of sold smartphones grew in the last years

The need for good mobile app promotion has risen in the last few years © ayeT-Studios

The Play Store

There are +2,000,000 Android apps available on Google Play Store, with thousands of new mobile applications being published on a monthly basis.

Most apps downloaded from the Play Store can be downloaded for free by the user. The statistics of Statista show that only 4% of the 100 highest-grossing apps in the U.S. require payment for usage.

So, choosing the right monetization model is an important factor for Android app promotion to increase their apps’ popularity. Android users do not like to spend money for mobile applications unless they are really worth it.

Promote Android Apps for Free

Let’s get started: How to promote Android apps in the most effective way without paying any money for it?

You can choose between many services that are ready to boost your app’s visibility. Let us show you steps you can take by yourself first.

There are several things you can do to promote your Android app’s discoverability. Since they are for free it is the perfect solution for a tight budget.

ASO on Google Play

To give your app the best ranking possible, the first thing you can do within your Android app promotion strategy is optimizing its page on the Play Store.

Nobody knows how Google’s algorithm works in detail. But be sure: The information on your app’s Play Store page is one of the most important factors, so arrange it right.

App Name

This is where ASO to promote Android apps starts:

The app name is the textual flagship of your mobile app and the place you have to combine creativity, function(s) and keywords – all in one title with 30 characters.

App Description

In the app description, you’re also limited by a maximum of possible characters (4.000). Set your focus on the first 167 characters to promote your Android app because they will always be displayed.

The description contains all the information about your app that is necessary for the user. If you can make it attractive, users might want to take a closer look at your app.

You should make sure to use your keywords no more than 5 times in the description. Google will filter them out for keyword searches.

Keywords

Relevance, competition and search volume – these are the elements that will count for the correct choice of your app store keywords when promoting Android apps.

If you are not sure how to select the right ones, you can click here for detailed information about ASO keywords.

App Icon

App name and app icon: These two things are the main focus of attention when mobile users first check out new apps.

When you create the app icon, it needs to be consistent with your app’s design. Otherwise, it will have a negative effect on your Android app promotion.

You can take a look at competitive apps in your app category to catch some ideas.

Screenshot & Feature Graphics

Mobile users have access to the so-called feature graphic, which is the small picture at the top of the page. It is a plain yet expressive picture, containing app name or icon only. Make sure not to forget it when you promote Android apps.

Potential users always want to see what your app can do before downloading it. With screenshots, you can perfectly show them features, feelings and use of your Android app.

Video

People love videos, so you can take advantage of it when you promote Android apps and create a short clip. Demonstrate what your app can do and why users should download this app.
The amount of Android Apps in the Play Store from 2009 to 2015

The amount of Android apps in the Play Store is growing steadily © ayeT-Studios

Your Channels for Your App

Now that your Play Store page is perfectly curated, you can get down to all the other channels. Spread the word and promote your Android app wherever possible.

Social Media

The perfect place to let your app circulate around the worldwide web is social media. Everybody knows about social media outlets and, for example, with an average of 1.15 billon active mobile Facebook users in December 2016 (as stated in the Facebook newsroom), there is quite a big potential for attracting new users in there.

You can take the chance and register your mobile app on the main channels and share

  • a post (Facebook),
  • a tweet (Twitter),
  • a picture (Instagram) or
  • a short video (Snapchat)

with your target audience. Check out this article about the perfect app promotion with social media.

App Website

Users don’t want and need every single detail on the Play Store page. However, if you create a landing page for your app, users can take some time and take in all the information about your mobile app, your company and all other channels.

You will convey way more reliability by presenting a well-designed website for your Android app promotion and your company. Bear in mind to make it suitable for mobile devices, too.

External Websites, Forums and Blogs

Another step you should definitely take when working on Android app promotion is publishing it on other websites than your own and in hopes of making it go viral.

There are many review websites where mobile apps are rated and tested (just like nearly every product nowadays). Users might take a look around and search for certain app categories or even app names.

When you are listed on such websites, you can increase your app’s discoverability. The good thing is: There are app review sites where you don’t have to pay for such a service. All you need to do is register your app or contact the website admin. You can very easily promote Android apps this way.

In forums, like-minded people chat, discuss and share information about their favorite interests. Mobile technology lovers could be interested in your app, so you should definitely take the chance to register as a user and examine potential forums. Maybe you will find some to promote your Android app.

Another idea to promote Android apps are blogs. You can either create your own and give users insight on your app, news, updates, and so on.

Furthermore, you can contact bloggers to give a word about your app. If you can convince them of your app idea, they will show it to their audience.
More app promotion sites are listed here.
Distribution of paid and free apps in Google Play Store

How paid and free apps are distributed in the Google Play Store © ayeT-Studios

Paid Promotion to Promote Android Apps

The afore-mentioned strategies already represent a great start to promote Android apps.

Is there more you can do to give your app a real kick? Yes, there are plenty of promotion services you can choose from if you invest some money.

Ask an Ad Agency

Many steps to promote Android apps can be taken by professionals in this business. Ad agencies have access to a widespread network they perform in and work with.

Furthermore, they collaborate with various people and channels on different media to offer the best adjusted service to promote Android apps.

Incentivized or Non-Incentivized?

This is an important question, not only for your budget, but also for your traffic and user behavior.

We will explain both types to you with regard to promoting your Android app. However, our tip is: It’s always a good choice combining both strategies to get the best effect.

Incentivized

This ad model includes the exchange of items (e.g. virtual currencies or game items, upgrades, discounts, etc.) for user interaction.

More precisely: When a mobile user downloads/uses/interacts with your Android app, he/she will receive a reward for this behavior.

This model is cheap when choosing it for Android app promotion but leads to early abandonment of your mobile app, too. The most common ad formats exercising this model are offerwalls and rewarded videos. There, users have the chance to receive rewards if they complete tasks at hand.

Non-Incentivized

The non–incentivized ad model promotes Android apps without the exchange rewards. It simply means that engagement generated with the app were solely out of initial interest in the app, yet there is no guarantee the user will complete any further action.

The main advantage of non-incentivized app promotion strategies is that the users have no virtual benefit associated with the install of the app and that is why they are more likely to keep it and use it lately. This will bring great results when you promote Android apps.

The basic mobile ad formats for non-incentivized strategies are banners, interstitials, natives and videos. Users will start using the displayed mobile app if the ad attracts the sheer interest of the people in the app.

Click here for more detailed information about mobile app promotion and ad formats.

Pricing Models Incent – Ad Formats Non-Incent Ad Formats
CPI Offerwall Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPA / CPE Offerwall –
CPC – Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPM / CPV Rewarded Video Banner
Interstitial
Native
Video

Typical ad formats and their pricing models © ayeT-Studios

Pricing Models

There are various pricing models available for Android app promotion. To make sure that you receive the best results with your strategy, here are some of the basic media pricing models:

  • CPA: Cost Per Action (payment for a certain action)
  • CPE: Cost Per Engagement (payment for an interaction – ayeT-Studios offers this type for direct engagement time!)
  • CPI: Cost Per Install (payment for an install)
  • CPM: Cost Per Mille (payment for every 1,000 impressions)
  • CPV: Cost Per Completed View (payment for watching a video)

You want to learn more about the most common pricing models? Check out our mobile media pricing article.


Insider Tips


Promoting your Android app with the methods we discussed will already improve your app’s discoverability noticeably.

Now, we have some tips that might lead to even more success for your app.

Make Use of Alternative App Stores

Google Play is the biggest and most famous store for Android apps. Additionally, there are way more app stores that contain apps based on this OS.

