How to measure your app store performance
When analyzing an app on the Google Play Store and the App Store we must identify 2 main acquisition channels that visitors can come from: organic traffic and non-organic (paid traffic).
Organic traffic refers to the visitors that come to your app store listing page as a search result or by browsing the store. The non-organic traffic is basically paid traffic and is commonly referred as User Acquisition (UA).
In the App Store, the organic traffic consists of Search and Browse, and the UA of Web Referrer (traffic coming from the Safari Explorer) and App Referrer (traffic coming from other explorers, cross-promotion, app-to-app paid campaigns, etc.)
In Google Play Store, you will see the Organic traffic divided in Search and Explore (same as in iTunes but with a different name), while for the paid traffic, it involves Google Ads, Google Search, UTM’s and Third-Party Referrers.
Challenges doing App Store Optimization (ASO) services
- Obtain organic installs and keep said install figures growing.
- Identify how much the non-organic traffic affects the organic (K-factor).
Organic vs Non-Organic Traffic:
The truth is, an effective optimization strategy should include organic and non-organic acquisition channels. For the short-term, a paid campaign can give your app a quick boost. However, sometimes users don’t trust—or even look at—paid ads. Using organic search methods, which people tend to see as trustworthy, will help drive traffic and increase revenue over the long term and solidify your position in the store and charts.
If you are interested in analyzing if there is a correlation between your app’s organic and non-organic traffic, our ASO team can evaluate it.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for mobile traffic
The below metrics are essential to understand and measure the discoverability of the app on the app stores.
1.Visibility: The main goal of App Store Optimization is to improve the visibility of mobile apps and games on the stores, in order to improve the discoverability in Search, Top Charts and other editorial placements, and get more organic installs.
- Keyword rankings: constantly tracking the app keywords and the movement of competitors. To improve the performance of the app, it is mandatory to consistently track the app’s own rankings as well as the rankings of competitors over time. Each day more apps are published and the market just keeps growing so the constant stream of new ratings, reviews, and downloads can affect your search rankings. The right ASO strategy goes by testing and experimenting with the keywords in order to consistently rank well and drive more traffic to the app.
- Top Charts rankings: positions in the Top Charts (e.g. free, grossing, etc).
- Category rankings: positions of an app or game in its category (e.g. arcade, or music).
- Featured editorial placements: If the app gets a promotion (for ex. in the recently updated apps, under specific store collections, etc.)
2. Conversion (CVR): basically how many users install your app or game after tapping on it and visiting the app page
Measuring Visibility and Conversion in the mobile stores
We use different metrics to track visibility and conversion in each store:
In Google Play, we will talk about Visits or Page Views, which are the number of users visiting your product page in the store. Main KPI: Page Views.
In the App Store, we will talk about Impressions, which are the number of times your app shows up in the search results or during user’s navigation through the store. It is the step before Page Views as the user might decide after whether to tap into your Product Page or not. Main KPIs: Impressions.
In both stores we calculate the conversion based on the percentage of these visits (Page Views) and App Impressions that turn into downloads.
In order to correctly analyze the visibility and improve the conversion rate, you need to keep track of it and conduct experiments with A/B testing instruments.
In Google Play we can test product pages natively using Google Experiments while in the Apple Store we can test product pages using Product Page Optimization.
Takeaways of ASO performance
There is no magic formula or easy way of measuring the overall success of an app. All the indicators and metrics are important, but you need to properly prioritize them in terms of the impact they’ll have on the installs numbers. Only by studying all these metrics, and combining them together, we get a complete picture of the app performance.
App Store Optimization is a process that needs to be monitored and constantly checked over a period of time.
To reap the rewards of ASO, there is a need to invest time and effort. If you do, you will have a consistent channel driving traffic to your app.
Being found is one of the most difficult challenges for mobile apps, but it is a problem you can actively solve.
At ASO for Apps we are happy to support you with your app promotion – feel free to reach us out.
