How to Track ASO Metrics and KPIs?
When you have completed your ASO strategy, track ASO metrics and KPIs to see if your hard work is worth the effort with impact analysis. While the most important goal of an ASO strategy is increasing the number of organic installs, many metrics will help track your ASO progress.
Every KPI plays a significant role to make sure that you are in the right direction; when you aren’t on the right track, warning flags will be raised and point out your attention in the right direction for troubleshooting.
Tips to Monitor App Store Optimization Performance
Tracking can be possible with the ASO tool to check the rankings of your keywords throughout your app store optimization. ASO tools track hundreds of thousands of keywords across Google Play Store, Apple App Store etc. because many tools also offer a timeline and historical data for these search terms, it’s a good practice to start tracking your keywords before you change your metadata. So, you know which keywords should be followed and focused on. You can also determine the impact of changes by tracking keywords you made not only for the high-level data of the App Store analytics but also in the more granular details of the keyword rankings.
How to Track Keyword Ranking KPI?
After selecting your tracking tool, You will be able to monitor the rankings of your most targeted keywords. When new metadata is approved and released on the App Store, the latest keyword rankings are updated the same day. The keywords that are not included in the metadata of the app are likely to lose rankings right away. On Google Play, It may take a little longer for the algorithm to index your app keywords.
Read More: Apple App Store Peer Group Benchmarks
When performance measurement of visibility optimizations, Instant reporting on keyword rankings earlier and later your visibility changes; Especially, look for keywords that rank in the top 10. Because ranking outside of the top 10 keywords results will not produce a significant amount of visibility.
Unlike on the App Store, updating your keyword metadata of the app on Google Play does not always make an instant or significant change in keyword rankings. Sometimes, Google may still rank the keywords After the phrase is removed from the app listing. This is because algorithm of Google is more advanced than Apple’s and takes into account signals such as skip-gram analysis.
While your App Store keyword rankings are updated instantly after releasing a new version of the app, it is significant Keep in mind that your keyword rankings will change over time and are not likely to remain in the position for a long period of time that they first hit for.
Track the app’s keyword rankings move for one week after an app update and Then, after giving your new keyword rankings enough time to adjust, adjust your keyword selection accordingly. Unlike looking at individual keywords, you can also consider your keyword rankings with tools such as AppTweak, Data.ai etc.
Tips for Monitoring the Visibility of Your App
Monitoring keyword rankings is not enough to measure the impact of the changes you made. Changing keyword ranking from #20 to #1 with a volume of 0.5/10 will not increase extra downloads or visibility. Neither will move from position 120 to position 34 for a high-volume keyword. Different ASO tools have provided their metrics to help marketers better understand the impact on visibility.
An example of this is Data.ai Visibility Score which helps marketers understand whether the visibility of the app in the search results improved after a metadata update.
How to Measure the Organic Uplift of Your App?
As discussed in the previous section, the main goal of ASO is not keyword rankings These are used only to provide a quick sign of success in becoming organic installs. After all, what good is visibility if it does not increase conversions? Here we are going to discuss installs and a few other KPIs you should learn more about. Now with the latest update of Google, it is easy to calculate organic installs because now all inorganic downloads go to third-party referrals.
Install KPI
Installs are the main KPI used to measure the impact of an ASO work; this KPI falls between a store visitor seeing your app product page and getting more installs and improving your rankings. However, not all of the downloads or installs do not active users.
The definition of Apple’s First Time Downloads is: “The total number of first-time downloads of your app.” Google defines User Acquisition as: “The number of users who installed your app and did not have it installed on any other devices at the time.”
However, there are many other factors of your metadata updates that can change your downloads for example paid campaigns, app features, PR, influencer campaigns, etc. both stores do provide marketers with insights as to where installs come from for example Search, Browse or Explore, and Referrers.
Keyword Retention KPI
While installs are the most important key performance sign for ASO, T\the active users KPI is also a key metric in ASO, as the store ranking algorithms change frequently, rather than installs that may turn out to be inactive, you can focus on engaged users. Retained installs are also an important KPI to measure in the Google Play console to measure the impact of an ASO strategy.
Other Useful KPIs
In-App Purchases
Rating and Reviews
Retention Rate
Final Words
While your ASO strategy may impact these KPIs more indirectly, these indicators matter a lot not only to increase the business model of the app but also because the store ranking algorithms account for user engagement.
