How Do You Get Downloads

The success of many members of this community has prompted me to post this poll. I am blown away by the number of daily downloads many developers here are getting, as seen in other threads. As somewhat of a noob, even 100 daily downloads is something I am striving for at this point- and I’m sure I’m not the only one who could use a little help on the matter…

So, what method do you primarily find to be the best for getting downloads?

If I’ve left anything out of the choices, just let me know and I’ll try to add it. Of course if you want to elaborate in a post, feel free…

On behalf of all us noobs, thanks for participating :slight_smile:

finding the niche, marketing, app store optimization, keyword, tracking, rating/review, localisation etc.

A true marketer…:cool:

in my experience, good ratings and review really helps!

Shuiwo is right, you need a sustained marketing campaign. Discovery is twice the job it was 2 years ago!

2 years ago, there isn’t much people selling app template, entry to app business is higher. Now, $100 can ‘buy’ a lot of source codes in buy/sell section here, and people just spam all the source codes purchased.

To success now without any blackhat method, your app have to be unique and on demand.

Couldn’t have said it better. Things like ASO are worthless if your app ist just a cheap clone. 50% of users download apps from word of mouth. You need a good idea people will talk about. No one talks about the newest panda run clone. if you really want to make a clone, make it better than the original with not only better arts, but also better mechanics and more features.

I agree that to make a clone popular you should make it better than the original. I’m not sure about your 50% stat though. Not all apps have to be a Candy Crush to be successful- right now I would consider making even just $150 a day off of my apps ‘success.’

The 50% number is taken from multiple mobile app researchers, so it should be true. Besides that, 60% of users finding apps through search, but most of that downloads go to those which already have high amounts of downloads and are always ranked top. New apps can’t be ranked top, because the amount of downloads functions as a multiplier for your displayed rank.
btw, unless you make high quality social game you wont earn $150 from just a bit more than 100 downloads a day. 5000-7000 downloads a day to reach this is more realistic.

Lol, I never implied that just over 100 downloads would bring me $150 a day :p; though either would be nice for starters. And as far as those stats, until you list some credible sources…

sccr.jpg

just searched one minute and found this
App Store SEO: The Inbound Marketer’s Guide to Mobile - Moz

A quick glance of the article shows that “For the average app (read: NOT blockbusters only), search actually makes up the vast majority of installs.” This would lend credence to the ASO method and not word-of mouth as you claim, and also reflects the results we are seeing in this little poll of ours. ASO, against my own expectation, is the most popular method noted so far.

I’d like to read the article more in depth and discuss it with you, but this thread was not meant to turn into a debate. I’d like to see more feedback about how people are successfully attaining over 100 downloads a day. Maybe you have a personal example of how word-of-mouth advertising increased your downloads, that you could share?

Yeah, you are right. Let’s say is really differs from app to app where your downloads come from. Especially because it’s impossible to track if your downloads are coming from word of mouth or not. There is also a difference between apps and games. ASO for apps with a clear functionality is much easier, since you fullfil a costumers need. But I can’t do good aso for an innovative game, because you have now idea what people could search for to find your game. We have one game which is still getting 200 downloads a day. It appears in the top 10 search results for “Platformer”. But I don’t even know how many people a day search for this, so I can’t really say where this downloads come from. But I’ve read some costumer reviews repeating “this game is shit, don’t believe the hype.”

[b]I only use ASO, I am getting more than 100 downloads everyday all from Top countries (US/UK…) and still making only $15 per day approx, all from Admob only :frowning:
if Any one can suggest a better monetzation way of something that could help increasing my earnings since I have high quality traffic :slight_smile:

[/b]

There’s a setting in the Google keyword tool that lets you filter searches made from mobile devices. Maybe that would help narrow it down.

Isn’t the keyword planner only for websearch? Thats completely worthless for me unless I can see how many times stuff is searched only in the play store search function.

Check my signature. For high quality traffic I recommend MobileCore

sensor tower all the way. $77 per month plan is good if you really want to improve ASO

I had a more in-depth reply for you but the post got put in to some moderation queue, probably due to all the links I included in the post. The gist of what I was trying to say though was: when was the last time you searched for an app from a non-mobile device? Of course it would help you narrow it down.

and…

The uniqueness of your app will only help you in search results- especially if you put it in the title. Here Google recommends uniqueness, specifically in the title of the app: Get discovered on Google Play search - Play Console Help
If you have a unique app use it to your advantage.

If I search for an app, I do so on my device and not in the browser. Neither the mobile browser now the browser of my PC. When I search on my PC for an app then only for research. Then sometimes I would download another app that appears while searching for another, but I never search for specific genres. This fits pretty much with our experiences in SEO in the app store. We were only able to get downloads in 2 ways. First: Making a fun quality game. Second: Make a game that is heavily inspired from another developer, but stil has unique gameplay. Then optimize your description to match this developer and appear in the search for him without violation googles guidelines.
@javaexp
I once used Searchman, but the visibilty score turned out to be completely wrong and never matched with our downloads.