Promotion of Android applications, rankings and ranking in the tops of Google Play

Greetings to all! In my article I want to share my experience and make my “five kopecks” in this rather extensive and confusing topic. On the Internet at the moment there are a lot of articles devoted to this issue, but in fact it turned out that most of these articles operate with standard tips and templates that, to put it mildly, are not relevant today. Almost all the articles that I read are just the tip of the iceberg, its very top. For some reason, no one writes about the essence itself, apparently this is part of corporate secrets that are not spoken out loud.

Retreat
A few words about yourself. In the market of Android application developers for 3 years. From the first day, I set myself specific goals and objectives: the creation of interesting, beautiful and functional applications, the maximum audience coverage, earnings on Google Play from $ 1000 \ month (on sales of applications). I came up with a concept, a logo, a simple name oxsionsoft and started work. He divided his work into 3 stages: design, programming, promotion. Since I myself am an advertising designer, I laid the entire graphic part on my shoulders. Programming involved hired through a programmer. I was engaged in promotion again, as there was not enough money to hire another person or contact publishing agencies. And by and large, knowing the entire advertising kitchen from the inside, I was tormented by doubts about the effectiveness of promotion through publishing agencies, but this is not about that now.

Promotion of Android applications

To begin with, the promotion can be external and internal. External promotion is promotion by any means outside of Google Play. Internal promotion is promotion within the Google Play marketplace. I'll start with external promotion. There may be many options. I will not describe where and how to distribute my applications, quite a few articles have already been written about this. And I will write about the effectiveness of a particular advertising platform.

● Profile sites
Sites dedicated to the mobile segment. In our case, Android sites. The form of advertising - an article about the application, your own or written by a representative of the site. The effect is quite good, especially if the site has many visitors and is popular. With the help of an article on a popular site, you can bring good traffic to your application. Of the minuses can be noted frequent updates of news feeds. Your article will very quickly go to the previous pages. As a rule, the conversion is a few days, maximum a week (rare cases). Do not omit such a moment as the price per article. If the price is high, then it is unlikely to be repaid and pay for itself, since the conversion is on average a few days. Also posting articles on the site can be regarded as a good tool for increasing its link mass for search engines.
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● Blogs
Most blogs are divided into "clubs" of interest. But this does not mean that you only need to publish in profile blogs dedicated to gadgets or Android. You can publish in any blog where there is a large and active audience. The form of advertising is an article about the application. As a rule, the blogger himself writes an article in the first person. The article is informative and recommendatory in nature. Conversion in blogs is higher than that of sites, since the public from bloggers is more trusting to the published information. The disadvantages are the same as for the specialized sites - a quick update of the tape and, as a consequence, a short conversion time. Prices for blog posting are usually higher than for posting on the site, but not by much. The truth is, for an article on a very popular blog, they can even request 100,000 rubles. As you understand this article, for such money, it is unlikely to pay for itself. I will say more. Do not pay back ever. Because you are advertising a mobile application costing $ 1 - $ 2, and not BMW cost $ 50,000.

● Social networks
Advertise in social networks, you can either your group, or advertise in other groups. It’s better, of course, to have your own group to collect subscribers and fans. Differences from sites and blogs that you have to create the activity of your group. The “write and forget” principle does not work here. These are social networks - a platform for communication and information sharing, so there is a need for maximum activity. By cons I'll take the complexity of the promotion and price. The difficulty is that you have to do everything yourself. If you already have a formed audience on blogs and websites, you will have to collect this audience yourself on social networks. I also mentioned the price. You will not manage with one activity in the group, the group needs real people - fans and subscribers. Your group will have to advertise. The most effective is an advertising tool of the social network itself. And this pleasure is not cheap. On average, the cost is higher than the article on the website or blog. Conversion in this case may be higher than from blogs and websites. But the risk of "zero" conversion is very likely. There is such a thing as “viral marketing” and most often this concept is associated with a social network. It is understandable, not one site can not boast of such a wide audience. I deliberately do not consider "viral marketing", as it costs so much, but in the end, "viral marketing" may fail. I would not consider social networks as the main advertising platform. Rather, as a "nice" addition.

