– Guest blog by Sukanya Sur, Content Marketing Manager at AppTweak
App Store Optimization (ASO) and Apple Search Ads (ASA) are crucial components of a successful app marketing strategy. ASO focuses on optimizing organic visibility and conversions, while ASA drives paid traffic to your app. When these strategies are combined, they create powerful synergies that can significantly boost your app’s performance on the App Store.
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Why should you align your ASO & ASA strategies?
Aligning your ASO and ASA strategies is essential for boosting your app’s visibility and effectiveness in attracting downloads. Here’s a breakdown of why it works so well:
- Maximized visibility: ASO enhances your app’s organic visibility by optimizing its listing for relevant keywords, while ASA boosts paid visibility by targeting those same keywords. When aligned, these efforts reinforce each other, leading to increased overall visibility in the app store.
- Data-driven insights: ASA campaigns provide valuable keyword performance data that can be used to refine your ASO strategy. Conversely, strong ASO results can indicate which keywords to bid on in ASA, creating a feedback loop that strengthens both strategies.
- Boost in organic rankings: By aligning ASO and ASA, you help your app climb higher in search results. As your app gains more downloads through ASA, it signals to the App Store algorithm that your app is relevant and valuable, contributing to better organic rankings over time.
- Cyclical benefits: As your app becomes more relevant and visible, it gains more organic traction, reducing dependency on paid promotions. This sustainable growth model is key to long-term success in the competitive app market.
- Consistent brand messaging: Ensuring your app’s messaging, visuals, and value propositions are consistent across both ASO and ASA efforts builds brand trust and recognition. This consistency can lead to better user retention and loyalty.
Understanding the ASO & ASA growth loop
Boosting your app’s visibility involves more than just improving organic keyword rankings. A solid long-term strategy combines ASO with ASA.
Here’s how you can create successful synergies between ASO and ASA:
Build relevance with ASO
Start with strong ASO. Fine-tune your keywords, visuals, and descriptions to make your app more discoverable. Adding relevant keywords to your metadata also establishes a strong connection between your app and the target keywords, helping Apple better understand the relevance to your app.
- If you leverage a lot of seasonal events to promote your app, make sure to update your metadata to include seasonal keywords well before peak demand. This gives you a head start when competition increases. For example, a travel app could incorporate keywords like “summer vacation deals” weeks ahead of the summer season to build relevancy early. This relevancy helps to better position the app in the ASA bidding auction when they decide it’s time to increase spend with ASA.
Accelerate with ASA
Pair a strong organic strategy with smart ASA campaigns.
- First, identify where your organic keywords are underperforming. Then, use ASA to bid strategically on relevant keywords. This can significantly boost your app’s visibility and downloads.
- To effectively scale your ASA campaigns, identify your top-performing keywords and move them out of your discovery campaigns. Then, use ASO keyword research tools such as AppTweak’s Keyword Clusters to find and target more keywords that are similar to these successful ones. This way, you can focus your spending on terms that are most likely to bring you the best results.
- The ASA and ASO teams should also collaborate closely. For example, the ASO team should begin incorporating keywords identified by the ASA team as high-potential into their organic strategies early. This allows them to start building relevance for these keywords sooner, increasing overall effectiveness.
Optimize conversion rates
Optimizing conversion rates is crucial. Align your app store page (and custom pages) with your brand visuals and campaign messaging to resonate with users and better convert organic and paid campaigns.
For example, NBC Sports recently updated its app icon to feature the Olympic Games logo, tapping into the excitement of the global event. This increases the app’s appeal by aligning with user interests and campaign messaging.
NBC Sports updated its icon to include the Olympic Games logo, capitalizing on the global excitement surrounding the event. Source: AppTweak – ASO Tool
Choosing what to highlight in your creatives – whether it’s popular destinations, seasonal activities, or special holiday packages – is an ongoing conversation with your audience. Understanding what excites and engages your users can significantly boost your download numbers.
- Continuously test and update your app’s visuals based on what resonates best with users. For example, use popular themes or trending topics in your creatives to engage your audience1.
- Additionally, leverage CPPs to showcase different aspects of your app to different user segments or keyword groups, enhancing relevance and conversion rates. For instance, an app could create custom product pages highlighting different features or seasonal content, ensuring that each user segment sees the most relevant content, thus improving engagement and conversions.
The sports betting app Betclic in France designed CPPs that showcase soccer images while they bidded on keywords related to the Euro Cup. Source: Source: AppTweak – ASO Tool
Reinforce with in-app events
Getting eyes on your apps and games is key. Leverage in-app events (App Store) and promotional content (Google Play) to engage new, current, and lapsed users by showcasing what’s new about your app or game.
In-app events can rank in search results for broader keywords, and appear in different places around the App Store.
Here are some tips on how you can make the most of these events:
- Apps or games related to specific seasons or events can attract more downloads by offering timely content that matches users’ current interests.
- Choosing which event to feature depends on what engages users most. Compare how in-app events vs default visuals affect your conversion rates.
- Identify what type of events got your competitors featured to uncover niche or seasonal events you might have overlooked.
- Finally, timing your in-app events with the ebb and flow of user interest around seasonal events can dramatically boost their impact.
Canva is hosting an in-app event on the App Store celebrating the Olympics and tapping into the sports season to attract users. Source: Source: AppTweak – ASO Tool
Final thoughts
Combining ASO and ASA creates a robust app marketing strategy that leverages the strengths of both organic and paid channels. By understanding and applying the key benefits and practical tips outlined here, app developers and marketers can maximize their app’s visibility, conversions, and overall success on the App Store. The synergy between ASO and ASA is not just about boosting numbers but also about creating a seamless and engaging experience for your users.