Gamifying Sunscreen || Part 5: Apple’s In-House Marketing Tools (for iOS Developers)
And how I accidentally burned $87 (and twenty-two cents)
This is Episode 3, Part 5 in the [Game On] series, where I attempt to design, code, and ship one new app every other month to promote my newly launched app, The Sunscreen Game (available on the Apple App Store now). It’s an app dedicated to those who grew up in the sun but suck at wearing sunscreen.
I had no idea Apple had so many tools to help iOS developers promote their apps.
Let me rephrase that — up until a week ago, I did not care to know or learn about any of the marketing tools they offered. I coded, I tested, I shipped. That was all I was asked to do and that was all I wanted to do. User acquisition was not my job. In the words of my human-resources-hero, Malcolm Tucker, “NOMFuP.”
Well, when you’re an indie developer, it is now one hundred percent your problem. And when all you’ve done is code and have intentionally ignored ASO (App Store Optimization) for the last ten years, it makes for a daunting task. But Apple offers a diverse set of tools to assist with this, so this is for all the other iOS developers who might be in the same boat.
Getting Featured on the App Store
Call it ignorance or call it naivety but I had no idea apps could apply to get featured. I thought the Apple gods just picked based on how they were feeling that morning.
Apparently, that’s not true and there is an online form you can fill out to throw your name in the ring! You don’t hear anything back if you’re not selected but I have been assured by a former insider at Apple that a real human does read all of these submissions so you just got to keep on sending updates.
Here’s a great piece from 2022 quoting real developers and how they got their apps featured in the App Store and the effect it had: https://nemecek.be/blog/169/how-to-get-featured-on-the-app-store.
WWDC Videos and Tech Talks
There is a whole-ass section dedicated to App Store Distribution & Marketing 🤦🏻♂️. Oops. I’ve ignored these videos for way too long. They’re great for watching when you’re on an elliptical or stationary bike.
https://developer.apple.com/videos/app-store-distribution-marketing/
App Store Marketing Tools
Speaking of stationary bikes, I almost fell off of one when I watched Get started with app discovery and marketing. Did you know Apple had a free toolbox dedicated to generating marketing assets, Apple-branded short links, and app-branded QR codes?! I sure as hell didn’t! Nothing groundbreaking but a definite nice to have.
https://toolbox.marketingtools.apple.com/en-us/app-store/us
Apple Search Ads
This is where I spent most of my time.
Apple offers $100 in free credit for Basic ads if you’re new to their Search Ads. However, everything I’ve read says to forget Basic (after the free credit) and spend your time on Advanced. I recommend doing the free Apple Search Ad Certification first. It’s laborious but it will save you money.
However, if you don’t like your money, the alternative is to just fire up some campaigns and learn through trial and error. This is what I initially did and it’s how I burned $87 in 24 hours 🔥🔥🔥. More on that later.
The Search Ad Certification gave me context for what Apple wants you to do. However, the textbook is never the same as the real world. So I found a podcast I could listen to while walking Frank 🐶. This was the one I found most helpful:
Marketing Your App More Efficiently with Apple Search Ads
— Dilip Reddy, Search Ads Optimization.
And here’s what I took away from it:
Apple Method: Organize your keywords into four campaign types: Brand, category, competitor, and discovery. Elevate high-performing keywords you find in the discovery campaigns into your brand, category, or competitor ad groups.
Dilip’s Recommendations: Discovery is for those with money to burn. Aggressive bids with the high-intent (and exact) keywords, and stupidly low bids with the low-intent keywords (instead of throwing them away in the negative keyword space).
3rd-Party Keyword App
So yeah. About that $87.
I made four campaigns and set a daily budget of $3 for each campaign. That translates to, “I am willing to spend approximately $91 per month per campaign ($3 x 30.4 days). But because I set this up at the end of the billing period (this is me guessing here), some voice on the ad-algorithm side screamed, “IT’S THE END OF THE MONTH AND WE’RE AT $0 SPEND. WE ARE 100% BEHIND. SPEND SPEND SPEND!”
The reason this section is titled “3rd-party Keyword App” and not “Daniel is a do-do brain” is because I should’ve spent that $87 (and twenty-two cents) on a tool to hand me the keywords, straight-up vs just pissing it away on “discovery”.
Think of it this way, if the goal of Apple’s suggested “Discovery Campaign” is to help you learn what your best keywords are but you have to spend money (and time) to unearth them, why not just pay that same amount of money (or less) to a tool that was made to do that for you instantaneously?
And so, having no desire to compound my mistake, I purchased an App Store Optimization tool called Astro (this is not a paid ad, I paid for Astro. But I am not opposed to a paid advertisement though so hit me up Astro loll). I did try some other tools first like Splitmetric, Appfigures, and Appfollow but all of them did too much for what I needed (for right now at least). Plus, Astro looks like it’s made by an indie developer and I’m making an effort to support more indie developers.
App Store Metadata
Without going through the Search Ads process, I wouldn’t have noticed how bad my current setup was. My app title, app subtitle, and app description’s first sentence do so little to draw any intrigue. I mean, it’s barely understandable!
Yes, these all seem like extremely elementary things for anyone who does this for a living but for the indie dev that has spent most of his career just heads down in the code — this is a bit of a revelation. I’m not claiming mine are any good right now but I’m finally paying attention to the non-code aspects of the app and putting effort into them. For instance, this thirty-second app trailer:
Epilogue
I do have to admit that it feels like I’m wasting time when I’m doing things in marketing land. It feels so ephemeral compared to when I’m coding. But I need to mentally reframe it as something that “will pay dividends” for my overall competency in iOS. Sure, it’s not code but all of this is technically part of the iOS ecosystem so it will make me better holistically. Especially if I’m looking to break out of the engineer-only mold.
What’s Next
I need to put a system in place to keep the marketing arm moving forward yet sustainable. Because I really, really need to get back to coding 😂.
The Ali screensaver pic lolol