● Forums
For promotion in the forums use specialized forums with a specific theme. This type of promotion is free. Wait a big conversion is not worth it. An exception may be cases where the administrator, noticing your application, publishes an informational article in the news feed. But this is not particularly count. I would refer the forums to a “pleasant” supplement. Since it is free, it will not be superfluous.

● Banner advertising on sites
To date, the most inefficient promotion method for mobile applications. Few people pay attention to banner advertising, much less click. And there are places for banners on good sites, not cheap. The fee is charged for 1000 impressions or for clicks. Which method to choose is up to you. It all depends on the site. The exception is banner ads on specialized sites. In this case, the conversion may be, but small. There is still an option when the advertising banner advertises not the application itself, but let's say a competition held within the advertising campaign to promote the application. In this case, the conversion can be quite good. I would not consider banner advertising as a form of promotion for mobile applications. I think that such advertising can be used when all other advertising methods are exhausted or when your application is so well known and recognizable that the eyes themselves cling to the banner.

● Own site
Call the site a separate advertising platform can not. The site is a set of advertising sites, or rather a set of advertising methods. The options can be many, depends on your capabilities and limited to your imagination. You can make just an information site or make a forum site or a site that works on the principle of social. networks or combine different options. You can arrange a link exchange, arrange various affiliate programs and much more.
But with the promotion of applications through the site is not so simple. First you need to promote the site itself, so that they know about it, find out and visit potential users. Calling the site an ideal advertising platform is also impossible. Yet the site is an intermediate link between the user and the Google Play market. Therefore, the site should be considered as your business card, it is your face on the Internet. Also, the site can be turned into a stock advertising platform, where users will be redirected from social networks, articles, banners, etc., and from the site directly on Google Play. Plus the fact that a person gets to the site gets all the necessary information in one place (latest news, promotions, contests, description of applications, videos, etc.). In any case, even if your site is not promoted, having a site is better than not having it at all. If you do not take into account the promotion of the site, the cost of maintaining the site is not high. And having a website, you will look more respectable in the eyes of potential users.

● Motivated and unmotivated traffic
In addition to all the above, there are other promotion schemes. Such schemes include the purchase of traffic. I can not say that this is an honest form of advancement, but nevertheless, almost everyone sooner or later comes to this. Traffic is the direct installation of your application or game on user devices. Traffic is divided into motivated instal and unmotivated instal.
Motivated installation - when one user, once installs your application or game on your device and receives a material reward for it. Those. for you every such user will be worth the money. Prices on average from 6 rubles. for the instal and above. In addition to the install itself, it can be rated and a review written. In this case, the price will be higher. Special companies are involved in increasing traffic on the basis of motivated instals, of which there are a lot of them now. It is enough to use a search engine.
Unmotivated instals - when your application or game is unobtrusively offered to a certain number of users (through different channels, for example social networks), and users in turn decide whether to put your application (game) to them or not. The price of an unmotivated install is on average higher than the price of a motivated install. This is due to the fact that at the output traffic turns out to be of better quality, since you are not buying the user directly. Ratings and reviews remain at the discretion of users. As a rule, third-party markets or social networks usually build traffic on the principle of unmotivated instals. What type of traffic to choose you decide. I would recommend purchasing both types of traffic. If we talk about the effectiveness of such advertising promotion, then everything is obvious. Buying traffic, you get the instals you need, the more such instals, the higher you will be in the top (read below on how to build the tops). Despite the obvious effectiveness, there are still disadvantages. When buying traffic, you buy users, and the purchased users are not your users, as he does it solely for the sake of money (in principle, buying a woman is yours, but exactly as much as you pay her). Of course exceptions may be. After all, a purchased user is first of all a living person and there is always a chance that by installing your application or game, he will like everything so much that he (the purchased user) will become your user.

