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How to Check an App's Apple App Store Feature History

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App Masters13:06Open on YouTube
Chapters show their main points

The bottom line

App Annie's free Featured history shows where and when an app was featured by Apple, in which countries and placements. Checking it, and the App Store banners, confirms a feature's reach and reveals category openings to pitch next.

Key takeaways

  • An Apple feature sends impressions and downloads far above any other campaign. 2:00
    • Impressions run into the millions. Games can see up to six figures of free value, and non-games roughly low tens of thousands up to about 100,000.
    • In-app purchases and subscriptions rise too, which is not true of every campaign.
  • The App Store itself shows which apps and categories Apple is featuring now. 2:41
    • Banners that promote a category, such as accessibility, meditation or health and fitness, signal a chance to pitch an app that fits it.
    • One client was featured in May by pitching an accessibility app under such a banner.
  • App Annie's Featured section shows where an app is featured today. 4:54
    • Search for the app, open its details and scroll to Featured. The tool is free.
    • Mindbliss shows a home feature in the US, a Montreal collection in Canada, and a top banner in US Health and Fitness.
  • The history view shows the dates, countries and placements of past features. 9:04
    • Filter to the home category for the most exposure. Mindbliss appeared in the US, Canada and Australia home pages on May 13.
    • The "new apps we love" spot gives strong lift, and a banner gives even more.
  • The free tool needs manual checking, while the paid AppBot sends an email alert. 8:33
    • AppBot also monitors reviews and tells you where the app was featured.
    • The history also shows which games a publisher got featured, which helps when approaching that publisher.

There's no greater I guess campaign that you can run then an apple feature in terms of downloads in terms of conversions or in-app purchases.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Apple features can be won on purpose

Apple features are a repeatable result of a deliberate pitch, not luck.

  • App Masters landed twelve Apple features in 16 months. 0:39
    • Three of them came in May alone.
    • Apple now has a set route for pitching, announced at WWDC in June 2017.
    • The team built its own angles on how to approach Apple.
    • The pitch process is taught in a separate webinar.

1:48 Spotting a feature from analytics and the store

The quickest proof of a feature is a jump in your own numbers, and the store itself shows who else is featured.

  • Your own analytics are the easiest check. 1:56
    • Impressions go "through the roof" once Apple features an app.
    • The size of the download gain depends on how much Apple likes the app.
    • A feature is the one campaign that lifts impressions this sharply.
  • Browsing the store shows current features, yours and others'. 2:41
    • It works in desktop iTunes or on a phone.
    • After a client pitch, he checks the store to see if the feature landed.
    • The view switches between iPhone and iPad.

4:08 Looking up features in App Annie

App Annie's Featured section confirms features by app, past or live.

  • An older feature can be checked by searching the app. 4:23
    • Paintball Rush was featured in China in May 2016 and earned about $30,000.
    • The Featured section opens on a snapshot of today's placements.
    • As of the June 2017 recording, the app was no longer featured, so it showed nothing live.
  • A live feature shows its placements right away. 5:16
    • Mindbliss, an AI guided meditation app, was featured after a pitch to Apple in May.
    • Checking it while preparing the video revealed a US banner he hadn't known about.
    • The tool lists the app under the exact Canada collection that features it.

6:33 Reading banners in the store and across countries

Store banners show exactly where an app is featured, and each country's store has to be checked separately.

  • The Health and Fitness page shows the live banner for a feature. 7:12
    • The banner is the artwork the developer had to submit to Apple for the possible feature.
    • Smaller banners such as workouts and trainers are other openings to pitch.
    • Scrolling the banners one by one is how the app turns up.
    • App Annie names the placement, then the store confirms it.
  • Switching the store country finds features abroad. 7:24
    • Switching is done from iTunes Connect.
    • The Canadian feature sat in a collection called "made in Montreal," so it took searching.
    • Nearby collections were "Celebrate Canada" and Vancouver.
    • The app sat a little buried in that collection.

8:33 Reading the feature history

The history view can be narrowed by date, country and category to answer whether a feature landed.

  • The history can be filtered to isolate real features. 9:04
    • The date range can be adjusted.
    • Countries can be picked, or set to worldwide.
    • The count shows how many times the app was featured.
    • The country list shows who featured it, and top banners show up too.
  • Each country can give a different placement for the same day. 10:55
    • On May 13, the US had the "new apps we love" spot.
    • Canada had a banner under featured home.
    • Australia also had "new apps we love."
    • The tool lists all the banners an app has had.

