Oksana is an ASO expert at ASO Agency Phiture, the authors behind the book on Advanced ASO. We are looking for an ASO Consultant to join our team in Berlin.

June 4-AppTweak launches ASO Keyword shuffler

ASO Tool AppTweak launched a nifty feature which creates keyword combinations from several individual keywords.

New Tool for ASO Keyword Research: Keyword Shuffler - ASO Blog

June 5 — App Store updates after WWDC

While the iOS 12 Announcements during WWDC were mostly about Facetime and animated emojis 🐯 there were also some unannounced changes important for ASO marketers.

The ASO community firstly noted that the search results in iOS 12 were different. As David Barnard flagged on Twitter, this might be just because it’s a beta version, but it might also hint at an algorithm change.

David Barnard on Twitter

Interesting, search results in iOS 12 are different than in iOS 11. I don't think that's been different in years past, so maybe they are beta testing some changes to the search algorithm. So far, I'm not impressed.

Visual improvements to the App Store Connect app were noticed earlier this month. Also, iTunes Connect and App Store Connect consoles have been completely separated. Developers are now able to manage their apps, view analytics and respond to user reviews also from App Store Connect iOS app.

The Mac App Store also gets a revamp which has released in Beta. Mac App Store optimization is one more potential field opening in front of the ASO community.

At WWDC, Apple also presented the App Store Connect API, designed to automate developers’ daily tasks that previously required manual accessing the console (i.e. downloading financial and Sales reports). The API will also help improve user and groups management, as well and sharing public links, managing beta and Test Flight testers via TestFlight.

App Store Review Guidelines also undergone changes. All of them are reflected here. Among interesting ones was the update on What’s New field:

2.3.12 Apps must clearly describe new features and product changes in their “What’s New” text. Simple bug fixes, security updates, and performance improvements may rely on a generic description, but more significant changes must be listed in the notes.

ASO Slack community members have reported the What’s New being the reason for the app update rejection:

June 6–“42% of app installs are reinstalls” (Tune)

Having analyzed 3.1 billion app installs in their research Tune were able to conclude that 42% of the installs were actually users reinstalling apps that they had previously deleted.

According to the report data, re-installers are much more active in the app, at least in the first days after re-installation. The research also included some suggestions behind potential reasons behind the un- and re-installations, that can be a good base for the further research by marketing specialists.

StoreMaven tests on new Google Play design show a surprising impact on ASO

Google has been testing the new Play Store design for a while with no certainty if and when it will be applied. StoreMaven have analyzed how visitors interact with the updated Play Store design. Here is what they found:

We found that there is actually an 83% increase in visitor exploration with the new design

One more interesting find about the new design is review score visibility, that’s increased when an app has at least one landscape screenshot.

According to StoreMaven, visibility of high store ratings can increase CVR by up to 12%.

June 11 — Apple Search Ads expanding geos

We already reported on some of these countries on May 29, but now Apple Search Ads account holders also received an official e-mail from Apple saying that they extend the Search Ads geos to France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea & Spain “late summer”. Search Ads Basic will follow.

Here is the WWDC session mentioned in the e-mail.

13 June — iOS 11 featuring in AppFollow

Analyzing App Store traffic from Browse has been pretty challenging recently, since only info on iOS 10 featuring had been available in most tools. ASO Intelligence tool AppFollow has released the iOS 11 featuring for the Today tab, Apps and Games are to come later, which will be helpful to analyze the upticks in App Store browse traffic.

June 14 — Apple Search Ads attribution bug

Starting from the beginning of June, Apple Search Ads API stopped returning the attribution data on iOS 11.3. Therefore attribution tracking tools had troubles gathering the data.

A lot of app publishers stopped the campaigns and redistributed the budgets until the issue is fixed. According to Thomasbcn, ASO Slack group member, the issue will only be fixed with the release of the next iOS and unfortunately attribution events will not be replayed to the Mobile Measurement Partners (MMPs) for the missing periods.

June 19 — Organic vs. Paid on Google Play

In their new research, SensorTower report on the Sources of installs on Google Play for apps and games. 88% of games downloads come organically, leaving 10% for third-party and 2% for Adwords. For non-games those percentages would be 69%/23%/13%.

20 June — New Google Play subscriptions features

According to recent reports, Google Play subscriptions continue to see huge growth, with subscribers growing over 80% year over year.

Google Play is enhancing both app users’ and developers’ experience with the new update on subscriptions, making the purchase, renewal and cancelation processes clearer to them. They include:

• Clear subscription management in a new subscriptions centre
• The new subscriptions centre also has a “Get Started” link in the empty state that lets users discover subscription apps through curated and localized collections.
• Google also releases deep links to be used by developers to direct their users to manage their subscriptions from your app, over email or via the web.

Developers will also have a chance to get more out of users actions with the update:

• developers will be able to get additional insights from the cancelation survey asking for feedback, shown to the users who cancel their subscription. Currently you can see the data from the cancellation survey by querying our server side API.
• developers are now able to issue a partial refund from the Play Console
• refund specific subscription renewals, not just the latest one

Apple also released a new update to their in-app purchases. An important section in the new guidelines (updated after WWDC) is the paragraph referring to non-subscription apps. Apps may now offer a free time-based trial period before having the user make the full purchase. Non-subscription apps may offer a free time-based trial period before presenting a full unlock option by setting up a Non-Consumable IAP item at Price Tier 0 that follows the naming convention: “14-day Trial.”

June 25 — Google Play: HUGE Algorithm change for games…and apps

A sudden drop in downloads for their game has first been reported by AxPetre on the Unity forum and then followed by other developers worldwide. Our ASO Stack Slack members reported a similar change. A change in which apps show up in “Similar apps” has quickly been considered as main reason for the drops in the downloads.

Pablo Samper of Lab Cave Games has dug deeper into the problem and analyzed the cached similar games for 2 games. He found that more big players are left in similar apps and the indie ones disappeared after the update:

The bigger change has later on been announced by Google Play in a blog post, confirming the algorithm update, that will give more prominence to the high-quality apps and games:

This means that apps and games that have high retention rates, low crash rates, low uninstalls, and many other factors, are recommended more often.

The update is a next step in Google’s strategy of enhancing overall apps quality on the store, that they announced at the I/O last year.

The changes seemed to affect games only, now they have also touched apps. The ASO world is anticipating the next earthquake!

