Icon of the Google Play Store

How to Effectively Promote Android Apps

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

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

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

App Promotion Sites: Let Your App Go Viral

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.

 

Girl touching a screen of her smarthone

Which App Promotion Services Can Boost Your App?

Although the industy around mobile applications is quite a new one, it behaves like every other business: The product itself has to be as good as possible to be successful! When publishing your app did you think about how to market your app with the help of app promotion services to make it even more popular?

To brave the vast amount of competitors in this industry, you can choose from a variety of app promotion services. They represent different tools you can use to help you to advertise your mobile app.

Navigation

1. Paid User Acquisition Ad-Networks|Ad-Formats|Influencer
2. App Store Optimization App Name|Description|Keywords
3. App Promotion Sites Review Sites|Press Releases|Blogs
4. Building Own Channels Own Website|Social Media

What Types of App Promotion Services Are There?

We like to separate the app promotion services into 4 different categories:

  1. Paid User Acquisition
  2. App Store Optimization
  3. App Promotion Sites
  4. Building Own Channels

For each category, there are several full service providers as well as specialized companies offering only sub services of a certain categories.

Let’s elaboarte that statement by looking at an example. Taking a closer look at App Store Optimization shows that nowadays, it is crucial to create a compelling video for your app in order to improve your Play Store entry. Therefore, many companies specialize in app video creation, like wyzowl.com and makewebvideo.com.

App Store Optimization is much more than just creating a video though. You need an app description, an app icon, your app name, feature graphic, screenshots and all of that should be keyword targeted. Hence, video creation is a sub service of App Store Optimization.
If you want to know more about App Store Optimization, read this article!

Taking a Closer Look at the Different App Promotion Services

Now that we showed you a quick overview of the categories, let’s take a closer look at each service category and their sub services.

1. Paid User Acquisition

Getting as many users for your app as possible is one of the key factors in giving your app a good ranking in the app stores. It is not easy to reach the masses of mobile users, especially if you want to acquire users for free.


Paid user acquisition is an effective way of app promotion to reach out to possible users for your mobile app.

Ad Networks

When choosing an ad network to spread the word about your app, you will find a enormous amount of companies providing this app promotion service. It is important to ask yourself these questions in advance:

  1. How much money can you spend?
  2. In which format should your app be advertised?

There are many different ad formats offerd by ad networks to push your app (you will find a listing of various ad formats further down in the article).

If you’re not sure what kind of ad network you should choose as app promotion service,  don’t worry! Even big companies like Google (“Google AdWords“) and Facebook (“Facebook Ads“) act as ad networks for promoting your mobile app.

Both offer app promotion services that are based on a bidding system, meaning the more you spend for your ad, the better it will be placed. This aspect gives you the opportunity to adjust your advertising costs to your current budget, which is an important factor for app developers with a small budget.

Since the mobile market and mobile advertising have increased over the last few years (and it keeps on growing!), some ad networks set their focus on mobile advertising.

Major companies for app promotion services are e.g. ayeT-Studios, Tapjoy and Fyber.

Incent vs. Non-Incent

Another factor within app promotion services is the way you want to attract people:

When offering a reward for downloading and using your app this is called incentivized – it’s the cheaper way to generate users. They will download your app and receive e.g. virtual currency for a mobile game they’re playing in exchange.

On the other hand, if you want potential users to download your app out of genuine interest you can choose non-incentivized advertising in your app promotion service.

The costs for this kind of service are difficult to explain since you want to get ‘loyal users’ for your app. Incentivized app installs themselves are cheaper than non-incentivized, however, you need to consider the retention rate in this context to talk about the real costs for these users.

In this article, you will find more information on retention rates as well as incent and non-incent installs for mobile apps.

Ad Formats

There is a wide range of ad formats, depending on the app promotion service you pick. Before choosing an ad format, you should take your time to think about how you want to present your app to the audience: Design, text and structure of the respective ad can have a deep impact on how users react to your ad.

Here are the most common ad formats:

  1. Banner: It is the founding stone of mobile advertising and improved a lot in the past years. Banners are displayed at some part of the screen, with a standard size of 350×50 pixel. In contrast to the beginning, when users thought of banners being disruptive, they can nowadays be implemented way more effectively in the context. The prototype of web banners was developed really early. Nowadays, banners don’t have to be static anymore, they can be animated, have a sound-layer or even get the information of a livestream!
  2. Interstitial: You could also call it full-screen banner because it is displayed on the whole screen. This way, more information can be provided and users will receive an immediate impression regarding the product.
  3. Video: In recent years, mobile videos have experienced a boost. According to eMarketer, the numbers of mobile video ad budget spend in 2014 doubled in comparison to 2013 – from $720 Million to $1.5 Billion. This progress shows the huge potential mobile videos have when choosing them as app promotion service. Due to the play time of the video, there can be even more context shown to your audience. An option for using mobile video ads in an incentivized way are so-called rewarded videos where users receive a reward for watching an entire advertising video.
  4. Native: This is the modern type of banner where ad components are be displayed. When choosing the right place and structure of the ad, it can be very effective. Users won’t be disrupted and will see the ad as part of the website/app.
  5. Offerwall: This ad format describes a page in an app where different offers are shown to the users. They can choose and complete an offer and receive a reward in exchange. Offer types may vary, from downloading and using a mobile app to watching a short advertisement about a certain product to completing a quick survey. It is always a good idea to scale the size of the reward with the amount of work a user has to put in to fulfill the task.