Although publishing an Android app directly in Google Play seems to be the most attractive option, there are many advantages for choosing third party app stores to promote your Android app.

Target Audience

It is hard to get access to some countries and their users, either due to national regulations or because of the popularity of regional app stores. If users have more trust in these stores than in Google Play, you will barely attract potential users from these regions.

Take China as an example, where Google Play is not even available to promote your Android app at all.

App Category

When users want to download an app from a specific category (e.g. games) there are app stores available that specialize in certain classes.

For example, the Chinese app store “D.cn Games Center” has set its focus on mobile gaming. If you promote your Android app in such stores you can be sure to reach the perfect target audience for your application.

Revenue Share Model

While Google offers a 70/30 revenue split, some alternative app stores offer app developers a higher percentage. “Soc.io Mall” distributes revenue 80/20 – in favor of app developers.

Furthermore, these app stores also offer various tools to promote your Android app’s visibility. Such elements are not given in the major app stores, which is a great benefit for app developers.

Mobyaffiliates gathered some data about alternative app stores, their users and downloads. These numbers are quite impressive: AppChina has 30 million users, with 600 million apps downloaded monthly.

These facts prove that publishing and promoting Android apps in other app stores mostly carries advantages for your app. It should be definitely worth a thought.

Get Connected with Google AdWords

This online advertising tool by Google lets you promote products via various ad formats, displayed on different channels. You can promote Android apps with it, too.

There are two campaign types you can choose from:

Universal App Campaign

This option lets you promote Android apps via different ad formats and on several networks available by Google. Text and visual elements are taken from your app’s app store page (one more reason for ASO).

This campaign type is based on a CPI bidding system, meaning you can choose how much you are willing to pay for users installing or first-opening your Android app. Thus, you can promote your Android app and increase your marketing budget if results are great.

Mobile App Installs Campaign

With such campaigns, you target only one network to generate app installs. Depending on the specific campaign model, you can choose between CPA, CPV, and CPI as bidding option to promote your Android app.

There are three different campaign models, each of them target a different network:

  • Display Network app installs campaigns (text or image app install ads)
  • Search Network app installs campaigns (text app installs ads on)
  • TrueView for app installs campaigns (video ads on YouTube)

According to your Android app promotion strategy and your target audience, you can select the campaign type that best fits your needs.

With its bidding system, you can adjust it to your current marketing budget. Click here for more information about mobile app installs campaigns with Google AdWords.

Get Connected with ayeT-Studios

Ad agencies like ayeT-Studios provide different kind of app promotion services for both Android and iOS. With their multichannel ad solutions, they can tap into a wide variety of different channels to optimize campaigns across publishers. Facebook and Google only combine for around 50% of the mobile advertising market, leaving behind a big chunk of other (often times cheaper) opportunities to promote your Android app.

Combined with the optimization across ad formats and pricing models, ad agencies like ayeT-Studios can offer a highly competitive alternative to Facebook and Google to promote your Android app. Try it yourself!

Beneath, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$

Apple in rainbow colours

Effective Strategies to Promote iOS Apps

/in /by

There are many criteria for developing a mobile app for Apple’s App Store. Developers need to have an idea about how to promote iOS apps to make sure that its visibility improves constantly.

We collected some basic facts about proper iOS app promotion.

Navigation

1. Andoid vs iOS The App Store | Distribution
2. Basic Knowledge ASO | Own and Other Channels
3. Paid iOS App Promotion Incent vs Non-Incent | Pricing
4. Promotion via Apple Search Ads | Editorial Choice

Android vs. iOS App Market

People mostly decide between the two big giants of the mobile world: Android and iOS.

The same decision goes for app developers because they rarely upload an app to both operating systems. Here are some facts about the rivals.

Apps In The App Store

As an iOS app developer, you should first analyze the desire and behaviour of your target group to understand what your future users will expect from apps like yours. Regarding differences between iOS and Android apps, it is shown that:

  • There are less indexed iOS app downloads than for Android.
  • The aggregate app revenue is higher in the App Store than in the Google Play Store.
  • Prior to release, Apple’s review process conducts more thorough app checks in comparison to Google.


Android’s number of downloads is pushed by many different markets and their demand. Apple users are willing to pay more money in the App Store.

Furthermore, Apple sets its focus on high-quality apps for its users and monitors more strictly with regard to iOS app requirements.

Distribution of OS Versions

Both Google and Apple constantly publish updates of their operating systems to provide the best possible service. How many users are really using it?

Many different devices use Android as their operating system, meaning there is a wide range of factors that should be kept in mind to reach as many potential app users as possible. Additionally, according to the official site for Android Developers, most of these mobile devices have Android 4.4 (21.9%), 5.1 (23.1%) or 6.0 (30.7%). Only 1.2% are used with its latest version Nougat.

The Apple Developer site, in contrast, states that 79% of its users have iOS 10 and 16% of their mobile devices are used with iOS 9.

This leads to the following conclusion: iOS users have a high-quality standard and are technically up-to-date in most cases.

These quality standards also affect the concept of your App Store promotion.

A world map where you can see which mobile OS is used most in which country.

Where are iOS and Android predominant? © DeviceAtlas

Basic Knowledge on How to Promote iOS Apps

As an app developer, it may seem difficult to figure out an app store promotion concept by yourself. Don’t worry, there are some basic steps that everyone can realize to promote their iOS app and give it the best start position possible. The good things is that they can all be performed by yourself, meaning you can save money, too.

App Store Promotion: DIYs

There is no special know-how you need for taking the basic steps in iOS app promotion. The following ones only require a little time investment for improving the app’s appearance and discoverability.

Click here to find a complete guide for your free app promotion.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

Even before publishing your app, you can already optimize its features and appearance in the App Store. If you improve these factors to promote your iOS app, it will improve its rankings and consequently guarantees more organic users.

There are various elements that play an important role for your app’s ranking:

App Name

Here you need to make a good first impression since this one of the two elements users take a look at. Apple has set the limit to 50 characters so no keyword spamming, please!

Your app name should present its main idea, combined with your brand name and some creative features. In combination with the main keyword(s), this is the perfect start to promoting your iOS app.

Keywords

100 characters are allowed for your app’s keywords, so they should be choose wisely.

Our tip: If you avoid spaces (and use commas instead) you create more opportunities of keywords combination. You will rank for far more keywords than if you separate them.

There are many criteria for which exact keywords app developers should use to make the best of their iOS app promotion.

  • Relevance
  • Competition / Rankings
  • Search Popularity / Volume

The right choice of keywords can have an important impact on your app’s visibility. You can find various ASO tools for the App Store that will help you create a list with the best keywords to promote your app in iOS. Learn all about how to find the right keywords for your app in our detailed article.

App Icon & Screenshots

The app icon is THE visual eye catcher in the App Store. Make sure it is coherent with your whole app design and its idea as well.

When uploading screenshots of your app, try to show the main features of the app. Users will get a feeling about how your app works and what visuals they can expect.

Of course, they should be of high-quality, so don’t hesitate to hire a graphic artist for this task: It will definitely be worth it! Great design means great results for your App Store promotion.

App Description

Here you can present all the great features of your iOS app to convince new users to download it. You need get to the heart of your app in the first 3 lines because this is what users will see first.

Before uploading your app description, make sure that there are no grammatical errors or typos. The same goes for translations: If you hire a translator, you will get the better results and promote your iOS apps more effectively.

We have set our focus on only some elements in this article. Click here to find a more detailed explanation about ASO.