Tools Updates:

1. SearchAdsHQ Update: Automated CPA Bidder for Apple Search Ads: https://splitmetrics.com/blog/automated-bidder-for-apple-search-ads/
2. Google Play Store Install Keywords Official Data Now on AppTweak! (for everyone): https://www.apptweak.com/aso-blog/google-play-store-install-keywords-official-data-now-on-apptweak-for-everyone
3. Announcing the Mobile Action Ad Intelligence Too: lhttps://www.mobileaction.co/blog/ad-intelligence-mobile-action-out/

Interesting posts:

1. Ratings and reviews. by Ilia Kukharev of AppFollow:

Pt. 1: https://blog.appfollow.io/ratings-and-reviews-part-1-9f0a7045356f

Pt. 2: https://blog.appfollow.io/ratings-and-reviews-part-2-f738b7c8529d

2. Apple Search Ads Creative Testing by Incipia: https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/new-feature-apple-search-ads-creative-sets/

3. Dealing with Revenue Discrepancy in Mobile Marketing by Roman Garbar: https://mobilegrowthstack.com/dealing-with-revenue-discrepancy-in-mobile-marketing-468612fbe52c

Thanks, that’s it from us for June!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get the ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• May 2018: App Store Creative Testing, Google I/O 2018 impact…
• April 2018: ASO Monthly #24 April 2018: New Play Store design in detail, Web apps for iOS…
• March 2018: New features — redesigned Play Store listings, App Video Trailers, Google Play Instant…
• February 2018: New Play Store beta search interface, keyword dances happening.
• January 2018: Installs via Keywords on Google Play, new design of App Store web.
• December 2017: Search Ads Basic, Introductory pricing and pre-orders on App Store etc.
• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…

In the ASO Monthly-series by ASO Agency Phiture, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.

We are looking for an ASO Consultant to join our team in Berlin

May 1 — Google opens registration for .app domains

Google now allows registering .app domains. Continuing on the encouraging safety in mobile web and adoption of HTTPS, Google is requiring HTTPS for all .app websites.

The participants of Google early access program were able to register the .app domain exclusively between 1 and 7 of May, public access to the registration has been available since May 8, as reported by TechCrunch.

May 5 — Apple rejects apps sharing location to 3rd party services

As 9to5Mac report Apple starts rejecting apps sharing location with 3rd party services.

Apple claims, that developers sharing location with 3rd parties, is a violation of several App Store Developers’ Guidelines sections, namely:

Legal — 5.1.1 and Legal 5.1.2

The app transmits user location data to third parties without explicit consent from the user and for unapproved purposes.

Rejected applications can be re-instated by removing the SDKs, frameworks and other third parties with possible access to users’ location.

May 9— Google I/O 2018: highlights for ASO

One of the most important topics of the Google’s I/O 2018 were the changes in Google Play Developer Console. Some of them affected the ASO marketers’ routine:

• The console’s dashboard has been updated, now displaying a more detailed overview of the app’s main metrics.
• Enhanced crash rate reporting in Android Vitals section is expected to help developers work on the application’s stability and decrease their crash and ANR rates. Some new info on permission denials has also been included in the report, possibly interesting for optimizing the CVR. Developers are also given benchmarks so that you can compare your app’s performance to that of similar apps. As mentioned again at this year’s I/O, app performance will have a greater impact on Play Store discoverability.
• The feature of breaking down downloads via Search and Browse, that is currently in closed beta, was discussed and announced for release soon:

• Some tips around metrics and reporting in the User Acquisition tab:

The visualized direct correlation between the conversion rate and the APK size was an important ASO highlight of the talk:

This I/O did not bring any breaking news, but a number of actionable tips, that ASO practitioners together with product teams can apply to improve their CVRs.

The Google Play award winners were also announced:

May 15 — iOS 11: Search and Browse analyzed

As expected, after the release of iOS 11 in September last year, Apple took control in terms of curated content that App Store visitors find on the store through featured apps in the Today tab, subcategories, hero banners etc. According to Sensor Tower, downloads worldwide from browsing increased from 10% to 15% with the adoption of the iOS 11 and thus enhanced featuring by Apple.

Search still remains a crucial part of for apps, with 69% of downloads, followed by Browse (9%) and App Referral (12%) sources. Also, 56% of App Store visitors find and download games through the Search, whereas Browse is higher of 24%.

Here you can also find some tips on how to increase your chances to get featured on the App Store (also included into our advanced ASO ebook).

Being an indie or middle size app developer, one gets more chances to get featured on the App Store, where 61% of featured apps had under 100k downloads (via Thomas Petit).

Google Play favors big publishers in its featuring. According to SensorTower, 78% of publishers featured on Google Play had more than 1 mln downloads.

May 25 — GDPR day

We could not but mention the hot topic of this month the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) that has been enforced on May 25. Ed Burrows from our retention team has already touched on the topic in his blog post, go have a look to check for your app’s GDPR compliance!

May 27 — Google Play Dev console bug

Several ASO Slack Community members reported on a bug in their Play Console User Acquisition section, with data not displaying correctly. So, don’t panic when you see this in your console, data will eventually appear.

May 28 — Google Play Black Hat tactics

Lucas Stefanko has spotted a fresh Google Play black hat ASO technique of deluding users of an app’s download numbers by … just including them into the developer name.

May 29 — Apple launches Creative testing for Search Ads

This month’s last moment sensation: Apple launched Creative testing for Search Ads.

As first published and discussed by Phiture, testing on Apple Search Ads with a new Creative Set is straightforward:

• In iTunesConnect you can upload up to 3 different app previews and up to 10 different screenshots that need to be pre-approved by Apple in the review process
• In the Apple Search Ads interface, you can then select which app previews and screenshots are shown in the Creative Set for your Ad Group or on a Campaign level
• No additional assets can be uploaded directly to the Search Ads console.

Creative Sets could not only help the app marketer to optimize their paid Search Ads presence, but also affect the impact on ASO when the learnings can be systematically applied to the organic store listing. Apple has published detailed guidelines for Creative Sets.

May 31 — New featuring on the App Store

A new type of featuring on the App Store has been spotted by ASO Slack community member Illia Kukharev.

Three apps icons featured in a story of the App Store Today tab. Possibly, more changes into the current App Store will be announced at the WWDC on June 4–8. We’ll keen an eye on the changes!

Events in June:

• June 1: The Applause conference in Barcelona, where Moritz is speaking about “The State of Search Volume Estimates for the App Stores”.
• June 26: App Promotion Summit, New York, June 26

Tools Updates:

1. Storemaven toolbox for checking out the new Google Play layout: https://www.storemaven.com/new-google-play-store-design/
2. TheTool is now officially integrated with Slack: https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fthetool.io%2F2018%2Fslack-integration
3. SearchAdsHQ Update: Automated CPA Bidder for Apple Search Ads: https://splitmetrics.com/blog/automated-bidder-for-apple-search-ads/
4. Market Insights from App Annie: https://www.appannie.com/en/insights/market-data/app-annie-2017-2022-forecast/

Interesting blog posts:

1. Insights on the Google Play organic search data by Incipia and TheTool: https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/deciphering-google-play-store-organic-search-data-10-insights-you-can-get-from-the-installs-per-keyword-feature/
2. Facebook Ad creatives testing by Apptamin: https://www.apptamin.com/blog/facebook-ad-creatives-testing/
3. How To Make Influencer Marketing a Crucial Part of Your Apps Growth Strategy: https://mobilegrowthstack.com/how-to-make-influencer-marketing-a-crucial-part-of-your-apps-growth-strategy-e20064616daf
4. Algorithmic Marketing Introduces a New Era of Mobile Ad Targeting by Incipia and MobileDevMemo: https://mobiledevmemo.com/algorithmic-marketing-introduces-a-new-era-of-mobile-ad-targeting/
5. Ratings and Reviews Pt.1 by AppFollow:https://blog.appfollow.io/ratings-and-reviews-part-1-9f0a7045356f
6. Search Ads Creatives Testing by Incipia: https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/new-feature-apple-search-ads-creative-sets/

Thanks, that’s it from us for May!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get the ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• April 2018: ASO Monthly #24 April 2018: New Play Store design in detail, Web apps for iOS…
• March 2018: New features — redesigned Play Store listings, App Video Trailers, Google Play Instant…
• February 2018: New Play Store beta search interface, keyword dances happening.
• January 2018: Installs via Keywords on Google Play, new design of App Store web.
• December 2017: Search Ads Basic, Introductory pricing and pre-orders on App Store etc.
• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…

In the ASO Monthly-series by ASO Agency Phiture, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.
Subscribe to receive the ASO Monthly via email.

April 1 — Progressive Web Apps available on iOS

The web apps were made available for iOS in 2007, introduced back then by Steve Jobs, and long forgotten and not supported. Now, with their iOS 11.3 update, Apple makes Progressive Web Apps available for iOS users.

Such apps have been long adopted by Chrome users on Android, but yet are new to iPhone users. They will be available for download only through the Safari browser and are referred by Apple as “web apps from the home screen”. Applications will lack some of the Apple native features though, like Face ID on iPhone X or ARKit etc., but at the same time, they do not have to be approved by the App Store team.

More information on PWAs and their features and restrictions, can be found in the detailed Medium post by Maximiliano Firtman.

April 9 — Q1 2018 Report highlights new records of app store spend

AppAnnie reported Q1 2018 to have set a new record of app downloads and consumers’ spend in the app stores (in the form of paid apps, in-app purchases or in-app subscriptions). Both stores combined added 10% YoY to 27.5 billion downloads and an additional 22% YoY in consumer spend.

According to AppFigures, 2017 was the first year for the Apple App Store during which the number of apps in the Store declined after consistent growth over the past few years.

One of the reasons for this is that Apple has been enforcing stricter guidelines and has been removing older apps. Also, less apps (namely 29% fewer apps) were initially submitted to the store by developers last year.

April 10 — Google Play Store to-be-released design in details

Let’s have a look at the new accents on the new Google Play listing design, that Google is steadily rolling out. While the feature graphic is to be removed, the app promo video will be placed in the screenshots section, giving it more prominence. According to StoreMaven, only 10% of store listing visitors watch the Play Store video with the current design. This should change with its new positioning on the page. Screenshots will also play a greater role for conversion after the update. So far, they have been placed below the fold and did not appear on the first screen.

Speaking about the textual assets: The short description has been moved below the screenshots (meaning below the fold), which will decrease its impact on store listing CVR. However, the short description might be shown in the Play Store search which would be quite impactful.

More factors, not directly developer dependent will be highlighted on the Play Store page, incl. app ranking in top charts, Editors choice tags, etc.

The upcoming changes will strongly affect App Store Optimization strategies for many app developers and ASO specialists. Nevertheless, Google is constantly testing out new features, designs and functionalities of its Play Store and introducing new app ranking factors (e.g. Android Vitals), which will bring new challenges, depending on which will eventually be implemented.

Let’s wait and see what #io18 brings us!

April 11 — Google Play: Changes in reflecting user reviews

Not only is Google changing the game for ASO marketers, but also for users, enhancing their experience in reading Play Store reviews. Instead of swiping through the app reviews with an arrow on the app page users can read all the reviews for an app on a separate page.

Visitors are now also able to see the Edit history reviews edited by users. This feature can be helpful for seeing how users react to an app’s new version.

April 12 — Apple released a new attribution API

On March 29th, Apple introduced a new set of APIs within its iOS 11.3 update called SKAdNetwork

The new SKAdNetwork API has been introduced by Apple with its iOS 11.3 update, as reported by MobileDevMemo. It will allow networks to attribute installs directly through calling the API, without third-party attribution networks. This big mobile marketing game changer has been released before the new GDPR regulations.

April 18 — Playable game demos on Facebook Ads

Not only Google is testing new things to drive & engage users more. VentureBeat has informed that Facebook has started testing a new advertisement format of playable game demos inside the ads. This way the users can get a preview and feel of a game before they decide to install it. Who knows, maybe such a feature will come to the App or Play Store soon.

April 23 — Changes in Google Play User Acquisition report

User acquisition in the Play Store has changed from “Installers” to “First-time installers”, however, the historical data seems to be the same as found by ASO Stack Slack member Faith Price.

April 25 — App Store featuring stats by Sensor Tower

Sensor Tower analyzed the potential impact of the Today tab (introduced in the iOS 11) for games and apps on the App Store and shared some insights:

• iPhone apps received download boosts of up to 800% by being featured in Today
• Hero Banners increased installs by 236% for games and 111% for apps week-over-week
• According to Sensor Tower’s study, median weekly downloads of featured games at least doubled, while one feature type more than quadrupled installs

Some more stats on the characteristics of apps that usually get featured in the App Store:

April 29 — Happening Now on Google Play

New little detail in Google Play store listing has been spotted by ASO Slack community member Rafal Baranowski — Happening now tab. Being similar to the App Store Promo Text this text informs the user about new events in the app or game.

April 30 — Store Maven release their ASO chrome extension

A very helpful ASO Tool Box Chrome extension has been released by StoreMaven, that helps the ASO marketers see the mobile Play Store listing page on a device on the Google Play and App Store web listings. The tool also allows changing the store listing language, as well as downloading all the media assets with one click.

Events

Fellow marketers, we’d love to meet you at:

• App Growth summit in Berlin on May 16–17
• Applause in Barcelona on June 1

where Moritz, Andy, and Ed from Phiture team will be speaking together with other experts from the industry!

Links worth reading:

A/B Tests Results Analysis: Statistical Significance, Confidence Level and Intervals: https://splitmetrics.com/blog/checking-statistical-significance-of-a-b-tests/

How to use misspelled keywords to increase search visibility https://www.theasoproject.com/blog/misspelled-keywords/

App Preview video testing by Apptamin: https://www.apptamin.com/blog/app-preview-videos-tropicats/

ASO tool news:

AppFollow 3.5: March Edition: https://blog.appfollow.io/appfollow-3-5-reviews-ratings-integrations-addon-bbf8937b99aa

TheTool update: https://thetool.io/2018/update-keywords-analysis

ASOdesk update: https://medium.com/blog-asodesk-com/april18-new-dashboard-and-updated-organic-report-2f09a6cb827

MobileAction update: https://www.mobileaction.co/blog/brand-new-features-added-to-keyword-tracking/

Thanks, that’s it from us for April!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• March 2018: New features — redesigned Play Store listings, App Video Trailers, Google Play Instant…
• February 2018: New Play Store beta search interface, keyword dances happening.
• January 2018: Installs via Keywords on Google Play, new design of App Store web.
• December 2017: Search Ads Basic, Introductory pricing and pre-orders on App Store etc.
• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…
• August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
• July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…

February 2 — Search Ads Basic go global this fall

Good news! Apple Search Ads Basic will be expanded globally, as informed by Apple. Those running their campaigns in the Search Ads Basic console can expand their target markets.

