App Store is frequently experiencing abnormalities. How can we use mainstream application promotion methods to “guard” the charts?
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This article mainly includes two points: 1) Introduction and analysis of paid promotion methods for apps on the iOS platform; 2) My thoughts on the commercialization of App Store on the iOS platform. I also hope that friends who are interested can communicate with me more~ Analysis of mainstream application promotion methods on the iOS platform As we all know, IOS and Android are currently the two major operating systems for mobile devices. In terms of specific market share, the two have been growing and shrinking. From the specific data: as of April 2016, Apple's iOS operating system market share was 18.8%, and Android's global market share was 68.28%. Judging from the data over the past year or so, the overall share of the Android system has stabilized at around 65%, while IOS has stabilized at around 20%. Data from Jifeng.com But for application manufacturers, the Android market has more options for promotion channels than the IOS market . Due to the open source nature of the Android system itself and its support for third-party software, the range of promotion channels available is very large, and advertisers have greater choices. In comparison, the iOS platform is much bleak. At present, the main means of paid online promotion for iOS include (offline channels and media marketing channels are not included in the scope of discussion): 1) ASO optimization (for AppStore keywords, etc.); 2) Brand and soft resources, mainly focusing on brand promotion, with the help of soft articles, news and hot topic hype. 3) Performance channels, including alliances and point walls ; 4) Third-party marketing . The following will focus on ASO optimization, point wall and third-party marketing promotion. There is not much difference between brand and soft resource advertising for Android and iOS platforms, so we will not discuss it here. ASO Optimization Since AppStore itself is the official channel of the iOS platform, among the above methods, optimization for AppStore is the most important and the most commonly used method by manufacturers. AppStore optimization generally starts from two points: ASO optimization and ranking manipulation . The latter is essentially to improve the ranking of applications in charts, etc. However, due to Apple's continuous crackdown on ranking manipulation in recent years, this method has gradually declined. The following mainly introduces the current ASO optimization for the AppStore market. The so-called ASO is the abbreviation of " App Store Search Optimization". On the AppStore platform, ASO is to use the AppStore's sorting rules to improve the position of your own App in the overall App list and search results, which is similar to the SEO optimization of mobile market Apps. From Apple's perspective, it does not want to interfere with the display of rankings and keyword searches, but in fact, in the domestic market, ASO optimization for promoting apps on the iOS platform has become a standard configuration. Currently, the number of applications on the AppStore has exceeded 1.9 million. However, due to the relatively passive display mechanism of the AppStore, users generally need to search for applications or keywords. Since the advertising space on the homepage is extremely limited and most positions do not take commercial factors into consideration, for most applications, optimizing search results and keywords is the only feasible means of exposure. I believe that the purpose of AppStore doing this is to enhance the credibility of the platform by restricting the behavior of advertising space, but the actual effect is not the case. To give an example, it is as if each App is an independent person, and the AppStore is like an unreasonable university. The school has a set of standards to judge the "merits and demerits" of each person. This set of rules is fair because it uses its own set of standards to unify and constrain all Apps. Only those that can be recommended on the homepage are considered to be of high quality by the "AppStore University". Do you have money? You want to promote? Sorry, please stand aside, this goes against our principle of fair treatment. However, in the business world, no set of rules is based on fairness. All rules are based on leveraging one's own advantageous resources. Money is resources. How can you let RMB players and Diaosi players compete on the same stage? Especially for App downloading, which is a "low-cost decision-making" behavior in itself, the characteristic of this behavior is that the exposure largely determines the download volume, so it is a reasonable business behavior for merchants to use the promotional capital at hand to enhance exposure. On the AppStore, a platform dominated by only one, the only way to effectively increase exposure is to optimize ASO, that is, to make your own application more likely to appear when users search. This phenomenon itself is irrational for the overall market. It is a mismatch between customer demand and available delivery channels. What is more serious is that this market is in a state of continuous growth. In the foreseeable future, merchants' demand will not weaken, while users' habitual search terms will not expand in a short period of time. This is indeed the case. An interesting phenomenon some time ago was that when searching for any keyword on the AppStore, " Himalaya App" would appear. This is a typical example of ASO distortion. Under the pressure of competition, simply pursuing the optimization of the core tags of the product has very limited effect. The most direct solution is to optimize under as many keywords and tags as possible. What surprised me was that when the "Himalaya" phenomenon appeared, it was like a shot of adrenaline, activating the motivation of more businesses to compete for ASO optimization. It can be predicted that the marginal benefits of ASO will become smaller and smaller in the future. Another example is the activeness of health and medical applications. The types of active users of iOS platform applications are greatly influenced by the AppStore editorial recommendations. As shown in the figure below, the acquisition of health and medical applications is inseparable from the AppStore's promotion of health and sports applications. Offers Wall The so-called "points wall" refers to the display of various points tasks (downloading and installing recommended high-quality applications, registration, filling out forms, etc.) within an application or WeChat public account for users to complete tasks and obtain points and rewards. There are currently two main types of points wall channels: one is a third-party points wall software, and the other is WeChat points wall. Compared with the two, WeChat Points Wall has better flexibility and can bypass the AppStore review by operating public accounts, and is relatively less restricted. Generally, App customers hope to achieve incremental growth of their applications through point walls. The more mainstream optimization method in the industry is: traffic optimization. That is, by guiding users to search for specified keywords to download the APP, the weight of the keywords can be quickly increased through a large number of search and download activations in a short period of time, thereby affecting the ranking of the keywords. In other words, you will