App store marketing: how to get an app found and downloaded Found in search, chosen on the page, kept by ratings.

app store marketing is everything you do to get an app found in the App Store and Google Play, chosen on its product page, and kept long enough to earn good ratings. it covers three jobs: discovery (search, browse, featuring, ads), conversion (the page itself) and retention signals (ratings and reviews). most of it is free.

this guide gives you the levers on both stores side by side, splits them into free and paid with honest costs, shows how off-store work feeds store ranking, and ends with a 30 day plan you can run yourself.

What app store marketing actually covers

app store marketing covers three stages. discovery is how people land on your page: search, browse tabs, editorial features and ads. conversion is whether they tap get once they arrive. retention signals are the ratings and reviews that come later and shape both. a weak link anywhere wastes the work done on the other two.

• discovery. keywords, category, in-app events, featuring, Apple Ads (formerly Apple Search Ads), and traffic you send from outside the store.
• conversion. icon, screenshots, app previews, subtitle and the first lines of the description. this is the product page doing its job.
• retention signals. star rating, review volume and how you reply. people read these before they download, and Apple lists positive ratings among the things it weighs for featuring.

if you want the full funnel view beyond the store, from install to day 30 retention, that is the job described in what an app growth marketer does.

The levers on the App Store and Google Play

both stores give you the same basic toolkit: a listing you control, alternate pages for different audiences, built-in A/B tests, timely event cards, rating prompts and a paid ad product. the names and limits differ. the table below maps each lever across the two stores, using limits from Apple’s and Google’s own documentation.

lever	App Store	Google Play
core listing	name and subtitle (30 characters each), a 100 character keyword field, up to 10 screenshots and 3 app previews (Apple)	app name (30), short description (80), full description (4,000) (Google)
audience specific pages	up to 70 custom product pages, which can be tied to keywords and ads	up to 50 custom store listings, targeted by country, user state, keyword, ads or URL
A/B tests	product page optimization: up to 3 treatments, one test at a time, up to 90 days	store listing experiments: up to 2 variants per experiment
timely content	in-app events: up to 10 live at once, each up to 31 days	promotional content, formerly LiveOps: offers, events, major updates
selling on the page	promoted in-app purchases, up to 20	offers inside promotional content
ratings prompt	SKStoreReviewController / RequestReview, up to 3 prompts per user in 365 days	In-App Review API, with a time-bound quota
editorial	featuring nominations in App Store Connect	promotional content can surface in the Events tab and curated tabs
paid	Apple Ads	Google App Campaigns

the keyword work behind the first row is covered step by step in the ASO checklist. screenshot sizes, badge rules and listing requirements are in app store marketing assets.

Free levers: what you can do without an ad budget

the free levers are the listing, custom pages, tests, events, featuring nominations and ratings. none of them cost money, only time and decent creative. for an early app they are where i start, because they raise the conversion rate of every visitor, including the paid ones you add later.

1. fix the product page first. the first screenshots show in search results, so they must sell the main outcome in one glance.
2. run one test at a time. use product page optimization or store listing experiments on the icon or first screenshot. change one thing, read the result, move on.
3. build custom product pages per audience. if a TikTok ad promises “homework help in one photo”, send that traffic to a page that shows exactly that.
4. publish in-app events. a challenge, a season, a new feature launch. event cards can show in search and on your page, and can be promoted up to 14 days before they start.
5. nominate for featuring. Apple asks for at least two weeks notice and suggests up to three months for wider consideration. it costs nothing to submit.
6. ask for ratings at the right moment. after a win, not on first launch. reply to low reviews, especially after you ship a fix.

Paid levers: what promotion on the App Store really costs

paid app store promotion has no fixed price. Apple Ads runs as an auction where you set the most you will pay per tap, or per install on Apple Ads Basic, plus a budget. your real cost depends on keyword competition, your page’s conversion rate and your category. anyone quoting one number without seeing your app is guessing.

what you are actually choosing between:

• Apple Ads. ads in search results, the Search tab, the Today tab and on product pages. standard campaigns use cost per tap bidding. Apple Ads Basic charges per install against a monthly budget you set. the full setup is in Apple Ads for apps.
• Google App Campaigns. Google’s automated app campaigns place ads across Google Play, Search, YouTube and the Display Network from one setup.
• off-store paid social. TikTok, Meta and Reddit ads that send people to the store. you pay the platform, and the store sees the installs.

a simple rule on cost: a better page makes every paid channel cheaper, because more of the people you pay for actually install. that is why the free levers come first.

How off-store marketing feeds store ranking

off-store marketing feeds store ranking by sending real people who search for you, install and stay. Apple and Google do not publish their ranking formulas, so treat any exact claim with care. what i see in accounts is simple: branded searches and installs rise after a video or thread takes off, and category rank follows.

the channels that do this best for consumer apps:

• TikTok and UGC. raw phone-shot videos of someone using the app. the viewer searches the app name, lands on your page and installs. how to test these at volume is in app creative testing.
• Reddit. answers in the subreddits where your users already ask for help. these threads also rank in Google for years.
• creators and communities. smaller creators in one niche often beat one big name.

at ZuAI (now Professor Curious) this was the engine that took us from 10K to 2M users at $0.02 CAC in eleven months. off-store content created the demand. the store page just had to convert it.

one warning. never buy installs, fake reviews or incentivized ratings. Apple’s App Review Guidelines say manipulation of reviews or chart rankings can get you expelled from the developer program.

A 30 day app store marketing plan

a 30 day plan works best in four weekly blocks: fix the page, open organic reach, test demand from outside the store, then add paid with a budget cap. each week has one goal and one number to check. skip ahead to ads before the page converts and you pay to learn what a free test could show.

week	goal	actions	number to check
1	a page that converts	rewrite name, subtitle and keywords, redo the first three screenshots, add a rating prompt after a key win	product page conversion rate
2	organic reach	publish one in-app event or promotional content, submit a featuring nomination, start one listing test	impressions and search downloads
3	outside demand	post five to ten UGC videos, answer ten relevant Reddit threads, build one custom page for that traffic	branded searches and installs
4	capped paid test	run Apple Ads on your brand and a few high intent keywords with a fixed budget, point ads at custom pages	cost per install and day 7 retention

the volumes in this plan are illustrative for a small team, not benchmarks.

When to bring in help

bring in help when the free levers are done and you are still guessing what to test next, or when paid spend is growing faster than retained users. a store-only specialist can own keywords, pages and tests. a growth marketer connects the store to ads, creative, onboarding and retention.

what each option does, and how to pick, is in app store marketer: what one does and when to hire one.