The ASO industry could benefit if Search Ads Advanced also extends the geo and language ranges and keywords’ search popularity score is provided in more languages.

February 2 — App Store: Emojis use restricted

Multiple cases of apps being rejected by Apple have been reported recently. The Apple review team now rejects apps using emojis in their app or marketing materials, anywhere other than while used with the keyboard. App developers face the choice of using custom illustrations instead of Apples’s emojis or remove them completely from the app and store assets.

When rejecting the apps, Apple review team refers to the Point 5.2.5 from App Store Review Guidelines:

Apple Products: Don’t create an app that appears confusingly similar to…apps and extensions, including third party keyboards and Sticker packs, may not include Apple emoji.

February 6 — Search Ads Basic e-mail mess

On February 6, Search Ads users received an email from Apple with other developers’ campaigns results for January. The information provided included app name, number of installs, average CPI and spend. There is no information on how many emails were sent out in error and on how many apps.

February 20 — App Store: Increased number of screenshots on Product Page

Apple increased the number of screenshots on the product page to 10 images. This change should not have a crucial impact for most app developers, as only about 4% of users currently scroll through all 5 screenshots in the gallery as reported by StoreMaven. This means that only a fraction of these actually scroll through the 10th screenshot. However, according to StoreMaven, visitors do tend to swipe through the gallery more when they are checking out a recently launched or updated app.

In the meantime, Google Play continues rolling out a new search result interface to more Play Store visitors. Having searched for a search term, a user will see a list of app cards, each including a short description and up to 6 screenshots, along with the total number of downloads and reviews (screen left). Each of the elements newly shown in the search will be gaining more weight in terms of its impact on conversion. Also the prominent install button, might increase the number of installs while driving a lower number of Store Listing Visitors to your page.

On the second screen an upsetting trend for acquiring the organic users can be spotted, as now organic content is one scroll away, leaving the entire first Search result screen to keyword suggestions, ad tile and app recommendation icons.

February 23 — Google Play Developer Console news

Google Plays makes recently released introductory pricing periods flexible. The introductory price period is now not bound to the general applications billing cycle and can be set separately.

February 23 — Stories show up in search in extended geos

Apple recently started showing featuring stories in the search in the US. Similar search results have been spotted by ASO Slack members in other locales too (George Natsvlishvili, ASO Stack Slack channel).

If an app is featured as App of the Day, the story will appear in the search for your brand keyword and for search terms related to any other apps in story.

This continues the trend of content curated by Apple getting more exposure in the store.

February 23 — Google Play and App Store keyword dances

February was an unstable month for Google Play and App Store keyword rankings. Numerous cases of apps massively dropping in category positions and in targeted keywords have been reported recently in ASO Slack group. First concerns were raised starting from February 14. Keyword dances keep happening, however, no official change of Store algorithms has been announced.

February 27 — Mobile Benchmarks Report by Adjust

Adjust released their report with mobile benchmarks for 2018, showing retention efficiency breakdown via OS, network country etc along with industry trends. A few highlights from the Adjust report:

Retention per OS: According to Adjust data, per device, iOS consistently retained more users than Android in 2017 with a slight difference of 1–2%.

Retention per country: While Japanese users retain best at 30% retention at the beginning, China sees the lowest retention rates, with only 7% of users staying with an app by day seven.

Retention per network: Google leads, Twitter sits in the middle, with slightly more engagement than Facebook.

The full report can be downloaded here.

TheTool releases downloads via keywords

Google Play’s beta feature of tracking app downloads via keywords has been a real earthquake for the ASO world last month, being available for a number of developers with beta access. Now, ASO intelligence tool TheTool were able to make this feature available. Direct keyword insight from Google Play can be a game changer when defining an app’s keyword strategy.

Interesting blog posts:

1. iOS 11 — Subtitle and Promotional Text Fields Usage Breakdown: https://www.apptweak.com/aso-blog/infographic-ios-11-subtitle-and-promotional-text-fields-usage-breakdown
2. Tips on video A/B testing by Apptamin: https://www.apptamin.com/blog/google-experiments-impact-video/
3. How users search for apps in the App Store — analyzing search queries from autocomplete:
   https://asostack.com/how-do-users-search-for-apps-5a0d3257803f
4. The state of subscriptions on the App Store https://blog.chartmogul.com/state-of-subscriptions-app-store/
5. How Much Your App Ratings & Reviews Affect Your Conversion Rate: https://blog.usejournal.com/how-much-your-app-ratings-reviews-affect-your-conversion-rate-4dfa458c1c2e
6. The Ultimate Guide To Mobile In-App Purchases Optimization by InstaBug: https://blog.instabug.com/2018/01/mobile-in-app-purchases/
7. Conferences for Mobile Marketers in 2018: http://blog.appagent.co/post/170337972246/24-conferences-for-mobile-marketers-in-2018, See you there!

Thanks, that’s it from us for February!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• January 2018: Installs via Keywords on Google Play, new design of App Store web.
• December 2017: Search Ads Basic, Introductory pricing and pre-orders on App Store etc.
• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…
• August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
• July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…

In the ASO Monthly-series by ASO Agency Phiture, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.
Subscribe to receive ASO Monthly via email.

January 8 — App Store: Record-breaking holiday season

As Apple reported, App Store kicks off 2018 with record-breaking Holiday season of $300 Million in Purchases. Altogether over $890 million in Christmas seven-day period was spent by App Store visitors.

It was also mentioned that developers have earned around $86 billion since the launch of App Store in 2008.

January 11 — Google Play: Installs broken down via keywords

A real ASO earthquake! Google has released new organic search data on the Google Play Console.

Organic installs are now split via Search and Browse. Previously, only the total number of store listing visitors, along with organic installers, buyers and repeat buyers were available.

Even more exciting news is that downloads are now also broken down via keyword. Data for up to 1,000 search terms displayed in User Acquisition tab.

Features are available in User Acquisition tab of the Developer’s Console for some beta testers. Even though the data is considered to be not fully reliable at the moment, the feature is a major game changer in ASO.

January 17 — ASO Intelligence Tools summarize 2017

Leading Store intelligence and analytics tools have summarized the 2017 revenue, downloads and market trends.

App Annie provided their comprehensive 2017 Retrospective, highlighting the main indicators of industry growth and most important market trends in 2017.

