The App Store Feature Drop
The App Store Feature Drop
The App Store Feature Drop
By
Published on:
If you have a mobile app in The App Store, you should know that it’s like a search engine. The App Store tries to serve searchers, iPhone and iPad users, the apps they want to find. There are a few components of this including:
App name
Description
Categories (primary and secondary)
Keywords
Reviews
General searcher behavior (conversion rate, etc.)
We recommend every client spends time quarterly to review and optimize their App Store listing. It’s an enormous and untapped source of traffic.
The App Store has three commonly skipped features that can make your listing stick out and give you a competitive edge against your competitors. Some of these are relatively new, the others are underutilized. Most apps should be using all three today.
How to Check Your Traffic Sources
A side note here, if you aren’t familiar with The App Store analytics, in the Analytics > Overview section, you’ll see “Total Downloads by Source”. This should help indicate the percentage of traffic you’re receiving from each source.
An example below with figures hidden for a client’s confidentiality. You can see they’re receiving ~62% of traffic through App Store Search and not direct app links!
Product Page Optimization
Ranking higher and improving conversion rates is the name of the game for consumer (B2C) applications. It’s almost always a numbers game and how you can track and improve the numbers is hard to analyze. Did a change in the description really drive that traffic increase or was it the new imagery?
Now, with Product Page Optimization, you can run 3 tests concurrently to try and improve your metrics. Things like app icons, screenshots, and previews can all be tested randomly and also locally.
We recommend testing in core markets for most apps, secondary markets aren’t large enough to move the needle even if you optimize.
Custom Product Pages
Product Page Optimization (the previous feature) let’s you test changes randomly in the search function. But let’s say you need to differentiate the entire page for a unique experience.
Now, The App Store lets you create up to 35 unique landing pages. This includes different:
App previews
Screenshots
Promotional text
After creating a product page, you’ll have a unique link for that page that you can share in email marketing, social media, directly with users, or through App Store ads.
Note, users searching The App Store won’t find these Custom Product Pages, so it’s important your main app store listing remains generic or targets your primary markets.
For more information about Product Page Optimization, you can visit: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/product-page-optimization/
When and how should you use this?
Custom Project Pages are particularly useful to target unique market segments. In the example below, the app “Mountain Climber” targets users for bike trails, backcountry trails, and rock climbing in unique landing pages. You can see how this would improve conversions with each market segment.
The App Store Analytics tracks each page’s performance independently so you can easily see which pages are getting traffic and how they’re converting. This will help you to continually refine your marketing tactics and optimize conversions.
For more information about Custom Product Pages, you can visit: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/custom-product-pages/
In App Events
For mobile apps with events, In App Events let’s you highlight events from your app in your app store listing. It’s a great way to show users why they should download your app now.
Here’s an example from the app Evolve You. You can see the event “Project Abs” is happening now. As a two week challenge, it adds a sense of urgency for the user to download the app and join now.
We recommend not adding events too far in advance. An event two months from now doesn’t convey a sense of urgency. If anything, it can convey a reason to not download the app right now.
So What Should You Do Next?
Most App Store listings are out of date and not optimized for the current target market. The first thing we recommend is reviewing your listing for relevancy.
Is your app icon eye catching?
Do your screenshots show relevant information to target users?
Does the description highlight new and relevant features?
Are your tags aligned with what users would be searching for?
After improving the general App Store listing, then we recommend using these three new App Store features. Every app can make use of Product Page Optimization and most can use Events and Custom Product Pages.
Using all three features will require a time investment that’s likely significantly larger than what you’re doing today. Make sure you have an App Store “owner” on your team in charge of managing the listing and reporting on key metrics and test performance. We usually recommend App Store analytics appear in a KPI dashboard or Business Scorecard. In closing, take advantage of the new App Store features and use it as an excuse to dive in and reinvest time and effort into improving your listing.
If you have a mobile app in The App Store, you should know that it’s like a search engine. The App Store tries to serve searchers, iPhone and iPad users, the apps they want to find. There are a few components of this including:
App name
Description
Categories (primary and secondary)
Keywords
Reviews
General searcher behavior (conversion rate, etc.)
We recommend every client spends time quarterly to review and optimize their App Store listing. It’s an enormous and untapped source of traffic.
The App Store has three commonly skipped features that can make your listing stick out and give you a competitive edge against your competitors. Some of these are relatively new, the others are underutilized. Most apps should be using all three today.
How to Check Your Traffic Sources
A side note here, if you aren’t familiar with The App Store analytics, in the Analytics > Overview section, you’ll see “Total Downloads by Source”. This should help indicate the percentage of traffic you’re receiving from each source.
An example below with figures hidden for a client’s confidentiality. You can see they’re receiving ~62% of traffic through App Store Search and not direct app links!
Product Page Optimization
Ranking higher and improving conversion rates is the name of the game for consumer (B2C) applications. It’s almost always a numbers game and how you can track and improve the numbers is hard to analyze. Did a change in the description really drive that traffic increase or was it the new imagery?
Now, with Product Page Optimization, you can run 3 tests concurrently to try and improve your metrics. Things like app icons, screenshots, and previews can all be tested randomly and also locally.
We recommend testing in core markets for most apps, secondary markets aren’t large enough to move the needle even if you optimize.
Custom Product Pages
Product Page Optimization (the previous feature) let’s you test changes randomly in the search function. But let’s say you need to differentiate the entire page for a unique experience.
Now, The App Store lets you create up to 35 unique landing pages. This includes different:
App previews
Screenshots
Promotional text
After creating a product page, you’ll have a unique link for that page that you can share in email marketing, social media, directly with users, or through App Store ads.
Note, users searching The App Store won’t find these Custom Product Pages, so it’s important your main app store listing remains generic or targets your primary markets.
For more information about Product Page Optimization, you can visit: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/product-page-optimization/
When and how should you use this?
Custom Project Pages are particularly useful to target unique market segments. In the example below, the app “Mountain Climber” targets users for bike trails, backcountry trails, and rock climbing in unique landing pages. You can see how this would improve conversions with each market segment.
The App Store Analytics tracks each page’s performance independently so you can easily see which pages are getting traffic and how they’re converting. This will help you to continually refine your marketing tactics and optimize conversions.
For more information about Custom Product Pages, you can visit: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/custom-product-pages/
In App Events
For mobile apps with events, In App Events let’s you highlight events from your app in your app store listing. It’s a great way to show users why they should download your app now.
Here’s an example from the app Evolve You. You can see the event “Project Abs” is happening now. As a two week challenge, it adds a sense of urgency for the user to download the app and join now.
We recommend not adding events too far in advance. An event two months from now doesn’t convey a sense of urgency. If anything, it can convey a reason to not download the app right now.
So What Should You Do Next?
Most App Store listings are out of date and not optimized for the current target market. The first thing we recommend is reviewing your listing for relevancy.
Is your app icon eye catching?
Do your screenshots show relevant information to target users?
Does the description highlight new and relevant features?
Are your tags aligned with what users would be searching for?
After improving the general App Store listing, then we recommend using these three new App Store features. Every app can make use of Product Page Optimization and most can use Events and Custom Product Pages.
Using all three features will require a time investment that’s likely significantly larger than what you’re doing today. Make sure you have an App Store “owner” on your team in charge of managing the listing and reporting on key metrics and test performance. We usually recommend App Store analytics appear in a KPI dashboard or Business Scorecard. In closing, take advantage of the new App Store features and use it as an excuse to dive in and reinvest time and effort into improving your listing.