CaddieOpen in CaddieDownload for Mac

How to Increase Organic Downloads Without Changing Keywords

Shared by Caddie Library · Updated
App Masters15:51Open on YouTube
Chapters show their main points

The bottom line

Testing App Store screenshots lifts organic downloads without touching a single keyword, with one case reaching 61%. Keywords only get people to the page, so what they see there decides whether they install.

Key takeaways

  • Screenshots and the app icon sell the app once someone finds it. 1:14
    • Showing faces in the first three screenshots raised conversions, because people like seeing other humans.
    • Showing more of the app itself also raised downloads in other case studies.
  • The first three screenshots matter most, so they are the ones to test. 6:49
    • In portrait mode they show up in search results and Apple ads.
    • Screenshots four to ten matter less, because people do not scroll that fast.
  • Small visual changes can produce large download gains. 2:51
    • A sporty background beat a plain blue one by 10 to 13%. Highlighting features in a second test brought the total to 61%.
    • Other tests gave 30% for variant B and 13.8% for redesigned screenshots.
  • Test one change at a time unless the app has massive downloads. 4:19
    • The 61% case came in two phases, background first and feature screens second.
    • App Store Connect allows only one product page optimization test or draft at a time, so a second upload throws an error.
  • No result is guaranteed, so each app has to test its own. 2:23
    • Angry Birds found that standard screenshots beat seasonal ones, against popular belief.
    • Video usually helps games but often hurts conversion for non-games.

These subtle little differences make a huge difference.

Steve P. Young

Chapter summaries

0:00 Case studies of screenshot tests

Small changes to screenshots move downloads, and the biggest gains come from showing the app's features.

  • Highlighting features lifted downloads 45% with the same words 2:21
    • Titles and subtitles barely changed between the two versions.
    • Steve's team now builds this style into client screenshots and sees gains too.
    • The test came from Split Metrics and AppScreens, which publish many such case studies.
    • The first change was the sporty background. The feature highlighting came on top of it.
  • Even plain redesigns pay off 0:34
    • One client's original screenshots were not pretty, and new ones beat them.
    • The Apple examples shown have less impressive numbers, but they come straight from Apple's own case studies.
    • The 30% test was an older case from Steve's first video on making screenshots.

4:33 What to test

Six themes cover most screenshot tests.

  • Test branded design, seasonality, order, orientation, text callouts and video 4:33
    • Orientation means landscape versus portrait.
    • Text callouts are the headlines on each screenshot.
    • Branded design and seasonality were already covered by the earlier case studies.
    • Screenshot order is the theme Steve tests in his own demo.

5:13 Testing screenshot order in AppScreens

Reordering screenshots in AppScreens takes a few drags, so what to put first is the real decision.

  • Lead with the features that set the app apart 6:26
    • Steve tests his Paraphrase app, which now has a voice feature that translates speech into any language.
    • He wants to see if speak-and-translate beats rewriting in your own style.
    • His first three: Paraphrase AI with the brand, humanized text, and speak or write.
    • Translation from any language is also highlighted.
  • Save the new order, then export it for a product page test 7:33
    • The export screen lets you pick localizations, and Steve keeps only the US.
    • He removes the Android screenshots before exporting.

7:56 Creating a test from AppScreens

A screenshot test can go from design tool to App Store Connect in a few clicks.

  • Setting up a product page optimization test takes seconds. 8:03
    • Choose product page optimization, not a custom product page, and add one treatment.
    • The finished test appears in App Store Connect under product page optimization, ready to start.
    • Connect the store credentials first, then create the test.
    • The screenshots arrive in the right order, so the test starts with one click.

9:16 Reading the first result and planning the next tests

Reordering screenshots gave a small but worthwhile win, which points to the next variations.

  • Putting Speak first and moving Rewrite in your style to fourth won the test. 9:44
    • The original order led with Rewrite in your style, then Translate.
    • The uplift was small, but enough to highlight the app's new features.
    • The Angry Birds case was also a small uplift.
    • Applying a result changes the live listing, so be careful with the apply button.
  • Social proof is the next variation to test. 10:38
    • It adds five stars and laurel badges, tested as social proof versus base.
    • A testimonial or an average rating could stand in for the stars.
    • Each test can also be localized by language.

