App Store Marketing
App Store Marketing covers the full app growth stack - ASO, Apple Search Ads, Google App Campaigns, paid social, DSPs, retention, CRM, creatives and app UX optimisation.
Daily thought from Tom, the ASM editor-in-chief... RevenueCat’s 2026 benchmarks are a reminder that a ‘free trial’ is often a first-hour evaluation, and the boring platform deadlines (SDK minimums, policy tweaks) are still the stuff that breaks launches. Tiny win: pick one onboarding moment you promise on your paywall, then make sure it happens in the first session, and do one dry-run build on the next required SDK toolchain.
Start here: core guides
View all guides
Start here: What is App Store Marketing?
What it is, what’s changed, and the levers that still matter.
ASO Guide 2026
Positioning → metadata → creative → iteration cadence (a repeatable system).
Apple Search Ads Guide
Structure, bidding, creative, and incrementality - without hype.
ASO checklist
A simple weekly routine to keep listings compounding.
App marketing tools
A curated toolbox for research, creative, and measurement.
App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 16 (2026)
This week’s theme: the ‘quiet layers’ are multiplying. OS-level attention filters are changing retention mechanics, and Apple’s developer workflow updates (App Store Connect + Hello Developer) are nudging teams toward faster, cleaner shipping.
Latest
- App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 16 (2026)
- Apple Developer: Hello Developer (April 2026 edition)
- App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 15 (2026)
- RevenueCat: Google Play involuntary churn is a recoverable revenue leak (configure grace periods, holds, and in-app messages)
- App Store Connect (iOS) quietly got better for VoiceOver and Voice Control
- Mobile growth after privacy: stop chasing perfect attribution, build a signal system
News feed
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 16 (2026)
This week’s theme: the ‘quiet layers’ are multiplying. OS-level attention filters are changing retention mechanics, and Apple’s developer workflow updates (App Store Connect + Hello Developer) are nudging teams toward faster, cleaner shipping.
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Apple Developer: Hello Developer (April 2026 edition)
Apple’s April 2026 ‘Hello Developer’ edition is a reminder that pre-WWDC season is when teams quietly get their house in order: concurrency best practices, foundational sessions, sample code, and a design gallery showing how Liquid Glass is landing in real apps.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 15 (2026)
This week’s theme: distribution is getting stricter. Treat developer verification and policy shifts like release engineering, not ‘admin’, because they can break installs and updates overnight.
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RevenueCat: Google Play involuntary churn is a recoverable revenue leak (configure grace periods, holds, and in-app messages)
RevenueCat argues a large share of Google Play cancellations are payment failures, not user intent, and outlines a high-ROI recovery playbook using grace periods, account holds, and the In-App Messaging API.
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App Store Connect (iOS) quietly got better for VoiceOver and Voice Control
A small App Store Connect 3.2 update, but a meaningful signal: Apple is treating accessibility for developers as a first-class workflow feature, not a footnote.
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Mobile growth after privacy: stop chasing perfect attribution, build a signal system
Mobile Growth Association’s thesis: privacy didn’t remove data, it redistributed it. Winning teams integrate platform signals, cohorts, and incrementality tests into a single decision system.
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Better ratings are not just social proof, they are a growth gate (17k-app dataset)
ConsultMyApp analysed 17,128 US App Store apps and found a clear pattern: the top of the charts is dominated by 4.5+ rated apps, and rating improvements can lift organic visibility and paid conversion at the same time.
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Apple: App Store Connect 3.2 release notes (April 1, 2026)
App Store Connect 3.2 adds accessibility improvements for VoiceOver/Voice Control, expands promotional language support (11 new languages), and makes TestFlight feedback filtering less painful. Small change, but it removes friction from launch-week workflows.
More stories
- Apple: App Store Connect adds 11 new metadata localizations (now 50 total)
- App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 14 (2026)
- Apple updated the Developer Program License Agreement (again). If you ship privacy-sensitive features, skim the diffs
- Android developer verification is rolling out to all developers (Play Console + the new Android Developer Console)
- Android developer verification is becoming an on-device install check (via ‘Android Developer Verifier’)
See more
- Location SDK panic is usually a configuration story, not a magic data leak
- Phiture: A practical mobile app marketing strategy for 2026 (with real examples)
- In iOS 26.4, App Store updates get an extra tap: why tiny navigation changes can shift update adoption
- Apple will show ‘regulated medical device’ status on App Store pages in the EEA, UK, and US
- Android 17 is making location permissions more ‘in-the-moment’ (and harder to over-collect by accident)
- A primetime TV mention is mostly a brand-demand event (and you can measure it)
- App Store Connect Analytics adds subscription + IAP metrics: cohorts, benchmarks, and new exportable reports
On the grapevine
Small notes and community chatter worth keeping an eye on (curated and capped).
- Google System Services release notes (watch for quiet Play Store mechanics like trials and wishlist nudges) Google (System services) Primary source. Small store behaviours tend to ship here before anyone writes a thread about them. Quick scan weekly, then share only the bits that affect your funnel.
- App Store Connect release notes (workflow + review rules that break launches) Apple Developer (App Store Connect) Primary source. Most launch-week fires are caused by tiny process shifts. A 2-minute scan here usually beats learning via a rejected binary or a broken metadata flow.
- App Store Connect app v3.2 release notes (VoiceOver/Voice Control improvements + TestFlight feedback filters) Apple App Store (primary) Primary source. When Apple explicitly calls out accessibility for developers, it is usually worth a quick internal check: “are our launch workflows usable for everyone on the team?”
- App Review Guidelines (the canonical “what will get rejected” reference) Apple Developer (policy) Primary source. When the team is debating a grey area, link this, quote the exact clause, and design the UX so you can defend it in one paragraph to App Review.
- App Store Connect adds 11 new metadata localizations (especially relevant for India expansion) Apple Developer News Primary source. Localization is not “translation work”, it is a relevance lever. Start with app name, subtitle, and screenshot #1 promise for any market where installs are already meaningful.
See more
- Upcoming SDK minimum requirements (iOS/iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, visionOS 26) for App Store Connect uploads from April 28, 2026 Apple Developer News Primary source. This is not “just update Xcode”. Treat it like release engineering: line up CI images, audit SDK dependencies, and do a dry-run build weeks before the deadline.
- US policy update page: external content links + alternative billing posture during the Epic injunction period Google Play Console Help (US) Primary source. Treat this like a “what’s allowed (and under which program)” reference. Useful when Product, Legal, and Support need one shared source of truth.
- Android 17 location privacy updates (one-time precise access, better indicators, and a clearer permission dialog) Android Developers Primary source. Location is both a trust issue and a conversion issue. If your app asks too early or too broadly, Android’s new patterns make that friction more obvious (and more avoidable).