Which apps need to attract organic traffic: research of ASOdesk


We have analyzed the percentage of organic and inorganic traffic in apps and games of various categories around the world in 2020. The study helps to understand from which channels users download applications more often and, based on this, build a promotion strategy. To get more news about App Promotion, you can visit aso700.com official website.

Organic and inorganic traffic
Before moving on to research, let’s explore the concept of organic and inorganic traffic.

Organic traffic includes: search traffic (search) and featured traffic (browse).

Search traffic is received by applications that users find in the App Store and Google Play searches for certain queries. To promote apps in the search results of mobile app stores, you need to do App Store Optimization.

Featuring is the promotion of apps through special collections, most frequently viewed by visitors of app stores. To get into collections, you need to comply with all store requirements and apply to the App Store and Google Play.

Inorganic traffic includes all installs from in-app ads. As well as from the web links: contextual, targeted and banner advertising and application mentions on various websites.
The percentage of search traffic (search) is over 75% in the following categories: “books”, “business”, “catalogs”, “food & drink”, “education”, “finance”, “music”, “news”, “productivity”, “reference”, “social networking”, “utilities” and “weather”. These apps get the most installs from search.

These applications require App Store Optimization. It is necessary to track positions by keywords, add new keywords to the semantic core and analyze competitors’ promotion strategies.

Apps with less organic traffic need to focus on paid promotion channels. These categories include: “entertainment”, “family”, “navigation” and “lifestyle”.

We see a large percentage of traffic from featuring (browse) in the following categories: “board”, “comics & cartoons”, “navigation” and “stickers”. It is important for such applications to make the appropriate optimization and send a request for adding to categories or collections.

Applications in the categories “boards”, “entertainment”, “navigation”, “lifestyle” and “family” have a percentage of advertising traffic of more than 40%. The publishers of these applications need to reconsider their advertising strategy and invest a significant portion of their funds in inorganic promotion.In green you can see the categories of games in which there is a large percentage of search traffic (search): “action”, “arcades”, “casual games”, “educational games”, “racing”, “sports” and “quizzes”. It is important to invest in App Store Optimization to promote these apps as they get the majority of installs from search.

Smaller percentage of search traffic is in the categories: “strategy”, “simulation”, “role-playing”, “puzzles”, “casino”, “card games” and “adventure”. Users are less likely to search for such applications, but this does not mean that they are not searching for them at all. There is less organic traffic only as a percentage. Therefore, it is important to invest in advertising while still doing basic App Store Optimization.

A large percentage of browse traffic comes from the following categories: “adventure”, “puzzle”, “role-playing”, “simulation” and “strategy”. Developers and marketers need to optimize the app and increase its rating in order to apply for the inclusion of the app in the collection.