Social apps have taken over the world (and our smartphones) and made a few extremely wealthy people. When you look at the statistics, it's not surprising: Facebook is installed on the devices of 98.3% of mobile users; YouTube was the most popular app in 2020, with a 72.8% mobile reach; In January 2021, Telegram was the most downloaded non-gaming mobile app.

What do these figures tell us? Social apps are not going extinct anytime soon. This is fantastic news if you're a social app developer. Today we have a new-published social app, which was a customer of ASO World, increased app downloads by 360% with our ASO strategy. How did we achieve that? Let's take a look.

App story and challenge

This app is the largest avatar-based social networking app in the world. Over 4 million people visit the app each month, spending an astounding 55 minutes per day customizing their avatars, chatting with friends, shopping, hanging out at cool parties, sharing experiences, and earning real money creating virtual products.

While it was already a leading virtual world creator, it still had to compete with many competitors. These competitors were ranking for valuable keywords and search terms that our customer was not. This app needed to identify its strengths and weaknesses in order to develop a new App Store Optimization (ASO) strategy. These strategies capitalized on its existing audience while also reaching out to new users.

Our customer and ASO World began the optimization process. This process aimed to increase installs by targeting high volume keywords to fully optimize the creative presentation. We compared the existing app creatives, keywords, and metadata to top competitors, in order to identify the best opportunities and develop an ASO strategy.

The name of this app remains anonymous here to protect the privacy of our customers. To give you a better idea of ​​the app's story we're sharing, we show one of its competitors on the Google Play Store.

ASO solution

The App Store Optimization strategy included updating the iOS and Google Play titles, subtitles, keywords, and descriptions. Our customer used ASO World and its ASO tools for keyword research and A/B testing while running a Search Ads campaign from App Ads, our ASA service. 

This aided in understanding the app's initial performance before committing to each update. The ASO strategy also included a process for increasing conversion in both stores through A/B multivariate testing.

We began the optimization process by determining which keywords to target while maintaining top keyword rankings. We evaluated various themes that this app could target, in order to potentially expand their footprint in the App Store & Google Play, such as "social networking," "chat," and "virtual." Following that, the new keywords were chosen based on relevance, demographics, and volume.



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Our customer was also interested in targeting game-related keywords that it had not previously considered, in order to reach a relevant new audience. While this social avatar app is not a game in and of itself, its user demographics are similar to those of certain types of mobile games. This, combined with the fact that certain competitors performed well with game-related keywords, made the decision to test "game" as an expansion strategy a simple one.

We added the new keywords to the metadata for both app stores after selecting them. While utilizing the targeted keywords, the descriptions were written to highlight the app's key features, such as the social aspect. This aided in the indexation of the app within each store and increased relevance for related terms in its category.

App Store Optimization Result

The results were immediately visible. The app's Google Play rankings for high-volume keywords increased from the previous month, with a 33% increase in the number of #1 ranked keywords. App's top-ranked keywords on iOS increased by 22%, with a 58% increase in the top 5.

The app began to overtake competitors who were previously using similar terms by targeting game-based keywords. It was ranked #12 for "avatar game" at the start of the campaign, but rose to #1 after incorporating the recommended keywords. Similarly, it became the number one app for "social games" and was in the top five for terms like "chat games" and "virtual games."



While the initial keyword, metadata, and Search Ads optimization yielded excellent results, there was still room for improvement. The following area of emphasis was conversion optimization. It was necessary to update and test the creative elements of the app page and search listing.

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App's icon was previously a speech bubble with the app name overlaid against a background. We discovered that icons with avatars on a bright background performed the best when compared to competing apps. Furthermore, incorporating logos aided in the preservation of brand identity. Although having multiple characters is visually stimulating, having one serve as the focal point for the user to look at produced the best results.

We discovered that the best-performing screenshots in the category had clear calls to action that highlighted key features. Characters in the foreground were used as focal points in the designs that performed best. This analysis assisted us in determining the best elements to incorporate into the IMVU screenshots, such as the best way to use branding, callout text, and screenshot orientation.

Following that, we experimented with 4 new icon and screenshot variants. We ran multiple rounds of A/B testing and scrutinized every detail of the icons and screenshots. This included experimenting with composition, color, and the call-to-action to see what worked best in each case.



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Conclusion

The testing results enabled us to choose a new icon and set of screenshots. Our customer's daily installs increased by 45% on Google Play and 105% on Apple devices as a result of the optimization. We improved every aspect of App Store Optimization. We implemented significant updates and new outreach strategies, resulting in significant and long-term growth across app stores.

At last, if you think this article is helpful to you, please share it with your friends. ASO World is always here to help you find the key to your success. Thank you for reading.