👋 Hi there. I’m Ariel and I like to talk about mobile apps and games. I review news and trends weekly, talk about app marketing, and interview guests live.
Might be an unpopular opinion here, but I think if you need to spend so much time on perfecting a paywall just to get people to spend, your app is probably lacking in other areas. By the time the user reaches your paywall they should already be beyond being sold to, and have the intention to make a purchase. Too many apps now pop up these paywalls way before the user even has a chance to evaluate the app. The best time to do this is if the user attempts to use a locked feature. Even better if you allow the locked feature to work a few times first, so they can SEE the value in it. If your app is providing value, you shouldn't need to employ tricks/tips to get people to follow through on a purchase. I think the advice here mostly applies to services/apps that are priced at the limits of the market, and it feels kinda scammy to me if you have to employ tactics to convince a user to make a purchase. Let the product sell itself. User manipulation/psychology sucks.
I follow your logic, but… that’s just wrong. “If you build it they will come” isn’t true in most businesses. You may hear stories about success “just happening” but it’s rarely the case. There’s enough competition across every category that you have a very short amount of time to get the hook, and features aren’t necessarily how you do that. The idea that you *must* create an amazing app is perfect for creating a great app, but that same amount of effort you put into making your app great you also need to put into marketing if you want to be successful.
@@appfigures I agree, though I'm not saying if you build it, they will come. You still need sales/marketing to get people INTO the app. There's certainly a slope here. At what point does it go from having a nice looking easy to use payment screen to employing dark patterns, hiding the cheaper option below the fold, using true but misleading language in your copy, and so on? All sales in general makes me feel gross though, even when I take out ads for my own apps. It's probably why I'm not that successful. It's my philosophy that any product ever made should offer value greater than the cost to the customer. If you can do that, it should be an easy sell, and you'll likely have happier customers too! If you can't sell it, then the product just isn't for them, and you move on. People work damn hard for their money, and these days you may just be competing against their next meal. All the top apps on the App Store are employing these tactics in one way or another. That's business I guess. Sure you'll see more success with some manipulation, but for me that's not worth it. It ends up being this arms race with scrutinizing every little thing, endless A/B testing, and eventually you lose sight of why you made the product to begin with. A mini rant I guess I've had bottled up for a while. Good content all around, just wanted to offer a different perspective. (I may be a little anti-capitalist)
@GetSwifty as a product guy I agree with most of what you’re saying. You must build a great app that provides a great value and price it well. But saying marketing/sales is gross means you haven’t fully captured the essence of marketing and sales and refer to what some bad actors are doing as what everyone is doing, which isn’t true. None of the tips we discussed today are shady, hide any value, or aggressively take money from users. Quite the opposite - we spent a lot of time talking about how important it is to showcase the free trial so users can see the app in action. Some devs force users to go through a paywall that has a barely visible x button. That doesn’t make every paywall optimization evil. The really successful developers try to figure out what their users want and display that value through the paywall just like a landing page for the app. That should be your goal - show the value quickly.
@@appfigures 100% keep it simple. Don't employ shady tactics. Show value, and make it as easy as possible. OMG I HATE that barely visible X button tactic. If you've gotta do that to get sales, your app MUST be lacking. Thanks for the conversation, and there's lots of great tips in the video.
If you have multiple paywalls and the user doesn't go for the first one, I wonder if they'll just tell their friends to cancel out the first one to get a better price on the second paywall?
Thank you, Ariel, for the video! Do you recommend a specific number (or range) of keywords for each campaign? If I add 40 exact match keywords to one campaign, is that not efficient?
I set daily max $20 and max bid $1 - I haven’t had any results so far. It's been 2 hrs since I ran the campaign. Does it take some time to start running or I set the budget too low?
That’s true, but I think it’s very rare to find a product that doesn’t have any ongoing costs. Even if there’s no backend/api/etc there’s still your time spent updating the app, adding features, changing the design, fixing bugs, etc.
Hi Ariel, how are you? Is there any plan for a Google Play ASO guide video? Usually most of the talk is for the iOS App Store... For example: 1) How does repetition and KW weight work for Google Play? 2) Should I include Keywords in App Name and Full Description? What about App Name + Short Description? 3) Are keywords in the screenshots considered for searches? What about app name? 4) Should I use all the characters available for App Name and Short Description? Or should I focus on the more relevant keywords?
For the FunFinances app, it seemed like 'FunFinances' is not a word that would get ranked well because it's a made up word. Would it be better to do something like 'House Buying Finances: FunFinances'. This way you get both your company name and better keywords?
Hi Ariel. Great content as always. Quick question on the Weather Radar opportunity to target Local Weather instead - both keywords had 100 competitiveness? How does that make local weather an opportunity with lower popularity? I thought popularity was a guide on search volumes? Wouldn't that then mean that local weather would be as difficult to penetrate as weather radar?
Thanks! I used competitiveness to get a gauge for a keyword quickly but analyze the top results manually to really choose. Yes, lower popularity = less searches, but ranking at the top for a less popular keyword beats ranking lower for a higher popularity one.
