How we climbed to #1 “trading” app within 3 months on French app store
INFORMATION: Conditions were as follows I started off from scratch, with no traction, no brand awareness and limited number of friends “likely to help occasionally”.
Here is my story, how my mobile trading app OhMyGeorge, ranked top 1 “trading” app within 3 months on the French app store.
We know that number of downloads, ratings and reviews matter for ASO. However, my app just launched to the market so how can I have huge number of downloads! Therefore, I decided to take the first step which I thought it was the easiest way to go at that moment: I started bothering my friends day and night.
“Hey, can you please rate my app and give me a review on app store please? You know that it is very tough to get some visibility on the store.” Do you think it worked? Of course not! Then, you found only 1/100 of your friends — who promised you “sure, no problem, my pleasure” — that really did it.
What I undertook then was the following approach, we all heard about this 7-day cliff thing that blogs like Sensor Tower address. I got back to my developer and had him increase the pace of update release. You would tell me, but why the heck would you do this, that is taking the risk of losing all potential retention by harassing your users with every week updates? The answer is: at that time, I did not bother about retention because, I did not have any retention! At all.
I decided to apply a combination of several key actions, my assumption was that Apple gives more importance on action/engagement taken on the latest version released, so here is the thing, simultaneously:
- I increased the update release frequency to one per week
- I combined review requests made to my close friends with the latest release
- I combined download and update requests made to those friends with the latest release
On the graph, you will observe the immediate consequence of this set of action. After a couple of times, most of the update releases lead to significant jump in the ranking.
At some point, the idea is to find the perfect traction so that the download metrics trend is self-sustaining. You are basically trying to do some no-brainer action that is actually more than critical in igniting this traction.
I realize that for reviews, the total volume obviously matters a lot, but when you take the short-term traction perspective, I opted for getting small volume but still, steady volume of reviews every week, keeping in mind that I focus, always, on the latest release.
TIP 1: timing your review requests
Why small volume? Just because when you’re just starting off, you literally can count only on your closest friends for doing the review. What I did is, instead of getting as much reviews as I could in the shortest period of time possible, I decided to request only one or two reviews per update release, thus saving more potential reviews for the coming new release. This is not huge right? Yes it is, but results from doing this can be observed on the graph. It looks more relevant to apply a steady flow of reviews to the latest version, even though small, rather than trying to attract as many as you can.
TIP 2: timing your download requests
The second major thing is, regarding downloads, there is limited possibility in terms of volume when you only consider your close friends. Also, I apply the assumption that Apple is integrating in their appstore algorithm one factor related to the download velocity.
OK, let me put it this way, the fact that you can just bother your friends punctually for downloads or updates, and considering this velocity thing, I focused all effort on getting as much downloads as possible within only the first 2 to 3 days following the update release date. Because after that, let’s be smart, let’s save some potential friends’ downloads for the next update coming soon.
“KEY keywords” included in friends’ reviews
What I am doing is I am just going straight to my goal, by “tailoring” the review and submit it to my friends, when doing this, I make sure they place strategic keywords on which I bet for our appstore ranking. Our thinking is that the repetition of strategic keywords in the flow of reviews make the app more relevant to users from the appstore perspective.
Keywords optimization
There is another way, more casual, still risky and controversial though in order to reap the collateral benefits from strong brand awareness of direct or indirect competitors. I basically placed in our keywords list, the biggest broker on the French market (here “boursorama”), and by standing on the shoulders of giants, I manage to get some additional traction with minimum effort.
Keywords ordering also plays a major role in ASO. You will observe here below how huge that was for our very first roll out to Asia.
Now that I have mastered this bootstrapping ASO strategy. I am more than happy to show you the very first results on Asia, and specifically here for Taiwan and China.
There is still tremendous room for growth, as I have still not mastered the way to ignite proper traction on Google Play Store. This would be interesting to have any feedback from people that have already tried things on Google Play Store, and what was the outcome.