There will be even more ad formats available for different app promotion services but these are the basic ones, which app developers and publishers should know.

No matter which ad format you choose: Always analyse your app performance and adjust the strategy of the app promotion service you’re using. A well-chosen mixture of various ad formats is the best solution to make sure that you attract many users.

Influencer Marketing

Making your app go viral is a tough task, with millions of other apps competing for new users. That’s why some app promotion companies also offer influencer marketing:

There’s no other place than social media for spreading news online as fast as possible.

A video about your app on YouTube, a post on Facebook reaching millions of fans, or a tweet that shouts out to the followers – there are plenty of people that gathered a great fanbase. So, when selecting this app promotion service you can be sure that these people hear about your app.

Here, you can find more detailed information on this topic.formats for mobile campaigns: app promotion services

These formats are used the most for mobile campaigns © ayeT-Studios

2. App Store Optimization


The first impression of a mobile app is important for new users but you can also reach a better ranking with well-designed content in the respective app store. App store optimization (ASO) is a key element when it comes to app promotion services – here are some aspects that should be considered.

App Name

Next to the icon, people will see your app name at first so make sure that it attracts users in the right way. Your app’s name should contain the main keyword and if you have a well-known app or brand,it should contain the brand name. Sometimes, you need to be creative and gather a few ideas to get the best name for your app, or you can ask app promotion services for help.

App Description

A well-written app description can convince the user that your app is just what he is looking for.

App promotion services offer professionally written app descriptions to give potential users a detailed overview of every feature that your mobile app has to offers. With the descriptions provided, it is easy to elaborate the benefits of your app, making a prospective customer in no time.

Keyword Research and Optimization

Companies for app promotion services emphasize effective keyword research and look for the best set of keywords for optimizing your app right way. Through this approach, your app will quickly get a highly optimized and highly viewed profile.

However, make sure that your app description is not overloaded with key words. Otherwise, this could lead to a worse ranking in the app store. A high-quality app promotion service finds a good mixture and makes it appealing to potential users.

App Design and Icon

Great app design and a great looking icon are the basics of app promotion. They are very powerful in convincing people to download your app. Among app promotion services, it is important to create a coherent and beautiful design as well as an engaging app icon for your app.

They are not only creating but also testing design and icons to check out their effectiveness and functionality.

Screenshots & Feature Graphic

When clicking on your app in the app store with their mobile device, the first thing users see is the so-called feature graphic. This image at the top of the page is only available on mobile devices so you need to make sure that you don’t forget this element in your app store page.

The design should match your app, and don’t forget: Mobile devices do not have a very big screen. Hence, make sure you choose an appropriate font size.

The same goes for screenshots: Make sure that they are appealing and do not contain either too little or too much content.

Video

People like watching videos more than reading a simple text because they can get the information without much effort. Take advantage of this feature in the app store and make sure that it is not too long – otherwise it can have a negative effect. App promotion services offer to create beautiful videos of your app, in a high-quality design.

To gain deeper insight regarding ASO, just click here.

new app discovery methods: app promotion services

Most of the apps are found when browsing the app store © ayeT-Studios

3. App Promotion Sites

Before purchasing a product, people check information, reviews and comments.

Well, the same goes for your mobile app: Starting on your app store page, people will leave ratings and comments about it, which will be seen by new users. There are various other websites where your app can be listed, too.

App promotion services offer to place your app on a website, give detailed information about it, and rate it or leave a comment about it. This can boost your app’s reputation and ranking, too.

App Review Sites

App review sites deal with listing and evaluating apps from the app stores. It is a hotspot for potential users who want to get to know new apps, so you can generate many new users for your app if people find it on such a website.

However, the quality and quantity of articles about apps varies a lot: From very short app descriptions, placing your app with 5 other apps of the same category in one article, to really detailed reviews, including screenshots or even a video about your app to make sure people understand the purpose of your app. App promotion services cooperate with such websites to place your app in there, too.

There are free as well as fee-based app review sites – it is up to you which format you want to use as app promotion service. Mobyaffiliates offers a short list of app review sites for both Android and iOS, paid as well as free. You should take a look at the website first and then decide if you want your app to be presented this way.

No matter what app review site you choose: By this, you will not only gain more media placement for your app but the app can also get a better ranking because of inbound linking from those websites.

Press Release

App promotion services just work online? You’re wrong!

The classical press, e.g. a printed article about your app or your company, may seem as an outdated way of app promotion. However, there are many fans and subscribers who will receive newspapers and journals automatically or buy them. These people are keenly interested in this topic. Especially the audience of professional journals will be interested in its news and articles.

