3 Top App Store Optimization Tools

Your app’s position in the App Store and Google Play is affected by several factors, and the number one factor is app downloads and engagement.

Downloads are self-evident metrics, but engagement is a mixture of the number of daily and monthly active users: how often each customer opens the app on a monthly basis, along with the amount of time they spend in the app.

Engagement largely depends on the features of your app: useful features that get users through their day lead to better engagement. Downloads, on the other hand, hinge on the visibility of your app to customers. Both elements of your app’s success require effort and investments.

One could say that the app market today favors the law of the jungle where the fittest survives: big-name app developers with impressive marketing budgets seem to get more media coverage. On the other side of that, we have indie developers who have to find ways around to get any attention at all, regardless of how good their apps are.

ASO techniques take into account such things as the app’s name, icon, screenshots, videos, etc. The app metadata along with keywords will play a vital role in your app’s rankings in Apple’s App Store and Google Play.

Let’s look at some of the App store optimization tools available for app developers. And while they don’t guarantee you instant success and the number one spot in app stores, using these tools will help you make your app more visible to users.

1. App Annie

App Annie is probably the best-known app market analyzing platform that serves the most trusted app data and insights for you to succeed in the global app economy. Over 1,000,000 registered users use App Annie’s statistics and research to make informed decisions in the app market, grow their businesses and outsmart the competition.

Key solutions:

• Market Data Intelligence:
  This high-end product offers you revealing insights into the demographics of your app’s users and how they interact with the app. The key data points include stats on user retention, downloads, and competitors’ performance.
• App Analytics:
  A free solution for tracking the basics of your app’s performance, e.g., usage, downloads, revenue, and spend across App Store and Google Play.
• Mobile Store Statistics:
  A free product for minimal ASO, providing such market data metrics historical rankings, ratings, user reviews, and keywords for any app across the globe.

Price:

Market Data Intelligence is a paid product with individual pricing options available upon request. App owners can also resort to App Analytics and Advertising Analytics with Store Stats that are free.

2. Sensor Tower

Sensor Tower is a powerful platform that mobile app market leaders rely on for vital data-driven competitive insights and understanding of the global app economy. The company’s solution provides enough features to increase app downloads through app store optimization.

Key solutions:

• App Intelligence:
  Similar to its other products, Sensor Tower’s App Intelligence combines many tools in itself. Built around ASO, the solution enables you to analyze user reviews, the results of being a “featured” app, daily sales and app usage analytics, category and keyword ranking, detailed analysis on the competition, etc.
• Store Intelligence:
  The Store Intelligence platform provides data on app downloads and revenues, with estimates for both available across several categories, types of devices, and countries.
• Ad Intelligence:
  This tool becomes useful when you want to uncover statistics about user acquisition campaigns run by other publishers and app developers. The overview that the platform provides lets you see top advertisers and publishers for each week. On top of that, you can see if the increase in ad budgets affected the number of downloads.
• Top Charts:
  The basic version of Sensor Tower’s platform — it’s free and shows top-performing apps across different categories and countries. Top Chart also displays the apps that have got the most ratings and have been recently updated.

Price:

Top Charts and Leaders are free and go with all Sensor Tower paid tiers. App Intelligence starts at $79 per month, which makes it a killer product for small businesses.

3. App Figures

App Figures is a mobile app tracking platform of choice for top app developers. From indie devs and small studios to giant app publishers, appFigures can automatically connect to everything that matters for your apps and turns your app data into powerful, easy to understand reports for your entire app portfolio.

AppFigures is an all-inclusive reporting system that integrates with App Store and Google Play, mobile ad networks, and in-app analytics providers. AppFigures provides the following reports.

Key offerings:

• Downloads and Sales:
  Track sales, downloads, and in-app purchases.
• Reviews:
  Get notifications via Slack or email when someone posts a review on your app.
• Rankings:
  Your app’s rankings are updated hourly and compared to competitors.
• App Usage:
  Track sessions, active users, bug reports, and other usage data.
• Monetization:
  Monitor ads in your app and revenue across different ad networks, apps, and countries.
• Top Charts:
  Know the top-performing apps in any category.

The reports by appFigures are customizable and can be integrated with other dashboards, and exported to various data formats.

Price:

The platform features a free plan with limited functionality. Premium service with access to all features starts at $4.99 per month, and there is a 14-day trial available.

Conclusion

As you may have noticed pushing your app for a higher ranking takes a lot of analytical wits. Whether you only want to measure your app’s performance against the competition, or whether you go deeper by reviewing how different images affects downloads, you will be impressed with the benefits that these app store optimization tools offer.