Matthäus Krzykowski, Xyo Co-Founder Games Developer Conference San Francisco, March 28th

www.slideshare.net/xyologic

The Most Hands ASO Tutorial A Game Developer Can Get Today

Matthäus Krzykowski - @matthausk

- Co-founder Xyo, heading growth

- Multiple PM & business unit leader roles in mobile & digital since 2006. In “mobile growth” since 2007 where I was a PM at Admob’s largest publisher of that time

- Since then we saw 3 waves of user acquisition: 1) “Open Mobile Web” Advertising 2) Display Advertising (Admob/Quattro/Mobclix) 3) Installs (Tapjoy/Flurry) source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/21/apples-app-discovery-lead-on-google-is-shrinking-but-mobile-publishers-shouldnt-be-too-worried/

- Xyo, invested in by Rick Thompson’s Signia Venture Partners & Flaregames’ Klaas Kersting, is a tech play that aims to re-define how app stores look like in future

“22% Install Click Rate Across 14 Languages”

“75% of apps get 90% of downloads”

We Enable The Long Tail Of App Search

Promoted by:

www.techcrunch.com/2012/12/06/xyo-nokia/

App Discovery & State of ASO

"It's brutal, it sucks. [...] I ask my 9-year-old 'How are you picking these games?' and he says 'Dad, I don't know, it's in the top 25.' That's a shitty reason. Really? That's the best you can do?”

Rob Dyer, Head of Partner Publishing, Zynga

Most app marketing channels don’t work well enough for most publishers

apps

0.1% 50%downloads

get

Implication: The app discovery problem

Every store is different, but they have a lot in common:

- Title, description

- Downloads

- Ratings & reviews

- Icon & screenshots

- Backlinks & social signals

- Browsing & search

ASO: “A set of techniques to improve ranking for specific user queries in the app store”

“These are the super early days of ASO.”Tomasz Kolinko, AppCodes

The Super Early Days Of ASOA Simple Model To Compare SEO & ASO, February 2013

*Since the Chomp update last autumn trials around popularity of queries

** Early trials with external signals (appstore.com vanity urls etc)

***External signals (web links, Google+ ratings) "will" become more important

SEO ASOASOASO

Web Apple App Store Google Play Windows Phone Store

Keywords Advanced Simple + Trials* Simple Simple

Popularity Backlinks Ratings + Trials** Rating + Trials*** Ratings

Conversion Optimization

Title,  Descrip-on,  rel=author,  markups  

like  ra-ngs...

Title, Icon, Description, Screenshots, Ratings, Reviews

Title, Icon, Description, Screenshots, Videos,

Ratings, Reviews

Title, Icon, Description, Screenshots, Ratings, Reviews

Apply Changes easy

hard  -­‐  if  you  change  anything  you  need  to  submit  a  new  version  of  the  app  and  go  through  the  approval  

process,  this  makes  changes  and  a/b  tes-ng  hard

medium hard

Bidding yes

State Of ASO Somewhere between 30%* & 61%** of installs come through app store search

* Source: Circumstantial evidence; ** Nielsen Mobile Market Report Q3, 2011

State Of ASO

**** Source: Xyo, ASO providers, publisher interviews as of March 2013

Racing Games

* Top Game Publishers defined as game publishers with more than 10M downloads & at least a 3.5 star rating for at least 1 game; ** Big Game Indies defined as game publishers with more than 1M downloads & at least a 3.5 star rating for at least 1 game; *** Game Indies defined as game publishers with more than 10k downloads & & at least a 3.5 star rating for at least 1 game

220

over 1300

over 10.000

Nascar + Racing Games

Games With + Fast + Nascar + Cars

Top Game Publishers*

Big Game Indies**

Game Indies***

No of Publishers Examples of Queries They Compete on

Different classes of game publishers compete on different types of user queries

State Of ASO

Very High

High

Low

Traffic Volume

Racing Games

Nascar + Racing Games

Games With + Fast + Nascar + Cars

Examples of Queries They Compete on

>100

>50

5-25

No of Hits in the SERP

Top Game Publishers*

Big Game Indies**

Game Indies***

There’s considerable competition for the high volume user queries

State Of ASO

2M

0.5M

5k- 150k

Additional Downloads Per Month Through ASO (USA, iPhone)

