A Significant Year for ASO - 2023 (app store optimization)

09/01/2022

Contributed by: Anderson Minhe

2023-A Significant Year for ASO was an extremely anticipated year for marketing apps and the app ecosystem; beginning at a record-setting peak! However, we also spent the first half of 2023 contemplating what time the economy would be able to resume "after" COVID-19. During the year, most discussions focused on when Apple would implement its privacy rules and what impact they could have. More announcements and updates resulted in a more significant year than anticipated and could be seen to be a pivotal year for App Store Optimization. As we close this year, we'll take a look at the most significant ASO developments of 2023.

Buy iOS app installs

1. A Significant Year for ASO: The Impact of iOS privacy settings on ASO and Marketing of Apps

Even though ATT was launched along with iOS 14.5 in April; and its gradual implementation meant that many apps would only experience its full effect from June onwards; developers began to develop new strategies for marketing from the start of 2023.

A Significant Year for ASO The impact on iOS privacy settings on ASO and marketing of apps, Source: Proreviewsapp

With the expectation that paid user acquisition (UA), performance-based campaigns will see a dramatic reduction in effectiveness and would become more costly; app marketers have shown an increased interest in ASO that manifested itself in two main ways:

A growing number of app companies began opening ASO posts or expanding their ASO team to reduce or even eliminate losses from paid UA.

Numerous companies have increased the percentage of Apple Search Ads (ASA) within their pay-per-click UA mix

In short, the privacy reforms that were introduced in the first half of 2013; by Apple during the initial quarter of the year began to highlight the synergies and interdependencies that exist between the paid UA and ASO to the advantage of ASO. However, this pattern suddenly increased in the second quarter of the year; when Apple announced iOS 15 and began rolling out new features. For more information; you can visit to know how to get ios app installs to download more apps if you update to iOS 15.

2. A Significant Year for ASO: iOS 15 - A new era for App Store Optimization

While their release was delayed until the end of the quarter of this year; in-app events, optimization of product pages, and custom product pages instantly started new discussions; on how developers could be prepared to use the App Store more to market their products. Since Apple did its best to position its marketplace as the leading player in in-app discovery once and for discovery.

iOS 15 hands-on: Top 5 new features! Source: Youtube, Marques Brownlee

Although this change was not exactly as expected from marketers has added significant value to the importance of ASO; practitioners can often play in analyzing data outside of natural results.

The most significant changes are in the future As Apple launched events in-app on October 27 and optimized product pages on October 27; and customized product pages on December 7:

The first point is about optimizing product pages. The feature, which was an A/B testing tool built-in to Apple's App Store; wasn't groundbreaking (a similar tool was available for use on Google Play for several years). But, it was eagerly awaited due to the benefit of assessing the impact of conversions from inventive changes to the App Store.

These two features brought a new level to App Store marketing for in-app events and customized pages for products. They both provided new possibilities for engagement and retargeting campaigns; which led to the App Store. It also brought an end to the concept of having a single page for promoting the app to all users within a single area or country.

3. A Significant Year for ASO: Don't underestimate the impact of changes in Google Play in 2023

Looking at the Play Store, it might appear that Google was much quieter in 2023 from the outside. But, the many changes that Google has made throughout the year shouldn't be undervalued, including the growth in Google's LiveOps Beta to the effects of new metadata policies, or modifications to the formula for calculating average ratings:

3.1 Google Play Store metadata policy changes

The most noticeable alteration to Google Play in 2023 was an overhaul of the metadata policy, which was based on two distinct dimensions:

This cutting down of Google Play app titles from 50 characters to 30 characters helps to increase the converging between the App Store as well as the Play Store and could be a sign of Google's desire to force developers to simplify the titles of their apps to ensure that they are not misleading and to make it easier for its algorithm.

Metadata Policy | Metadata Policy violation | How to fix it | What is Metadata Violation, Source: Youtube, Kiwano Kit

In the same way, there are a variety of new rules for the icons of apps, their titles and brief descriptions (such as preventing the use of specific words such as "free" as well as "#1") will be more specifically aimed at stopping designers from using dark designs in the name of users.

3.2 The formula for averaging rating: From global to local

Not to be left out, an update by Google to the formula used to calculate average ratings for apps is a change that has not been widely discussed; however, it could have a significant impact. With more users stating they'll give fair weight to an app's average score in deciding whether to install it; Google's change of an average worldwide rating to an average regional rating could negatively and positively impact Play Store conversion. If you want your app to be at the top of the list, you need to improve your app to get android app reviews from users.

The formula for averaging rating From global to local, source: Proreviewsapp

The benefit is that apps are more likely to see higher conversion rates in the markets where they put in the largest of their time and effort. They will also (hopefully) receive the highest user satisfaction.

The downside is that apps launched in new markets; are more likely to be affected by issues initially and will need more time to achieve an acceptable level of visibility and conversion. Furthermore, a risky result of this change could be due to SEO app stores; that have low ratings within the United States. Due to a quiet presence in the US might appear to be less prevalent on the internet than Google Play Store. Play Store because web crawlers for SEO frequently focus exclusively on US pages.