11:58 Testing a human, and what a small lift is worth

Even a modest lift adds real downloads, so tests should keep running one after another.

  • A human in front is the next test, and it needs the old draft cleared first. 12:38
    • Uploading a second test while a draft exists returns an error.
    • Deleting the draft lets the human versus screen test upload.
    • The test is added for review and then submitted, one at a time.
    • Manual uploads often scramble screenshot order, while AppScreens keeps it correct.
  • A 15% lift on 10,000 downloads is 1,500 more installs. 14:34
    • That gain comes without any keyword changes.
    • The human test result is promised for a later video.

In the growth library

Steve P. Young, Founder of App Masters, app growth and ASO expert. Screenshots and the app icon are a major ASO lever beyond keywords, and A/B testing them through Product Page Optimization can lift organic downloads. A case study moved installs 61% across two sequential screenshot tests, with other examples at 13.8%, 30% and 45%.

Lessons that draw on this:

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

Transcript395 lines
0:00

Coming up, I'm going to share with you an [music] ASO case study where downloads increased by 61% without ever touching the keywords. Stay tuned. [music] What is up, App Nation? It is Steve P. Young, founder of appmasters.com, the place you go when you want action-packed content related to helping you grow your app downloads and more importantly, those revenues. And in this video, I'm going to share with you the critical component of app store optimization beyond your keywords and how you can easily AB test this particular element.

0:44

Let's get to it. If you're new to the channel or you've been here a little bit, you're going to find out that I love me a slideshare. So, here it is. How to increase organic downloads without ever touching the keywords. And in a previous video that I'm going to link up right now, I show you how easy it is to create screenshots, but I'm going to show some case studies that show you the value of really AB testing your screenshots. So, that was the answer. This is the critical component to ASO that you can leverage your app icon and more importantly your screenshots because your screenshots are here to sell your particular product.

1:28

Here it goes. Here's a older case study that I covered in that first video but AB testing these screenshots. We saw B drive 30% more downloads. I want to show you a few others. But we've also found that showing faces in the initial first three screenshots actually increase conversions. Obviously, we like to see other humans. So, that works really well. I want to give you some Apple specific. These numbers are not that impressive, but I want to give you some Apple specific ones that they've covered. We've got some more impressive ones that I will show you in a bit, but Angry Birds, they AB tested having seasonal screenshots to see if that performed better than non-seasonal ones.

2:11

So, here are the numbers. Here are the treatments. You can see this one's the standard one. And here is the more seasonal screenshot that they AB tested. And here are the results. They saw that contrary to popular belief that the standard screenshots actually did better than the seasonal screenshots. Here's another client that where we AB tested their screenshots. Granted, the original ones were not as pretty as I hope it'd be, but we created some new ones and we saw a 13.8% increase in downloads with the new and improved screenshots. All right, here's the 45% thanks to our friends at Split Metrics and App Screens who has a bunch of these resources and the valuable resource and all the case studies on there. So, I'm going to link up that blog post into the YouTube description as well, but here it is. This is the A versus B. Here's the winning variant. B, 10 to 13% increase in downloads. As you

3:13

can see, they were testing more of a sporty background than just a simple blue background. They took this even further and started really highlighting some of those features. So, here you can see these screenshots. The the words don't change, the titles and subtitles don't change that much, but they're really highlighting some of those features. We started implementing that into our screenshots that we create for our clients. We're seeing improvements, too. And so, I would definitely do this.

3:43

And that was the only difference. These subtle little differences make a huge difference. This saw a 45% increase in downloads. So, pretty interesting there. And what we've also seen with other case studies is that showing more of your app actually does increase those downloads. All right. Overall, from the original to now that, as you can see, it was two phases, right? It went from A to B with the sports background where the second test now was only testing more uplose features and uplose screens. So do it one at a time. That's what I would say.