Comparing App Store Revenue in 2014 and 2015 by different countries

App Store Revenue in China, Japana and the United States increased from 2014 to 2015 © ayeT-Studios

Creating Your Own Channels

Now that your app is perfectly embedded in the App Store, it is time to take the next step to promote your iOS app.

There are many ways to use online and other media channels to promote your iOS app. Nearly everybody has some kind of profile in the world of social media. But not only people are registered on these channels:

Companies use Facebook, Twitter & Co to present their services and products to their audience, always keeping them up-to-date.

You can create your profiles and start your iOS social media app promotion straightaway.

Why not create a landing page for your iOS app? On this website, you can present all the information about your app and also provide brand and company details. Make sure that the website is also suitable for mobile devices. Like this, you can be sure to reach all potential users during your iOS app promotion.

Other Channels You Can Take Advantage Of

To help your mobile app go even more viral, you should not only use your own channels but also contact other people to write an article or a review about your app. This way, you can expand the reach of your media coverage when promoting your iOS app.

There are many websites that offer app reviews and promotions for free. You can let your app get listed and let the admins write a review, giving basic information about your app and its features, too. Check out this article for more information.

You can also get in touch with editors and ask them to publish a line about your iOS app. Since they receive many requests every day, you should be well prepared and gather all the needed information in a press release – if your app is good enough, some editors might give it a try; a nice extra for your iOS app promotion.

Nowadays, there are blogs or video channels about every topic that people might be interested in – even techies find websites with gossip and news about mobile devices, equipment and apps. Share your app with these kinds of influencers and give them a good reason why they should promote your iOS app on their channel. If it suits their content, they will at least tend to take a look at it.

Most of the afore mentioned optimization tricks will directly help you improve your app ranking in the App Store. You will drive organic downloads, which is the cheapest way of generating installs.

Other channels like social media or building a website are a more passive way of driving installs. They won’t help with improving your ranking directly (at least not for the Apple App Store), but will build your brand in the long run, leading to word-of-mouth advertising and hence more downloads.
Check the table below to see what works best for iOS and for Android ASO.

Play Store App Store
Downloads ✓ ✓
Revenue (only paid apps) ✗ ✓
App Starts (usage) ✓ ✓
Number & Value of Reviews ✓ ✓
Keyword Relevance ✓ ✓
Recently Updated ✗ ✓
Retention/Uninstalls ✓ ✗
Country ✓ ✓
Social Proof ✓ ✗
Backlinks ✓ ✗

Differences in rank-influencing factors in the app stores © ayeT-Studios

Paid iOS App Promotion

If you are not sure about how to set up and start your iOS app promotion concept, you can take experts on board, too.

Ad Networks

Contact ad networks, who offer various kinds of services to promote iPhone apps. Depending on your budget, they will create a personalized app promotion strategy, including various mobile advertising formats.

Click here if you want to know more about ad networks.


Incent vs Non-Incent

You can choose if you want to use a method of rewarding users or not.

So-called incentivized offers give users an incentive for interacting with the app. The greater the attraction, the more users are willing to use the app. Such rewards can be items or other currencies for apps.

Potential users can also be encouraged to install and use a mobile app that is displayed on their mobile device – without receiving a reward for it. This is called non-incentivized offers, based on the true interest of potential users in your iOS app.

Which type of offer you should use for your iOS app promotion mostly depends on your app promotion strategy and your marketing budget. There are big differences in pricing for both types. Take a look at this article for more information about these 2 offer types.

Ad Formats

These are the most common ad formats used in mobile advertising for iOS app promotion. You can divide them into 2 groups.

The typical incent ad formats are:

  • Offerwall: Several offers are shown. When completing one, users will receive a reward.
  • Rewarded Video: Like non-incent videos they will play and show an end card at the end. However, in this case, users receive an incentive for watching the video. The install itself is always non-rewarded. Therefore, this ad format is basically a mixture of incent and non-incent advertising.

And these are non-incent ad formats:

    • Banners: The cornerstone of mobile advertising. They are obvious ads on the mobile display.
    • Natives: The modern banner, which is integrated seamlessly into the rest of the mobile content.

  • Interstitials: A full-screen banner that needs to be closed for continuing your activities.
  • Videos: They play on the user’s display and show an end card (interstitial with an invitation to download the app).

Pricing Models

Depending on your iOS app promotion goals, it can make sense to choose different pricing models. To help you get an overview, we created a table below to match pricing models to the most common ad formats for incent and non-incent advertising.

You want to learn more about the most common pricing models? Check out our mobile media pricing article.

Pricing Models Incent – Ad Formats Non-Incent Ad Formats
CPI Offerwall Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPA / CPE Offerwall –
CPC – Banner
Interstitial
Native
CPM / CPV Rewarded Video Banner
Interstitial
Native
Video

Typical ad formats and their pricing models © ayeT-Studios

Promote Your iOS App Via Apple


Apple itself also offers some services to iOS app developers for boosting app discoverability.

Search Ads

With Search Ads, iOS app developers are able to place their app on top of search results. Since more than half of the app downloads are generated through search resluts in the App Store, this is a great opportunity to promote your iOS app more effectively.

With its self-service dashboard, creating a Search Ad campaign is very easy. There is no minimum spend for it and costs are only incurred if users tap the ad. Apple has set a bidding system for this feature, which makes it possible to set a price according to your current budget.

Earlier in this article, we talked about ASO and how important it is to provide the best possible information and graphics. You can take advantage of this metadata through “Search Match”. This feature takes metadata about the app from the App Store for your iOS app promotion.

You can also either use keyword recommendations made by Apple or select keywords on your own, just like with Google AdWords. However, it is not possible to change the ad creative, this data will only be taken from your metadata.

Furthermore, relevance is more important than bidding regarding apps being displayed via Search Ads. Here, Apple again shows that it prefers high-quality to monetization. So, when you already did a great job on your ASO, you can draw on it.

Check out Apple’s website for more detailed information.

Apple’s Editorial Choice

This is no direct promotion tool for app developers but it may attract them to create the best app possible. Apple’s editors continually choose great iOS apps that are displayed in these special sections of the App Store – so Apple will promote your iOS app.

Next to its appearance, features and quality, your app can also get the chance to be placed by lowering its price for a limited time. So, you might consider offering a discount from time to time.

Statistics about how many free and paid iOS apps are online in contrast to Android

Free and paid app distribution for iOS in comparison to Android © ayeT-Studios

Last But Not Least: Monitoring

This aspect affects every piece of your iOS app promotion, no matter if you started it on your own or with an ad agency. You should always keep an eye on your data, statistics and results for your iOS app to make sure you invest in the right place at the right time.

Basically, this means that you have to change information and elements to see which way works best for your app. Especially in ASO, keywords can be switched to measure which ones are returning the best results.

Promote Your iOS App with ayeT-Studios

ayeT-Studios is specialized in app promotion for both iOS and Android. With its mobile ad solutions, it belongs to the leading ad agencies in the mobile market.
Below, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$

Basics of Mobile App Promotion

The Basics of an Efficient Mobile App Promotion

/in /by

Nowadays, people browse the internet through mobile devices and – more importantly – spend more than thrice as much time in apps compared to mobile browsers. Consequently, you need a waterproof concept for your mobile app promotion.

In the following, we will present great strategies to ensure that people find and download your app.

When Mobile Overtook Desktop

Since the mobile sector increased with reference to internet usage in the last years and finally overtook desktop computers, the need for mobile apps and mobile app promotion grew, too.

Companies, brands, traditional media – they are all adapting their services to mobile formats to expand their audience and stay in contact with their customers more easily.