The full App Annie report includes:

• Rankings: See the year’s top apps across markets and categories
• Crypto: What we can learn about the rise of cryptocurrency through apps
• Video Streaming: How consumer spend is exploding in video streaming apps
• China: The staggering growth of the app economy in China
• Ride-Sharing: Local variations within the extremely competitive ride-sharing space

Flurry — app analytics tool — reported on app usage and mobile devices manufacturers and forms of distribution. Having analyzed more than one million apps for their report, they counted, that overall session app activity has only shown of just 6% growth, indicating that 2017 was the year that mobile app innovation and growth was disrupted.

SensorTower’s annual report highlights the main market benchmarks. It includes graphs of Apps and Games worldwide downloads and revenue. Stores finished the year with $58.6b revenue (+35%) and 91.5b downloads (+14%).

January 14 — App Store: Promoting free trials for Subscription apps

As reported by iMore, Apple now promotes free trial subscriptions by apps who offer those. Tapping on the “Apps” tab browsing the App Store and scrolling down to “Try it for Free”, user gets to a list of subscription apps that are currently being offered with free trials under “See All”. This addition indicates that Apple is really doubling down on the promotion of in-app purchases and subscriptions in the App Store, and that a successful ASO strategy should therefore include In-App Purchases.

January 18 — App Store: Redesigned web version

A major redesign of the Apple App Store desktop has been rolled out, looking closer to mobile version of the iOS 11 page. The new web listing now also includes Subtitle.

The message about app availability across the devices is placed on top of the page: “This app is only available on the App Store for iOS devices.”

January 25 — App Store: New Features in iOS 11.3 Beta

A new iOS 11.3 beta version has been seeded by Apple to developers and will soon be followed by the public release. Together with other new features there are some small but important changes for ASO included into this version:

• Featuring references have now been placed on the application App Store listing;
• Users can see the recency of the application update and its size in the App Store Search. With the addition of the size in the updates list, size does matter even more, and bloated apps could become victim of an increase in uninstalls.

• User reviews can now be sorted by different criteria: Most Helpful, Most Favorable, Most Critical, Most Recent. This feature is particularly important for the user (and for a developer, too) as old and irrelevant reviews used to appear on application’s store listing.

January 25 — Google Play new Search in beta, Google Play Console updates

In an A/B test spotted by Slack group member Aude Boscher, Google seems to be testing displaying the short descriptions in search app cards. Also noteworthy is the appearance of not one, but two app cards, giving more weight to the competition.

New features have also been added to Google Play Developer’s Console:

• Retained Installers Benchmarks has been added to Google Play Developer’s Console. Now developers will be able to see the retention for 1,7,15 and 30 days.

Ido Schoonen from LabCave Games has come up with the retained users graph for Games subcategories in the USA, November 2017:

• Google also introduced updates affecting project management, namely new “Admin” role in Console permissions, being able to manage users and permissions.
• Billing cycle for test subscriptions was made more frequent, which will speed up application testing process.
• The latest reporting metrics on the Play Console statistics page allowing developers to track Android Instant Apps launches by events and devices, in addition to conversion rates.

More information on Google Play updates can be found here.

January 30 — Google Play reports on Fighting fraud by removing malicious apps.

700K malicious apps have been removed from Google Play as reported on Android Developers blog. The following app types have been affected by the algorithm:

• Copycats: apps impersonating famous apps;
• Apps with Inappropriate Content: inappropriate content, such as pornography, extreme violence, hate, and illegal activities
• Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs): SMS fraud, act as trojans, or phishing user’s information

The newly developed algorithm, resulted in taking down 100,000 bad developers in 2017.

This update has strong impact on ASO game, too, as developers who play dirty publishing apps, also do so when promoting them. Mimicking store assets, using incentivised campaigns, doing keyword stuffing, all this stealing installs from fair players. Hopefully, new Play Store Policies updates will go together with algorithm improvements, as first steps have already made there.

Interesting blog posts:

1. App Store Optimization Factors by ASO experts for TheTool: https://thetool.io/aso-factors-trends
2. 9 Hacks for Search Ads Campaign Management by AppsFlyer: https://www.appsflyer.com/blog/9-hacks-apple-search-ads-campaign-management/
3. What happens to the traffic you send to the App Store: https://ia.net/writer/blog/what-happens-to-the-traffic-you-send-to-the-app-store/
4. A/B Testing Tips from Incipia: https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/5-pro-ab-testing-tips/
5. Featuring in numbers by Curtis Herbert: https://blog.curtisherbert.com/slopes-diaries-23-featuring-numbers/

Thanks, that’s it from us for January!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• December 2017: Search Ads Basic, Introductory pricing and pre-orders on App Store etc.
• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate…
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)…
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…
• August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
• July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…
• June 2017: A whole new game: renewed iOS 11 App Store… (by Luca)
• May 2017: App Store metrics, Google I/O Instant Apps and more…
• April 2017: Apple search ads, botnet attacks and more…
• March 2017: Replying to reviews in iOS 10.3 and more…
• February 2017: Play Store starts using retention for keyword rankings
• January 2017: In-App ratings in iOS 10.3 and more…

In the ASO Monthly-series by ASO Agency Phiture, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.
Subscribe to receive ASO Monthly via email.

December 1 — Google Play: Best of 2017 charts on Google Play

Similar to App of the Year featuring in the App Store, the Google Play store wraps up the year with the Best of 2017 charts, featuring the best and most popular apps, games, music, movies, TV shows and books of the past year. Ratings were available in a form of carousel on top of Play Store front page.

Speaking of the impact, this type of featuring resulted in a 12x uptick in daily downloads for some of the featured apps:

December 6 —AppStore: Launch of Search Ads Basic

Apple released Search Ads Basic, a simplified version of Search Ads console (now Search Ads Advanced), that is targeted at smaller developers and does not require any special expertise to set up campaigns. Organized in form of a search match campaign, it is as easy as just setting up your monthly budget (max $5000 per month) and CPI limits, no keyword optimization required.

Search Ads Basic campaigns are currently available in the US only, other markets (U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and Mexico) will be added later this year.

December 8 — Google Play: Testing search filters

Google Play Store is testing free/premium and other filters in search, that can be applied when the user is looking for a specific type of an app. Namely, after searching for a particular keyword, user will be able to filter free or paid apps as well as apps with or without ads and more. Similar selection boxes have been available on Google Play store since June 2017 in form of further keywords suggestions, that helped users modify their search.

December 11 — App Store: Introductory pricing, pre-order, reporting setup and new sales and trends details

Apple enables new introductory pricing for subscription based apps. Developers are now able to offer their users 3 different payment options: pay as you go, pay upfront and free trial. Each of those gives user an opportunity to try out the app for lower price or for free before subscribing to automatic renewal.

Furthermore, App Store developers can now make their apps available for pre-order to users. This can be defined during the release process on iTunes Connect. Developers can choose a release date up to 90 days in the future.

According to Apple, users will be able to see app’s listing on the App Store right after the app is published as available for “Pre-Order”. Once the app is released for download, users will be notified and it will automatically download to their device within 24 hours. They will also be charged at this point if the app is paid.

