We’ve written before about the importance of keeping up to date on industry trends to identify opportunities before they go mainstream. That way you can ride the wave of someone else’s news cycle. There’s also the benefit of seeing if there are other takeaways you can apply to your own UA strategy. One of the quickest ways to stay up to date is to look at MobileAction’s Keyword Trends view. Today we’ll take a quick look at the stories behind Max, Peridot, and MARVEL Strike Force to highlight takeaways you can apply to your own UA strategy.
Max Rebrand Highlights Organic Keyword & Review Opportunities
Over the years, we’ve had various iterations of this streaming service: HBO GO, HBO NOW, HBO Max, and now Max. Strategically launched on May 23rd, just days ahead of the series finales of Succession and Barry, the Warner Discovery flagship has been the #1 ranked app for downloads in the US every day since. Since users had to switch over to a new app, there were both redirects in the app to direct people over to the new service and an influx of organic keyword searches related to the streaming app’s name.
Monitoring keyword shifts like these are critical because you won’t always know when you’ll suddenly be competing with a new app (especially if it’s from an unrelated category) or need to update your keyword pool as a result of a competitor. This is also something you can do in bulk if you’re just getting started.
It’s also essential to monitor reviews during an app’s launch or major update. You can gain insights from reviews into what influences the consumers’ thoughts on an app, but it’s also important to respond to reviews in order to create a positive customer experience. Max proactively tackled one potential concern by automatically transferring over existing users’ profiles and credentials to the new app to streamline the changeover, but there will always be something to respond to.
Conducting sentiment analysis and responding to reviews directly within the MobileAction platform can help you identify clusters of feedback and enable you to address comments quickly to boost your ratings. Combine that with updating your keyword strategy, and you’ll set yourself up for success for your next new app. And don’t forget to keep an eye on keyword trends for your competitors to make sure you’re not missing out on opportunities to grow.
Niantic’s Peridot Can Utilize ASO to Fly to New Heights
Max wasn’t the only new app represented at the top of the keyword uptrends. On May 9th, Niantic launched the pet simulation game Peridot, which has been described as an AR next-gen Tamagotchi. With anticipation for the launch and pre-registrations enabled (great for awareness and and first-day downloads), the peridot keyword was on the rise even before the release date.
Three Niantic games quickly rose to the top of the “peridot” organic keyword rankings, but other competitors started to creep up in the weeks following the launch. That’s why it’s so important to stay up to date on keyword trends, and everything can shift in an instant.
The chance score for “peridot” is low enough that there’s an opportunity for other apps to update their ASO and climb the ranks for the keyword organically. Competitors containing similar functionality can decide if it makes sense to improve their ranking for the top branded keyword organically. Gaining visibility for your app ahead of the competition can help you defend your keyword positioning. For Peridot itself, there are also opportunities to identify keywords where it could strategize to improve its own organic rankings.
Peridot ranks #1 for the keywords “peridot” and “niantic“, but there are other popular keywords where it ranks in the top 15 and has a high enough chance score to strongly improve its ranking organically. Given its pet simulation components, tamagotchi, neopets, and virtual pet are all strong targets for Peridot to try and improve its organic keyword ranking. People are searching for these terms, the chance scores are high, and Peridot is already just outside the top five for all three keywords.
Another way for Peridot to prioritize keywords for organic growth is to identify apps that might have an overlap in interest with Peridot. You can use the Keyword Suggestion tool to identify keywords with high search, and chance scores that you’re not yet optimizing for in your ASO. You can test incorporating updates to your app to improve your ranking and push the updates live directly from the MobileAction platform. Click here to learn more about how to leverage your competitors’ keywords to improve your ASO.
MARVEL Strike Force Hits With a Film Premiere, In-App Events, and Updates
Seeing the keyword marvel strikeforce on the uptrends list isn’t surprising. MARVEL Strike Force, Scopely’s mobile RPG, debuted in 2018 and remains popular today. When a keyword related to a long-standing success story sees an uptick, it helps to have insight into changes and promotions ongoing at the time. The movie Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was released on May 5th, followed by Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on June 2nd, but what’s happening with the app itself?
There were keyword popularity spikes in mid-May, which can help narrow down the range you want to analyze to take a closer look. For established games, changes like these are often accompanied by app updates.
A great deal of time was put into the app updates for MARVEL Strike Force in May, including updates for the app description, icon, and subtitle. Looking into the changes an app makes for its version updates can help you identify a new value proposition, areas of focus for new features, new keywords to leverage for your UA strategy, and best practices you might want to consider for your own app description. But there’s more to delve into as well for a coordinated marketing effort.
MARVEL Strike Force also hosted a series of in-app events throughout May. This includes a major update centered around Guardians of the Galaxy characters in the game — perfectly coordinated with the new movie’s release — along with monthly challenges and new characters like Gwenpool. In-app events are powerful tools for re-engagement. It’s helpful to look at in-app events for your category to understand what your broader industry uses to reach consumers. Now that you know more about what changed with the app, you’ll also want to get a sense of what’s going on higher up in the funnel.
Analyzing mobile ad creatives is an essential part of a successful UA strategy. You can see which ad networks they’re using to promote the app and see what stands out to you from the successful ad campaigns that run for longer periods of time. You can see the types of content in the app that are highlighted and the style in which they are communicated to the public. And considering how often ads are updated, it’s something you’ll want to check regularly, which is something MobileAction makes easy for marketers. If you see an app that catches your eye, you can save it in one of your custom app collections to help you stay organized. This is especially useful if your app serves multiple use cases. You also have the ability to label ads as “seen” so that you don’t have to always comb through the same ads over and over again if you just want to see what’s new for you. And if you’re looking for a way to shorten the time it takes you to make new ads based on your research, check out MobileAction’s AdCreative Studio.
Next Steps for Upleveling Your Own Marketing Strategy
Keeping up to date on keyword trends can help you learn a lot about what’s going on in the market and how to use that information to improve your own mobile UA strategy. Seeing the different ways in which Max, Peridot, and MARVEL Strike Force grew showcases many opportunities, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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- Learn about Mobile UA Creatives that Make People Click from a panel featuring experts from Admiral Media, Singular, Persona.ly, and CRAFTSMAN+. You’ll learn about performance metrics, competitor analysis, and the latest creative trends.
- Stay ahead of the pack by seeing which Mobile Marketing Opportunities You Need to Act On when there’s an app on a rapid ascent.
- Want to reduce the time it takes to roll out new ads? Learn more about how you can transform your mobile marketing strategy with our AdCreative Studio.
MobileAction provides comprehensive app store marketing intelligence and seamless AI-powered Apple Search Ads campaign management. Backed by our vast dataset of 5+ million tracked keywords and a library of 70+ million ad creatives from 50+ ad networks, our solutions help you drive more downloads effectively. Maximize your app’s success and make data-driven decisions with the MobileAction platform.
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