Hi Ariel! A few questions: 1) What's a recommended competitiveness score to target for smaller apps that are not running ASA? 2) If you have a long app name (10+ characters), but not really "KW-Related", since there are no relevant keywords in our name. Do you think it's ok to put it on the subtitle? What about a rebrand? Any tips? 3) Is it relevant to use "free" in the keyword field? I see many long tail keywords that include it, but I'm not sure if we get this for granted even if our app is free (as most apps are..) OR if we get penalized by using something like that in the app name. I guess this answer may be different for iOS and Google Play, right? 4) Does competitiveness score takes into consideration if there are any app with KW in its name? Suggestion: please do a live app teardown with *only* Google Play apps. That would be very interesting. 😊
1. I see competitiveness as a way to compare keywords not an absolute measure, so collect your keywords and sort them by competitiveness as a filter. (something we'll have a way to do on the platform in the future) 2. Thats more about branding and less about ASO so it's really up to you. If I had to choose I'd look at the name, the industry it's in and whether having it in the subtitle will hurt conversion. 3. I don't think so, and Apple says not to as well. But... I'd experiment with it if you want to be safe. 4. It doesn't. Competitiveness is based on the performance of the top results. We're going to roll out a new score that looks at that. I should! I do get Android apps in the submission form but this time Apple really dominated.
@@appfigures Another question: is Popularity score treated the same across multiple territories? For example, is a "30" popularity score about the same amount of searches in the US and Brazil? Or is that normalized for that specific territory?
I’m living in Albania building OneTap App (Keyboard Shortcuts: OneTap in the App Store) how can I submit my app to potentially get an aso review from you?
Thanks for this video Ariel! Trying to learn how I can improve ASO on my apps is just another thing indie developers need to tackle, so thanks for taking the time to show us how it can be done! If you ever get a chance, it would be great if you can also check how I can improve my app's ASO as well: Reminder - Beep Me. I can already see from the few examples you had in this video, how using Reminder might be very challenging in the US. The app has more installs in other countries than in the US, which is very competitive in this area. Waiting to learn more about the opportunities tool we didn't hear about in this video ;)
I think you hit the nail right on the head - if you're just getting started don't go after big keywords. Build momentum with less competitive ones and _then_ go after the bigger ones.
I am looking to add keyword "Win real money" to my ASA campaign... will this increase ranking for this keyword? Right now I am ranked at 27th for Coinnect app.
Hi Ariel! My app is the Sticker Book app that you didn't quite have time for at the end of the video. Really looking forward to seeing what you have to say! (I'm already following you on Twitter in case you post the teardown there) Thanks so much for taking the time to do this video for us Deep Dish Swift attendees! And thanks Frank for moderating!
Why do you say that Basic is worse than Advanced. I have several campaigns running and Basic has 0.6$CPI while Advanced are not working below 0.8-0.9$. Seems like Basic does a better job. Does Basic bring less “paying” users? Or why?
It’s all about targeting, which you can’t do with Basic. At very small scale for a well-defined niche it may be okay, but it isn’t for anything beyond in my experience. And if the niche isn’t well defined you’re going to be burning your budget on the wrong user.
@@appfigures You both are biased. Go educate your self about apple monopolistic actions. You can't send video from android to iOS proper quality, text messages etc... If my customer sends me video from android I can't see shit... All this BS should end and sooner is better. I hope DOJ and EU push this faster because I'm sick of this shit. I also sick of biased interviews like this...
@@appfigures Spotify has to give 30% to Apple but Apple music don't, so this is not fair competition because Apple music can invest 30% improving their product. Also browser freedom etc... What EU is doing will reduce price on subscriptions(or improve product) and gives more fair competition. We can talk and talk about it, this is real discussion, but not what you did... You said Apple has to leave EU, yeah, good luck this this :D
@smiert13 again, valid points though I could easily argue that web based subscriptions will lead to more fraud than we can even imagine (because scammers are very clever and crafty) and that will, in the medium and long term reduce subscription revenue and increase subscription prices. I can continue but you get the idea - there are two sides to every one of these points. Again, I think you missed the essence of that statement. We didn’t say Apple should but rather that it can. It holds more power. It won’t, obviously, but we’re thinking big picture how to solve this and not nitpicking at specific realities. That might lead to what looks like a short term solution but when you really think about it, it’ll make the medium and long term viability of the App Store for app makers very different - and there’s more chance that “different” won’t be good, and that’s a net negative for everyone - the makers and the users. So there has to be a better way.
One sided conversation. Overall a lot of blind spots from the speakers. It is regrettable that the valid points raised by both Apple and the EU were not acknowledged. The truth probably lies in between, with both parties potentially exceeding their authority. Nonetheless Appfigures and RevenueCat are great tools, keep up the good work folks.
Thanks! This isn’t an easy problem and there’s no easy solution so it’s really all about approaches. I was saying the approach here is shortsighted and will hurt in the medium and long run which is bad for the entire ecosystem - makers and users. I’m sure there’s a better way. That’s what we were trying to get at.
Hey Ariel.. after running a ASA campaign apple has this new Keyword Recommendations and Estimates that gives us the Estimated Installs and Estimated Spend along with Recommended Max CPT Bid.. it's in Beta but worth it. Just applied the keywords to a new Ad group. The keywords seem accurate to use as well. Estimates and current performance metrics reflect a 7-day range. There is no guarantee of specific results. Actual outcomes may vary. Just thought you might know.
Is updating you Title, Subtitle or Description for the App Store or Google Play Store recommended? If I have more keywords I would like to add will it disrupt the other keywords by updating? Hope this makes sense.
For Low Popularity keywords. I setup a ASA campaign with a CPA goal of $2. I am not getting any traffic to these keywords. Should I remove the CPA goal?
How do you find out who your competitors are? Where can you find these apps? in the App Store down below when you go to your App product page where it says You Might Also Like?
Here’s my process: 1. Head into Search Ads Insights 2. Select your app 3. Sort table by popularity 4. Look at the top advertisers column and add the 4 that repeat the most
That means your app isn’t showing up a lot in search ads, but that should give you a good starting point for finding competitors and then using their keywords.