Racing Games

Nascar + Racing Games

Games With + Fast + Nascar + Cars

Examples of Queries They Compete on

Top Game Publishers*

Big Game Indies**

Game Indies***

ASO is not a miracle cure - with ASO you can grab a premium that is specific to your “class”

"For developers without access to a giant ad budget to boost-market their App into the Top Apple Charts, App Store SEO might be the best bet to improve discoverability inside the over-crowded App Store." Niren Hiro, Searchman

ASO Case Study for Indie Game Developers

ASO Case Study for Indie Game Developers

Courtesy: AppCodes.com

“Super Early days of ASO” boils down to manipulation of fairly simple keyword search, really

Pick probable keywords & check for the number of hits in the SERP

racing game fighting game laser game wheelsrobotsrobots on wheels robot gamesexy robots fighter robots

>100>100 90 >100 >100 10 15 305

ASO Case Study for Indie Game Developers

No of HitsSERP

Courtesy: AppCodes.com

As an indie game developer you will likely only be able to compete on some of the fringe keywords

racing game fighting game laser game wheelsrobotsrobots on wheels robot gamesexy robots fighter robots

5 331

ASO Case Study for Indie Game Developers

>100>100 90 >100 >100 10 15 305

No of HitsSERP Position in SERP

Courtesy: AppCodes.com

App Title

- Title is important

- Use keywords: “Lyrics”, “Bike Race Free”

For consumers the iOS 6 App Store update has significantly shortened the title space they can view.

For App Search

For Consumers

App Description

- Explain what the game does; first 2-3 lines key

- Use bullet points / keep it simple

- Important for conversion

Dos

Don’ts - Don’t brag about how consumers love your games;

you are wasting the 2-3 first lines

“For descriptions, we've advocated exactly what you have on there, but we also advocate including authoritative reviews in the description (certainly not in the top part of the description though -- we agree that's just a waste of text). For Google Play, it's even better if you can include reviews that include targeted keywords.” 

Patrick Haig, MobiledevHQ

Ratings & Reviews

- Getting more and more important (see above)

Ratings Are A Minimum Requirement

Internal and external reviews

- Happy about that 4 star average rating? The average rating on the App Store is 3.8

New users don’t understand if your game is any good as only the most positive ratings are a meaningful signal to users

- “Prompt users for feedback so users can convey problem before they post a negative review” (Appnique)

- Ask for reviews

“We have an article here from InsideMobileApps that illuminates how important ratings are, segmented by each store (Google Play and iTunes). Also, it's becoming even more important for publishers to improve upon their current version rating, as that's the only rating seen by a searcher in-device (i.e., searching on their iPhone or iPad). Users have to dig in order to see the All Versions rating, which just doesn't happen.” 

Patrick Haig, MobiledevHQ

App Icon

- Do not use words

- Do not use standard gloss

- Keep it simple and clean

- Consistent with the app

Source: http://www.pixelresort.com/blog/iphone-app-icon-design-best-practises/

Screenshots

Jai Jaisimha, Appnique

“Moment of truth: iOS6 design increases importance of the screenshot because that is mostly what they see in the App Store client on the phone”  “Definitely agree with where you're headed here. Screenshots need to be more than just screenshots. Advertising copy can be really helpful. Treating screenshots like a stop-motion commercial can be powerful.” Patrick Haig, MobiledevHQ

Competition Around App Search Queries

Where the mobile game gold rush is atTop 5 Mobile Consumer Game Interests, USA, iPhone

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%!of!Apps!in!Category!

% of Actives in Total Gaming, iPhone % of Apps in Total Gaming, iPhone

Build & Manage SimsRacing GamesClassic ArcadeJump & RunRole-Playing Games

!"!!!!!!

!1.0!!!!

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!4.0!!!!

!5.0!!!!

!6.0!!!!

!7.0!!!!

%!of!Ac1ves!in!Category!

%!of!Apps!in!Category!

% of Actives in Total Gaming, iPhone % of Apps in Total Gaming, iPhone

Learning Games for KidsSpace & AliensQuiz TriviaBlock GamesBoard Games

Where you currently don’t want to beTop 5 Game Interests with the highest discovery problem, USA, iPhone

Thank you