If you are an iOS developer, work for an iOS application development company or are in any other way connected with this sphere, then you know the approximate number of races needed to reach the top. The numbers vary from category to category, each uses its own strategy, so any experience is important. Below I want to share our experience. I hope it will be useful to readers. I want to warn you, the case is atypical. We went to the top Ukrainian App Store, and not Russian. Here you will not find the magical "thousand races with a zero budget for marketing." It didn’t work out for us, and the budget was small, but certainly not zero.

Day 1

Apple checked our app and it's time to publish. We didn’t have experience of getting to the top, however, many articles on this topic were read. In general, the advice is the same everywhere: a week before the release it’s worth preparing all the channels for attracting users for quick launch, write to all possible sources, and if possible get free publications.

Our team is quite small, so a week before the release we solved a kaleidoscope of other problems, most of which were technical. Considering the fact that checking applications in the App Store is not a quick deal, we managed to forget about it and didn’t have a good marketing background. Among other things, we did not have any warm contacts with editors, nor any user base from past projects (such things are usually silent in the articles about "top with zero budget"). What was there was some tested advertising banners for an Android application.

It's time to open the advertising valve to the full! Well, as a full, the budget is very limited, and the emphasis is on the Ukrainian App Store, which is much less frequently discussed Russian, and therefore need less downloads. Our application is geo-location, with information about institutions nearby (for more details you can watch and download for Android or iOS ), so we created a set of banners for each of the 5 largest cities separately.
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A total of 3 advertising sites were used: vk, facebook (it also includes instagram), myTarget. Results: in vk - 210,000 hits CTR - 1.9; facebook / instagram - 44,000 impressions, 400 installations; myTarget - 7,000 impressions, CTR - 2.09. There was a small problem: myTarget did not quite correctly calculate the effective bid, as a result, the shows almost did not go. In addition, vk and myTarget refused to track the installation. Fortunately, analytics on the application can be viewed immediately in a dozen places, so the numbers are not lost. In general, for the 1st day we scored 1,900 installations for $ 0.07. Since we were still growing in the ranking, organics did not help us yet. But by the end of the day we were in 1st place in the Travel category. Hmm, that was pretty easy.

Day 2

The second day is not less responsible than the first, you can not loosen the grip. Despite the 1st place in the category, no organic explosion followed, but this was not expected, a specific category, not the most “swingable”.

We wanted, it means, to add sources of installations, perhaps, to achieve even free publications, reviews. But shish us! There are plenty of content for all sorts of bloggers, reviewers, groups in social networks today, “nobody wants to publish our best innovative application”, the price tag hangs everywhere. Assessing several options, it became clear that the good old banners in social networks, which we brought up to quite good $ 0.07 for the installation, will cost the most. Oh yeah, we launched the application on Saturday, moreover, on the eve of the May holidays. Journalists and surveyors did not produce material - they already actively absorbed material of a completely different kind in nature, therefore almost no one answered the letters.

Results: in vk - 310,000 impressions CTR - 1.66; facebook / instagram - 60,000 impressions, 700 installations; myTarget - 20,000 impressions, CTR - 1.75. Yes, the CTR began to fall, so I had to push the gas. In general, for the 2nd day we scored 2 500 installations for $ 0.12. By the end of the day we climbed to the 7th place in the “Free” category, and the price for the installation is growing. Hmm, where is the long-awaited organic?

Day 3

This day we decided to make the last in our advertising campaign. The strategy was still the same, only this time we experimented with the placement in the largest public Apple in vk. I will not pull with numbers.

The result: in vk - 315,000 impressions CTR - 1.44; facebook / instagram - 50,000 impressions, 630 installations; myTarget - 23,000 impressions, CTR - 1.87. On this day, the general results are as follows: 2,400 installations of $ 0.13. The cost per click increased because it had to raise bids on advertising sites to maintain a good pace. Organic jumps have certainly been, but the growing price for the installation is not at all what we expected. Meanwhile, by the end of the day we were in 3rd place in the "Free" category.

Morality

For 3 days spent about $ 800, received almost 7,000 installations.

On the 4th day, the advertisement was completely turned off, the 3rd place was reached, so we are fastened and ready to catch the effect of the top.

Over the next week after the campaign, we did not score and 1,000 horse racing. The result is, so to speak, sobering. Of course, we knew that the numbers are different from the Russian App Store. But such a ratio makes the whole event meaningless: well-worked banners with a minimum rate per click / setting give the same CPI , as well as access to the top + organic from this very top, just for a longer period of time.

Afterword

A week after our event, we still got positive effects from TOP-3 in the App Store. This served as an additional information guide for journalists to write an article about us. Oh, where have you been before! About us wrote ain , and ukrainianiphone made a review on the application. But this has already happened with the cost of marketing and added a total of 1,000 - 2,000 races.

This is the first article. our startup our young company. Ahead there are more articles about the most diverse, including technical ones. I hope our experience will be useful to someone!