4:20

Okay. Unless you have massive downloads, do one test at a time. Okay. In summary, there was a 61% increase in installs for this particular case study. All right. Now, here's some of the testing themes that you can do. Branded design, obvious, we just covered that. Seasonality, covered that during the Angry Birds. Screenshot order. I'm going to kind of highlight that right now. Orientation, so landscape versus portrait. Text call out. Kind of talked about that in some of the headlines. And lastly, video or no video. Now, for most games, video actually improves that conversion rate and that increases downloads. But for non-games, usually you don't really need a video. Sometimes we've seen video actually hurt conversion rates and downloads, right?

5:08

So, here's some of the things, the important themes that you want to be testing. All right, so we're going to take our app right here and we're going to do some AB testing. And I already got some results for you, so it's going to be very interesting, right? Shall we get into it? All right, thanks to my friends at Appcreens, in a previous video, I showed you how easy it is to create these type of screenshots. So, I'm not going to cover that. We've already done all the screenshots. I'm going to show you how to actually AB test your particular screenshots and how easy it is to do that within app screens. But if you want to watch that first video, I'm going to link that up right now for you to watch. All right, for this particular project, I'm going to just test screenshot order. All right, so here we go. Here's how you do it. You click this little icon right here at the very top.

5:56

All right, I added this feature and I'm super proud of it and my team added this within paraphrase. So this allows you to humanize your text. This is our app and we added this voice feature. So instead of having to write it out, you can speak it out and then also we will translate it to any language. So you can say it in whatever language you want. So, I want to see if speaking and then translating would be more impressive than rewriting in your own style. So, I might just move this around right here. You know, write smarter in any tone, no ad summarize easily. And then I might want to move this over to I like this. This doesn't fit well, but I'm going to move that order. So, you can move things around.

6:42

Now, the main thing that you have to really pay attention to, I moved a lot of things around just to show you how easy it is, but the first three screenshots are the most important, especially if you're in vertical mode, right? If you're in portrait mode, because those show up in the actual search results in the actual Apple ads, those show up more. So, the first three are the most important, and those are the three that I would actually be testing. Which three you should show front and center. four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. You can go up to 10. Don't really matter as much in my opinion, okay? Because they're not going to scroll that fast. So, that first three, I've got the main features.

7:19

Paraphrase AI, my brand is there, humanized text, just another keyword we've gone after. Speak or write, that's a cool feature that I think makes us different. And then translate from any language. So, I really want to highlight that. So, I'm going to hit save here. Boom. Updated. All right. Now, let me show you how easy it is to create a product page optimization test all within app screens. So, we're going to go to preview and export right here.

7:45

Now, I'm just going to take these Android off. We can do different localizations. I'm just going to keep it for the US for now. And then this is fine. We got paraphrase. You need to make sure your credentials are all hooked up. So, I've got that hooked up. Now, I can always replace that primary listing or just click this icon. I'm going to create not a custom product page, but you can do that in here. And then I'm going to do product page optimization. I like to do just one treatment at a time. So, I'm just going to put one treatment. I'm going to leave this as is just because it's a test. And I'm going to hit create. And just like that, we are done. That's how quick it was. I didn't do any editing tricks there. It was that fast. Now, shall we look at what it looks like within App Store Connect? All right, I'm in App Store Connect. You're ready for distribution. Now, this is just for those who are just starting out. You

8:41

want to go to product page optimization right here. This is where you do all the AB tests. Okay, funny enough, I've already run this test. So, I'll give you those results in just a bit, but let's take a peek at that product page optimization test that appc screens created. Here it is. All the screenshots in the right order, and I can easily start a test right here. And we're off and running. That's how easy and seamless it is to do product page optimization within app screens. All right, so I'm going to show you the actual results. from rewrite versus speak. So, I'm going to show you the screenshots first that I ran. Now, I've actually already applied this. So, this is what it looks like right now.

9:30

That's the current one. So, be careful when you hit apply. Here's the original screenshots that I had. So, you had rewrite in your style and then translate. And now with the test that won, spoiler alert, you can see that I moved rewrite in your style to the fourth and speak or write one. So, let's look at the view analytics right here. And I'll show you the proof that it did in fact win right here. So, the treatment A saw it. Now, it's small and it's relatively going to be small.

