The History of App Store Optimization.

Britney’s back, Obama is the 44th President of the US, and Lewis Hamilton is the youngest F1 World Champion. 2008 – what a year.  

But arguably the most iconic culture shift we saw that year was the birth of the mobile app.  

The Apple App Store came kicking and screaming into the world in the height of 2008’s summer; the Android market (as we now call the Google Play Store) followed just 3 months later.  

These markets only held 500 and 50 apps respectively, but such seemingly small spaces were about to change the digital marketing sphere as we know it.  

The stores didn’t stay quiet for long, though, and by 2009 tension was building as they became more populated, and competition increased. Apps had to begin fighting for visibility and so the beginnings of App Store Optimisation arose, albeit without a defined name. 

Starting as a ‘who can get the most installs’ free-for-all, ASO has been defined and redefined numerous times in its short life, changing at the same rate the market grew.  

Early ASO strategy  

Much like ASO appeared alongside the app stores, Search Engine Optimisation as a practice first appeared alongside, you guessed it, search engines.  

The speed at which digital platforms grow makes for a dog-eat-dog world, and in the noughties, SEO was already established as the practice you need to make your website top dog. ASO didn’t begin too dissimilar.  

In any walk of life relevancy and frequency keep you popular, especially in the noughties, and the same rules applied to early ASO. Keywords – keep them relevant, keep them frequent.  

This was the tactic most early app developers used, piggybacking off well-established SEO practices as a shortcut to app popularity. There is always another way to gain popularity, however… you pay for it.  

In 2009 the app market was still young, and competition was low, meaning paid acquisition was cheap. In this young app market running an ad for just a week could bring in up to 3 million installs and buying popularity was much easier than gaining it through words, and so the split between organic and paid ASO arose.  

Alongside these practices of keyword optimization and paid acquisition, both of which are still used in ASO today, early developers were welcomed into app store with no rules and limitless opportunities for sneaky app growth.  

Many developers, not being faced with any best practices or restrictions, could go as far as paying users to install their apps, this is how many ‘black hat’ ASO strategies arose. Nowadays many strategies such as this are prevented by Google and Apple’s policies however some black hat strategies are not banned just frowned upon, and so are still utilized by many developers.   

The move into structured ASO  

2 short years after we first see ASO appear, and it has solidly established that it is here to stay. In 2010 Apple had increased its apps offered to 300,000, leaving Android trailing behind with 130,000. This boom in apps created a boom in competition. From this point on, simply having the most downloads and optimized keywords was not enough. 

So far developers had only been looking at impressions and installs as a way of monitoring their app's success but in a competitive market longevity became key and these already out-of-date tactics weren’t going to cut it. Cue: conversion rate and retention rate.  

We have already established that with relevancy, frequency, and money apps could establish popularity, but once every app was popular the next important step in ASO became loyalty.  

At this point in the growth of ASO the Apple and Android stores had to start prioritising apps that users were repeatedly using and enjoying, rather than those that they had just downloaded on a whim.  

Developers now had SEO tactics in the rear-view mirror and had to come up with new, innovative ways to optimize their apps with longevity in mind.  

While the keyword tactics of SEO are still essential in ASO, A/B asset testing, keyword fields, in-app events, long descriptions, short descriptions, and many more strategies used by developers (and their agencies) are adapted specifically for the ever-changing environment that is the app stores. What never changes, however, is the importance of ASO and the impact it can have. A dynamic industry makes for endless opportunities. 

Modern ASO 

Believe it or not at the time of writing, that magical world of Twilight and Britney was 15 years ago and ASO is now a teenager with established practices and patterns.  

As the app stores grew, competition increased, and so did the need for ASO. The practice was now more intricate and not all developers had the time, energy, or knowledge to keep their apps competitive themselves. This opened a whole new market for ASO strategists, cue CMA. In 2016 CMA started as a small app marketing company, but one of the earliest dedicated to ASO and discovering the impact it can have on the mobile industry.  

Now, ASO is its own field of marketing, working behind the scenes on all smartphones across the globe. This niche community revolving around seemingly random keywords and screenshots has led to ASO becoming the specialized practice it is today.  

As the industry has grown, so has CMA; what was once a small start-up is now ASO Company of the Year with a growing team of consultants working across a range of clients and countries.  

With the ASO running behind apps being handled by people like us here at CMA, app developers have the time and energy to focus on bringing users the most innovative, exciting apps, and it’s our job to make sure the users can find them.  

KPIs and Share of Voice graphs aside, ASO is ultimately focused on making sure the right apps find the right people. It may seem simple, but if the apps we know users love aren’t appearing on the app stores as they search and browse it’s easy to get lost in the millions of apps that the app stores are now home to.  

Both stores have come a long way since those babies in 2008. Now the App Store has  1.76 million apps while Google Play has over 2.266 million!   

None of those apps, aside from a select handful, would be finding their way to users' screens if it wasn’t for ASO to some degree. Whether an app is struggling with its visibility, not getting in front of its users with the right search terms, or finding it hard to encourage their App Store visitors to hit ‘download’, ASO strategy can help. Check out ASO at CMA for more details.  

It is always in the forgotten areas of the process that the biggest impact is made and that is where expertise in the complicated ASO process, lies. A great app can only be great if it has users to find the app, and spread the message of its value.