ASO Monthly # 18 October 2017

New countries in Search Ads, the possible output of the counter "number of installations for the search query" in the Play Store, etc.

In the ASO Monthly series of articles, we are considering the events of the past month and pay attention to the trends of the ASO, changes in algorithms, ideas for optimizing the conversion and updates in services.

ASO news for October 2017

The 4th of October

Thomas Petit , as usual, was the first to report to ASO Stack that Apple will launch Search Ads in Mexico (Spanish), Canada (French and English) and Switzerland (French, German and Italian). Search Ads was released in these countries on October 17th. The choice of countries is probably due to the fact that Apple plans to take on the Latin American market in Spanish (Spanish is also important in the US), as well as the French-speaking market in Canada. Switzerland will also be an interesting test site for Apple, given the diversity of languages - it can be a test site for the German-speaking and Italian-speaking market. It seems that the expansion of Search Ads is a priority for the Apple App Store team, and soon we will see their presence in new markets.

According to Ilya Kukharev at ASO Stack, some developers were able to insert their own images into the header of their page on the App Store, which is displayed when searching for the names of developers. However, the example below is no longer reproduced when searching for November 2 - it seems that this could be A / B testing.
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The developer’s page header on the App Store (according to Ilya Kukharev in the ASO Stack group)

October 5

According to information from 9to5Google , Google tested the display of application positions in the top. Currently the application position is displayed under the install button. It looks like this was a temporary A / B test that is not yet complete. This change will be useful, as it provides information about the ranking of the application to the page visitor. True, it will also mean that the brief description and screenshots of the application will be moved further down.

The rank of the application is displayed under the install button (according to 9to5Google)

October 6

Along with other changes, Apple made changes to the iTunesConnect user interface. Also, according to information from Silke Glauner (from the ASO Stack) some other functions have been removed:

All subcategories for News and Magazines
Subcategory of games "Dice"
Subcategory of games "Education"
Catalogs
For kids

New interface for previewing applications and screenshots (according to Ilya Kukharev in the ASO Stack group)

October 9

The “Volume of application download” column for iOS devices in iTunesConnect has become available. According to information from Apple , you should be connected to Wi-Fi if the download volume exceeds 150 MB.

October 16

SensorTower launched a feature that builds and displays apps of the day in iOS 11

17 October

There was an update of the keyword algorithm in the App Store, showing the increase / decrease in the position of the ranks of keywords (first seen by Mithun Jawar from ASO Stack). This change seems to have affected a number of different applications.

App Store Algorithm Update (according to Mithun Jawar in the ASO Stack group)

October 19

Together with data on the success of Android Vitals (65% of installations, the percentage of crashes was reduced from 3.5% to 1.7%) Google announced “Try Now” for Android Instant Apps on Google Playtime in Berlin. The button will be introduced for applications that support Instant Apps - users can try applications without installing it.

Google introduced Try Now for Instant Apps (according to vaspab)

Google also updated the policy for developers, which now includes additional restrictions and guidelines regarding gambling, application functionality, behavior, and application requests.

Google policy update for developers

October 19

Mobile marketing expert Thomas Petit provided intriguing (albeit still unconfirmed) data that Google would soon reveal data on the number of installations for a specific search query in the Google Developer Console, and also share the application installation counters via search (search) and surfing the network ( browse). Google will provide not only the data already available in the App Store (search vs browse), but also more accurate information on the value of keywords (compared to measuring the popularity rate in Search Ads from Apple).

Thomasbcn on Twitter

October 24

Service for A / B testing StoreMaven published an excellent in- depth article on measuring the impact of the new app store in iOS 11 on your search traffic and conversion.

October 24

Apptopia's application data provider conducted a study on the apps of the day in the App Store iOS 11. Studying selected apps and games for a month, they found that both of them get a huge increase in settings. And on Fridays, these parameters were the highest: “Application of the Day” received an increase of 2.172%, and “Game of the Day” averaged 860%. Free apps received the most downloads. There are some other interesting information in the report, we recommend reading.

Download data for favorite apps in iOS 11 (Apptopia data and report)

October 26

On Android, new permissions have been added that, according to the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine , are called Activity Detection, and allow the app to find out if you are driving, driving or sitting. This data can potentially provide marketers with interesting ideas about targeting, although concerns about privacy are likely to increase. It is not possible to disable these permissions without deleting the application using them.

New permission to "recognize the activity" on Android (according to information from DuckDuckGo)

27th October

It became possible to upload screenshots and materials for previewing applications for iPhone X on iTunesConnect. Here are more detailed information on screenshots and video previews for applications.