130k installs in a day for an app that I launched in 6 hours
I have been a long time lurker on this community, but have barely contributed. I am here to share my experience of growing a mobile app and I hope fellow members find it useful.
This story is about a really simple android app that I had launched in about 6 hours, but with a focus on ASO/organic growth, I managed to scale it to getting 130k installs in a single day.
It's a "New year sticker collection" app. It's a really simple app that had almost no development effort. I had to just design some stickers and launch the app.
On 31st Dec, my app had heavy demand as a lot of people were looking for stickers to use to greet their near and dear ones.
Below are stats for 31st Dec -
• Installs - 130,019
• Ad revenue - $1,290
Here's a screenshot of app installs - https://ibb.co/B3GVDB8
About Growth -
• My growth was entirely focussed on ASO (App Store Optimization)
• My focus was on getting ranked on the Google Play Store for top traffic keywords such as "new year stickers for WhatsApp" "new year stickers", "new year 2021 stickers", etc.
What did I do for ASO?
• Researched relevant keywords that users would most likely search for. Used tools such as Sensor Tower and Mobile Action to identify keyword trends
• Optimized the app title, short description, and full description as per the keywords identified
• Designed screenshot graphics that would lead to a better conversion from store listing visitors to installs. I was able to get to 45% conversion from visitors to installs, I did run some experiments to get from 28% to 44%
• Ran app icon experiments to improve CTR. When users search for a keyword, the play store shows a bunch of results and an icon is something users notice when deciding which app to click. I did run 2 experiments with about 4 icon variants and got to the best performing icon that I finalized.
• Ensured a good overall app rating. App rating plays an important role in any app as a lot of users are likely to decide not to install an app if it has a poor rating. Currently, my app has an average rating of 4.4.
• Reduce app uninstalls - For a sticker collection app, uninstalls are highly likely, but there are still ways to reduce uninstalls to some extent. For this, I focussed on app vitals such as reducing app crash rate, reducing app size, etc.
I'd be happy to help anyone who is looking to grow their mobile apps through ASO.
The fast-launch part is impressive, but the retention lesson is the part I’d steal. For Kinetic Override, I’m trying to make the first useful moment happen inside one short loop: grant permission, record taps/swipes, replay, then understand that profiles stay local and there are no ads.
Great results here Jitesh!
For those who wanna learn more about ASO, here's a comprehensive article https://metrikal.io/blog/app-store-optimization-the-definitive-guide/
Thanks for input. I'm just about to work on ASO so this comes handy
That is impressive! This show that marketing research is important as well. Most people focus on building but not marketing!
Impressive growth! I'd love to learn more about your ASO techniques, especially around your keyword intelligence process with Sensor Tower and Mobile Action.
Aside from the icon A/B tests – which are Android specific – , I think there is a lot applicable to Apple's App Store side of thing as well.
Thanks! Happy to share my experiences.
For keyword research, I used these tools to find the keywords that have a good traffic score and not so high competition. These tools provide a score for each keyword.
130K installs in one day is amazing. Where did the installs come from? India?
They came from all over the world. Almost 65% installs were from India and Brazil, that's where most android users are from.
Wow, congratulations Jitesh! Impressive numbers. As Indie Hackers, we tend to over-engineer and overspend a lot of time, so this is very encouraging to see that you did it in just about six hours 🤯
Just weeks ago I have launched StorePreviewer 2.0, a tool that helps you to live preview your app's copy and screenshots before publishing it. You can also share your view with others and receive valuable feedback.
Now, this isn't intended be a blatant ad here. StorePreviewer is still in its baby shoes and I would love to get all of your honest feedback on it!
This looks great, but I personally have never felt the real need for an app store previewer to see how it looks on the app store
Thank you. I see. Do you have a particular reason why you never felt the need? This would help me a lot.
Maybe because I could directly update on the play store/app store and then wait for the output.
I think it may be useful for really big app teams where there are more than one decision-makers on what should exactly go into the play store/app store and how it should look.
Granted, it does appeal much more to big app teams at the moment. That said, I would like to also have it more adjusted to smaller projects too.
So if I got you right, you mean that you can actually automatically upload the meta and media from StorePreviewer to the respective app store. Sort of like a place where your apps live and are easier to experiment around?
How did you run the app icon experiments? AFAIK you can only have one icon per build
It is allowed on the Google Play Console. Here it is: https://ibb.co/9H80QG7
Apple iTunes does not allow this.
Thanks for he nice write-up!
How did you find the relevant keywords?
I just found generic keywords that came up on Google play store search suggestions and also used tools such as mobile action.
That's awesome :D It's interesting I stumbled upon this post right when I was looking to learn more about ASO, how did you ran app icon experiments to improve CTR ?
Google Play Console A/B testing feature allows running icon experiments seamlessly.
Thank you for the tip :)