This is a summary of an interview to Website Planet where App Radar’s co-founder Thomas Kriebernegg talks about how and why he started App Radar, gives tips for app store optimization and provides insights amino on the impact of new privacy policies on digital marketing.
What sparked the idea for App Radar?
The idea for App Radar came through my personal background. During my studies of Information Management I could already feel that online marketing is a theme which I felt a lot of interest for. I then started working in the field with the goal of reaching customers online. I specialized in search engine optimization, helping websites and businesses all around the world to attract users and be found on search engines, namely on Google.
When mobile apps and app stores then came along, I could predict that visibility will become a challenge in the future. It seemed logical that there will be more and more apps competing for app store visibility. So I identified this as a market need and began to offer consulting for customers who wanted to optimize their apps and gain better app store visibility. Already at the start, I was working with some really big mobile apps and games. At some point, I concluded that I needed to scale the business because working as a freelancer I simply wasn’t able to accommodate the need.
This was the starting point for App Radar. I teamed up with Christian, my technical co-founder, and we founded App Radar together. Fast forward, in 2021, we’re a team of 40+ people, have had our first acquisition of a competitor and are known globally in the field of app store optimization with more than 1,000 customers.
What are some first tips for app store optimization?
Let me tell you a typical storyline of our prospective clients: “We’ve developed this new app, a dating app. We’ve listed it in the app store but we’re not showing up in the search results for “dating”. How can we change that?”
Many app marketers and developers assume that if they put a keyword into their app store listing’s title and upload their app into the app store, then they will right away rank magically for this keyword and get a lot of users for free. This might have been true 8 or 10 years ago but it’s not the case anymore.
Nowadays, it’s about identifying keywords that are fitting your stage of the app and business. In other words, if you want to rank for very competitive keywords like “dating”, keep in mind Tinder and other really big apps that already rank greatly for these keywords because they’re getting millions of downloads.
When you’re at a start, it’s really important to identify niche keywords or long-tail keywords so that you’re not paying for the most competitive ones. So, in terms of keyword optimization, my tip is to try to dominate those niches first before competing for the bigger, more inclusive, and very competitive markets.
How do you expect the recent developments around privacy to affect your industry?
I think privacy has a massive impact on app industry. I believe Apple and Google are working to prevent end-user data from being exposed, and I think that’s a good thing to do.
Philosophically, we’re moving away from this granularity of information where we know people’s spending habits and trends, to a model that is more similar to remarketing as it was before AI. It is much more focused on the creative side of paigns and their general impact. In other words, it’s more about how good your marketing is, as opposed to how good your tracking is.
From a user perspective, both have their pros and cons. Personally speaking, I like getting personalized ads rather than random ones. On the other hand, I don’t like that Facebook particularly knows everything about what I do on the Internet. So it’s all about finding the balance!