● Publishing agencies (advertising agencies)
I cannot say anything concrete. Since he did not use the services of publishing agencies. But as a “advertiser” by profession, I can say that in fact, an appeal to a publishing agency is all about the same thing that I wrote above + some additional trifles that I did not list. Just do all the work for you, and you only need to pay for the work done money. Truth is a nuance. The publishing agency has at its disposal a database of channels for the dissemination of advertising and well-established links. To judge the effectiveness of promotion through publishing agencies is very difficult. I can promise you anything. In fact, it may turn out that the efficiency will be the same as if you did everything yourself, and you will spend a lot of money and a lot. Here everyone decides for himself what to choose.

With internal promotion in the framework of Google Play is much more difficult. You will not see official information, inviting banners, etc. Such advertising is expensive or free and not available to all. Advertising on Google Play is a variety of promotion options, such as placing an application in the "editorial choice", "google play selection", "recommended" categories, good places in the tops, etc. For each country, the set of such "topics" is different. Such advertising may be free at the discretion of Google. If your application is like, you can count on such advertising. Everything that happens in Google Play is managed directly by Google. Many can argue, saying that this is impossible, everything is fair, etc. Let's not forget Google Play is a business tool aimed at making a profit, it’s the same advertising platform as everyone else, and therefore you shouldn’t exclude a commercial component. Perhaps, looking at Google Play from this side, you can explain a lot of incomprehensible things that are happening there.

I have listed the main advertising methods (platforms). There are still many different options. But mostly these options are based on the main advertising methods or have similar variations.
Summing up, I can say that any advertising company is good in a complex of advertising methods (platforms). Individually, you are unlikely to achieve good results, although of course there are exceptions. Not worth the same 100% rely on advertising. It is possible that the advertising company will not bring the expected result or will not pay for itself at all. No advertiser will give you any guarantees. Tracking an advertising campaign for efficiency is a time-consuming process that ultimately does not provide accurate figures and results. Especially if you make a complex of advertising companies. All that advertising can offer you is to declare oneself, and no one knows what the conversion will be from this, one can only guess and speculate.

Ratings

Each application has a rating system with quantitative and qualitative indicators. Simply put, ratings from 1 to 5 and reviews. Over several years of close observation and analysis, I came to the conclusion that ratings do not affect the position of the application in the tops. Not at all. Ratings are created exclusively for users who, in turn, according to reviews and estimates, decide whether they should download / buy the application or not. But there is one moment. A good rating can motivate a user to download / buy this or that application. And by downloading / buying the application, we get the very necessary instal. Those. in fact, the rating plays a certain role in promotion, but is not directly related to the ranking of the application in the tops. Also ratings (reviews) play a communicative role between the developer and the user. Simply put through the reviews you can conduct a dialogue with the developer. But my opinion is that this is not entirely correct. Testimonials were created for evaluating and expressing your own opinion about the application, and not for discussions.
For example, there may be the following. Two free applications have 100 downloads, but one application has 5 fives, and the second has 55 fives, with obvious differences in the estimated indicators, these applications are equal to each other and should occupy the same position in the tops. True, there are a few nuances. Namely, from which countries were these 100 instals made (the geographical location of users has a certain influence). But let's talk about this below, in the chapter on ranking in the tops of Google Play.

Many people also care about the question, how do certain applications with a bad rating have certain places in the top? For example, there may be the following (I personally observed this and more than once). An application that has more units (stakes) than all the other assessments combined is in the top 32 places in its category. Attentive developer will immediately pay attention to this and will wonder how it happened. By all the laws of the genre, with such a rating, even in the 500th place you will not be. And it turned out pretty simple. This application with countless units (cokes) has a certain constant number of downloads, allowing it, the application, to be at this place in the top and the rating has nothing to do with it.
When building the order of applications in the tops, Google does not take into account the quantitative indicators of certain ratings, and even more so reviews. I think this is partly due to the protection against rating markups. But despite the low significance of the ratings in the promotion of applications should not neglect this indicator. As I wrote above, remember, a good rating can motivate a user to download / buy an application. And by downloading / buying the application, we get the very necessary instal.