If your app is mentioned in these media you can be sure that the quantity of potential users is way higher than on other channels. Moreover, most printed media is now available on the internet, too. This leads to your app going even more viral because the press release about your app can be re-posted, linked, commented, and liked.

App promotion services can help you publish some words about your app in these forms of media.

Websites and Communities for Startups

There are millions of apps in the app stores and every day new companies are launching more apps. It is hard for them to compete with the big brands for some space for advertising but among app promotion services, you will also find websites or communities only for startup companies. Like this, it is easier for you to push past the big brands and promote your mobile app with equal brand competitors.

The good thing is that people visiting such communities intend to discover brand new products, so if you have just launched your new app this is one of the places to be. You can either register on these websites on your own and pay a small fee (or, if you’re in luck, it is for free) or you can use an app promotion service to get you online.

Specialized Websites and Blogs

Nowadays, there are blogs and websites for nearly every topic, even for techies and people who love mobile devices, gadgets, and apps.

The chances that you will gain new users are high because blogs mostly have a loyal fanbase who love the same topic as the author. If your favourite author is talking about the app, it can be worth a try.

You can ask the admin or owner of the channel yourself or you can contact a company for app promotion services to do that for you.

For more information on app promotion sites, click here.

4. Building Own Channels

You can also create websites and profiles for your mobile app where you can provide basic information about your app outside the app store. Remember:

The more channels you can be found in, the more visibility you will get for your app.

Website for Your App


It is important to create and optimize the landing page of your app sites. There, people can read all information about your product and your company. If you connect the landing page with other online channels you will increase visibility on the internet.

Social Media Channels

There are plenty of social media channels available and there will probably be even more coming up in the next few years.

It is hard to predict on which channel your app will gain the most users. But make sure that your app is visible on the main social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Depending on the purpose of your app you might also place it in channels like Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and many more.

Also, here you can decide: Do you want to do this on your own or do you want to make it in the most professional way and hire an agency for app promotion services.

forecast digital advertising revenue: app promotion services

Expectations for revenue in digital advertising until 2018 © ayeT-Studios

Where Can I Get These Services

Anyone who is going to release an app should be willing to do the extra work that is necessary for their app promotion.

Almost all people who are likely to purchase your app will not ever get to know about it unless you push it out there. For some app developers, this process is more difficult than creating the app itself.

This is where app promotion services come in to help your app release to a success, no matter if it is for Android or iOS.

Let a company for app promotion services like ayeT-Studios recommend you the best combination of tools.

Below you can find information on 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$
Various people brainstorming for a concept

Your Guide to Free App Promotion

After months of hard work, it is finally here: the day of your app launch. Now you want to introduce your app to the market and convince potential users to download it.

What if you don’t have a huge budget available for promotional tools? One way to avoid a big portion of the costs is free app promotion.

App Store Optimization: Free App Promotion in Google and Apple

The first important service that can be used for free app promotion is App Store Optimization (ASO).

We highly recommend for you to present your app in the app store in a visually appealing way, as well as to use keywords and a fitting description to ensure that your app will be found in the app store.

The amount of apps that float around in the different app stores is huge. In July, 2016, there were 2 million apps in the Apple App Store and 2.2 million apps in the Google Play Store – and the numbers are increasing every day.

It is extremely hard to grabthe user’s attention if you compete with that many apps, which might be interesting for the user, as well.

Therefore, app store optimization is a free app promotional tool that is vital for your success.

Free App Promotion: Number of Apps in the Appstores

Google and Apple are the leading stores regarding the amount of apps available © ayeT-Studios

5 Steps for Successful App Store Optimization

As mentioned before, a great tool to promote your app for free is ASO. There are two main factors that are crucial for successful app store optimization: the findability and the appearance of your app in the store.

Users are more likely to download your app if it is easy for them to find your app and if they like what they see and find it interesting enough to at least download your app and try it out. So, these 2 aspects are a must-do when starting with your free app promotion.

Findability

  1. App name
    The first thing that users will see in the app store is the app name. Therefore, you need to find a catchy but unique name for your app that describes its main features or the experience that the user will have with it in the best way possible. Also, you might want to include a main keyword in the name. Be careful, though: too many keywords seem like spam to users, so that they might ignore your app and it would have counter-productive effects on your free app promotion.
  2. Keywords
    When using keywords, you need to consider the following three characteristics: relevance, difficulty and traffic. How relevant is the keyword for your app? How difficult will it be for your app to rank for the keyword? How many users search for the keyword?
    Your goal should be that your app ranks in the top 10 for all its keywords. In order to do so, you need to select your keywords carefully and monitor them on a regular basis to make sure keywords support your free app promotion. If your app is not ranked in the top 10, you should look for better keywords, for example by using synonyms, searching for good keywords with a keyword tool, or using keywords that your competitors previously used. Also, you can choose words that your users used to describe their experience with the app in the app reviews. This way, you are using your user’s language.
  3. Description
    Write a description detailing all of the features of your app and the experience the user will have with it. Be realistic and avoid lying or spinning. The users will eventually realize they were fooled and payback will come in form of bad reviews. Also, describe the app in a lively and interesting way to make the user curious about it. Use some of your keywords in the description without making it appear as spam. A good way to avoid this is to use a maximum of four to five keywords. Make sure to update your description every once in a while when your app is updated and evolves, as well. By this, you will also push your free app promotion.