Changes have also been made to the pre-order reporting setup guide on iTunes Connect. Sales units in Summary Sales report can now be filtered by Order Type field, filtering units that came through pre-order. Also, separate Pre-order report is available for download in Sales and Trends tab, it provides aggregated data on the number of pre-orders made and canceled by customers.

New sales and trends details are now available in the subscription page and subscription reports regarding the billing status of auto-renewable subscriptions and introductory pricing. These include order types, active pay up subscriptions, introductory price types and further data around new events such as upgrades.

December 14 — Google Play: Testing video previews

Google Play makes a step forward towards improving users’ search experience, namely adding slide or video previews for some apps on the Play Store search. Previews are shown in the form of recommendations with a carousel of app video or slideshow previews.

This feature allows user to get an idea of an app without opening its listing to check its visual assets (and without YouTube opening). Previews are currently available for some games and apps with video content, such as tutorials, reviews etc.

December 21 — App Store: Rejecting template apps; Turkish algorithm change

A lot of discussions occurred around Apple Policy update on template apps. Earlier in December Apple announced, that template apps would be rejected.

4.2.6 Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected.

Such a measure is aimed at decreasing the number of low-quality apps, but as it appeared to also affect the wider markets, such as small businesses, non-profit organisations etc. Considering this, Apple swiftly made some changes to their Developer policy:

4.2.6 Apps created from a commercialized template or app generation service will be rejected unless they are submitted directly by the provider of the app’s content. These services should not submit apps on behalf of their clients and should offer tools that let their clients create customized, innovative apps that provide unique customer experiences.

So, app owners are expected to take part in app publishing more actively, with less assistance of the templating service providers. Though the new wording clarifies the limitations, it still sticks to the main point of rejecting most template applications.

Thomas Petit reported in the ASO Slack group, that UK and Australia keyword sets might no longer indexed by the Turkish App Store algorithm, after receiving conflicting feedback from local developers. Other localizations have not yet shown any changes regarding Phiture’s ranking of keywords scheme so far.

December 28 — Christmas apps revenue stats by Sensortower

Sensor Tower published a post with Christmas app revenue stats on Apple App and Google Play Stores, that finds increases in revenue of 5.2% for mobile game spending and 66% for non-game apps. The highest year-over-year growth has been noticed in the Entertainment category, adding 98% in revenue this year versus the previous one.

Interesting blog posts:

1. Keyword dances investigations (by Luca Giacomel): https://asostack.com/spotting-aso-keyword-dances-c2e82c9e0f3b
2. App Store Developers Guidelines changes log (via Illia Kukharev): http://www.appstorereviewguidelineshistory.com/
3. iOS 11.1.1 Update fixes for ASO (by StoreMaven): https://www.storemaven.com/ios-11-1-1-update-and-app-store-optimization-aso/
4. Search Ads Basic Intro (by AppFollow): https://blog.appfollow.io/search-ads-basic-intro-b042bfc67819
5. Investigation on fake App Store reviews (Reddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/comments/7n0rs8/how_to_scam_200000_per_month_and_get_67882_all_5/

Thanks, that’s it from us for December!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get ASO Monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• November 2017: Black Friday in the Stores, APK size vs. Play Store conversion rate…
• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)…
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…
• August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
• July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…
• June 2017: A whole new game: renewed iOS 11 App Store… (by Luca)
• May 2017: App Store metrics, Google I/O Instant Apps and more…
• April 2017: Apple search ads, botnet attacks and more…
• March 2017: Replying to reviews in iOS 10.3 and more…
• February 2017: Play Store starts using retention for keyword rankings
• January 2017: In-App ratings in iOS 10.3 and more…

In the ASO Monthly-series, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.

November 1 — App Store: New badges shown in search

Apple made their next step towards controlling and encouraging apps quality, displaying new badges instead of star rating in the App Store search. Applications with higher ratings (not necessarily with a high number of ratings) are getting the badge “Editor’s Choice”. This could positively affect apps’ conversion rate, as additional social proof can convince users to download the app.

November 4 — App Store: Different Search results for iPhone X

Some interesting details in the App Store search results have been noticed by ASO Stack Slack channel member Anatoly Sharifulin. Apps that have features available only for the iPhone X will not display for older iPhone models. This will affect ASO conversion metrics and increasing discrepancies should be taken into account with the further adoption of iPhone X devices.

For better understanding of the situation, here are some insights on the iPhone X adoption rate.

November 8 — Google Play: New features in Developer’s Console

Google Play has been trying to improve developers’ experience by adding new features to the Developer Console. Now, an app’s release status is reflected in the right top corner of the search bar. Also new and important for developers/ app managers is the new feature of managing orders and refunds — viewing statistics by custom date range. Additionally, ratings now show averages and cumulative totals.

November 10 — App Store: New marketing materials, featuring, Black Friday apps sales

Apple extended their marketing materials list with the latest models of their devices: iPhone X, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch Series 3, and Apple TV 4K.

Apple’s App Store also added more featuring options, Weekend Deals and Black Friday tabs, another downloads booster for developers to be used for seasonal or discount offers.

Together with this news came a new record of the biggest mobile shopping day on Black Friday 2017, as reported by App Annie. New benchmarks in mobile commerce in the future are predicted. The main challenges for the developers with opportunities like this is to prioritize their user acquisition strategies, incl. App Store Optimization, updating store descriptions, assets, promo materials and also pitching App Store for the seasonal featuring for more exposure.

November 16 — App Store: Movements in keywords rankings

Some unusual movements on the App Store for top keywords given by the Apple for “free” have been spotted by ASO Stack Slack channel members Luca Giacomel and Gabe Kwakyi. Games will usually rank for these keywords without including them into the metadata. The inconsistencies in rankings may be linked to downloads/CVR of top players and their changes over time, however, this is still unclear.

November 20 — Google: Install Referrer API

Good news for App Marketers comes with Google releasing their Install Referrer API. Using this API, your app will get precise information straight from the Play Store, including:

• The referrer URL of the installed package.
• The timestamp, in seconds, of when the referrer click happened.
• The timestamp, in seconds, of when the installation began.

This appears to be a good way to locate click injections during app download and prevent any fraudulent behavior.

Google’s cooperation with attribution measuring tools resulted in something called Install Start Time, another signal for further funnel optimizations. As measuring in details all steps from click to app launch will lead to better conversion, especially for large apps.

November 21 — Google Play: APK size effect on conversion rate

To attract users, developers have been adding numerous features to their app, as well as analytics, attribution and other SDKs. Therefore, the APK size quadrupled since the Google Play store launch back in 2012. Sam Tolomei found a correlation between the APK size and Play Store conversion rate. Having analyzed Play Store metrics his conclusion was:

For every 6 MB increase to an APK’s size, we see a decrease in the install conversion rate of 1%.

This number is even higher (~2.5%) emerging markets, where users care more about limited storage on their phone and data usage for the download.