11:20 Why a feature beats other campaigns

Apple's editorial approval lifts every metric, not just downloads.

  • A feature can bring tens of thousands of downloads within days. 11:36
    • Other campaigns may raise downloads while other metrics stay flat.
    • A feature raises downloads, conversions and in-app purchases together.
    • People love Apple products and trust its curation.
    • Apple is editorial about who it features, so approval carries weight.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, an app marketing agency. Shows how to confirm whether an app landed an Apple feature, and where, using the App Store itself and a free feature-history tracker. Backed by an agency record of twelve Apple features for clients in 16 months, including three in May 2017 alone.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript320 lines
0:00

coming up you'll discover a free tool to help you see if you landed an Apple feature and also help you monitor future features stay tuned what is up at mission is CP young founder of ab masters co the place you go when you want action-packed content that's working to help you grow your app business to help you grow downloads for your app business I'm bringing the best content around in the interwebs today I really want to talk about an Apple feature it's something that we've gotten really good at we've helped three of our clients in may alone get featured by Apple twelve in the last 16 months it's something that we're really proud of and we've come up with some really unique angles on how to approach that and if you check my previous video you'll find the the new way of trying to land an Apple feature it was just announced in June in June of 2017 during WWDC Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and it's a brand new way so

1:09

go check that video out if you want to see how to approach Apple they systemized it in a way so definitely check that out and I just did a webinar yesterday if you're watching this video the day came out that's June 16th about our process on how we approached Apple and how we've landed those twelve Apple features now it's okay if you missed it there's a replay going on if you're watching this the date comes out but if you want access to that replay just go sign up for the it by going to at masters coke slash Apple that's at masters Cove slash Apple all right let's get to today's content about how do you really see if you got featured by Apple now it's one of those things where one the easiest way to figure this out is by singing your analytics you know your impressions are going to go through the roof when you brand an Apple feature right they just go through the roof we've got millions I mean I'm talking

2:10

about millions of impressions and then from depending on the type of app you have it can go to mid five figures to six figures for the type of apps you have for games you can go as high as six figures for free for an apple feature and for non games it's anywhere I would say on the low end probably low tens of thousands to you know 50 60 70 thousand hundred thousand the if Apple really likes your app now one of the easiest ways to see if you got in feature is through the App Store itself so this is my iTunes account now you can check this in your on your phone as well but I'm using I'm showing you my iTunes currently these are all the apps that are being featured right and so you can see these banners here you can see these apps generally when we help a client I feel pretty good about feature I'm always looking at these features because I want to see if we one got a client feature than two wanna excuse me

3:14

what other apps are being featured right now so this is a great way I just switch over from iPhone iPad you can see all that and you can kind of see which ones are being featured and what I also look for too and this is something I cover in the the webinar is pay attention to what's going on right here sometimes Apple will promote certain categories and it's a good opportunity for you to try to online an additional feature right by paying attention to these banners sometimes they'll say accessibility apps or that was one of the clients that we got featured less in May accessibility apps or it's a meditation or health and fitness so whatever they might be protein promoting in terms of categories pay attention to it because there might be an opportunity for you to be like oh wait that's what Maya that's perfectly in that category and it's a possible way for you to get featured okay we did that in May alone

4:08

alright the other tool that I want to share with you is a panning so this is a penny this is our app that we got featured it's called paintball rush and I'm going to kind of walk you through some of the ways you can do it so the first thing you want to do when you log into a panning if you have signed up definitely sign up but is search for your your app alright so paintball rush and I've already searched for that this is an app that we got featured in China in May of 2016 and we did pretty decent it goes about $30,000 so I had add that go and click that can be taken to a page by app details but you want to scroll down and go to the featured section once you're in the feature section this is where I was at we can then see today's Apple features right so usually once you click that it will show you a snapshot of what's happening today right now as of this recording June 12 2007 teen obviously we're not getting featured

5:12

anymore but it will show you if you are getting feature so let's pull up somebody that is getting feature this was past client of ours yeah it's a big big fan of his and I'm going to pull this up so you can see what his looks like because he is getting featured right now all right mindless is the app it's a great meditation app so if you're in the in the mood for meditation definitely check it out AI power guided meditation all right so here's this app right now I'm going to go into the featured section this is all free by the way and we help this app get featured in May pitching Apple and we got a home page feature in the US store and banners in Canada but I just noticed this because as I was prepping for this video it actually has a banner in the United States as well so here this is today that's happening it's telling you where it's being featured right now so right now I guess Canada