Appearance

  1. Icon
    Beside the app name, the icon is the first thing users will see – so make sure you create a unique and clear icon that stands out. It might help to get the user interested to the point where reads your app description, checks out your screenshots and demo video and finally downloads your app. Do not use words in the icon, just choose a nice and simple symbol that represents the app. Make it easy – the most successful apps, like Facebook, WhatsApp Messenger or Facetune just use one symbol without many details that is easy to recognize. Also, you can use the main character of your app, for example if your app is a game. A good example for that is angry birds where the app icon consists of just one bird. This has a positive effect on your free app promotion.
  2. Screenshots and Demo Video
    Screenshots or a demo video can show the user what his experience with the app will be like – a great tool you can use for your free app promotion. Therefore, make sure to include pretty screenshots and, if possible, show a quick demo video of your app. The best screenshots emphasize the app’s sales argument and its unique selling point. A good example for nice screenshots is our app GiftPanda. We show the user everything he can do with our app and guide him through the experience.

free App promotion: Screenshots for ASO

Well-designed screenshots presenting your app’s main features are inevitable © ayeT-Studios

Curious about this topic? Check out this article for more detailed information.

App Store Optimization in the Google Play Store

The Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store are the two main players in the app store world. Their interfaces may look similar but they are very different when it comes to app store optimization of the listed apps. This means, it is crucial to plan your free app promotion strategy according to which OS you will launch your app in.

In the Google Play Store, you can optimize your app’s appearance follwing these rules:

  • Use your main keyword in the app title. The titel cannot be longer than 30 characters.
  • Include keywords in the description a maximum of 5 times. The description cannot be longer than 4.000 characters.
  • Set your focus on the meta description (= the first 167 characters) since this will be visible the most.
  • The keywords are pulled from the description.
  • Provide screenshots and a short promo video.

App Store Optimization in Apple’s App Store

Here are some important factors you should keep in mind for using ASO as a free app promotion tool in the App Store:

  • Create a significant app title (you can only use your main keyword if it’s appropriate). The title cannot be longer than 50 characters, but we recommend to use a shorter title.
  • You can insert your keywords in the keyword field. Use 100 characters for your keywords, seperated by commas.
  • Not much attention is paid to the App description as it’s given in the Play Store.

So, the main difference between these app stores is the usage of keywords: direct placement (App Store) vs. embedding (Google Play). It’s an important element for your free app promotion.

However, it is important for both stores to choose the right keywords, which you want your app to rank for. A good mixture of relevance, difficulty, and traffic is crucial.

Make sure to give your app an expressive and unique app name, and create high-quality screenshots for your apps.

The distribution of smartphone platform market jshare, from 2009 to 2016

History of smartphone platform market share (2009-2016) © Statista

Building Your Own Brand

To make sure your app are well known among its (potential) users, you need to build your own brand. It is important for users to recognize your app directly and associate it with the benefit they get from downloading it. Building your own brand is part of free app promotion.

There a many ways of building your brand. Firstly, you should decide on what your brand should be like, what it should stand for, what its design and visual language should look like and how you can create a unique experience for the customers. Once you are sure of these factors, you can start communicating this to the outside world with your free app promotion.

The first way of presenting your brand to the outside should be your own website. We recommend for you to create an informative, but also clear website, which informs users about the features of your app and what they can do with it. It is also very important to include links to the app stores, so that users can easily download your app, if they like the website.

Furthermore, you should include all links to your own web presences, for example to your blog and your various social media channels. This will also have an impact on your free app promotion.

This leads us to the next two steps of building your own brand: Create an interesting blog and be active in social media.

When writing your own blog, you have the opportunity to present your brand, as well as to inform about recent changes in and news of the industry you are operating in. Keep the way you want your brand to look in mind and write the articles according to that scheme. Check the language, the pictures, graphics or colors you are using and adjust it accordingly.

Furthermore, you can create your own social media accounts. Study the different possible channels and only choose the ones that are most suitable for you. It is more important to create good content on some channels than to create bad content on many.

It is also important to know which channels your potential users are using at the moment. You need to get in touch with them in the online spaces they are using now.

If you want to acquire a broad audience with high quality, one way to promote your app is to involve an influencer, who is well known among your potential users. The influencer introduces your app to his audience in an interesting way, for example through a video or a blogpost.

Since the followers trust their influencer and are very willing to listen to him, the chances of them downloading your app are very high.

Another thing is to work together with the press: prepare a mediakit and a press release and distribute it to the most important journalists. Pitch your app to journalists and try to convince them to interview you and talk to you about your app.

Free App Promotion Sites

Free app promotion sites are almost self-explanatory: These sites place reviews and tests of your app on their site or on sites of other companies, who are willing to promote your app. The people  you reach this way are usually already interested in new applications and are therefore more likely to download your app.