November 22 — App Store: New tool for switching the locales

An amazing tool called Switchr for switching App Store country was brought to the ASO community by ASO Stack Slack group member Illia Kukharev. It’s a great time saver for those working on ASO, as the App Store territory (for viewing) can be changed with two taps. No more tricks with logins/logouts and struggling with new accounts and payment methods. We love it!

omar on Twitter

This tool by @ImagilityIO can switch your App Store to another country! 👌 https://t.co/ehMwgj1H4I https://t.co/DdPTQ6GojX

November 28 — AppTweak: iOS downloads and revenue estimates

Utilizing machine learning, AppTweak extended their competitive intelligence tool adding +70 more countries, providing insight on iOS downloads and revenue estimates. These data helps developers or app marketers compare their product revenue with their competitors’ numbers, as well as estimating the effect of seasoning.

November 30 — APS Berlin took place, materials to come

App Promotion Summit 2017 was a great success in Berlin with a wealth of talks around mobile marketing held by various industry experts. Phiture held its own workshop around competitive ASO, materials soon to be published.

Interesting blog posts:

1. Analysis of 3,300 Google Play Feature Graphics (ASO Stack): https://asostack.com/what-analyzing-3-300-feature-graphics-has-taught-us-about-google-play-store-aso-4ada57048da4
2. Closer look at Product Page Artwork (ASO Stack):
   https://asostack.com/a-closer-look-at-ios-11-product-page-artwork-apple-s-answer-to-the-feature-graphic-579461330291
3. How to optimize IAPs for iOS by Gabe (Incipia): https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/how-to-optimize-for-promoted-iap-in-app-purchases/
4. New Report Finds Gaming Apps Mostly ROI Positive (AppsFlyer): https://www.appsflyer.com/blog/new-appsflyer-report-finds-gaming-apps-mostly-roi-positive/
5. More Analytics on Black Friday and Cyber Monday (Localytics): http://info.localytics.com/blog/infographic-how-mobile-dominated-black-friday-cyber-monday-2017

Thanks, that’s it from us for November!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏button. Also make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series.

If you would like to get ASO monthly delivered directly to your inbox via email, please sign up above.

Previous ASO Monthly editions:

• October 2017: New Search Ads countries, Play Store installs per search term coming (?)…
• September 2017: The launch of the ASO book, the launch of iOS 11…
• August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
• July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…
• June 2017: A whole new game: renewed iOS 11 App Store… (by Luca)
• May 2017: App Store metrics, Google I/O Instant Apps and more…
• April 2017: Apple search ads, botnet attacks and more…
• March 2017: Replying to reviews in iOS 10.3 and more…
• February 2017: Play Store starts using retention for keyword rankings
• January 2017: In-App ratings in iOS 10.3 and more

2016

• December 2016: Priori Data launches Keyword Tool …
• November 2016: Google Play adds conversion rate benchmarks…
• October 2016: Apple launches Search Ads… (by Maximilian)
• September 2016: 50 character title-rule… (by Gabe)
• August 2016: Simplified screenshot submission… (by Peter)
• July 2016: Google Play Store testing with 2nd ad…
• June 2016: Announcement of Apple Search Ads…
• May 2016: App Store broken + 5 localized store listing experiments…

Oksana works at an ASO Agency called Phiture. We are looking for an ASO Consultant to join our team in Berlin.

Phiture is a Berlin-based mobile growth consultancy, specialized in App Store Optimization (ASO), Strategic Growth, and Mobile Marketing Automation.
We’re the publishers of the 370 pages book on ASO and the free monthly ASO news roundup. Get in touch at info@phiture.com if you’re interested in ASO services, or if you would like to join our team as an ASO expert.

That excitement when you receive an email from the sender “iTunes Store”titled “App Store: Promotional artwork request for ….”
While the second sentence in this email reads “while the promotion is not guaranteed, artwork is required if your app is selected” it rarely if ever happens that you will not get the featuring after this email and submitting guideline conform artwork.

And the excitement is often granted: picking up a feature can drive a substantial amount of installs to your app. Peter Fodor has written a dense 22-pages chapter in our ASO book on that impact and the road to getting featured.

While the temporary featuring is great for a temporary uplift, the Apple featuring request might also open up some more permanent opportunities to enhance your product page. In this article, we’ll talk about App Store’s Product Page Artwork, the counterpart of the Google Play Store Feature Graphic. There’s one big difference between the two though: while the Google Play Feature Graphic is available to all developers, Apple decided to make the Product Page Artwork a bit more exclusive and only give it to their some top developers.

To understand how many apps were granted this exclusive right on the Product Page Artwork, we’ve pulled all the top 200 free apps from all categories in the U.S. Here’s one of the snapshots our script took of the Food & Drinks category:

We found huge discrepancies between the categories when it comes to how many pages were featuring Product Page Artwork. Whereas in the category Games, 28% of the apps were granted Product Page Artwork, the categories Catalogs, Medical, Reference, Utilities & Weather didn’t have a single app with artwork. In non-gaming categories Travel was leading with 10%, followed by Social Networking (8%) and Productivity (7%).

Is it entirely new?

No, this type of promotional art has been seen before the App Store overhaul in iOS 11. As a matter of fact, it even extended beyond the product page artwork and even allowed iOS developers to submit a custom color background as well as a font color that would hopefully sit well on the background color.

Still, the number of apps with Product Page Artwork has seen a surge since iOS 11, and the fact that Apple now has a separate upload form for this might be seen as an indicator that it will become a prominent part of the page for most established developers.

NB: From the pictures we’ve pulled from the App Store, 575 had the 4320 x 1080 resolution, whereas 66 where still on what seems the old 3200 x 600 resolution.

Where can I submit my Product Page Artwork?

Once you receive the promotional artwork request email, head over to iTunes Connect. If you’ve been asked for artwork once before, you’ll see the “Promotional Art” menu item, where you will find a so-called ‘Dropwell’ for the Product Page Artwork.

The Product Page Artwork Creative

Photoshop file

Start your creative process by picking up AppName_AS_ProductPageArt.psdfile from the Promotional Art template zip-file that Apple provides. You will have to submit the PSD file once you’re done, so there’s no getting around Photoshop. The PSD file will show you the dimensions of the artwork (4320 x 1080 pixels) but also what your art safe area is.

Artwork policies

Whatever promotional artwork you submit, if it’s the Product Page Artwork or any other artwork, make sure to read the App Store Promotional Artwork Guidelines. The guidelines are more stringent than for Google Play Feature graphic, and the App Store feature graphics are used typically for artwork and the brand.

In short, don’t include:

• Taglines
• App icons
• Prices
• iOS devices or other branded devices (see this great developer story)

Localization

The Product Page Artwork is not country-specific and therefore non-localizable. In other words: that one image that you submit will show in all countries where your app is available. That’s likely also the reason why taglines and prices are specifically forbidden in the product page artwork.

