If 2014 is the year of ASO… last year Stefan Bielau gave an awesome address in AppSummit in London last year.
I have decided to share it and highlight some of the important points of his presentation.
For sure it opens our eyes to different markets. China anyone? 😉
Keynote Address by: Stefan Bielau, Founder & CEO, Stevan Bielau Consulting
Background in radio and mobile. Consulting on content, platform, business planning, user acquisition, marketing & analytics
The app store is becoming more and more competitive. The main challenges are where to acquire users and effective reach, revenue and acquisition costs. App & Google play stores are like the Panama Canal – a main, major and costly route to reach your destination, so also need to consider alternatives.
App Store Marketing: Alternative App Stores – Mobile Highways or Dead Ends? from App Promotion Summit on Vimeo.
In his keynote address, Stefan encourages developers to go beyond the limits of available channels, and he talks about some other distribution streams:
Main points to be discussed with a focus on Android platform:
· Stores Beyond App Store and Google Play
· How to Handle Fragmentation in Distribution
· Advertising in App Stores
WHY CONSIDER ALTERNATIVES?
1. Extra distribution & less competition
-Of top 10 leading application stores, after Google play next top 5 are for China
-In short 2 year period, significant growth, especially in China that together have grown to 50% download of google play
-Can see the competitive advantage and potential download volume when looking at the your category in those stores – less apps, less competition
Importance of Chinese markets
-Now over 300,000,000 android in China
China Android app distribution channels – google play is only represents about 6% distribution while alternative app stores cover almost 73%. Can’t ignore those markets when targeting China. 200-300 alternative marketplaces targeting only Chinese users.
Others – Good places to start
To accelerate growth after Google Play launch, for a niche or global campaigns and want to target specific regional markets. Identify user profiles and set up a targeted campaign:
Europe-AndroidPit (Berlin), 10 million monthly active users, 8 countries
Africa – MTN – alternative android platform – 3 million monthly active users
Asia – AirTel – 1/2 million android users in Sri Lanka
2. Pay you way up in the ranks!
Paid acquisition campaigns available in alt app stores (not google play)
-A range of ad formats and categories
-Reviews & extra visibility
Preinstallation Potential:
-Russian Yandex Store – access to phone users directly through pre-installation. Install app when user starts the phone, then they see the promoted apps. High visibility with new Android users.
-Social Mall – significant growing reach
3. Unlock new markets and revenues
-China (payments must go through local players)
-Serbia, Quatar, Costa Rica (No paid android through Google Play)
4. Spending behaviour
Case of Tiny Co – Game developer
ARPU – Average R Per User
Amazon App Store revenue per user is higher compared to Google play and iTunes
-Tweaking target and store environment – increase revenues
5. Advertise
-Click through behaviour differs regionally – high in China
-By going through local players can see increase in banner ad performance
6. Branding
-If you want brand recognition you need multiple store presence
CHALLENGES
1. Complexity and Fragmentation
– Requires manpower due to fragmentation, seen as marketing collateral
-Example – different file formats required or file restrictions (no common standard)
-Localize metadata for each store
2. Time to market differs for each store
– setup, approval dates & times differ between stores (recommends Google play launch first to benchmark and identify potential regions of opportunity, then set strategy for local stores one by one, not more than 3 at once)
Measurement – Aggregated Reportings
-Varied reporting time frames across stores difficult to compile the analytics
Tools to Overcome Challenges
Codengo: Dashboard to combine APK and metadata – get aggregated reports, also good starting point for paid promotion within alternative app stores
Examples of alternative app store distribution:
Samsung store – German Target – dailyme
Results: 8-week campaign, 25% of high 5-figure downloads weekly now from Samsung store
TankenApp
-24hour SMS promotion
-Telekom Top Apps programme
Results: 2% conversion over 15,000 downloads, jump to top 5 in their category
Cut the Rope
-Release in 12 app stores
-In 3/12 generated 3 million downloads
Result: Increase in downloads of 10-15% on top of Google play performance
SUMMARY
1. Know where are the users and markets you want to target for download acceleration
2. Identify the stores within the markets
3. consider paid promotion & social media through their platforms
4. Identify potential reach to justify resources required for setup
Overall alternative stores are a way to get an edge over competitors by going beyond basic monetization models in the more cost effective markets.
Q&A
What about Windows?
-Focusing on how to grow in Windows marketplace is important. Should focus there rather than on the alternatives in that environment.
Chinese app stores – are they independent?
-Yes, for the most part.
And for Korean app stores
-SK has it’s own app store environment.
Chinese piracy issues?
-Yes there are issues.
-Consider monetization & business model – build in an additional model such as advertising.
-Can get layers of protection on in-app purchases but there will always be ways to get by them.
Added value of advertising through alternative stores?
-Up to 50% more cost effective for user acquisition compared to adwords or mobile search or traditional CPI
