The importance of ASO in paid UA campaigns

ASO and paid user acquisition meet at the store page. An ad can attract the right person and still lose the install if the listing tells a different story. An improved listing can help more traffic convert, but the commercial test is whether those users activate, retain and pay. Use the two disciplines together to diagnose the journey from ad promise to customer value.

We are all aware that great duos always have a power that their individual members would never have. They complement each other. They are yin and yang. One is better than the other and vice versa. As Aristotle said:

The same thing happens in the world of User Acquisition. The duo of ASO and Paid UA is much stronger together than each of them alone. And, as in the partners in crime we mentioned before, one can learn from the other – and improve with it.

Check your own listing: our free ASO Checker scores your App Store or Google Play listing in about 20 seconds and lists what to fix first.

First of all, Acquisition in Isolation is Insufficient

If you have a fruit shop and manage to attract many first-time customers, that’s great. But…

• If these customers come in and buy little fruit because the product is expensive or in poor condition, it’s not good news.
• Or, if they buy but don’t come back because when they took the fruit home, they realized it wasn’t very good, that’s not good news either.

Well, the same thing happens with your app. If your growth strategy is based on a “let’s bring people in and see if they pay or come back later” approach, we regret to inform you that you risk having an app that looks like this:

So, before we dive into this topic, we want to remind you (because we assume you already know, right? 🙃) that if you want to grow your install base, you need to consider three things:

1. Your Onboarding/Activation process needs to be as optimized as possible. Here we tell you more about this topic
2. Your re-targeting campaigns and CRM need to be a massive Retention weapon. If you still don’t know how to get started with your CRM, here we tell you what you need to consider when implementing one.
3. Your Monetization needs to show green shoots. You’ll always want more, but if you can’t get people to pay for your product, Houston, we have a problem. Here are some interesting monetization metrics for you to consider

But assuming that you already know all of this – although if you take a look at the articles before, we won’t tell anyone – let’s get to the heart of the matter Check Our User Acquisition Agency

How does Paid UA benefit from ASO?

Without getting into what App Store Optimization (ASO) is or covering the basics of Paid UA that every person dedicated to acquisition should know, there are several things that the latter can benefit from the former.

Find the right people and places 

If you have an app with subscriptions or In-App Purchases (IAPs), you may think that:

1. You have to go to countries with higher per capita income
2. Ideally, on iOS, which tends to pay more

Right? Well, it’s not that easy when you realize that:

• Paid UA campaigns on iOS, except for Apple Ads (formerly Apple Search Ads), have major tracking problems. Reduced attribution visibility can change reported ROAS without proving that actual customer economics worsened. Separate measurement coverage from cohort revenue when deciding whether to invest.
• Going after countries with higher economic capacity may sound sensible. But don’t forget that, like you, many other advertisers think the same. And most likely, your competitors too. What does this mean? That the CPCs/CPIs of countries like the United States, UK, Switzerland, Australia, etc. – generally grouped as Tier 1 – are often much more expensive. And, therefore, achieving an interesting return with campaigns may not be as easy as you had in mind.
• Many countries with high purchasing power such as Switzerland, Luxembourg, Monaco, or Singapore have a small “but” – either they don’t have a high population density – aka: you won’t catch much fish in that pond – or they have issues with English, and you’ll have to think about something that you probably didn’t want to face… creative localization!

Treat a new market as a testable expansion, not free traffic. Research local search language, adapt the message and screenshots, and check that the app and onboarding support the promise. Translation, creative and QA take resources even when the store does not charge for adding a localization. Prioritize a manageable set of markets and languages, then compare conversion and mature customer value before expanding further.

1. Hindi
2. English

Well, maybe it would be wise to launch both, do a small proof of concept with a controlled investment in Paid UA, and see how well each listing converts. But don’t get your hopes up because:

1. Where the platform and ad format support it, Apple’s custom product pages and Google Play’s custom store listings can route an audience to a relevant page. Verify the actual destination and language on supported devices before launch; a standard localized listing and a targeted custom page are different controls.
2. Do not assume store and MMP reports join at individual-user level. Apple provides custom-product-page performance and post-install engagement measures in App Analytics, while each reporting source has its own coverage and definitions. Agree what can be compared before claiming a listing improved customer quality.

Localization is not (just) about translation

By the way, this might be a slightly more advanced tip if you’re just starting out. But if you really want to leverage ASO to see how well localization works, repeat after me: “Localization is not just translation, Localization is not just translation, Localization is not just translation, Localization is not just translation…”. Because if I show you this picture where there is not a single word, you understand perfectly what we’re talking about, don’t you?

That’s why, when you think about localizing your store pages to test how they perform later in Paid, go beyond simply doing a quick translation of content. In fact, maybe a good strategy could be to do an AB testing where you try:

1. Translating content only
2. Translating + adding an element of the country’s idiosyncrasy (colors, flag, typical monuments in the screenshots, etc.)