In 2016, the average time spent in mobile apps per day was more than 3 hours, which is triple the amount in comparison to 2011. The time spent in mobile browsers didn’t even double in this time period to an amount of approximately 50 minutes per day (according to eMarketer).

Since the general time spent on mobile devices is increasing steadily, the amount of usage of mobile browsers amounts to 10% only. This emphasizes the need for a well-designed mobile app promotion.

The average time US users spent with mobile internet

Time spent with in-app vs. mobile web in the U.S. © ayeT-Studios

You can see the consequences of this process in the masses of competitors if you want to build an app.

Business of Apps released statistics stating that the total number of mobile app developers worldwide is higher than 8.7M. The amount of mobile apps available is even higher.

This high level of competition also underlines the necessity of a successful and well-planned mobile app promotion.

The 5 Factors for Successful Mobile App Promotion

What makes a strategy for your mobile app promotion successful? It’s not about taking only one measure and expecting tremendous results.

We collected the 5 main factors for your mobile app promotion that will make your app go big.

Paid Ads – User Acquisition

With mobile app promotion, developers want their apps to become popular. This can only be achieved if as many people as possible use the app on their mobile devices.

Acquiring users can be tricky since there will be various apps with the same character as your mobile app.

To attract users for your product you need to think about:
(1) Where should it be promoted?
(2) How should it be promoted?
(3) Who should promote my mobile app?

Here are some basics about these aspects for your mobile app promotion strategy.

(1) Media Channels

You can use all media channels that are present today to start your mobile app promotion. If it’s social media pages that you create, websites for your product or a TV clip:

The more budget you have, the more channels you can use to advertise your app during your mobile app promotion.

Since you want to attract new users, you should choose ways to get in touch with them directly on the channels they frequently use.

(2) Ad Formats & (Non-)Incent Advertising

If you choose an ad network for your mobile app promotion, they will offer you different kinds of usable ad formats. Each company has its own focus on certain aspects but there are some basic advertising formats for mobile app promotion we want to present:

Incent AdFormats:
– Offerwall: Several offers are shown to users. When they choose and complete an offer they will receive a reward in exchange.
– Rewarded Video: People love videos and their importance in mobile advertising has grown in the last few years. So-called rewarded videos also offer an incentive if people watch the full video. At the end of the video an end card (interstitial) is presented to the user with an invitation to download the app.

Non-Incent AdFormats:
– Banners: Banners are the classic part of advertisement in the mobile market, being shown in some part of the screen. You can clearly see that banners are ads because of their inconsistency with the rest of the screen.
– Native: In contrast to banners, their modern brother – a native ad – is built into the website or app in a way that it is perceived as part of the original content of the app or website.
– Interstitial: It works the same way as a banner with the difference in its size because interstitials cover the full screen. You need to click it away to continue the game, return to the menu, or to start the next level.
– Video: Just like with rewarded videos, users will watch the video and see an end card afterwards. The only difference is that the users won’t get rewarded for watching the video.

5 different ad formats that can be used for user acquisition

Basic ad formats for mobile app promotion © ayeT-Studios

You can also buy incent and non-incent installs for your app. This article will show you how to use them for your mobile app promotion.

(3) Ad Networks

Many companies nowadays offer mobile advertising to boost your app. They help you increase popularity and visibility of mobile apps with a personalized mobile app promotion strategy.

Of course, you need to pay for their services, however, you will get good results. So your money is well-invested.

Marketing through Influencers

Influencers who are active on social media channels can also push your mobile app promotion by publishing content about your app.

This will spread the word about products and since the audience is interested in the same topics as the influencer, you can be sure that these people tend to download and use your app.

Do you want to know more about mobile user acquisition? Click here for detailed information.

App Store Optimization (ASO)

App Store Optimization is an aspect for your mobile app promotion you can either do by yourself or pass it on to ad agencies who are specialized in this field.
Improving certain elements can clearly help your app ranking, which makes it the key factor of your mobile app promotion. Click here to get a very detailed description of ASO.

App Name

This is where mobile app promotion starts. The app name needs to make a good impression straight away, combining app function, creativity, and attraction at the same time.

App Design and Icon

The first visual object that is seen of your app is the app icon. It should match the general design that was chosen for the app to convey consistency.

Screenshots and Feature Graphic

Good screenshots give users an insight into your app. The more features you show, the more convinced they can be.

Feature graphics are only available on mobile devices but it should not fade into the background. With mobile app promotion, you need to reach all potential users.

Video

You can present your app in a short video. People like watching videos more than reading text, so you can easily convince potential users to download your app if you create an appealing clip.

App Description

Catch your user’s attention in the first paragraph and, depending on the app store, you can implement some of your main keywords. An enthusiastic and informative text can be persuading and push your mobile app promotion some more.

Keyword Search and Optimization

Each app store page works with keywords, the same goes for your mobile app. Finding and testing the right keywords is the first step. However, the permanent optimization of them is more important for mobile app promotion. Monitoring and, if needed, changing the keywords could lead to better results.

Eager to learn more about your perfect keywords? Then take a look at this article.

Building Your Own Brand

A brand name can be catchy and attract new users for your app. It’s a tough road until it becomes popular on the market but you can make a good start by creating more media coverage.

This aspect of mobile app promotion can be executed by the app owner. If you are not familiar with digital media, you can hire experts.

Build Brand Assets for Your App

You can establish your brand by creating a well-designed website where you publish all necessary information about your product. Add links to the app store and your social media profiles and make sure the website gives all information new users might need.

  • Build a website for your app
  • Include app download links on your website
  • SEO matters here
  • Create a blog section on your website
  • Feature the app in your emails
  • Consider alterative app stores
  • Always collect emails
  • Cross-promote your app (if you have other apps)

A graphic about how much time is spent in apps and the mobile browser in the US

Apps are clearly preferred when going online with a mobile device © ayeT-Studios

Leverage Social Media

It’s one of the most powerful channels you will find: Many products have already gone viral through social media. You can take advantage of these channels for your mobile app promotion by publishing content about your app and letting it circulate.

  • Use Dubbler
  • Post on Pinterest
  • Share your content
  • Get in touch with your users
  • Join developers & entrepreneur groups on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on)

For more information about social media app promotion, click here.

Get a Ton of PR

Press releases will help you spread the word about your mobile app in other media institutions. If you can convince editors with a piece of paper, you can be sure that they will mention your app in a future article.

  • Apply for awards
  • Contact bloggers who would care
  • Do “real-life” marketing / recruit customers locally
  • Run a contest on your social media channels
  • Reach out to influencers
  • Comment on blogs
  • Exchange shares with other influencers
  • Get speaking opportunities

 

App Promotion Sites

You will find different websites on the internet to spread the word about your mobile app.

Forums, blogs, or review sites list and rate various mobile apps to give a first impression to their audience. A great way to promote your app! So try to get featured on mobile app review sites of official blogs.

Do you want to know more about it? Click here and read about app promotion sites in detail.

App Improvements

Improving an app is not a shame, even famous apps have not been perfect right from the start. You adjust your app to the needs of your users.

What exactly does your app need to become better and which feature is even superfluous? We have some tips and tricks on how you can revamp your app:

Get Feedback of Other Developers

A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. Since other developers have the same problems, you can ask them for support. You can expect a professional advice because they know about this process.

Check Out Competitors

You can learn from the mistakes of developers with apps that have the same function as yours. Especially reviews and users’ reactions will tell you what you can do better and what you should pay attention to.

React to User Feedback

App developers rely on their users and their experiences with the app. So, start mining your apps reviews.

You should be truly interested in constructive criticism and suggestions because they are worth a mint. Users will be happy if they are heard.