not jump directly to the app details page from the points wall page, but instead use public search keywords to find the app and download it. The purpose of this is to further achieve ASO optimization while increasing the number of downloads. First, the volume of the channel itself is obtained; secondly, the keyword ranking is improved, and a certain amount of natural volume is obtained; thirdly, the volume of the list is increased, which can also drive a certain amount of natural volume. In my opinion, the form of points wall itself has a certain suspicion of impulse. Users are driven by interests to complete a series of tasks and finally get rewards, which has little to do with the characteristics of the application itself. The reason why this promotion method is popular on the iOS platform is that it has achieved the optimization of AppStore keywords and rankings to a large extent. In other words, the final focus of customers is still on ASO optimization. Therefore, from a holistic perspective, both the points wall and ASO revolve around the App Store, and even the final results are the same. It is precisely because of the monopoly position of this distribution channel that customers have very limited choices. So is there any way to completely get rid of the AppStore? The answer is yes. Third-party application market To introduce how third-party application markets operate, we first need to introduce several types of developer certificates: To publish an APP, you need to apply for a developer account and a certificate. This certificate is divided into ordinary developer version and enterprise version. Apps signed with ordinary developer version certificate can be released on AppStore, while apps signed with enterprise version certificate can only be distributed through web pages on iOS devices. However, the original intention of the enterprise version was only to facilitate the development of APPs within the company for its own employees to use, and domestic third-party assistants took advantage of this distribution loophole and provided it to ordinary users for download. 1. Ordinary developer certificate, 688 yuan/year. For publishing to the App Store. 2. Enterprise Developer Certificate, 1988 yuan/year. For internal distribution within the enterprise. 3. Developer certificate for educational institutions, free of charge. The current mainstream third-party application markets include: PP Assistant , 91 Assistant , itools, Syncios , xy Apple Assistant, Kuaiyong, etc. I downloaded and used the PC and IOS versions of these apps. The usage scenarios of these app markets are divided into the following two situations: 1. Download and use the PC version, connect the phone to the computer, and download the app directly from the PC; 2. Download the PC version, install the IOS version after connecting your phone to the computer, and use the IOS version to directly browse and download apps. Regarding the third-party market, we will not discuss it further here for two reasons: 1) Since using enterprise certificates for external distribution violates Apple's agreement, it is easy to be blocked. Currently, after downloading a third-party application platform and clicking on the APP, a direct prompt will appear saying “untrusted corporate developer”. Apart from a cancel button, there are no other prompts, and the intention of deliberate blocking is obvious. 2) This article is based on Tencent App Store. Given Tencent's current situation, this behavior of taking advantage of loopholes to forcibly make a profit is likely to make Apple enemies, which is obviously more harmful than beneficial. Some thoughts on the commercialization of App Store on iOS 1. Why should we do this? From the perspective of the entire market, my starting point mainly includes three points: (1) Possessing resource advantages: App Store is no longer in a period of rapid development. Its share of the Android market will reach its ceiling in the future. It can try to monetize its application resources on a broader platform. (2) The overall environment is still a blue ocean: the official iOS platform (AppStore) has not yet been organically integrated into the Chinese local market, and the degree of localization is low. Currently, there are few reliable promotion channels for the entire iOS platform; (3) Strong demand from advertisers: Mobile application manufacturers have a strong desire for promotion and exposure, which conflicts with the scarcity of existing reliable promotion channels. 2. What cards do you have? In my opinion, App Store currently has two main cards in its hand: one is the "data card" and the other is the "customer card". "Data card" refers to the use of user data and behavioral data accumulated by Tencent's various internal software over the years to carry out precise advertising . On the Android App Store, this data is playing an increasingly important role. If this precise data advantage can be transplanted to the IOS platform, I believe it will have very good results. "Customer brand" is easier to understand. Customers who place advertisements in the Android market usually have corresponding products on the iOS side. If the migration of customer resources can be achieved without any omissions, it will be of great help to the smooth commercialization of the platform. 3. Where are the contradictions? On the iOS platform, I think the main contradictions that hinder commercialization are as follows: (1) It must rely on the AppStore and cannot independently distribute applications. As explained above, it is not in Tencent's current interest to skip the AppStore and build a third-party app market. However, if Tencent relies on the AppStore, it will face two risks: The first layer is that Apple could cut off the connection path at any time; The second level is that it is difficult for customers to establish a trusting relationship. If you only act as an information provision platform, the operation path for netizens will be relatively long, and it will be difficult to achieve efficient conversion. (2) Traditional billing model is no longer applicable Since the final download platform of the application is on the AppStore, it is difficult to obtain the prepared download and activation data. At present, the main settlement method for mobile applications is still based on CPD. App Store itself does not have a strong brand attribute. On a brand-new platform, it is difficult to accumulate the premium capacity of the CPT billing model in a short period of time. 4. Ideas you can try I think the current feasible ideas are: Build an information aggregation platform for mobile applications (direct download pages to AppStore), and link the data and content of App Store in the Android market, including application rankings, content operations, activities and gift packs, etc. The product form will be somewhat similar to the "most beautiful application". For users: can provide high-quality application lists, activities and gift packages; For advertisers: they can link with the Android market to achieve cross-platform display of operational activities; The billing model can be in the form of the number of in-app gift packages received or the number of registrations; or the CPT model. ASO optimization service click link: ASO optimization service introduction IOS accelerated review click link: //www.opp2.com/8854.html This article was compiled and published by (APP Top Promotion) by @简书. 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