6:15

has a iPhone featured Home Collection list about made in Montreal and he's under that banner see you can even see that it's a it's one of those banners and its mind bliss right now and then the other thing is us how under the health and fitness he's got a top banner so I'll show you where that is because that Ben is telling us we go back to iTunes and I'll show you in the US right now we're going to go to health and fitness so all categories of fitness

6:54

to pay attention to this workouts and trainers this could be an opportunity for you to get future but let's scroll through these banners a little bit there he is see so a penny tells us exactly where he's being featured and then boom you can see in the app store is a beautiful banner that he had to submit to Apple for that possible feature okay the other thing I want to show you is because you saw that in Canada so you know where is that in Canada you can actually switch app stores with this so go into iTunes Connect if you're already there and then here's how you switch countries so I'll show you how to go to Canada real quick Canada and again we help this client get a you know new apps we love but that was back in May so in Canada you saw that hey they were being featured in Canada with apps that were made in Montreal so a little bit harder to find right so we're gonna have to search through a little bit and I'm

7:54

trying to look for that banner that they had - could be the top banner let's go back real quick let's see where they said featured it's in home and it's called made in Montreal let's see where that falls into Thunder it's got a little whatsapp message okay so here celebrate collections I was thinking oh here we go made in Montreal okay here it is right so celebrate Canada me to Vancouver made in Montreal and click they're a little bit buried but you see here is Mike Bliss again so that's where you kind of figure it out now for me there's a paid service called app bot which is really cool so you can add your app in there and then you get email us anytime your app is being featured an app bot will to actually tell you where it was being featured but this is the free tool a pop yet you have to pay that bot is really cool so if you want to monitor reviews your app story views as well they'll do

8:53

that as well and also tell you send you an email when it's been when your app screen feature for our client you know we're just going to have to scout our app any kind of figure out hey are digging featured or not so if you go into the history you'll see a bit more and I'll walk through this a little bit more to it should have the dates that we were actually featured yeah so feature at home okay so this has all the dates right if you can mess with a date range right here but this is where we were featured back in May and the home category under Canada and us so you got a you know the new apps we love right here under the home page let me say go back for you guys at the main homepage of the app store right here apps we love that's where we landed be the mind bliss app store feature if it's still there anyways we're right here so that's what this featured home means and then you can mess around with this so you can

9:43

pick different countries you can go worldwide with this or you can just say hey you know I don't want to see any of these categories stuff just show me things that happened in the home category because that's where the most exposure is going to be so you can see how many times you've been doing how many times you got featured and then in the countryside you can see which countries actually featured it in the home so we see Canada Australia the United States they all featured it under their home category because we monitored it with the feature at home in the different countries we're looking at the different countries now right that's the easy easy easy way of being able to see and you can even see if they got any top banners but I want to see all right now that's an easy quick and easy way of figuring out if you got an apple feature and let's see we can go back to this date so let's go back to May 13th 2007

10:35

and I'll show you what that looks like as well the home page stuff probably could go to 11 but here okay so right here so it's featured home that's in the new apps we love category that's where in the US we hit and then in Canada as you can see we got the banner under the feature at home so app banner under featured home and in Australia we got featured home you apps we love new apps we love that's where you really want to end up because that's where you'll get a lot of lift and getting the banner is even a greater list so you can see you know what happened he does is give you all the banners that you have and all this stuff you can look at some of your so if your I guess the other way you can use this is if you're trying to approach a game publisher you want to look back at some of the games they launched and you can kind of see when did the game come out did again a feature where do they get featured and again if you get

11:33

these features these can relate to tens of thousands of downloads in a matter of days like boom and definitely a ton of impressions so a lot of great things and I actually got a Facebook message today about some of your ads like does it increase paid subscriptions you know in-app purchases yes all that happens because there's no greater I guess campaign that you can run then an apple feature in terms of downloads in terms of conversions or in-app purchases like every other campaign that we've run we see good amount of downloads we may see a good amount on downloads but you know the other metrics may or may not go up as well but with Apple feature any time you run it you're going to see the Downloads you're going to see the increase in an app purchases you're going to see everything go up because there's a little sway you know obviously people love Apple products and so if Apple because they're so edit Oriole

12:26

with their featuring process if they say you're worthy of a feature you're going to get that increase in downloads and increase in sales so that is it that is the free tool that you can use to monitor your Apple features and again if you want to get access to that masterclass where I walk you step-by-step about how to pitch Apple that's working today okay none of these case study stuff about that happen maybe a few years ago but things are that are working today you want access to that masterclass go check out at masters Co slash Apple alright guys I'll see you later bye