But keep in mind: Not all app promotion sites offer their service for free.

Channels that are definitely for free are app promotion forums or forums that concentrate on new apps. There, you can present your app to a high quality audience.

You will find more information about free app promotion sites here.

More Tips for Your Free App Promotion

There are various ways to promote your app without paying a single penny. We offer a well-elaborated concept for app promotion – just click here.

As basics, you should keep in mind the following aspects for your free app promotion.

  • First impression
    It counts a lot. Your app needs to leave a good first impression on the user. Since there is a lot of competition in the marktet, users might choose any other app instead of yours if they are not satisfied with the first impression of your app.
  • Keep an Eye on Competitors
    Keep a tab on your competitors, check their policies and marketing strategies. Follow the ones that are most suitable for you, they give you an idea about improving your free app promotion.
  • Directly Present Your App to Potential Users
    Get in touch directly with your potential users through different blogs, websites and forums and present your app to them. Join different groups on Social Media and let the members know about your app. Make use of hashtags in an attempt to make your app go viral. You can also create your own hashtag to further boost your free app promotion.

Free App Promotion: App Discovery

Distribution of how mobile apps are discovered the most © ayeT-Studios

  • Word of Mouth through Personal Contacts
    Your family, friends, and other contacts on social media can be of great help in free app promotion. Share your app with them and ask them to download and forward it to others.
  • Loyalty Programs
    Create loyalty and referral programs. The users will market your app through word-of-mouth publicity and encourage others to download it. Even if they charge you some amount of money or demand incentive or bonus points, these costs will still be less than paid app promotion.


Below, you can find information on 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$
A young man is pointing at the wall behind him where various elements are shown to rocket your success

The Best App Promotion Strategy for Your Business

How extensively you can boost your ranking is influenced by various factors evaluated by the algorithm of the respective app store.

One key factor is the number of installs – the more people have installed the app, the higher the algorithm will rank your app.

In this article, we present different app promotion strategies and how you can combine different types of installs in such strategies to make your app rank as highly as possible.

Installation Types: Incentivized vs. Non-Incentivized

There are different app promotion strategies you can use to increase the quantity of installs for an app. You can buy installs and choose between incentivized and non-incentivized ones, meaning:

    • Users will either receive a reward for installing your application (incentivized) or
    • they will download your app out of true interest and won’t get rewarded (non-incentivized).

Both types have their own advantages and disadvantages.

Incentivized Installs: Exchanging Installs for Rewards

In general, you can choose between two app promotion strategies when driving incentivized installs for your app. One of them is based on the amount of installs generated in a certain time whereas the other one considers loyalty of your users.

Burst Campaign

With this app promotion strategy, you can give your application a real push to increase its ranking in a short period of time.

This will lead to a higher ranking, which means more visibility in the charts. If users search for certain apps, the chance that yours will be displayed among the search results will be higher.
As a consequence, you will receive organic installs as well, which is an important factor for your app.

Loyal User Acquisition

This type of app promotion strategy stays in competition to campaigns based on non-incent installs and consequential costs per loyal user. One main factor influencing this concept is the so-called retention rate. In the chart below, you can see some numbers regarding retention rates of users, so you will better understand this term.

Days Users keeping the app Retention rate
1 100 Day1-retention: 10%
3 50 Day3-retention: 5%
7 10 Day7-retention: 1%

Example for retention rates (Day 0 = 1000 downloads) © ayeT-Studios

Advantages and Disadvantages

As mentioned before, one advantage is the mass of installs you can receive very fast and the resulting boost of ranking. Another important factor you should keep in mind are the costs you need to spend for each kind of install:
The CPI (= Cost per install) for incentivized installs is way cheaper than an app promotion strategy only based on non-incentivized ones. The downside of incentivized installs is that users might download and install your app only for the reward, resulting in less user engagement, lower lifetime value and smaller retention rates.

According to mobyaffiliates, who refer to a study by Fiksu, 57% of users from non-incent installs converted to “loyal users” in contrast to 24% from incent installs. (It is not stated clearly what a ‘loyal user’ actually is – this set of data might define it as users with a Day3-retention.)

How ayeT-Studios Improves User Retention

To counteract these factors, one app promotion strategy at ayeT-Studios is the so-called high-retention install. With this special high-retention service, users have to keep an app for at least 3 days before receiving a reward, which leads to much better results for customers and their app promotion strategy.

App Promotion Strategy: Three Month User Retention

Retention Rates for high performing apps by app category © ayeT-Studios

Non-Incentivized Installs: When You don’t Reward Users

The advantage on one side is the disadvantage on the other: Since users won’t receive a reward for installing your app, you have more costs in order to receive the same amount of installs compared to an incentivized campaign. If you just started your app business, this could take a big chunk of your marketing budget if you mainly base your app promotion strategy on this element.

Additionally, you won’t be able to get huge amounts of installs in a short period of time.

But it’s worth it. Users will interact and use your app because of their true interest, which is a good basis for a loyal user base and a huge advantage for this type of app promotion strategy.

Either… Or?