Respond and Try to Resolve All Your Negative Reviews

This measure has 2 big advantages:

  • It gives you a better ranking because you take care of your users and their sorrows and criticism.
  • You can collect ideas for improvements for your app since they will explain what exactly led them to give a negative review.

Updates

When you have fixed the weaknesses of your app, the next thing to do is to update your app.

You don’t have to this for every single error. However, permanent updates show your users the dedication you have for your product.

Take Advantage of Localizations

To localize your app implies hard work, if you do it 100%:

Matching app name, screenshots, and description with the respective target language is the beginning of catching the attention of new users.

To make sure that these users can properly use your mobile app, you need to localize your app itself and its whole content, too.

Push Notifications to Push Engagement

Users only use a few apps regularly, the rest will be rather untouched or even deleted. You can remind users of using your app more frequently by integrating push notifications.

Integrate Social within the App

Of course you can place a button for your social media profiles in your app. What about a tool where you can invite new friends via social media?

You can give your mobile app a real push if users spread the word about your app, especially if they get a little reward for inviting new users.

Statistics about how the app abandonment has changed in the last 5 years

App abandonment has increased in the last 5 years © ayeT-Studios

Differences in Mobile App Promotion for iOS and Android

The two biggest app markets are Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Hence, most app developers focus on creating iOS or Android applications.
Mobile app promotion in these app stores is similar in many aspects. However, there are differences you need to consider when customizing your mobile app promotion to the respective OS.

Specialized Online Channels

As mentioned before, you can publish articles and posts about your mobile app to increase its reach. There are different industry-specialized websites for iOS and Android. So, make sure to choose the right channels for your mobile app promotion.
The world of social media offers many groups, forums, channels, and blogs that specialize on one operating system. So, keep an eye on the right ones.

Ranking Algorithm

Google and Apple created their own ranking algorithms, by which apps end up in their position in the charts. They are updated on a more or less regular basis to prevent any misuse or fraud.
As an app developer it is important to follow these changes and updates and match your mobile app promotion with them. Algorithms consider e.g. installs, ratings, uninstalls, and usage.

ASO

You will also find differences when creating the app page in the respective app store. They consist of nearly the same elements and structure. But there are things you need to consider if you want to get the best results for your mobile app promotion.
Android and iOS have some common elements (e.g. design, wording, content) but they vary the most in usage and integration of keywords:

  • Find the right keywords: For iOS apps, you only have 100 characters to set your keywords, so you have to choose them wisely. In contrast, Android apps have their keywords implemented in the description where the developer is not tied to character limits.
  • Keyword implementation: While Apple has a keyword field, Android apps contain keywords in their descriptions. App developers can palce them in the text but it is recommended to use a keyword a maximum of 5 times to prevent spamming.
  • Design a video: The big advantage for Android developers is to the possibility to create a promotion video for your mobile app that you can place on your app store page. A well-designed video can lead to more traffic for your page.

In these articles, you will find more details about Android App Promotion and iOS App Promotion.

PLAY STORE APP STORE
Downloads Yes Yes
Revenue (paid apps only) No Yes
App starts (how often the app is used) Yes Yes
Number & value of reviews Yes Yes
Keyword relevance Yes Yes
Recently updated No Yes
Retention / uninstalls Yes No
Country Yes Yes
Social proof Yes No
Backlinks Yes No

Comparison of App Ranking Factors for Google and Apple © ayeT-Studios

How to Begin Mobile App Promotion

To optimize your results, you constantly need to surveil, evaluate, and improve the strategy of your mobile app promotion. Click here if you want to know the first steps for your personalized app promotion.

App developers can also take advantage of ad networks like ayeT-Studios. With multichannel ad solutions, they can acquire massive amounts of users right after your app launch and also grow and engage your user base at a constant level.


Beneath, you can find information about our pricing:

Rewarded
Advertising		 Android
(starting at)		 iOS
(starting at)
CPI 0,07$ 0,15$
CPE 0,30$ 0,30$
CPA (Signup, Registrations) On request On request
Rewarded Video (CPV) 0,020$ 0,020$
Rewarded Video (CPM) 0,50$ 0,50$

 

Non-Rewarded
Advertising		 Android/iOS/Website
(starting at)
CPC 0,02$
CPM 2,00$
CPV 0,02$
Mobile advertising

Mobile Advertising – Find the Right Ad Format

/in /by

Mobile advertising is an important part of your marketing strategy that you should not only keep an eye, but truly focus on.

But what are the best ways to advertise on mobile devices? Which ad formats can you choose? And which mobile advertising trends can you expect in 2017?

What Is Mobile Advertising?

The mobile market is becoming more and more important for marketers. The number of people owning and using a smartphone is growing rapidly.

In 2017, there were already 2.32 billion people worldwide using a smartphone. Because of its growing importance, there are already many marketers who follow the mobile-first- (if not the mobile-only-) strategy.

Mobile advertising is a special form of advertising using special formats, which are adapted to small mobile screens.

There are different types of devices on which mobile advertising is displayed, like

  • Internet-capable mobile phones or smartphones and
  • Tablet computers and similar devices (e.g. phablet).

number of smartphone users worldwide: mobile advertising

With growing numbers of smartphone owners, mobile advertising is becoming more and more important © ayeT-Studios

Mobile Advertising is a part of mobile marketing. Nevertheless, it should not be part of a traditional marketing campaign: There is much more to it.

Mobile advertising should be looked at from a different point of view, since it is way more complex than plain billboards – with way more opportunities, and therefore also difficulties.

The most difficult part of mobile advertising is to create an ad that the users find interesting and acceptable. A study performed by defacto research & consulting found out that only 14% of the people surveyed would accept a mobile ad that is not personalized, however 30% of the surveyed people would accept a mobile ad that is tailored to their personal interests and needs.

On the other hand, users find it disturbing if the ad is too personalized. They fear being transparent for companies, which leads to suspicion.

Thus, you need to find a balance between personalized mobile advertising and general, professional advertising. Some basic ad formats can be found here.

The main goal of a mobile advertising strategy is to cause interest in your (potential) users with regard to your products and services. However, it is also a tool to remind (former) users of your unique selling points.

But how do you do that while finding the right balance and targeting the right users? Let’s find out!

What Kind of Mobile Advertising Can You Do?

There are a few different types of mobile advertising that you can choose from:

Which category you choose, depends on your product and your target audience. But most of all it depends on where you want to place your ad.

In the following, we will explain the different forms and places of mobile advertising.

Search

When thinking about where to place mobile advertising, you definitely should consider mobile search advertisement, hence placing an ad in search engines, like Google.

When a potential user searches a topic related to your product in the web, your advertisement will appear first on their mobile screens.

Mobile search ads are always text ads.
Estimated share of mobile clicks: mobile advertising

Google is dominating mobile search ads  © ayeT-Studios

Social

Mobile Social ads are endorsements that can be placed on any social media network page, for example on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. This type of mobile advertising can be an ad including text, image or video or it can be product placement.

Most people are using social media on their smartphones, so an optimized mobile ad constitutes a good investment and gives your business great exposure.

mobile social advertising

Choose a social ad format that matches best with your mobile advertising strategy © Mashbout.com

Do you want to learn more about mobile advertising on social media? Click here to get an overview of social media app promotion.

Display

Mobile display ads are a form of mobile advertising, which includes text and/or image ads. For most people, display ads are commonly known as “banners”.

Display ads are mostly shown on websites of newspapers, blogs or within apps and placed in between the articles.

