In early 2021, we were joined by David Bell, Cofounder and CEO at Gummicube for a Lunch & Learn on his favorite topic: App Store Optimization. Gummicube is the leader in App Store Optimization, offering both the technologies and services to help apps rank.

In Part 1 of this 3-part video series, we’ll share what we learned about:

• What contributes to good app store rankings?

• Is App Store Optimization (ASO) like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is for websites?

• How users find apps: searching and browsing

• Apple vs Android: key app store differences

First, let’s talk about who Gummicube is

Gummicube has been been in the App Store Optimization space for 11 years. Based in San Jose, they’re the “oldest” ASO company in North America. They have contributed to the success of more Top 10 apps than anyone else in the world. Their large and experienced team is trained in App Store Optimization, Conversion Rate Optimization, Paid Search, Mobile User Acquisition, Mobile Creative Development, Data Analytics, App Launch Strategies and more.

What contributes to good app store rankings?

David: “One of the big challenges with ASO and mobile marketing in general is that Apple and Google have zero transparency about how they built their algorithms. They don't provide data about search volume or user behavior or trends in their stores to any third party. To do ASO and mobile marketing correctly, you have to understand what users are doing when they're inside the app store. What are they downloading? What are they searching for?

“ASO is one of those unique markets where it really takes a lot of time to do it right. It's not something where you just implement once and then walk away. And that's because Apple and Google, when they're crawling your app, actually value recency. Meaning the more recently you've updated, and the newer your metadata is, the more advantage that you're going to get from it.

“So unlike web SEO, where you do a big setup, and then you walk away and worry about backlinking and off-page marketing, in the mobile world you've always got to keep things fresh.

“No two apps are the same and you have to make sure that the approach that you're delivering really works based on the size and scale of the app publisher.”

App Store Optimization (ASO) vs Web Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

David: “A lot of people say is that ASO is like SEO for apps.

“And I understand where that comes from—some of the goals are similar in terms of what you're looking to achieve. But the truth is that the App Store and Play Store could not be more different from the way web search works.

“In essence, the App Stores are more like e-commerce sites. They have more in common with Amazon.com than they do the web.

“So if you look at how Apple and Google built their algorithms, if you look at user behavior in the stores, what you'll find is that it really does mirror e-commerce. Even when you look at the user interface.”

How users search: feature phrases

David: “In terms of how people discover apps in the store, there are two methods of discovery. First, there's search and second, there's what Apple calls ‘browse’ or what Google calls ‘explore’.

“70% of all installs start with a search inside the App Store. That's how powerful a channel it is. Your rankings in search, essentially what you appear for when people search, is driven by your metadata–what you choose to have in your title and your subtitle. Apple gives you a hundred characters of target keywords. In the case of Google, what you plug into your description and how you plug that into your description, determines what you rank for.

“Most successful apps get 40 to 50% of their installs from search. You can have new apps that get a much larger percentage from search, but at a smaller scale, because they're not engaging in other forms of marketing yet. But if you look at most scaled apps, about half of their installs come from search.

“When you look at how that breaks down in terms of what people search for, what you find is that eCommerce user behavior differs from general web. On the web overall, users tends to search for information. Within eCommerce sites, users are searching for products, features, and services. Phrases are much more prevalent than individual terms in the App Store and Play Store. The long tail becomes much more important because we usually describe a feature by using a phrase with two or three words.

“The interesting thing is sometimes you'll approach a marketer or an app, and you'll say, "well, how is search working for you?" And they'll say, "Well, most of my downloads are coming from one or two keywords." Usually, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you haven't optimized to be indexed in a broader way, you're not going to get downloads coming from broader merchandising throughout the store. So it's going to appear like you're getting searches for only a few keywords.

“When you look at an app like Microsoft Office, for example, more than half of their downloads from search come from feature-based keywords, not individual words and not the brand. That's because they've been working really hard to get merchandised for the types of features people might be looking for that are contained in their products.

“If you don't actually engage in that kind of optimization, you're never going to see the results from it. So it becomes kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. “

Browse: Getting featured in the App Store

David: “Browse delivers about 30% of total installs in the store. This is essentially where you get featured on a chart listing. Apple might feature you in the story. You might be on a list in the store from time to time. It can be 70 or 80% of your organic impressions, but only 30% of your installs, because users have no intention when they're browsing. They might see you, they might discover an app, but they might not be interested in what you have. Categories tend to be very broad.

“You'll also have less control over the browse environment. Your category ranking is driven by volume and velocity of downloads.

“If you have more of a niche market, but you're in a category with a large app like Facebook, you have a harder time competing in the browse section than you do in the search section, where you can go after a particular audience.

“There's also diminishing returns over time. If you notice apps that have been in the store for a very long period of time, even if they're featured a lot, they're not going to get as many downloads from those features because people already know who they are. Being featured in the app store works better for apps that are newer and innovative than it does apps that have been in the store for a very long time.”

Apple vs Android: Different App Store algorithms

David: “Apple and Google have very different algorithms. It seems like when Apple makes one change, Google goes in the other direction and vice versa and they intentionally make it farther apart as time goes on. In the world of Apple, your organic ranking is determined by keywords that you declare literally in a list or what you put in your title and subtitle. Apple actually doesn't crawl your description or other metadata to determine keywords.

“They only look at what you declare in your title, subtitle, or that keyword field. With Google, they crawl your description the way Google might crawl a website. But the difference is, Google wants a specific structure for that description in order to understand what keywords to rank you for.”

Apple vs Android: Different App Store experiences

David: “The UI and UX is different across both stores. In the Apple App Store, you actually see screenshots in the search result. Apple has implemented kind of like a ‘buy it now’ experience where there's a GET button throughout the search and browse experience in their store.

“80% of organic users in the Apple App Store download directly from the search results. They don't actually go to the store listing before they download and that means you're dealing with an environment where you've got competitors above and below you and people are making a choice between you or someone else, as opposed to the Google Play environment where everyone gets funneled to the store listing and once they're there, they're deciding if they want to move forward on a download. That changes user behavior. It also changes how you might A/B test for conversion optimization, because captive audiences are different than audiences who are presented a choice.

Apple vs Android: Differences in App Store paid search

David: “Paid marketing also has different impact. If you look at the number one most important channel algorithmically for the App Store and Play Store, it's paid search. On the Apple side, that’s search ads. On the Google side, that's app install campaigns within the Google Ads world. That's because Apple and Google actually retain all the click and install data from a paid search campaign.

“When they look at that click and install data they understand better how you convert for specific keywords in their stores. That knowledge of conversion translates into better organic rankings over time. Apple and Google don't have a pay to play environment, but they will learn from paid and organic search, and it will benefit your overall conversion and rankings in the story.

“When you do keyword and metadata optimization, you're building a foundation for Apple and Google to understand what you should rank for. But the reason you rank well for a keyword is your conversion and your clickthrough rate on that keyword. The more conversion data you send to Apple and Google, the better you will do over time. And that's one of the reasons that search ads and Google Ads can accelerate indexation in both stores.”

Subscribe to The Brief to be alerted when we’ve posted parts 2 and 3 of this series. In the meantime, learn more about UX and App Store Optimization in this article: App Store Optimization Strategies: The Role of UI & UX in Growth.