What to Look For in an ASO Agency

Working with an ASO agency? Why? Why not? Still wondering why ASO is important and how an agency will help you move forward? This is the article to check out.

Have you considered working with an ASO agency? Some developers view them as the answer to all their marketing-related problems. Others think they’re a waste of time and money. Still, others don’t know anything about ASO companies.

No matter which camp you fall into, this article will benefit you!

In it, we’ll explain why ASO is important (just in case you don’t already know), what app marketing agencies actually do, why they can help brands like yours, and, most importantly, whether your company should partner with a top app store optimization company or not.

Let’s dive in!

Why is ASO Important?

App Store Optimization, ASO for short, is the act of boosting an app’s visibility in the Apple App and Google Play stores in order to increase organic installs. This can be done via keyword research, the optimization of creative assets, implementing localization, and more.

ASO is absolutely essential to the success of your app. Without it, you’ll have a hard time convincing users to download your solution or game and your conversion rate will be low.

What Do App Marketing Agencies Do?

The answer to that question really depends on which app marketing agency you’re talking about, as different agencies provide different services to developers. But, generally speaking, these are a few tasks that an ASO agency might be asked to complete:

  • Develop an Overall ASO Strategy: First and foremost, app marketing agencies help app designers develop winning ASO strategies. There are two ways to reach the top of the Apple App and Google Play store charts: you can get lucky or you can get strategic. The latter option is much more reliable and a proper app store optimization company will come up with a gameplan to help your app achieve success.
  • Run Periodic ASO Audits: No ASO strategy is perfect, which is why the best ASO agencies run audits—just to see what’s working and what isn’t. They then take the information they learn to inform and update the ASO gameplans for their clients.
  • Design and Optimize Creatives: Your app page creatives will make or break your brand. By “creatives” we mean the icons, screenshots, and videos you use to promote your app to the world. An effective mobile app marketing agency will help you design eye-catching creatives and optimize them so they perform as well as possible.
  • Manage Advertisements: When you think about app marketing, you probably conjure up images of Apple Search Ads and Google UAC. You might think about Facebook and other social media advertising platforms as well. Many ASO agencies will manage and optimize ad spends for their rosters of clients.
  • Improve Organic Search Results: Lastly, through ASO audits, keyword research, and the optimization of app store creatives, app marketing agencies help developers improve their organic search performance. That way their apps appear in search results for key phrases, driving a steady stream of high-quality traffic.

App store optimization agencies aren’t limited to these five tasks, of course. And not every agency will perform all five jobs for clients. The above is just a general list of common tasks that the agency you partner with might be able to handle for you.

What Are the Benefits of Working With One of the Best ASO Companies?

Why would you hire an app store optimization company? Can’t you just market your apps yourself? Of course, you can. But working with an agency that specializes in ASO has many benefits. Here are two advantages, in particular, that you should be aware of:

  • Time Freedom: Testing creatives, optimizing your messaging, and otherwise marketing your app takes time—time that many developers simply don’t have. You can save countless hours of effort by offloading ASO duties to an agency.
  • Better Results: Let’s face it, you’re an app developer, not an app marketer. You’re really good at what you do, which has enabled you to create an amazing tool and/or game. Why not let those who specialize in ASO handle your app marketing? You’ll likely achieve better results because that’s what agencies excel at.

There’s one caveat to the benefits listed above: you have to work with a reliable app store optimization agency that can help you achieve your goals. In the next section, we’ll discuss what makes a good agency—that way you can partner with the right company.

What Makes a Good ASO Agency?

It depends…

What’s “good” to one app developer might be terrible for another. But in general, a top ASO company is one that does what they say they will for a price you can afford.

In our opinion, a great ASO agency is one that is: 

  • Experienced with companies that are comparable to you. If an agency only works with app brands and not so much with mobile games, it is probably the wrong decision to trust them with your ASO 
  • An expert in how mobile growth works and how ASO ties in. An agency that “blindly” tries to increase search ranking without a deep understanding of the mechanics of the store and how UA and browse influence search, or how the dynamics of paid Search Ads and organic search work would probably be unable to drive long-term results. 
  • Understands data. An agency has to understand ASO data and how to measure the impact of ASO efforts, as well as how to use data to create and improve App Store product pages. Without this understanding, you’ll be lost with no confidence as to what’s the impact of the efforts the agency is making, and why they decided to create certain product pages (no, beautiful is not a sufficient explanation).
  • Willing to transfer knowledge. One of the worst dynamics that can happen to a marketing team is that they’ll outsource a core competency of the team and accept that they’ll “never” become competent at that facet of their marketing. As ASO is one of the most important competitive advantages a mobile marketing has, it’s crucial that at the same time the agency is executing on a flawless strategy, they’ll also agree to transfer the knowledge to you so you will be on the trajectory to level up your own understanding of ASO.

Before you partner with any kind of ASO marketing agency, outline your unique needs and expectations. Then research companies that can meet them for you. Finally, reach out to viable partners who have a solid reputation amongst their clientele.

Should Your Company Partner With an ASO Agency?

Only you can answer that question for your company. But if you’re strapped for time and/or not achieving the results you want with your app, you should at least explore the possibility of working with an experienced mobile app advertising agency.

Once you partner with this kind of company, you’ll have more hours in the day to devote to business-building tasks that don’t involve marketing. You’ll also enjoy better results.

The only question left to answer is which ASO agency should you work with?

We suggest Storemaven. Our team has a deep knowledge and experience your brand needs to make it to the top of the Apple App and Google Play store charts. Once you partner with our App Store Optimization services team, our experts will assess and optimize your creatives so that they’re as effective as possible.

And our results speak for themselves. Here’s what we’ve been able to accomplish for clients:

  • +24% Conversion Rate
  • -57% UA Costs
  • +34% Lapsed User Re-Engagement

Contact us today to learn more about our ASO services.

About Ron Gordon
Ron is Storemaven's Head of Marketing, the one person you would have guessed will know what this mobile growth talk is all about. A misguided law student and journalist, Ron brings to the table some lack of seriousness the Hitech realm is desperately in need of. In his spare time, he's mainly trolling Whatsapp groups.

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