Quick view on ASO and how developers can use market research to explore opportunities of ASO to boost traffic for apps/games

1. ASO – WHERE TO START ?
By: Gacon

2. About speaker
• 10 years playing in mobile and
internet sector
• Foundation team of several startups
since 2011
• Mobile game publishing team at
VNG Corporation
• Game launched:

3. What is ASO?
• App Store Optimization (ASO) is the process of
improving the visibility in an app store
• Specifically, app store optimization includes the
process of ranking highly in an app store's
search results and top charts rankings
• Unlike SEO, app store optimization (ASO) is still a
young and evolving field
• Some changes in 2015 includes:
- Store ads on CH Play
- Application search result on Google search

4. Why ASO important ?
• >1.5 mils app on CH Play/Apple Store +
Thousands of new submissions daily
• 65% of app installs on CH Play comes from
search
• ASO is a simple but powerful method to get
Organic download for an app, especially indie
and niche apps (and reskinned apps also ^^)
• Acquire Core Users for your app
• Easy to do, cost effective

5. What can affect on ASO?
• Main factors:
- Title – The keyword placed in the title
should be the one with the heaviest
search traffic
- Keywords – To improve your search
rankings, you need to know which
keywords are relevant and used most
often by your target audience.

6. What can affect on ASO? (cont)
• Secondary Factors:
- Total # of Downloads – Your number of
downloads are extremely important to
ASO, but you don’t have complete control
over them. However, there are ways to
get incentive downloads
- Ratings and Reviews – Also important
and difficult to control. However, there
are ways to incentivize happy users to
rate and review

7. What can affect on ASO? (cont)
• Other Factors:
- App Icon: An icon should immediately convey what an app is
about, in the simplest (but impressive) manner possible
- Screenshots: The first 2 screenshots are the most important
as they are the ones seen when scrolling through search
results
- Video: Use of a short video to highlight the key features of
the app
- Localization: Translating an app into different languages can
greatly increase downloads and expose an app to a larger
potential audience
- Developer reputation, keeping app ratio, number of crash,…

8. White vs Black hat ASO
• Incentive CPI: Using third party reward platform
to bring incentive download and push rank on
store chart
• Fake app: Completely fake -> Reskinned/cloned
app
• Blowjob: Normally using bots to increase
download, comment, rating to make an app more
reliable/fancy
• Store hacking: Often top chart hacking (Fast and
furious ^^)
• Manipulate top paid app/grossing: Using stolen
credit card or refund term on store to push rank

9. How to do market research for ASO?
• Product research -> Understand your app
• Customer research -> Understand your
customer’s behavior
• Competitor research -> Understand your
competitors
• Trend research -> Understand your
communities

10. Product research

11. Customer research

12. Trend research
• Top trend store
• Top growing app on chart
• Understand what is going on out there
• Finding upcoming events
• Viral trend on social network
• …. (Predict the next big thing ^^)
=> Source: Google trend, social
media/network or professional market
research/report

13. Competitor research

14. Some Tools
• App Annie, Sensor Tower
• Google: Google search autocomplete,
Google trend, Google keywords planner
• App store search bar
• Appcodes, Tune, Straply, Digitalturbine
• ….

15. Thank you!