Final creative tips

While you should definitely check out all your competitors and other best practices for product page artwork yourself, here are some tips we think could be clever:

• The back button is always white. If you don’t want to make it too easy for people to navigate of your page, hide the back button by playing with that white.
• With the use of inspirational photos or other artwork, you can make sure that your page not only looks nicer, but also that you communicate a value proposition.
• Achieve a nice visual effect by ending your feature graphic with white, so that it flows into the rest of your product page (see TripAdvisor).
• If you can, A/B test your creative before uploading it. It will be sitting on your page for at least a long time, so you want to make sure you nail it.

Is it really permanent?

It’s a bit too early to tell just a month after iOS 11 has launched. There are some early indicators that the “Product Page Artwork” can be taken away from you as easy as it’s granted. Snapchat and Airbnb both had Product Page Artwork during the developer release and lost that post-launch.

Developer page Product Page Artwork

Not only apps can get product page artwork, developer pages with similar artwork have been seen in the wild too. This Developer Product Page Artwork goes directly through your App Store rep, and not in the ‘dropwell’ we’ve shown in iTunes Connect above.

Wrap up

How much the Product Page Artwork has on conversion of Product Page Views into downloads, remains to be seen. But the featured Product Page Artwork can for sure play a great role. Especially for apps that drive a lot of traffic to their product page with performance marketing, finding and testing the right product page artwork before submitting it to the app store, is recommended.

In the ASO Monthly-series, we reflect on the previous month and shed a light on trends in app store optimization, algorithm changes, insights in conversion rate optimization and tool updates.

App Store Optimization News from September 2017

September 7

The complete 370-page guide to App Store Optimization (ASO) by Moritz Daan and Gabe Kwakyi has been published. Experience of top experts in the mobile marketing industry, and particularly ASO, spiced up with some pro-tips for advanced optimization, form a proper core for creating ASO strategy.

September 9

Following Apple’s App Store update, Google Play is testing some changes for a worldwide rollout, namely new navigation bar. Its key update is the For You tab placed equally among other elements of the navigation bar, which might draw more users’ attention. Later on, TheTool also blogged about Editor’s Choice and its organization in Google Play whose update includes improved categorization by interests, not just a general scope of apps and games marked by Google Play, as it used to be.

The day before, Google Play also announced on their Android Developers blog about their plans to help Indie developers grow by adding Indie Corner to Google Play for better discovery.

September 13

iTunes Connect gets prepared for iOS 11 update, and now only allows 30 character titles.

It’s been also noticed in the ASO Stack Slack chat that the Description field gets locked in “Ready For Sale” status, also confirmed by Deniz Gur, that the change happened with iOS 11 beta release, which was considered as a prompt for its indexation. That has not yet happened though.

Our Slack member Peter Smith noticed changes in new iTunes for MacOS. Some inconveniences may be caused by Apple removing the option of browsing the iOS apps for MacOS, which prevents ASO managers from checking their apps’ localized rankings easily etc.

September 14:

iPad apps top charts back to normal again (via Mithun Jhawar, ASO Slack).

Somewhere around August 22/23, the App Store changed the top ranking apps on iPad to primarily show iPad specific app builds, penalizing universal apps. Our Slack community member Mithun Jhawar reported on September 14 that it seems back to pre-August 22 rankings again.

September 14:

Gessica Bicego (Blinkist, and member of our Slack Channel) shares more information around the mystery bug that causes apps that have an app preview on the iOS 11 App Store to only show the 2nd and 3rd screenshot next to the app preview in search. Especially developers with app preview who use a tilted device in their first two screenshots (such as below screenshot of HBO Now) likely face a drop in conversion because of the disjointed experience. Gessica confirmed with Apple that this was a bug and that this should be resolved with the iOS 11 release (September 19).

At the moment of publishing, in October, this issue has not yet been resolved.

September 15

After MobileAction has launched their Search Ads intelligence in August, AppTweak follows suit. SA Intelligence provides insights in which apps are showing up in search ads for certain keywords, and how big a piece of the pie they get when it comes to impressions. They also show a list of keywords you and your competitors bid for. Adding customized alarms will get you a real-time control over any changes on your account like budget exhaustion etc.

September 19

The day of the great release.

iOS 11 changes have become publicly available. Most of them have already been previewed in detail in our July digest.

What’s news is that with the iOS 11 release, Apple also bumps up the App Size limit for over-the-air downloads from 100 to 150 MB. (via Ilia K)

Today also AppTweak adds subtitle and promotional text to their interface. Now ASOs can estimate their optimization level up to the latest changes. Also, the service allows comparing these elements among competitors, which is particularly important for analyzing the competition and adjusting your strategy.

September 20:

Daniel Peris published a blog post in which he shows surprising experiment results that SEO links and their anchor texts have a direct impact on Google Play ASO. He plays with the 301 redirect from a domain to his app Play Store URL.

September 22:

Thomas Petit (8fit) reports that developers now have the ability to keep or reset their ratings in iOS 11. Unresolved yet is that some developers unintentionally have lost their ratings & reviews already before this option was available.

Gabe Kwakyi, later on, reported more on the issue of the unintentional rating reset:

Further interesting blog posts on ASO that appeared last month:

• https://splitmetrics.com/blog/ios-11-app-store-optimization-aso/ (Artem Lytaev/ Splitmetrics)
• https://asostack.com/how-to-combine-seo-and-aso-techniques-to-supercharge-your-keyword-research-f654776257f3 (Gabor Papp)
• https://incipia.co/post/mobile-app-marketing-industry-updates/ios-11-app-store-optimization-bugs/ (Gabe Kwakyi)
• https://incipia.co/post/app-marketing/how-to-optimize-google-adwords-universal-app-campaigns-v-2-0/ (Gabe Kwakyi)

Thanks, that’s it from us for September!

If you like the ASO Monthly series, please click the 👏 button. Also, make sure to follow the ASO Monthly-series or sign up to the left so that you’re the first to hear when the next edition comes out.

Other ASO Monthly editions:

1. August 2017: UACs, video previews, subtitle rankings…
2. July 2017: Algorithm changes and more iOS 11 news…
3. June 2017: A whole new game: renewed iOS 11 App Store… (by Luca)
4. May 2017: App Store metrics, Google I/O Instant Apps and more…
5. April 2017: Apple search ads, botnet attacks and more…
6. March 2017: Replying to reviews in iOS 10.3 and more…
7. February 2017: Play Store starts using retention for keyword rankings
8. January 2017: In-App ratings in iOS 10.3 and more
9. December 2016: Priori Data launches Keyword Tool …
10. November 2016: Google Play adds conversion rate benchmarks…
11. October 2016: Apple launches Search Ads… (by Maximilian)
12. September 2016: 50 character title-rule… (by Gabe)
13. August 2016: Simplified screenshot submission… (by Peter)
14. July 2016: Google Play Store testing with 2nd ad…
15. June 2016: Announcement search ads…
16. May 2016: App Store broken + 5 localized store listing experiments…