Trends and Challenges in App Marketing and ASO

The greatest strength of any app marketing campaign lies in knowing all its weaknesses. With only 0.5% of new apps continuing to be successful, there’s a lot riding on discovering shortcomings in your ASO and app marketing strategies. In the same breath, staying on top of the daily trends can mean the difference between a successful app and one that’s destined for failure. Over the decades of running a mobile app marketing agency, these are what I’d say are the challenges and trends in app marketing and App Store Optimization (ASO) as things stand.

Challenge 1: Getting lost in the competition

Joining the crowd is as easy as can be and there are no problems there. Standing out is where the rubber hits the road. Differentiating your app in a market that is continuously saturated with options is the #1 difficulty for the majority of ASO optimizers and app marketers.

With Google Play Store alone welcoming over 2,200 apps every day, the stiff competition for places and attention can compromise your app’s visibility across these digital stores. You’ve got to be creative and extremely unique to catch someone's eye.

Trend 1: Optimizers are localizing app titles

What’s in a name? Labeling your app after your initials is nice, but it’s not very smart. A trend I’ve noticed that quickly catches on for top mobile app marketing agency teams is the localization of app titles.

Benefits of localizing your app title include:

• Huge SEO potential
• More relevant downloads
  
• Better conversion rates
  

This is an especially intuitive strategy if your app provides local services or has product offerings targeted toward just a certain region. Oh, and, of course, don’t forget to fit in a keyword. Preferably, those that your competitors are already making a killing out of.

Challenge 2: Retaining your app users

Getting your app to 1,000 downloads feels as accomplishing as landing a rocket ship on the moon if you’re an ASO marketer. As impressive as your installation numbers may be, you are not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot.

Within just three days of download, studies indicate that you’re bound to lose at least seven out of every ten new users you obtained. Besides getting people to install the app, one of the biggest nightmares for app marketers is to keep them coming back.

Trend 2: Icons in app titles

You’ve built a great app. However, can you say the same about your icon design? You need to hit a home run with this and after you do, be sure to include that catchy icon in your app title.

Many marketers have been doing this in 2023 and they say it works like a charm for them as a notable differentiator. It’s not just a matter of going with the flow, rather icon-laced app titles can have serious rewards. Don’t forget that 70% to 93% of all human communication is nonverbal.

Challenge 3: Poor ASO keyword research

I’ll be honest with you, ASO keyword research is no walk in the park. It’s time-consuming and effort-intensive. That’s why many marketers out there don’t do a good job in this area. They are either too shallow or overlooking potentially important words.

If you get your keywords wrong, everything else crumbles as they are the foundation of your app marketing campaign. Poor research leads you to a myriad of problems, including:

• Low traffic
• High but irrelevant traffic
• Poor search ranking
• Poor app visibility
  

Trend 3: AI-driven ASO keyword research tools

For (almost) every problem, there is a solution. To improve a critical stage of app marketing, mobile app marketing agency experts are leveraging AI-driven ASO keyword research tools.

The platforms harness the power of big data to recommend keywords that are right on the money. They are more accurate and reduce manual effort by human optimizers/marketers. But they are not always reliable so some good old human QA is still necessary.

Challenge 4: Getting featured on app stores

Being featured on a digital app marketplace is essentially the biggest endorsement you’ll ever get. It validates the quality and interest of your app, gets you more eyes, and most importantly, delivers those downloads.

The benefits are straightforward. Getting featured (usually as an “Editor’s choice”), however, can sometimes feel like a pipe dream that not even a shooting star can take you up on. Many app marketers try in vain, and it’s usually down to issues to do with:

• Not addressing unique user needs
• Not providing exceptional value
  
• Shortcomings in quality or user experience
  
• Bugs or glitches
  
• Immense competition
  

Trend 4: Highly visual app store listings

Google’s Play Store Web Experience was the recipient of a few new updates in 2023. In a nutshell, this means that when it comes to app search displays, the company has increased the relevance and importance of videos and graphics at large.

Any mobile app marketing agency keen on increasing app discoverability needs to go all out to create top-notch and compelling graphics/videos for their app store listings to get favoured by the store’s search bots.

It’s a year of possibilities for ASO. Be on the side of success.

By the end of the year, mobile apps are set to haul in massive revenue, with projected figures indicating returns north of $935 billion. If you are to get a considerable share of the profits on offer, understanding the trends and challenges of app marketing and App Store Optimization is key. For inexperienced new app owners, I always recommend working with a niche mobile app marketing agency to make up for any deficits in strategy.