Practitioner pattern · Steve P. Young (Sells App Masters services, the App Founders paid community and Indie App Santa / Lifetime Free promos that he recommends)
Start with Apple Ads on search results only, just keywords
Highest-ROI platform across App Masters' partners, host says
Workedapple-search-ads
What they did
Set up a basic Apple Ads campaign: all you need is keywords (broad match is fine), no creative needed. Use only the search results placement; skip every other placement. Adjust cost-per-tap until you hit your target cost per acquisition. Recommended as the low-budget starting channel alongside ASO; Facebook gets too expensive.
What happened
Tends to be the highest-ROI platform in App Masters' partner data, because keyword intent is the best intent
“Why I like Apple Ads is from our data, and this is through a lot of our partners, Apple Ads tends to be the highest ROI platform”
“Yeah, just keywords in search results. Don't do any other placements, search results is the best one.”
“adjust your cost-per-t- ca- cost-per-tap to get to your ideal cost-per-acquisition goal, right?”
Related topics
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More from this episode
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- Change when the app asks for a review, tied to a user actionAverage rating 4.5 to 4.7, and more ratings per month
- Give the app away free for life briefly to get first usersSome apps got 100K downloads; 10K+ signals a winner
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- Run a free-for-life promo and ask users for ratings60K downloads, ~600 ratings; ~100 ratings later removed by Apple
- Translate the app into Arabic with Crowdin and GeminiHalf of 60K promo downloads came from Arabic-speaking countries
- Redesign the onboarding and paywall around a personal learning planRevenue doubled, $200 to $400/month, on the same downloads
- Replace paywall graphics with a real photo, then a videoPhoto lifted conversion 3.5 to 4.7; video did best
- Use a yellow crown, not a star, for the button that opens the paywallThe yellow crown performed better; no numbers
- Label the paywall button 'Continue' on iOS and 'Start Free Trial' on AndroidHost says each wins on its platform, across all paywall screens
- Drop the free trial on the monthly plan so people pick yearlyPretty good success across App Masters apps; watch annual trial-to-paid
- Headway: Lock every book except one free daily readHost hears locking more content converts better; no numbers
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- PhotoRevive: Skip the free trial and show credits as videos you can make, priced per dayDoing well, host says; no-trial also works for other devs
- Calm: After a meditation, let people share a quote card with your logoPeople do share them on Instagram, host saw
- Zero: Send a weekly recap of the longest fast with a button to tweet itPeople did tweet it; the feature was later dropped
- Life Reset: Put a 'please don't delete' message in the app icon's long-press menu
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- Add animations to the onboarding screensOne founder told the host it lifted conversion 10%