Now the most important question needs to be asked: Which type of install will be suit your app promotion strategy more?

Can you choose a method where you will only deal with the benefits and leave the drawbacks behind? The answer is:
Take advantage of both of them. This mixture of rewarded and non-incent installs will let your app promotion strategy shoot up and your app will climb up the charts.

2 Steps to Success

It seems to be common practice to start app promotion strategies with incentivized installs, which won’t take long to deliver results and leads to a higher top chart position of the app.

The next measure is to receive non-incentivized traffic to increase user engagement and enlarge user retention. In this part of your app promotion strategy, you don’t need big amounts of installs as you probably did before.

Dividing your promotion strategy into these 2 parts will cause your app to rank higher in the charts regarding various key factors.

Why You Need an App Promotion Strategy

It might not seem obvious for some app developers or marketers to implement a certain promotion strategy. There are many advantages when running such promotions.

For example, you can get a vital amount of downloads in a short time frame, where most of the installs arise from other sources:

1) Organic installs due to the ranking in the Play Store
2) Recommendations of users (mostly via a referral system integrated within the app)
3) Media-driven attention, leading to users searching for the brand directly

Graph showing paid installs and organic installs resulting from them

Organic iOS app installs as a result of paid app installs © TUNE

Is There a Plan C?

Is this the only choice app developers and marketers have when planning an app promotion strategy? Or is there an option available which can bypass disadvantages and give a mixture of the advantages in one bundle?
In fact, there is the option of incentivized installs based on Cost Per Action (CPA). By this, you can persuade many users not only to install your app but also to engage with it at the same time.

It’s killing two birds with one stone  – for little cost. The type of action can be anything realistic that won’t take too much time, otherwise users are not interested in achieving the respective goal:

    • Registration
    • Reaching a certain level
    • Completing a tutorial
    • and many more

These are actions users can and will accomplish in order to earn a reward.

Conclusion

There isn’t one formula for the perfect app promotion strategy when buying app installs. Results are still dependent on your app as well as users who are getting in touch with it.

According to the category your app belongs to, your game plan can change in comparison to other apps.

But if yours is developed properly, appeals to your major user base, and fulfils all conditions and functions it offers – then buying installs as your app promotion strategy will create a proper user base and lead to future organic traffic.

Process of how paid campaigns for app promotion result in more organic downloads

How paid campaigns for app promotion lead to more organic downloads © ayeT-Studios

If you are not sure how your app promotion strategy should look like: Don’t worry. There are many mobile marketing companies available that will give advice about possible solutions.

ayeT-Studios is an experienced company in this business and offers a personal customized app promotion strategy to give you the best results, no matter if you have an Android or iOS application.

A man holding a tablet, above it are different social media concepts

Social Media App Promotion – Make Your App Go Viral

App stores are crowded with millions of apps, which make it hard to let your app standout.

A good app promotion strategy is a good way to start – but another part of the effort can be shouldered by marketers and influencers who make sure the product reaches the audience.

Social media app promotion combines the far reaching access, that a social media platform may provide, with the classical basics of marketing.

 

Why Social Media?

Advertisers and developers may jointly decide which platforms would reach a target audience in the most effective and rapid way.

However, making sure that the promotion and marketing of the appl is convincing enough to compel people to click and explore further is another task that advertisers find themselves mulling over.

The mechanics of social media app promotion primarily focus on making a client’s product stand out amongst the rest – and convincingly build an advertiser’s own reputation in the process.

Major Platforms

At the moment, 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels (see Brandwatch). The term ‘social media condenses quite a number of channels and platforms into a word that does not quite capture its magnitude.

For an advertiser focusing on social media app promotion, he/she needs to sort and sift through a vast collection of platforms and choose which one would best suit a product for its marketing.

 

Facebook

is by far the largest and farthest-reaching social media platform. By the second-half of 2016, Facebook had amassed 1.71 billion monthly active users – with 56% of them logging in more than once per day (according to FIPP).
There are 2 main promotion strategies:

  • Advertisers can choose to use a Facebook feature to their advantage by creating a page. But this may pose the risk of not having the reach nor impact a client may want for their product.
  • Sponsored or paid advertisement on Facebook allows the site to advertise to users directly: This strategy provides a more forward and personal approach, as most marketing is filtered to a user by assessing his/her interests.

So, it is one of the top channels if you want to go for a social media app promotion campaign.

Social media app promotion: Facebook advertising revenue

Revenues with Facebook Advertising increased significantly in the past 2 years © ayeT-Studios

Google+

does not boast the numbers that Facebook or Instagram do, but it does allow the very vital link to the Google search engine. A paid ad can allow a marketing attempt to reach the user as soon as they type in a few words into the search engine.

Google processes nearly 3.5 billion searches on a daily basis, which makes Google+ a very compelling choice for social media app promotion.

Twitter

has a penchant for allowing products and content to go viral almost overnight.

For the more savvy promoters, this platform could open a range of possibilities. Twitter not only offers a wider audience, which is simpler to access, but also offers the added benefit of interpersonal communication with the consumers.

