Starform boosts ranked keywords by up to 150% across multiple markets

Founded as a small, independent video game development studio, Starform focuses on creating memorable experiences for its player community, bringing its vision to life through Metalstorm. Operating with a lean team, Starform handles growth with a strong in-house mindset. Jesse Roberts, ASO & Digital Marketing Manager at Starform, oversees App Store Optimization, store page performance, market research, and the connection between ASO, paid user acquisition, and creative testing. As Jesse shared, the team met MobileAction at a time when they needed to move fast, test often, and rely on data they could trust without the overhead of fragmented tools or large dedicated teams.

The challenge

Before adopting MobileAction’s ASO Intelligence, Starform’s ASO efforts were constrained by limited bandwidth and a lack of confidence in available data. Managing ASO alongside UA and creative testing with a small team meant every workflow needed to be clear, practical, and fast to execute. Competing in crowded game categories, the team struggled with fragmented tooling and the difficulty of scaling localization and competitive analysis without slowing execution.

Jesse explained the situation clearly: “Our biggest challenges were time, bandwidth, and confidence in our data. As a small studio, we don’t have the luxury of large teams dedicated to ASO and performance marketing, but we still compete in very crowded game categories.”

The solution

Starform discovered MobileAction at an industry event, where several ASO and marketing platforms were evaluated side by side. What stood out immediately was how MobileAction focused on real workflows rather than surface-level feature lists. The platform combined strong data depth with an intuitive UI and pricing that made sense for Starform.

Beyond the product itself, the team experience played a major role in Starform’s decision and long-term confidence. “The MobileAction team has been consistently responsive and helpful. From onboarding through ongoing use, the team took the time to understand our goals and constraints as a smaller studio,” Jesse shared. “Once signed, that same proactivity remained and kept us confident we made the right choice.”

Support conversations stayed grounded in real use cases and day-to-day needs. “Support conversations were always practical and focused on helping us get real value from the platform,” Jesse added. In several cases, the team proactively shared best practices or highlighted areas for improvement beyond the original questions raised. “That level of engagement made a real difference; it felt less like vendor support and more like working with a partner who understands ASO challenges firsthand.”

In daily use, Starform relies heavily on Keyword Tracking and Keyword Inspector to prioritize opportunities with confidence, while Competitor Keywords provides clarity on how other games position themselves. The Localization tool proved especially impactful, enabling the team to expand metadata coverage with a clear understanding of regional demand and competition. In parallel, Starform has started adding more structure to its organic custom product pages strategy, and MobileAction helped the team validate themes and audience intent before building new pages. 

Compass Explore further eliminated guesswork by providing a clear competitive context. As Jesse emphasized, the tools allowed the team to “stop guessing and start making data-driven decisions that consistently outperformed our previous manual efforts.” Overall, MobileAction helped Starform roughly double output while spending significantly less time on research and analysis. 

“MobileAction has helped us bring ASO fully in-house and operate more clearly with a small team and will continue to be a core tool for how we plan and scale ASO. The combination of data, tools, and support has allowed us to roughly double our output while spending significantly less time on research and analysis. For marketers or studios that need to move quickly and make informed decisions without overcomplicating their stack, MobileAction is an easy recommendation.”

Jesse Roberts

ASO & Digital Marketing Manager

The results

Within the first few months, MobileAction delivered immediate, measurable gains in global visibility. By leveraging the Keyword Translator and Metadata Optimizer, Starform moved beyond basic translations and into true localization, unlocking growth in key European and South American markets.

Jesse shared the impact: “Using these tools, we expanded our metadata coverage from 3 languages to 10. This would have been extremely difficult to do as quickly or as confidently without the platform.”

Keyword growth followed quickly, with ranked keywords increasing by 

• 150% in Spanish, 
• 60% in German, and 
• 33% in Italian. 

Beyond volume, higher rankings for high-intent terms strengthened Starform’s broader user acquisition strategy. By pairing ASO insights with Ad Intelligence, the team optimized creative direction based on market trends, ensuring organic and paid efforts worked in sync.