The current situation of iOS buying volume market and advertising matters!

As we all know, Android has a large number of users, while iOS users have strong purchasing power. So how can developers find user growth points on the iOS side? What is the current situation of the iOS buying volume market and what problems will be encountered during the launch?

1. Conventional ways to gain traffic on iOS: Apple recommendation and official backend delivery

1. Official recommendation

This part is firmly controlled by Apple, such as Apple recommendations. Since the launch of iOS11, Apple has separated out a separate column called today. Apple editors regularly screen some high-quality apps and provide a story-telling description. Today is mainly divided into several sections. One is Today's APP, which will select some high-quality APP recommendations. Some game recommendations are a collection of APP recommendations.

Apple is a relatively closed company. How can I contact Apple editors? The first is to communicate with domestic major companies through the public relations department. NetEase and Tencent are their frequent customers, and some large IPs or well-known game launches can be recommended. Medium-sized developers need to pass the screening of Apple's recommendation department.

Here we share how Apple selects premium recommended apps.

First of all, product quality is a hard indicator. The game’s design style, interaction, and user experience must meet Apple’s approval. Apple has always pursued a minimalist style, and the recommendations for high-quality games tend to be fresh and clean. At the same time, they will also recognize some innovative products. For example, when Apple launched the VR function, Tencent released "Let's Catch Monsters", which would be recommended by Apple. Secondly, there is content matching. For example, for some domestic festivals, Apple will also launch a column to recommend them. For example, for the 618 event in June, we might make a collection of e-commerce items. At the same time, Apple also has some theme recommendations, such as efficient office work, and will recommend some tool products. The last part is the developer’s endorsement. If the developer’s previous products have been recommended by Apple, Apple will be aware of you, and the probability of getting a recommendation for subsequent new products will be higher.

Currently, the Apple Store adds and updates about 10,000 products every day, and all recommended positions add up to about 400. This means that the probability of each product being recommended is 4 in 10,000. So how do you get a recommendation? If you are an ordinary developer, you can go to the Apple backend - Contact Us entrance. There is a Recommend Yourself button in the lower left corner. You can communicate with Apple editors by phone or email. Apple will review all emails from developers, but will not necessarily reply.

The picture shows the effect of today's game recommendation on May 24th

The game is called Ragdoll Planet, and it is a casual, medium-core game. It was not on the list before May 24th, but at noon on the 24th it directly reached the 20th position in the overall game list, with a volume of over 50,000 on iOS, and it remained there for nearly a week.

2. Apple official advertisement

Developers can directly register in the background and make recharges. This backend is very similar to the domestic app store backend and performs very well overseas. In the global buying statistics in 2017 and 2018, iOS has always ranked in the top 3.

3. Keyword optimization helps reduce traffic grabbing

Let me briefly talk about the delivery strategy. Three text contents can be submitted in the open background.

• First, you need to cover the keywords you want, and then you can place them;
• The second step is to expand the word base, which can be done through some auxiliary tools;
• The third step is adjustments within the app store, such as game screenshots, including comments and ratings, which will affect the conversion rate of the ad.

During the advertising process, it is equally important to protect the brand from being overshadowed by competing products. If a product is promoted through some channels when it is released, and users actively search for the corresponding keywords, but the ad space is taken by competing products, the traffic will be diverted.

As shown in the figure, this is a case of brand protection and non-protection. If the ad space is occupied by competitors, a lot of the ad traffic will be taken away by competitors.

2. iOS overseas product operation and promotion system

Overseas promotion cannot avoid two major platforms, Facebook and Google. Facebook mainly operates homepages and groups, while Google has more advertising formats. Another part is the KOL marketing which has been quite popular in recent years. For example, when promoting in overseas markets, you can invite some local anchors, which has a very good effect. This approach is related to user awareness and is also Google's current trend. Because there are too many products being promoted now, and users do not have the time and energy to actively search and screen them, the host’s recommendation at this time may have unexpected effects. Social media is a social brand, which involves posting soft articles and other methods.

3. Common practices for ASO search ranking optimization

ASO is a channel for internal search optimization in app stores.

• The first is the text and title keywords setting;
• The second is numerical values, including the number of downloads, positive reviews, and daily activity of the product;
• The third is the secondary characteristics of the product;

The ASO algorithm is already very mature for Apple's framework. By increasing the number of downloads, the rankings of products and keywords will improve. The ASO delivery technique is to analyze Apple's algorithm and get an ideal effect by determining the right amount of advertising at the right time. Another point is based on market conditions. For the same word, how many products are being invested today, how much each product has invested, if you want to rank higher than it, do you need to increase the amount, etc.

Apple currently has two sets of values:

The first is popularity, which is ranked from 0 to 10,000. The higher the value, the greater the user search volume and the better the conversion rate.

The other part is the optimization of comments.

When buying traffic from external channels now, more emphasis is placed on material conversion, and reviews are where product quality is reflected. Whether the comments are natural or manipulated, they will have an impact on users. In the past few years, what was very popular in China was machine-brushed comments. There are two types of machine-brushed comments. One is protocol brushing, which is done by tampering with the data of the underlying server. It was most rampant in 2016, and the effect of the list was very obvious, bringing in thousands of downloads in an hour. The other is script brushing, such as simulating real search behavior through a large number of Apple IDs and affecting rankings through large-scale downloads. However, once this method is discovered, it may seriously lead to the product being removed from the shelves.

Open Imessage and you get all of Macau. iMessage mainly promotes relatively gray products overseas, such as gambling. Because Apple is very strict about putting this kind of product on the shelves, and it is illegal in China, they have no formal channels to promote it and can only expose it through marginal channels. As policies become more and more stringent, users will also become defensive, so this method of conversion is not very good.

4. iOS promotion channels and growth methodology

In the 2018 overseas channel purchase report, the top 20 or even top 50 channels are commonly used. Now when people buy traffic, they not only choose channels, but also consider the follow-up, such as the quality of users purchased through the channels and the users' ARPU value. What we worry about is not whether we have money for promotion, but whether we can make money. If it is found that users have poor paying ability, it is necessary to find an increase point to maintain the entire user ecosystem, so the focus of subsequent work is to accurately acquire high-value users.

This is a tool product launched in April this year. It was launched in Brazil, a relatively niche region. The overall launch was divided into three stages:

The first stage was the testing phase. The CPA control was not very ideal and there was no obvious increase in the volume. This is promoted through a tester to determine whether the product is suitable for the channel;

The second is the phase of increasing the number of keywords. We use some tools to increase the volume of advertising and make detailed adjustments for some key keywords.

The third stage is equivalent to the final stage of channel testing. Although the volume has not changed, it is around 1,800-2,000 per day, but the CPA has dropped by nearly 30%. Finally, it stabilized at around $0.4 per activation.

Points wall promotion: e.xiaomaowan.com/