Ranking in Google Play Tops

As many already know tops in the Google Play Market abound. There are basic tops, there are tops by categories, there are tops of new, recommended, etc. I note that for different countries the set of tops is not the same. Those. For example, in a number of countries there are no tops of new paid / free (and for the last year the list of excluded (dropped) tops has expanded). I also want to note that for each country the ranking of the tops is different. Google made sure that the monopolists did not capture the entire market, and everyone got his piece of cake (although in reality everything looks a little different). If in Russia you enter the first 10-ku in some top, this does not mean at all that in another country you will be in the same 10-ke in the same top. Most likely in another country you will not even get into the hundred.

Saying “get to the top” - I mean to be in the top in a less visible place. Those. enter at least in the first 50 applications, or at least in the first hundred, in its category or in the general category.

Top rankings are divided into two types: for paid and free applications. First, about paid tops. These tops include all applications that are of any value. The easiest way to get into the top new paid in its category, it’s enough to have several purchases a day. In the usual top, in its category, get a little more difficult, you need to have purchases of at least more than 10 a day. To get to the main top, without referring to the category is even more difficult, shopping in this case should be at least several dozen per day (closer to a hundred). Also getting to the top depends on the country. Those. for example, if you have 10 purchases a day from Russia, you will get to the Russian top. If you have these 10 purchases distributed one purchase for each country, then you will not be in any top. Another important point is the price of the application. The price also depends on the order of construction in the tops. Rather, not from the price, but from the final amount per day. For example, two applications with indicators of 10 purchases per day. But one application costs $ 1, and the second is $ 1.5. With an equal number of purchases per day, the amount at the output is different, in the first variant 10 = $ 10, in the second variant 10 = $ 15. And the application for which the sum at the output will be higher. I note that your figures for all the tops are different, it depends on the category of top. If you have a demanded category, then the numbers will be somewhat higher; if the category is unclaimed, the numbers will be lower.Thus, the top paid is based on the principle of shopping \ day adjusted for the price at the exit. If this number is consistently large, then the first lines are guaranteed to you, with a reservation to all of the above.

In the top free, the construction is somewhat different, easier than in the paid. These tops include all applications that are distributed free of charge, regardless of whether there is internal content for sale or not. Tops of free are based solely on instal \\ day. Those.the more your application downloads per day, the higher you will be in the top. Free tops work just like paid ones, taking into account location, categories, etc. The ratio is approximately the same as for paid applications only multiplied by ≈ 100. It is important to understand that to keep in one place in the top you need to have approximately the same number of instal / purchases per day. If you give up, you will start to fall, if you dial, you will rise. But again you need to take into account all the above.
Summarizing the ratings and rankings, I would like to note that all ranking manipulations in the tops are managed by Google, either automatically or manually. It may happen that without your knowledge, Google will build the tops at its discretion regardless of what indicators your application has. Remember that besides you on Google Play hundreds of thousands of applications, including from the top developers. And the first places in the tops are not always associated with the success of the application.

Do not forget that Google Play is a business tool aimed at making a profit. And above all, profits for Google itself. Therefore, the priority are applications from which Google makes a profit.

Conclusion

Many people who read this article may disagree with the above, saying that they wrote an article on such a website, did this or that and after that they "went." Perhaps it is, and perhaps it is an accident or a combination of successful factors or even more - the help of Google Play itself in the face of Google. If you consider what you have done to promote your application as a good scheme, try to use the same scheme again and more than once. If the result is just as successful, then the ovation to you! If not, then most likely, as I wrote above, it is an accident or a combination of successful factors.

Everything I have written is a purely individual experience gained during the year of painstaking work and close observation. In no case should not take the article as an axiom. The market for mobile applications is very dynamic and what I wrote today may not be relevant tomorrow, or even controversial. In conclusion, I would like to advise you not to adhere to standard promotion models, but try to experiment and maybe, then you will succeed. Do not forget about the quality of the application itself. Good luck to you!