Many consumers take Twitter to directly address large franchises and companies with their queries and complaints, and often provide quick, individual replies. This makes the Twitter audience one that could allow most efficacy when running social media app promotion.

Instagram

is more than a battleground for celebrities competing for more followers:

It is the largest visually-oriented social media network. Of the 500 million monthly active users, many have made successful careers out of posting pictures featuring products as a form of paid promotion.

For the promotion of an app on Instagram, some advertisers may hire users with significant followers and reach, and have them get the message across. It has proven to be remarkably effective and popular for social media app promotion.

Statistics for monthly active users per major social network

Monthly active users of major social media channels © Statista

YouTube

is a rapidly growing channel for entertainment and networking, and has established itself as one of the most effective ways to promote various products and applications.

Popular YouTubers with millions of active followers can base videos on paid sponsorships, and even give reviews of the products they are asked to showcase.

All promoters would agree: This is the one platform that is more suitable for social media app promotion than most in terms of its impact and delivery.

Who Provides Social Media App Promotion?

Advertising networks and agencies like ayeT-Studios operate to provide this service, while others solely focus on social media app promotion.

These mobile marketing agencies offer advertising solutions and structures so that any creator’s application is able to reach the appropriate audience in the most effective way.

They offer promotion and installation for both operating systems Android and iOS, engineering their services in a way that generates the best results.

What About Pricing?

Prices vary from one region to the next, and also on how far the client wishes to push their application up the charts.

Social media app promotion hinges on visibility, and the more determined creators can find themselves up to $200,000 short in pushing their app to the top 25 charts.

In the UK the same may cost $30,000, and in Thailand $10,000.

The costing boils down to a system of CPI (Cost Per Installation), with Facebook and Twitter proving to be the easiest on the pocket, settling at $3 CPI.

Pricing depends on the scale of the marketing, and ultimately how far a client wants the reach of the campaign to extend.

Social Media App promotion: Cross Channel Costs

Costs per Thousand Impressions for social media are smaller compared to other media channels © ayeT-Studios

What You Should Consider

App developers may decide to carry out their own social media app promotion to save money. However, this may not prove to be as effective as desired. Professional agencies take it upon themselves to provide an encompassing service because they know which platforms to target at what point in time.

When looking for a suitable service or agency for your social media app promotion, it is important to know the available budget. From there, an agency can be judged based on how far their reach extends, how credible their services are, and what sort of time and efficiency projection they provide.

Outlook For This Service

Any conscientious creator would want to thoroughly look into the past projects and details of an agency, alongside their success rate in terms of promotion and installation. Generally, however, these agencies tend to have a solid base in terms of providing the kind of reach a developer is looking for.

A number of online reports have deemed influencers via social media promotion as the undisputed promoters of tomorrow. Agencies are adapting to provide more visually-based promotions, with images and videos becoming more prevalent than text-based ones.

With the vast amount of cyber traffic in the past few years, social media app promotion has become a universally-acknowledged force to be reckoned with, minting prime results by carefully targeting audiences worldwide.

Social media app promotion is one part of the service that ayeT-Studios offers. They provide personal mobile app promotion to achieve best results – for both iOS and Android apps.

mobile game promotion: two women having fun playing a game on their smartphone

Effective Tools for Successful Mobile Game Promotion

If you are a developer of mobile games, we are sure you know one thing: There is a huge amount of games out there! Anyways, in order to be successful you have to do a solid job at mobile game promotion.

Firstly, you need to know exactly how much money you can spend on marketing tools. The best way to calculate your budget for your mobile game promotion is to have a look at

  • Cost per Active User (CPAU),
  • Average Revenue per User (ARPU) and
  • Lifetime Value of your User (CLTV).

With these three numbers in mind, it will be easier for you to plan a marketing campaign that suits your budget.

Key Figures for Your Mobile Game Promotion Budget

In the following, we will explain some of the numbers that you need to be aware of to calculate your mobile game promotion budget.

Cost Per Active User

The Cost per Active User measures the cost to acquire an active user for brands who market their apps. In this case, every company needs to define for themselves what active means.

For example, some companies might say that an active users is a customer who returns to the app at least once a month. In this case, you might also hear the term ‘retention rate’.

You will find more information abour retention rates in this article.

mobiole game promotion: calculating the cost per active user

Average Revenue Per User

The Average Revenue per User is the amount of revenue each of your active customers (on average) contributes. It can be used to calculate the budget for your mobile game promotion (together with the Cost per Active User).

mobiole game promotion: calculating the avereage revenue per user

Lifetime Value

The Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV) indicates the user’s worth. With this information in mind, you can calculate how much you can spend for one customer in order to make a profit.

The CLTV depends on three factors:

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

mobiole game promotion: calculating the customer life time value

Average Revenue per User (ARPU) is the value that measures the monetization:

mobiole game promotion: calculating the churn rate

Paid Mobile Game Promotion

Now that you know your numbers and how to spend your ad budget most efficiently, you should know more about different types of paid mobile game promotion.