And see how it works. Because if you want to get results for Paid UA using ASO as a “sparring partner,” the first thing you need to know is that everything you will do will be based on hypotheses that you will test, and… the data will speak! It does seem like a near-certain truth that if you intend to run campaigns targeting users in France, Spain, or China with a product page in the store in English, you are not likely to be a success story in terms of the acquisition. Or maybe you will be. If you manage to achieve wonderful results without localizing anything at all, please let us know. Tip: the best experience that people will get while interacting with you is when you localize everything from ad creatives to the app itself. Having only some of them localized might lead to confusion but it’s always a great idea to test.

Reduce your blended CAC

Channel acquisition costs can look healthy while the total mix tells a different story. To compare channels, use the same acquisition event, time window and cost definition, and count each user only once. For a growth decision, also compare how those cohorts activate, retain and pay.

The following hypothetical example calculates listed acquisition cost divided by acquired users. Organic acquisition is assigned $0 for this calculation, and staffing, ASO work and other unlisted costs are excluded. These are simplified planning inputs, not fully loaded CAC or a benchmark for your app. Assume:

• The referral program spends $20,400 to acquire 1,700 users. That is $12 per acquired user in this example. Include both sides of any referral reward in the cost; the example does not specify a split between them.
• You are investing in Paid UA across multiple Ad Networks.
• You have an influencer campaign running.

Scenario 1 includes $100,400 of listed cost and 7,972 acquired users, so cost per acquired user is $12.59 after rounding. Scenario 2 changes one assumption: organic acquisitions rise from 1,500 to 2,000 while the listed costs and all other channel counts stay fixed. A ranking improvement alone does not establish that these extra users will arrive.

With those assumptions, cost per acquired user falls to $11.85. The listed cost stays at $100,400; the extra 500 users lower the average cost, not the total cost. Paid UA still costs $12 per acquired user in both scenarios.

The useful next step is to test whether a store change adds incremental acquisitions and whether those users become valuable customers. Keep the paid mix comparable, record the costs of the ASO work and review mature cohorts. A lower blended average does not justify a higher paid acquisition cost by itself.

Make your upper funnel conversion rate a non-issue

With the fierce competition and growing bids, you want to decrease your CPIs as much as possible. While you can’t control how much your competition is bidding on one install what you can work on is your funnel. This is where ASO becomes even more important for Paid UA campaigns. Because ASO – unlike what you may think – is not just about organic acquisition. It’s about optimizing the Store for any user who lands on it. Therefore, this is where your ASO work has to serve your Paid UA campaigns as well. Because it’s useless to have brutal CPMs in your campaigns, with CTRs worthy of being best practices… if the conversion to download doesn’t happen when users land on the store. So it’s VERY necessary that when the user from your Ad Networks lands on the Store (whether on Google or Apple), the “house is clean”. So you need to have the conversion funnel very well worked out – depending on the store from:

• Impression to Product Page View
• Product Page View to Download

For Paid UA, the second one is especially important. So you need your ASO team/agency/specialist to understand that their work is VERY necessary not only for the Organic growth we saw in the previous table. But also for any channel downloads. To put it this way, the ASO team is in charge of supervising the quality of the food in the restaurant, regardless of whether the diner wants to eat meat, fish, or a salad later. There has to be a minimum quality in each of those foods.

On top of that, the combined efforts of ASO and paid can increase the organic rankings of your app which will increase your brand awareness. Higher brand awareness in its turn can lead to lower CPIs.

Your store presence is part of a bigger narrative 

Imagine you’re on the subway and as you scroll through Instagram Stories – tired of seeing all your friends on the beach while you’re going to work – you see an ad for an app offering last-minute priced tickets to events. It catches your attention. They use a very friendly tone and even make a pun about you possibly having stayed in your city instead of going to the beach due to work. And since you like it, you click! Mini win accomplished. After clicking, it takes you to the Store and suddenly you don’t understand anything. Completely different colors, a Store in a language that is not yours (remember how important it was to localize?). You don’t understand anything. Not only because of the language but because it feels like you’ve made a mistake. That app can’t be the one from the ad. Bye. Potential download lost. Making sure that your ad creatives and store listing screenshots are consistent with each other people won’t have any confusion between the steps and will have a smooth impression to install process. You might be thinking “How can I assure consistency in my creatives and app store screenshots if I’m testing different creative concepts to increase my ad’s CTRs? Should I ask my ASO team to change the screenshots every time I’m testing new creatives?” Very valid question but it’s not necessary. This is where the concept of Custom Product Pages (iOS) or Custom Store Listings (Android) comes in. With their pros and cons, they are a valuable resource to ensure that, without having to change the store screenshots every time you test new creatives in Paid UA, your app tells a similar story before and during the download. And if you want it to tell the story after the download as well, this is where we talk about a concept known as “Targeted Onboarding“.

Conclusion

It makes no sense for ASO and Paid UA to be seen as separate entities or as two teams that do not work together – under the same and combined strategy. Furthermore, another key point to take away is that Acquisition cannot be looked at in silos, understanding (and worrying) about specific channels. You have to look at it as a whole, understanding the sum of its parts and how to make each of them more efficient. And all of this without including the fact that your Acquisition has to be interconnected with the rest of the Product. And work hand in hand. Because if your app has its product parts working in vertical lanes instead of all being in the same car, the chances of a crash on the road are much higher (and catastrophic for your app).