Display ads: mobile advertisement

Display ads (“banners”) combine text and image © marketingland.com

Video

Mobile video ads can be placed on any video distribution channel, for example on YouTube. Here, the mobile advertising could be placed before or within the actual video (the latter as product placement).

Video ads are are also shown within mobile apps, mostly after accomplishing certain actions, e.g. completing a level of a game. 

mobile advertisement: video

A typical video ad being displayed on a video platform © adage.com

When Choosing an Ad Format…

…your mobile advertising should meet certain quality criteria:

  • Image Quality
    The image layout and quality must be of a high quality and resolution.
  • Relevance
    The information given in the ad should be relevant to the product you are advertising.
  • Accurate information
    All information given in the ad should be accurate and not misleading.
  • Adult content
    Make sure not to create provocative or x-rated mobile ad in order to protect younger users from adult content.

Rich Media Ads – Interactive Ads for a Better User Experience

Rich-Media is a broad term for all display banners that are interactive, animated or dynamic. Companies often use HTML5 technology to create interesting ads.

Rich media ads can be placed on social networks but also as display ads or on a video platform.

Rich Media offers more ways to involve an audience with an ad than with plain text ads or display ads. These kind of ads can cause a stronger user response.

Another advantage is the great possibility to monetize your user’s behaviour and interaction with your mobile ad. You can adjust your ad for your next mobile advertising campaign according to the acquired data.

Standard Banner Rich Media Ads
Standard banners are simple GIF, JPEG or FLASH image formats. They usually include texts with visuals such as a 2D logo. Rich media banners are those ads with audio/video components, making them a lot more versatile than a still image.
Small in file size. Huge in file size, but makes up for it with its versatility.
Less or almost no interactivity. In short, static. Highly interactive. In short, dynamic.
No other technology can be used with standard banners. Rich media banner can be synchronised with technologies like JavaScript & HTML.
They have only one interaction point; to be clicked. They can have many different interactions.

Comparison between standard banner and rich media ads © ayeT-Studios

Criteria for Successful Mobile Advertising

Mobile advertising is successful when it is creative and unique and encourages the user to engage with the advertised product.

It is also important to consider the target group’s wants, needs and behaviour in order to place the mobile ad on the right page with the right format.

Of course, a mobile ad needs a clear message. Users don’t have much time (and are not willing) to spend looking at a mobile ad while using their smartphone. Therefore, the ad needs to have a prominent place on the page.

Make It Native

It is also important for the advertisement to suit the look and feel of the website it is placed on – it should be native.

Therefore, it should blend in with the social feed on the app or website and appear just like the other posts and not like an ad (but of course, it needs to be labeled as an ad!).

Nevertheless, there shouldn’t be a loss of quality. If anything, the quality of the native ad should be very high.

In total, 25% more users recognize native ads compared to standard banners and 97% of mobile media buyers report that native ads were effective.

These numbers speak for themselves. Native mobile advertising is very effective and should therefore definitely be considered when planning a mobile advertising campaign.

In-app mobile advertising

Mobile advertisers can now insert action buttons into their mobile ads © TechCrunch.com

Outlook on Mobile Advertising for 2017

In 2017, there will be some trends that will create more interesting mobile advertising opportunities for companies.

Since mobile advertising is a growing market, more and more money will be spent by companies on effective ads. A total of 60% of Google’s global ad revenue will come from mobile advertising this year. In 2018, the number will even grow to 75%.

Companies will spend a lot on creative and interactive ads. The number of users being annoyed by online ads is growing, therefore the ads are going to be more creative and entertaining to offer users a great experience with the brand.

Ad engagement on mobile devices: mobile advertising

Users are encouraged more by interactive mobile advertising © ayeT-Studios

Mobile Messaging Apps were the number one trend in the past year. We can expect to see some great ads on Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, and others.

Furthermore, companies will invest more time and money in preventing cyber attacks by ad bots or ad fraud.

Something to worry about for mobile advertising is the high percentage of users who are using ad blockers on their smartphones. In the USA 28% of users have installed an ad blocking software.

Therefore, it is even more important for companies to create extremely creative mobile ads that create word-of-mouth-publicity and go viral.

If an ad is viral, everyone wants to and will see it. That is how you overcome the obstacle ad blocker.

Now that you learnt about the basics of ad formats, how about you check out what mobile user acquisition entails? Check out this article and read more about the key elements to gain mobile users.

For mobile advertising, you can choose mobile ad agencies like ayeT-Studios. They will create your personal mobile advertising strategy to yield the best results across multiple channels.

User Acquisition

A Beginner’s Guide to Mobile User Acquisition

/in /by

We all want to acquire loyal users for our apps: They should download, use and keep it on their smartphone for a long, long time. That’s the ideal state. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy in real life.

So, how do you acquire mobile users the right way?

Who Are Your Users?

In order to acquire high-quality users for your app, you first need to understand your users, their needs and their wants. Only if you target them in the right way, they will download your app and keep it on their smartphone for a long time.

To establish a mobile user base even before your launch, you can use your existing network (on- and offline):

    • Your friends
    • Family
    • Former co-workers
    • Business partners
    • Fellow students
    • and many more

Talk with them about your app, inform them about its features and uniqueness. This way, you can start word-of-mouth publicity that might convince other potential mobile users to download your app.

We recommend you to introduce your app to the market via a soft launch in just one or two countries. Like this, you can test which user segment is interested in your app and who will download it. Then, you can do some research on your userbase and ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are they generally interested in?
  • What are they searching for on google or in the app stores?
  • Which other apps do they use?
  • On which social media channels can you find them?
  • What are they talking about?
  • Who are they following?
  • At what times are they engaging?
  • How long will they keep your app on their smartphone?

If you can answer all these questions, you can plan your mobile user acquisition the right way.

User acquisition: Where iPhone users found the app they last downloaded

Mobile users’ approach to finding apps in the U.S. © ayeT-Studios

In addition to that, you can also do some research on their demographic characteristics, like age, gender, marital status, nationality, religion, education, etc.

By using tracking devices like GoogleAnalytics, Firebase, AppsFlyer, Adjust, Tune or Kochava, you can analyze your users’ app usage, for example the duration of each session within the mobile app or the retention rate.

It is important to understand your users before you start a big marketing campaign. That way, you can target your potential users the best way possible and your mobile user acquisition will be successful.

What Is Your Budget for Mobile User Acquisition?

In order to plan your mobile user acquisition strategy, you need to calculate your budget. First, you should select your key performance indicators (KPI) upon what you would like to achieve with your app.

Which KPI’s are important totally depends on you and your company. Following, we are going to present to you some of the most common calculations that you can use to calculate your budget for your mobile user acquisition strategy.

Cost Per Install

The Cost per Install, or CPI, measures the costs you have to carry for ads that trigger an installation of your app. CPI varies according to the ad formats you use. If you are using non-incent banner ads, you will most likely pay much more for each install than buying downloads via an incentivized offerwall.

Cost per install - User Acquisition

Cost Per Active User

The ost per active user measures the mobile user acquisition costs that you need to spend in order to reach users that will actively use your app. Every company needs to define for themselves what active means.

Some companies might say that an active user is a customer who returns to the app at least once a month. In this case, you might also hear the term ‘retention rate’. CPAU is always higher than CPI, since not every install you buy will convert into an active user.

calculation of the cost per active user

You want to learn more about C-Types? Then take a look at this article.

Average Revenue Per User

The average revenue per user is the amount of revenue each of your active customers (on average) contributes in a specific period of time.

Average Revenue per User: User Acquisition

Customer Lifetime Value

The customer lifetime value helps you predict how long your customer will use and generate revenue within your app and therefore, how much the user is worth for your app. It should always be your goal to improve app features that will most likely increase the Customer Lifetime Value of your users.

