The effectiveness of promotion in the App Store and Android Market

Distimo conducted a study of the effectiveness of the feature on the main mobile markets.

Promotion from the App Store or Android Market is not only and not so much popularity. First of all, these are downloads. More precisely, their increase. Unfortunately, the principle by which the markets promote applications is still not completely clear. Moreover, many developers do not know what kind of increase in downloads they will receive with the feature. 

There are several storefronts in both the App Store and the Android Market. The analytical company Distimo, which conducted a study on the effectiveness of promoting applications on various platforms, highlighted New and Noteworthy and Staff favorites in the App Store. They did not take into account the popular What’s hot section, since only those applications that are already popular fall into it. As for the Google Android Market, in his case, the category of Staff Picks applications was analyzed. 

The monitoring was carried out in the fourth quarter of 2011. Applications that were not present in the top 100 before promotion were not taken into account, because they could greatly distort the final statistics. 

The figures presented below demonstrate how much, on average, the position in the top increases in the first three days after the feature. 

Promotion does not always bear fruit. About a third of the iPhone apps that Apple noted in the last quarter of 2011 did not rise in the ranking. Moreover, 4% of the featured applications have decreased positions. So keep in mind that promotion does not always have a positive effect on the number of downloads. 

Of course, it is not only the first days that are significant when figuring. During all seven days, during which, as a rule, the promotion lasts, the “rating” of applications grows: Google Android Market, on average, by 65 positions, iPhone apps by 15 positions, and iPad apps by 28 positions. 

The graph below shows the proportional growth of the position in the top. In other words, how much, as a percentage of its original position, the application received after promotion.

What is especially interesting is that the positive effect of the feature has a long-term character. Within five days after the shares, there is a proportional increase on all platforms. On average, this is: +145% iPad, +75% iPhone and +828% Android. 

As you can see, promotion on the Android Market is much more effective than on an alternative platform.