What does the future hold for app marketing according to experts

App Store Optimization (ASO)

October 13, 2022

Experts of all horizons have gathered in our bi-weekly episodes of The App Marketing Snack to share their opinions on the future of the industry. We’ve gathered some of their thoughts here about what comes next for app marketing!

Brand is becoming more and more important – Peggy Anne Salz

Whatever marketing plan you may have for your app or mobile game, you can’t ignore branding. Concepts and keywords are not enough to sustain you. You can not rely solely on your app stores rankings. To secure a download, you need to drive users to the stores with the intent of downloading your app. Success is assured when they search directly for your brand name instead of a generic keyword.

In her App Marketing Snack interview, Peggy says that she believes “this is the beginning of an era of the app brand”. Branding will help you keep users’ attention. How can you do that if your audience doesn’t know who you are? 

Having a strong brand image is the first step to building a meaningful relationship with your users, it’s how you can stay relevant and stand out from the competition. 

So when you start planning your future marketing strategy for your app or your mobile game, don’t forget branding. As Peggy said: “Look at brand, build brand, be aware of the brand.”

Watch Peggy’s full interview here

Diversifying is the key to growing your app – Milan Strba, SuperScale

For Milan Strba, Head of Growth at SuperScale, the key to app marketing’s future is diversification. ATT threw a wrench in everyone’s planning, which is why you can’t rely on one or two ad channels only anymore.

According to him, to succeed you will need to mix social media, ad channels, Apple Search Ads, and Google Ads. You need to try a little bit of everything and ensure you spread your bets out. The more channels you try, the more likely you’ll be to boost your growth. It’ll help lessen the impact of changes in each channel. For example, if you bet everything on Facebook ads and Meta instills a new rule that restricts your campaign’s reach, the entirety of your marketing will be impacted. Whereas if you diversify, you’ll be able to work on finding a solution for the Facebook side while knowing the other channels are still working as planned. 

In addition, he believes that higher quality creatives and playable video ads will also become more prevalent in the near future. 

Watch Milan’s full interview here.

The rise of creative assets post-ATT – Jeremy Widdowson, Rovio

ATT has been the bane of every marketing employee in the app industry. And because of the lasting impacts, it will have on app marketing and ASO, Jeremy Widdowson from Rovio believes that creative assets will become even more important. 

After all, if targeting is becoming harder, marketers will have to rely more heavily on their creatives, both in ASO and UA. If you’re not sure your targeting will be effective you need to ensure you can rely on the quality of your creatives.

Good creatives can balance poor targeting, that’s especially important in the wake of Apple’s ATT. Jeremy believes that while creatives will be even more important now than they’ve been before, it’s also essential to understand how they are delivered. Visualizing the whole process will help you understand the real impact of creatives and tailor your production to be more efficient. 

Watch Jeremy’s full interview here

The proliferation of fake ads for mobile games – Jamora Crawford, Voodoo

If you thought 2022 would end fake ads, you thought wrong. According to Jamora Crawford, Marketing Artist at Voodoo, they’re here to stay. For her job, Jamora watches and creates a lot of mobile gaming ads. So she’s well versed in what works and what doesn’t. 

Despite a mixed reception to fake ads, some people are not the biggest fans of the medium, people keep clicking on them, more than they click on only gameplay ads or true-to-game ads. 

Whatever your opinion might be on the topic, there’s no denying the success of fake ads. 

And according to Jamora, this success is not ending anytime soon. So you may have to bear with fake ads for a little longer. This trend is only for mobile gaming, and it’s not the only one for the industry. So if you feel like fake ads may not work best for your game, you may be interested in playables (according to Milan Strba) or storytelling. We’ll tell you more about that in a minute.

Watch Jamora’s full interview here

TikTok as an essential UA tool – Enes Malik Turhan, Sensor Tower

We’ve talked at length about TikTok’s success as an advertising tool but according to Enes Malik Turhan, Mobile Growth Specialist for Sensor Tower, this is just the beginning. Mobile games have invested in the platform and taken advantage of its tremendous success. But it works for all kinds of apps. 

TikTok has an extensive consumer base that is also quite diverse. Obviously, they host a large amount of younger people, but the social media’s success is based on the accuracy of its targeting for the app’s content. That accuracy can also work with advertising. 

The Chinese app sensed it and has been investing in its advertising platform for the past few months, it now offers a whole platform to help advertisers make the most of advertising on their social media. 

So far, TikTok’s success hasn’t waned, it even brought some apps and mobile games to the forefront, High Heels! stayed at the top of the charts for months thanks to TikTok.

And according to Enes, TikTok’s success as a UA tool is just beginning. Don’t miss out on it!

Watch Enes’ full interview here

Storytelling in video ads – Jamora Crawford, Voodoo

Another trend for video ads is the prevalence of storytelling. It’s not enough anymore to just showcase the content of your app or game, you need to infuse stories and emotions inside. Some big names of the industry are already betting on it, just look at all the video ads for Lily’s Garden, Family Island, or Merge Mansion. 

According to Jamora, this trend is “tapping into some new interest that we haven’t had before”, and it’s highly successful! It works particularly well for mobile games but you can also use storytelling in video ads to promote your app. For that, you need to appeal to emotions, and create drama, if you have characters or personalities you can use, do it. 

Storytelling can also be part of your ASO strategy, aside from your visual asset which can always gain from it, you can sprinkle some over your descriptions. Be fun, be cheeky, step out of your comfort zone, and craft a story around your app’s identity, it can go a long way.

Watch Jamora’s full interview here

What are your predictions for the future of app marketing? Let us know, and don’t hesitate to check out other App Marketing Snack episodes for more expert advice!

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