Incentivized vs Non-Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

There is a great difference between incentivized and non-incentivized app marketing, but both can be used to promote your mobile game.

Incentivized app marketing consists of rewarding users with something in exchange for downloading and trying an game or engaging with an app.

Non-incentivized app marketing, on the other hand, is marketing that convinces the user to download and try the game without any reward for it.

Basic information about incent and non-incent installs for your app promotion can be found here.

Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

Typical rewards of your mobile game promotion would be upgrades on the game, discount codes, virtual currency within the game, coupons or other giveaways. This kind of marketing will deliver many downloads for a very small investment.

On the other hand, as a marketer, it is very important to analyse the exact costs to acquire an active user. You can expect retention rates to be much lower compared to non-incentivized campaigns. So make sure to take that into account when calculating your CPAU.

Non-Incentivized Mobile Game Promotion

With non-incentivized mobile game promotion, users decide to download the app out of interest. Non-incentive app marketing could be banner ads through ad networks, advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, an app review on a blog or even offline promotion.

With this kind of marketing you can reach a particular group of users that is naturally interested in your product.

Pricing for that kind of mobile game promotion is much higher than for incentivized mobile game promotion. Even though you can expect high quality traffic and a higher retention than for incentivized campaigns, please make sure to calculate the CPAU.

In the end, higher prices and higher retention can amount to the same CPAU or even be worse than for incentivized campaigns.

To reach a humongous amount of users and to have a high-quality user base a mixture of both ways of marketing could be the key.

No matter which tools you use for your mobile game promotion: authenticity is essential. After all, your marketing measures should fit your game in order to contribute to a successful marketing campaign.

plan your mobile game promotion strategy

10 Effective Tools for Successful Mobile Game Promotion

Now that you have set up your marketing budget, it is time to think about different ways to promote your mobile game. We have gathered 10 tools that might strengthen your mobile game promotion strategy.

    1. Create a Landing Page
      To inform the user in the most optimal way, it is essential to create a landing page with the game’s essential information. In addition, you should include a download link of the game so that the user does not have to leave the website to download the app. This could lead to a potential loss of users. Furthermore, you should make it easy for your user to tell friends about the game by including a sharing option on different social media channels.
    2. Optimize Your Presence in the App Store
      A cost effective way of getting more downloads is to optimize the game’s appearance in the different app stores. You can start by creating an eye-catching app icon and by giving the app a short and creative title. Furthermore, you need to add an informative description. (For Android, it must contain your keywords; but be careful: If you use too many keywords it might appear as spam, which you definitely want to avoid. The App Store offers a separate keyword field to put yours into.) Finally, to show users what they can expect from the game, you should include great screenshots that show all features of the game.
      Mobile Game Promotion: Most Popular App Categories

      Mobiles Games are the Most Popular App Category by Impressions © ayeT-Studios

    3. Use feedback
      A great way of constantly improving your game is to ask for feedback from users in the app store or on your social media channels. By using users’ experience with the game, you will be able to adjust your game and think about factors you have never noticed before. It is also important that you respond to user feedback so that they will feel valued. Another way of using feedback for your mobile game promotion is to present your app through startup communities or app review sites and ask for opinions.
    4. Be social
      In order to get people to talk about your game, you need to give them a space to talk. You could either create a forum for users to discuss the game or open a game-related group in different social media channels. There, users can share their experience, their achievements, and some tips and tricks to enhance their performance. If possible, also integrate social media within your game so that your customers can share their achievements directly through the app on social media.
    5. Be visual
      Users like to consume videos rather than plain text. Consequently, introducing your game with a video is always a good idea. A video offers various ways of presenting your game, for example as a preview or a short demonstration – there are no limits. You can share the video on numerous social media channels, for example YouTube, Facebook or Instagram.
    6. Include Influencers
      Influencer Marketing is a great way to make your game more visible in the internet and to attract many potential users. You can let a YouTuber play your game in a video that will be published on his channel, or you could let a blogger test the app and review it on his/her blog. Either way, many users will become aware of your game due to influencer marketing. We at ayeT-Studios can help you find the right social media influencer -> click here!
    7. Make Potential Users Interested
      Offer users an incentive in order to make them interested in your game. You can do that by offering giveaways or couponseveryone likes goods for free.

      Minutes spent per session by games (Android & iOS) © Adjust

    8. Promote Your App Offline
      Next to promoting your game online, it is also crucial to do so offline. You could, for instance, collaborate with game stores. By placing a QR code, stickers or posters on windows traffic light posts, you’re raising awareness for your game.
    9. Prepare a Media Kit
      Public relations is also a part of mobile game promotion. Of course you want to be prepared for the press, in case they take an interest in your game. Hence, you should arrange a media kit that includes all the relevant information about your game. For example, an app summary guide, a press release, great screenshots of your game, a design collateral, great videos, founder bios and some nice pictures.
    10. Apply for Awards
      A mobile game promotion tool that will make your game interesting not only for users, but also for the press is to participate in app awards. The coverage of the award, as well as reviews of the different apps will also raise awareness for your game, which will lead to an increase in app downloads.

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