App Store Optimization for iOS and Android

Ranking movement usually starts within a few weeks. The useful gains accumulate over months. The most specific published figures we found are 2 to 4 weeks on iOS and 1 to 3 weeks on Google Play for ranking movement, 4 to 8 weeks for a creative test to reach significance, and 3 to 6 months for sustained growth, published by a large ASO agency without methodology, so treat them as an experienced estimate rather than a benchmark. They match what we see.

Sometimes you will not, and we will say so in the report. What we do about it: a written baseline agreed before anything changes, store-run experiments wherever Apple or Google offer one so the number comes from them rather than us, one change at a time on a dated change log, and where you are on both stores, using the untouched store as a rough control. Full detail in section 08, including what this approach cannot do.

Apple publishes that figure, and also that 70% of App Store visitors use search, on its advertising site, footnoted “Source: App Store, worldwide, 2022”. So it is first-party, it is four years old, and it lives on a page selling Search Ads. The version attributed to “Apple, 2016” that circulates widely appears to be a different, non-Apple figure that got merged with it. Google publishes no equivalent number at all.

No, and nobody honest does. Neither store publishes its ranking weights, and Google explicitly calls its weighting proprietary. We guarantee the work and we report the numbers from your own console.

No. Listing work needs store access only. In-app review prompts need a small code change, which we can do or hand to your team with the code.

Yes. Most ASO clients come to us that way.

Google says ranking is “based on a combination of ratings, reviews, downloads, and other factors” and calls the weighting proprietary. That is the whole public record. The description helps users discover and understand your app, and Google gives writing advice for it, but nobody outside Google knows its ranking weight. Anyone quoting you a number is guessing. We write it to read well and to stay clear of keyword spamming, which is a stated policy violation.

On Apple: Product Page Optimization runs up to three treatments against your original, on icons, screenshots and previews only, one test at a time, for up to 90 days, and Apple suggests waiting for 90% confidence. On Google: store listing experiments run up to two variants, either one default graphics test or up to five localised tests at once, and auto-stop at six months. Text is testable on Google, not on Apple.

Apple allows up to 70 additional product pages, each with its own URL and its own screenshots, promo text and previews, very useful for matching a paid campaign or a channel to a tailored page. Google’s equivalent is custom store listings, up to 50, targeted by country, ads traffic, keyword or user segment, with one custom listing per country at a time.

We can place the prompt where a user has just succeeded at something, inside Apple’s limit of three prompts per user per 365 days, and we can put a review-response process in place. What we will not do is incentivised, filtered, paid or fake reviews. Apple’s guidelines name expulsion from the Developer Program as a possible consequence, and it is not a risk worth taking for any rating.

Partly fair. Paid placements do appear above organic on high-volume terms. Two things follow: the terms where you can realistically win are usually not the ones with the heaviest ad competition, and conversion work helps your paid installs too. A store page that converts badly makes every ad you buy more expensive. On an app that already has traffic we usually work on conversion before rankings for exactly this reason.

Not as a service. ASO makes your ads cheaper by improving the page they land on, so it is worth doing first either way.

Yes. Apple’s published plans for Fall 2026 add visual marketing assets in product page headers, search results and editorial features, an Asset Library in App Store Connect so assets can be submitted and pre-approved independently of app releases, and a product page preview tool. Practically: search results become a creative surface rather than a text one, and creative stops being tied to your release schedule. Budget more design.

Then that is what it says, and you have spent an audit fee instead of a year of retainer. If the reviews point at the product, we will tell you and point you at App Rescue & Code Audit or a product conversation instead of selling you a listing refresh.