Most of the time, this translates into improving retention rate, session duration and total usage time per user for your app. If you operate a shopping app, the opposite might also be the case. This means reducing the session duration by, for example, optimizing the check out process once a user added an item to his basket.

This faster check out process might result in shorter session durations but higher CLTV in the long run. So, be aware of what KPI’s you have to measure and improve exactly.
With the CLTV, you can calculate how much of your budget you can spend for a user within your user acqusition process in order to make profit. The CLTV depends on three factors:

  • Monetization (how much customers contribute to your mobile revenue),
  • Retention (level of engagement a customers has with your app) and
  • Virality (sum value of additional mobile users a customer will refer to your app)

calculation of the customer life time valueReturn on Investment

Return on investment (ROI) signifies the profit you make with your app compared to your investment. A high ROI implies that your profit is way higher than your investment. Be aware that you might not only want to measure CLTV against Ad Spending for your ROI but also all other costs of the business you operate – like rent, HR, infrastructure, and so on.

Return on Investment: User AcquisitionChurn Rate

With the churn rate, you can calculate the number of mobile users that will delete your app in a specific period of time. It is a valuable indication of your mobile users’ satisfaction with your app.

calculation of the churn rateConversion Rate

There are many different ways to calculate your conversion rate. It all depends on what is important to you as a company and what you want to achieve.

You might want to measure more than just one conversion within your conversion funnel from mobile user acquisition to revenue generated. That way, you would be able to improve your app on a more sophisticated basis.

There are at least two conversions we find worth measuring for almost any type of mobile app:

  1. Installs / Active Users: You can calculate the number of users that installed your app based on your mobile user acquisition campaign and then decided to take specified actions to convert into an active user.
  2. Active Users / User Generated Revenue: You can calculate the number of mobile users that are using the app and then decide to take action and to generate revenue, for example, by offering in-app purchases.

Conversion rate: User Acquisition

Click here to read a detailed article about the importance of knowing your user acquisition costs.

Tools You Can Use for Your Mobile User Acquisition Strategy

After calculating your mobile user acquisition budget, you can start planning your strategy.

There are many tools that you can use in order to acquire mobile users, but only a few that you really should use. It all depends on your mobile app and which users you want to reach, you just need to find the right mix that suits you and your potential users.

If you want to be successful, you need to adjust your mobile user acquisition strategy to your product and service, as well as to your target group. From time to time, when your app or your target group even slightly changes, you need to adjust your mobile user acquisition strategy and the tools you are using.

If you want to acquire mobile users, you can use free or paid tools to do so. If you choose to use paid services for mobile user acquisition, you can do it in two ways: incentive and non-incentive.

In order to understand the difference between these two, you may want to read the following article.

Category Channels & Formats
Organic Installs
  • ASO
  • Web Organic Search
Bought Installs Ad Networks

  • Facebook, Google, Tapjoy, ayeT-Studios

Ad Formats

  • Incentivized Installs
  • Offerwalls
  • Native Ads
  • Banner Ads
  • Interstitials
  • Video Ads
  • Playable Ads
PR / Press
  • Websites
  • App Review Sites
  • Game Video Sharing
Build Your Brand
(Use Your Own Ecosystem)
  • App-Website
  • E-Mail
  • Social Media
  • App-Cross-Promotion
Influencer Marketing
(Paid Installs via Influencers)
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • and more

Overview of possible mobile user acquisition tools © ayeT-Studios

Optimize Your App Store Appearance

The first impression always counts. This also applies to the appearance of your app in the different app stores.

Potential users will mainly decide whether or not they want to download your app based on the presentation in the app store. If they like what they see and if they find all the information they need, they are very likely to install and open the app.

Therefore, it is very important that you optimize your app’s page to the maximum. How do you do that? All the hacks can be found in the following article.

Run a Test Campaign

As already mentioned before, we highly recommend you to run a test campaign.

The benefits are clear: You can test the success of your mobile user acquisition strategy, find out more about your potential users, see what kind of channels they use, what provokes a reaction, and much more.

Don’t Spoil All Your Features

With every part of your campaign, you should keep in mind not to spoil all of your features at once. It is way more interesting for mobile users to let them know about the different features and possible updates every once in a while.

Use Your Existing Network

As already mentioned before, it is a good strategy to communicate about your app with your family, friends, former colleagues or classmates and thereby create a word-of-mouth publicity.

If a potential mobile user gets a recommendation for an app by a friend, he is very likely to download it because he trusts his friend’s recommendation.

Communicate with the Press

You want people to talk about your app? You should talk to the press first!

Prepare a media kit with all the necessary information about your app and all its features. Be aware to present it in a nice and appealing way to impress the journalist and to stay in his mind so that he will consider writing about your app.

This would be great for your mobile user acquisition, because if journalists write about your app, potential users may read the article and consider downloading your app.

Let Your App Be Discovered

Try to present your app to mobile app discovery platforms. If they like what they see, they might want to present it to their readers. App discovery platforms review, categorize and promote new and yet unknown apps.

This is a great tool for your mobile user acquisition since these platforms only present the apps they believe in and your potential mobile users have a high amount of trust in these platforms.

Make a Mailing List

Email marketing is an important part of your strategy for mobile user acquisition. It is the number one tool for an effective strategy and very easy to use.

Services like MailChimp help you with your email marketing. There, you can maintain a list with all the email addresses, which makes it easy to send the emails to all of your contacts.

Make sure you always send interesting content that will set you apart you from regular spam and that offers additional value for mobile users.

It is also important to always include your contact information and links to your website, the app stores and social media channels.

User Acquisition Strategies

How effective are common strategies for mobile user acquisition? © ayeT-Studios

Aim for Virality

The second most successful tool for your mobile user acquisition strategy is social media. We recommend that you create your own social media channels on the platforms that matter the most to your potential users, for example Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

Social media has a great advantage: It is mostly free of charge. Only if you want to start an ad campaign, you need to invest some part of your budget.

It is also easy to use with a high scope and a great tool to communicate with your mobile users. This way, you can directly respond to feedback or questions and make use of it in your next app updates.

Click here and discover more about social media app promotion.

Work Together with Other Apps

A great way for mobile user acquisition is to work together with other, even bigger app companies and to promote your mobile app within their app.

You can do that, for example, with a banner ad or even a video ad that is displayed when a user opens the app. In exchange, you can also place an ad of your partners within your own app.

Talk to Influencers

Another way of getting people to talk about your app is to present it to so called influencers, for example bloggers, YouTubers or other social media celebrities.

If you get them talking about your app, you have a high chance of reaching a high amount of potential users that are very willing to download your app.

People following influencers have a high amount of trust in them. So, when they recommend an app, their followers will believe that this app is great and download it, which helps you a lot with your mobile user acquisition.

Finally…

…Mobile user acquisition is a process that changes over time and needs to be adjusted according to your success and the number of users acquired.

So, keep in mind to check your achievements regularly and, if necessary, recalculate your budget and rethink your strategy as well as the channels you have used for mobile user acquisition.

4 customer rankings are shown, from 1 star to 4 stars

App Promotion Sites: Let Your App Go Viral

/in /by

App promotion sites are one of the key elements to give mobile apps more visibility on the internet. In this article, we will show basic facts about different app promotion sites and how app developers can benefit from them.

Different Kind of App Promotion Sites

There are various services that can be found for iOS and Android app promotion. The same goes for app promotion sites: You will find plenty of websites talking about mobile apps.