9:58

Remember that Roio Angry Birds example? It was a pretty small uplift, but still good enough for me to take that, especially to highlight some of the new features we've incorporated into the app. That's how easy it is. All right. Now, let me show you a few other projects that we've already created within app screens. And I want to kind highlight these for you. You saw how easy it was. This one is a very interesting one. Now that I've seen what works, I'm going to reorder these again.

10:27

So I want to put speak and then rewrite. That's more interesting. Summarize smarter tone eight. Yep, that works for me. This is what one from my original. The difference here is we have social proof. So I want to see if that works a bit better. Now, you can put a testimonial in there or you can put average rating, but we have the five stars. Number one, these little I forget what they're called, but these little feather leafy thingies. That always helps. And again, you can go preview and export, select the different languages you want because we could have localized them if we wanted to. I'm just going to select English. Again, I'm going to show you how to create that. So, I'm going to hit this plus icon because this is iOS only.

11:12

I'm going to get rid of Android just to make life easier. I'm going to create product custom page again. And then this is social proof versus base for example. And then we're going to do one treatment just that. Hit create and boom that is into the app store as well. Now let's go back to the last one test that we want to do. I'm going to hit save for this. Right. This one we're going to test with a human in front. Right. So again, I'm going to reorder this because we found what one. So I want what speak, right?

11:50

Rewrite. And everything else works just as fine. So I want to see if this person can drive more results for us. So I'm going to hit save here. Now the thing to note is you can only have one product page optimization draft or tests at a time. So, you can't create more drafts without one test being over. All right. So, I stopped that original test I had running and then I was able to upload, but I can't upload right now. So, I'm going to try to do it right now and I'll I'm show you the error that you get just so you guys can see. You don't freak out if you get this error. Okay. So, I'm going to go here and then I'm going keep this pretty simple.

12:29

I'm going to put human versus screen and then put one and then hit create again. Here I'm getting this error because I have a draft in App Store Connect. All right. So, I'm going to delete that draft and then I'm going to upload this for you cuz I want to test this next as my next one anyways. So, I'm going to show you that right now. All right, I'm back. Now, we're going to I want to AB test this because I'm very interested to see if a human version could help affect that. So, I'm going to hit export.

13:05

Again, I'm only going to put Android. I want to be upload to App Store. Right here, I'm just going to select the 6.5. So, I'm going to make that easy. Make sure it's just English. And then again, I'm going to do a product page optimization. So, 50%. Yep. one treatment and then what we're going to call it human versus screen. That's what we're going to call it. Great. Boom. Now, let's go start that test within App Store Connect. We're in App Store Connect right now. We got our human versus screen. That app screens uploaded for us. I'm going to check it.

13:45

Looks good. Looks exactly like what it looks like on app screens right here. So, I'm like, "All right, beautiful." and in the right order. If you've ever tried to manually upload screenshots with an App Store Connect, it screws up the order quite a bit. And so I love that Appcreens already has it in the right order. I'm going to hit start test right here. You have to add it for review. So if you have other things in review, make sure it's one at a time. So I'm going to hit add for review and then hit submit for review.

14:19

And we are done. And I will let you guys know in another video which screenshot performs better. Human versus screen. All right guys, that is it. Now [music] if only you get 10 to 13% increase in downloads. Just imagine if you're already at 10,000 downloads and you get a 15% [music] increase. Not that much, right? You're like, "Oh, 15% not that impressive." That's an additional 1,500 [music] downloads without doing a thing. And appc screens makes it [music] so easy for you to test these things and create those [music] screenshots. So, if you want to use appc screens, which I know from the first video you guys are already starting to use, go use that [music] link that I have in the YouTube description and check it out and share your AB test with me as [music] well.

15:16

steve appmasters.com. All right, thank you to my [music] friends at AppScreens. Go check them out. It is so simple to [music] use to generate the screenshots, to generate CPPs. And in a future video, I'm going to share with you the power of CPPs and when and how to actually use them to increase your [music] conversion rates. All right, until next time. I'll see you on the next video. [music]