Digest ASO News, March 2021
In the first month of spring, Google Play developer fees lowered to 15% on the first million dollars of revenue per year. Apple announced WWDC 2021 will be held on June 7–12. The number of active AppGallery users has exceeded 530 million per month. All ASOdesk plans have become more affordable. Read all the news from App Store, Google Play, AppGallery and ASOdesk.
Google Play news
Google Play fees drops to 15% on the first million dollars of revenue per year
Google follows Apple to improve conditions for developers. Starting July 1, 2021, the commission is reduced to 15% on the first million dollars earned in a year.
Google notes that this rate will be available to all developers, regardless of their total income or business size. For example, if you earn $1.5 million, you will be able to pay a 15% commission on $1 million, and a 30% commission will only apply to the remaining $500,000.
New metrics and benchmarks added to Google Play Console
Now it will be even easier to evaluate optimization performance. Google Play Console now has metrics for assessing user engagement trends. Publishers will also be able to compare the monetization of their apps with their competitors. Here are some of the metrics:
- DAU/MAU, the number of users who open the app every day compared to every month.
- 28-day returning users, shows how many daily users have already opened the app in the last 28 days.
- DAU and MAU growth rates, the dynamics of the number of users entering the application daily and once a month.
- ARPDAU, the average income per active user per day.
- Average purchase value, funds earned from each in-app purchase.
- Purchases per buyer and User-buyer ratios, show how many times buyers have made a transaction, as well as the percentage of your DAUs and MAUs who have made a purchase.
A total of 15 metrics have been launched, which are located in the “Compare to peers” tab in Google Play Console statistics. You will be able to compare your data with a group of other applications, which allows you to better measure your promotion performance.
New locations added to targeting on Google Play
Google Play has added targeting on new locations (islands and archipelagos) for specific countries. Now app publishers can include or exclude a larger number of locations when publishing an app. See Google Play Console Help for an up-to-date list of locations.
On the Google Play Family Link, you can now set time limits for each app
Family Link allows parents to set time limits for app usage and sleep timers for kids. But many parents and children demanded that some of the applications become available regardless of the time the smartphone was used. Google recently added an “Always Allow” option for apps.
If parents have activated this option, the duration of time sessions in the application will not be counted in the total screen time. Children will be able to use them without restrictions, but only until the sleep timer.
For developers of calculators and applications for school subjects, this feature will help increase the amount of time children spend in the application.
Google limits tracking the list of installed apps on the user’s device
On April 1, Google announced that they will be limiting Android apps from seeing other apps installed on devices. This policy will come into effect on May 5, 2021.
In order to access the app names on a given device, developers can use QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission. Developers will only be able to use this permission when “their apps’ core user-facing functionality or purpose requires broad visibility into installed apps on the user’s device”. We assume that this permission can be applied to file managers, antivirus apps, and browsers.
Developers who are allowed to use the permission will be required to submit a Declaration Form in the Play Console. Apps that fail to meet policy requirements or do not submit the form may be removed from Google Play Store.
App Store news
Chinese companies have found a way to bypass the iOS 14 privacy policy
The Financial Times reported that the China Advertising Association (CAA) is testing a tool to track user data bypassing IDFA rules. The Chinese are trying to use the type of CAID that identifies users and shows them relevant ads. ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, has already advised developers to “apply CAID if IDFA cannot be obtained”.
The Financial Times sources note that Apple may stop using CAID, but has not yet done so due to fears of support for the new identifier by Chinese tech giants and the government.
The App Store now has analytics for App Clips
New analytics help you measure the performance of your clips. Apple spoke on how statistics will be taken into account:
- When your card is displayed in App Clips, it counts as an App Clip Card View.
- If the user launches App Clip by pressing the action button on the card, the application on the user’s smartphone counts as the installation of the App Clip. App Clip remains on the device for up to 30 consecutive days of inactivity.
- If the user logs into the App Clip for at least one second, it counts as an App Clip Session.
- If the user clicks on the App Clip link to download the full app from the App Store, the App Clip will be considered as the installation source.
Apple announced WWDC 2021 will be held on June 7–11
The conference will take place online on June 7–11. Save these dates in your calendar to keep up-to-date. Apple says WWDC 2021 will include the keynote and State of the Union events, online sessions, developer labs, and new ways for developers to interact with Apple’s engineers and designers. Company management is likely to talk about the future of its software platforms, including iOS 15, macOS 12, and watchOS 8. Apple also announced the Swift Student Challenge for programmers.
App Store now rejecting apps using third-party SDKs that collect user data without consent
On April 2 9toMac published an article where they announced that Apple started rejecting apps using third-party SDKs that collect user data without consent.
Analyst Eric Seufert notes that the company will now reject any apps that use Adjust SDK. This SDK type uses third-party data for identifying users.
AppGallery news
AppGallery has over 530 million active users
AppGallery’s audience has grown significantly; at the beginning of March, there were more than 530 million active users while the monthly growth was 83%. This was announced by Richard Yu, the CEO of Huawei Consumer Business Group
Now 2.3 million developers create mobile apps for AppGallery, which is 77% higher than in 2019. The number of applications for HMS Core has more than doubled.
Not only the number of users is growing every day, but also the competition. Therefore, now is the time to adapt and optimize applications for AppGallery.
ASOdesk news
All ASOdesk plans have become more affordable
We want our users to enjoy using ASOdesk even more. That’s why, this March, all plans became more affordable. The number of keywords increased, while prices decreased:
- Free plan: 200 keywords instead of 20.
- Startup S: 300 keywords instead of 200. Price: from $42 per month.
- Startup M: 600 keywords instead of 500. Price: from $67 per month instead of $̶8̶4̶.
- Startup L: 1000 keywords. Price: from $93 per month instead of $̶1̶0̶1̶.
- