Organic User Acquisition

What is Organic User Acquisition

Organic user acquisition (UA) is the science of leveraging a set of marketing initiatives to drive organic installs. The definition of organic installs being installs that aren’t coming from paid ads but are driven by platforms themselves – the App Store and Google Play. 

To rely only on paid UA (paid for advertising campaigns) for discoverability of an app is limiting traffic potential, app developers and marketers generally use a combination of organic and paid UA in a two-pronged UA strategy to help drive traffic, quality installs and growth. 

Why Organic User Acquisition is Important

In the App Store, 80 to 85% of users install apps organically, meaning they’re using the store to install. Understanding the levers that can be pulled that will increase the way Apple surfaces your app in those areas, could increase growth through organic installs. 

There are multiple marketing tools available that will increase discoverability and drive organic UA. Brand awareness can be raised offline through advertising on TV or billboards, or online in the form of branded ads, influencer campaigns and getting featured in the ‘For You’ tab on Google Play and the ‘Today’ tab on the App Store. One way that’s related to the ASO industry is optimizing an app listing in order to increase conversion for organic installs of users that are browsing (iOS) or exploring (Google) top charts for specific apps. 

Organic UA can bring invaluable traffic. For any user that consciously took the necessary steps to find and download an app of their own accord, means they’re immediately more engaged and invested in making the most of the experience. 

Organic User Acquisition and ASO

Organic UA is essentially any marketing effort that drives app installs without the use of paid ads. One example of how they dynamics of Organic UA work is demonstrated below:

• driving the highest conversions for browsing and searching traffic arriving in the App Store looking for an app or game 
• which will in turn reduce ever-increasing cost per installs (CPIs) 
• whilst increasing return on ad spend (ROAS). 
• and increasing in top charts ranking and keyword ranking

Although, organic UA really can result in impressive growth and considerable visibility; there are lots of options for how to implement it. (More about it here.) 

A huge role in increasing growth, CVR, and more organic installs is understanding and making a science out of organic UA, then building a marketing strategy around it that leverages the knowledge from UA and ASO teams. Organic UA needs to be implemented in a much more holistic way, now more than ever.