We’ve summarized the main types:

  1. App review sites
  2. Press release
  3. Websites and communities for startups
  4. Blogs and specialized websites
  5. Websites to contact influencers

Why App Promotion Sites

Apps have become widely used in the field of business, communication, entertainment, and other aspects of the virtual community. According to the data released by the eMarketer, most American people spend more of their time digitally compared to other available media.

The same study also manifested that Americans spend more than five hours every day online and more than two hours are spent using mobile devices (either phone or tablet).

These big numbers increase the possibility of users finding your app in the internet once it is promoted efficiently. With the help of app promotion sites, you can be found by your potential users.

Click here to see other promotion services you can use for your app.

App Promotion Sites For Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

With huge amounts of apps in each app category, the possibility that users choose your app seems unclear. You need to have an effective mobile marketing strategy so that you stay ahead of your direct competition.

There are numerous ways available for your mobile marketing strategy to make your app more visible:

    • Generating users
    • Social media
    • Receiving installs
    • and many more.

However, online user prefers to take a peek at app promotion sites to download the app best suited to their needs. On these websites, they can have a short review of the apps and all the information they need.

If you are not sure how to publish your app’s name on such a website, you can choose from various app promotion services. They will help you get your app listed for an affordable fee.

Check out this article for basic information about your app promotion strategy.

App Promotion Sites in Detail

Some of the afore-mentioned types of app promotion sites will be familiar to you. If you are uncertain about each category and its functions, you will find information about them below.

1. App Review Sites

Nowadays, you will find ratings and reviews about nearly every product you can purchase online because customers want to make sure they purchase something that matches their expectations. So, why should this not go for mobile apps, too?

App review sites work the same way: You can put your app on their list and the administrator and his/her team will take a look at your app, its functions, design, and quality of service.

They will then write a genuine review and rating and publish it on their app promotion site. Like this, people get to know in advance what they can expect from your mobile app.

Operating Systems

Some app review sites only deal with apps of one operating system (mostly iOS or Android), so you will get the right audience for potential users straight away. But this doesn’t mean that these app promotion sites are not appropriate for your app promotion.

For example, websites like Pocket Gamer and PreApps offer their promotion service for more than one OS.

App Category

Mobile users mostly look for new apps from a certain category, especially gaming apps are pretty popular and attractive for new users. This is why some app review sites list apps from specific categories.

Your app review will be published along with reviews of direct competitors. However, the amount of apps on this app promotion site will be smaller, and chances of your app being downloaded by potential users is higher.

Review influence app promotion sites

Reviews having a great impact on customers’ opinions © ayeT-Studios

2. Press Release

With a press release, you can contact journalists, editors, but also bloggers and other influencers of app promotion sites and inform them about your app.

It is hard work to make them talk about your app since they receive press releases every day. If yours doesn’t stick out they will not wast any words on it.

Writing a press release is a balancing act: You want to give all the important information about your app but at the same time you need to keep it short and concise.

In the following, some basic information about this type of text are elucidated.

Text Length

The longer the text, the more likely it is that its recipient loses interest in reading it.

It already starts at the beginning of your text, with a great title and the first few sentences about your app. One page should be enough to cover all the relevant app information.

It is also necessary to talk about your company in a press release. Mentioning it at the end is enough because your app is the focus. If your company already developed well-known apps or has won an award, you should let your addressees know about it.

Structure

Press releases should have a readable structure so your readers won’t be overwhelmed at first glance. Make sure to use paragraphs as well as a font pleasing to the eye.

You can structure your press release according to certain aspects, e.g. description, main app functions, OS requirements, availability, etc. On Apptamin, you will find a graphic example of the structure of a press release.

Phrasing

This is the trickiest part of the text. On one hand, your press release needs to have an advertising touch because you want publicity on app promotion sites. You want to show why your addressees should announce your app to their audience.

On the other hand, journalists expect to read news, meaning an objective article with a neutral style providing data, information, etc.

Combining both styles and finding the best words can be difficult, especially for newbies. Ad agencies that cooperate with app promotion sites will be glad to offer you help in this situation, creating a great press release for your app.

 

3. Websites and Communities for Startups

There are millions of websites on the internet for each and every topic. Did you create your very first app? Your company is not well-known yet? Then you can take advantage of app promotion sites that are only available for startup companies.

Let your company and/or your product get listed in these communities and publish information among like-minded people.

It’s a great chance to become visible and push past big brands or app developers that are already known among users, their apps staying in the top part of the charts. People who are interested in new products might find your app interesting – whether as potential users or as business partners/investors.

You might also communicate with or get help from other startup companies. Exchanging experiences and information is a great feature of such websites where people with the same vision can create a great community.

For example: Startup Grind is a platform where you can connect with startups from all around the world, and it cooperates with Google for Entrepreneurs.

Statistics about the total of blogs on Tumblr from 2011 to 2015

In 4 years, the number of Tumblr blogs increased above tenfold © Statista

4. Blogs and Specialized Websites

Since the digital world has become number one among all media types, you will find that a lot of people have a website or a blog to post interesting things. Now, you might ask yourself “Why does a blog count as app promotion site?”

Blogs are one phenomenon arising from the digital era, having a huge followership if people are interested in the content that is covered in the blog. If you can have your app mentioned in there, readers will probably be interested in it and will take a look at it, hence the awareness of your app will increase.

The same goes for websites dealing only with specific topics – in your case e.g. mobile apps, smartphones, and the like. These app promotion sites are not only created by private persons but also by companies or organizations publishing articles on a blog regularly.

The Apps World Blog deals with various aspects and news of its industry, while the same-titled Apps World is a global event about the app industry.

5. Websites to Contact Influencers

This special type of app promotion site came up in the last few years and is becoming more and more popular. Influencers are active on social media and have a pretty big followership.

This means they have a huge audience for promotion purposes. It’s an attractive way of app promotion you should consider.

Thousands of influencers are possible candidates for talking about apps or mobile in general. But how to pick the right one? Instead of rifling through the great world of social media, there are websites looking for the best influencers of your product. Buzzsumo.com is one of such app promotion sites, offering several search tools for content research and influencers.

Social media in general is a great way of spreading the news about your (new) app. In this article, you will find more information abour social media promotion.

Statistics about consumers trusting influencers more than brands

Consumers trust influencers more than the brand itself © Adweek

How to Approach App Promotion Sites

When searching for app promotion sites you will find a lot of websites offering this service as well as a great number of influencers, blogs, and other website where you can place your app’s name.

Our tip: Don’t rush into app promotion without having drawn up a marketing plan beforehand, including the budget you can spend and types of app promotion you want to benefit from. Otherwise you might get lost.

If you are unsure about how to promote your app the right way, you can expect help from ad networks and agencies that offer this service. They are connected with app promotion sites and create personalized promotion campaigns to boost your app the best way.

For Free or Not For Free

Most of these websites are free of charge and don’t ask you to draw a single penny for the app promotion site.

Regarding app review sites and communities, all you have to do is register with data about your company and your app. This can be a great advantage, especially for those who are on a tight budget. For journalists, bloggers, and influencers, you need to contact and convince them of talking about your app.

However, it is still good to spend money for your app promotion, so you can effectively see better results, faster app optimization, and more app downloads. Some app promotion sites may require you to spend money but this implicates more visibility or a better ranking of your article.

Where Can I Advertise My Apps for Better Promotional Solution?

Advertising networks and promotion agencies provide you with a specialized service, while taking a clear focus on your personal app promotion plan. They offer an effective promotional solution for your developed apps.

ayeT-Studios is an ad agency that offers various app promotion services and is specialized in mobile ad solutions for both Android and iOS.