The competitive nature of the app marketing gaming vertical is well known - most apps will have a good understanding of how to maintain position and achieve incremental growth via their keyword strategy (organic or paid). Growth is challenging and customer churn is a fact of life.
But there are other ways in which gaming apps can achieve user cut-through on the app marketplaces; thinking creatively about user engagement can help gaming apps to scale. Below, our ASO Lead Anil Ozdemir outlines a few strategies that can gain you a conversion edge. To learn more just read on, or contact our experienced growth team!
Lean-in to Seasonality
Rarely does someone search for ‘Christmas game’ on the app marketplaces, but that doesn’t mean that subconsciously users aren’t thinking about the seasons. Gaming apps that are creatively agile might tailor their app icon, ad variations or screenshots to capitalise on the fact that seasonal relevancy is appealing.
The example here uses subtle graphic icons that are relevant to the festive season, and whilst the game itself has not changed its content, the listing has been tailored to trigger a subconscious recognition.
On the Play Store the app's long descriptions can also be updated with seasonal content, including keywords, emojis and colour codes.
Change Your Game with Custom Product Pages
Custom product pages on the App Store are a big opportunity for driving relevancy and adoption with key audiences, and currently they’re underutilised by gaming brands for scaling.
In addition to creating custom product pages that are relevant to particular audiences or game play genres, there are other avenues that should be explored. For example, custom product pages that:
- Mimic your competitors’ tone of voice and style
- Target audiences who prefer to a premium no-ads experience
- Promote the ability to play offline ‘no WiFi’
Additionally, why not…
- Explore second language variations in regions where a second language is prevalent in the population
- Create custom product pages that reflect your top performing keywords in Apple Search Ads
Utilise the In-App Event Space
Gaming apps on the App Store can use the in-app event (IAE) opportunity to promote timely game experiences, seasonal content or challenges. The in-app event card is an additional way to capture attention – develop creative variations and use video to preview your event.
Pay attention to your event’s metadata and remember that your IAE title is going to be indexed – it’s a great opportunity to utilise keywords to generate better seasonal search term relevance around specific content or experiences.
A/B Testing of Custom Product Pages on Astra
Redbox has recently launched ‘Experiments Beta’ on our Apple Search Ads platform; this ushers in a new era of data-driven decision-making for gaming apps to A/B test custom product pages. Experiments Beta unlocks controlled testing of different custom product page variables. By measuring the performance of each variant against predetermined KPIs, gaming apps can confidently make data-backed decisions about future ad strategies. Read more about recent Astra features here.