Increase App Installs With Promotion

Both Google Play and Apple’s App Store algorithmically prioritise certain apps in search results based on a variety of ranking factors (ratings, tags, screenshots, app title, download data etc.). However, unlike SEO (which primarily focuses on Google) app store optimisation is not a one-size fits all game.

The most important ranking factor when it comes to app store optimisation is your android app promotion’s title. If you’ve built a train time-checker app, then it’s recommended to use ‘train time checker’ in the title.

You can use Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool (with the device setting on mobile) to identify which terms / phrases relevant to your app people search for the most on mobile. I’d recommend taking the specific search volumes with a pinch of salt, but it’ll give you a good ballpark idea of the magnitude of searches for different keywords.

Android reviews are a huge aspect of app store optimisation, as well as an important factor in convincing people to download your app. It’s extremely important that you find an effective way of driving reviews in a way that’s natural and won’t trigger Google or Apple’s spam filters.

I recommend the ‘offer them something cool for a review approach’ – be it some free credits or an extended subscription, giving the user something valuable in return for a android ratings is a win-win situation that seems to work well.

When it comes to ASO, it’s important to fill out all of the fields with relevant details when submitting your app to the app stores, and pick your categories carefully.

Similarly to traditional SEO (search engine optimisation) social links are also incredibly important, as is the authority of the app developer. Focus on promoting your app heavily via Google+, Twitter and Facebook and find interesting ways to incentivise real social sharing.

I’m very surprised that few mobile marketers are talking about this. In my experience, one of the most effective ways of acquiring mobile app installs has been through clever use of Facebook’s advertising platform. I could write for days on how to set this up, but my general advice is this:

Similarly, promoted tweets are another highly effective way of driving mobile app downloads when set up correctly. Start off with a small budget testing various different keyword segments, and scale up what drives the best cost-per-acquisitions.

Again, this technique is so under talked about. Marketing your app should not be some after-thought, but instead built into your app, if possible. What does your app do to encourage social sharing to the user’s social profiles? As long as every user refers an average of one new user, you have linear growth. If one user refers two users, you have exponential linear growth – often referred to as ‘going viral’.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had an awful lot of experience using mobile-specific ad networks but I’ve heard mixed opinions about them. There are literally hundreds of ad networks available now, so it’s a bit of hassle separating the good from the bad, but the ones that seem to get a lot of good press are iAds, AdMob and Mojiva.

Mobile app marketing is tough because there are a relatively limited number of ‘catchments’ where you can reach people interested in downloading your app – and those places (app stores, app magazines etc.) are extremely competitive to get visibility in. However, creating a micro-site opens up a whole host of marketing possibilities.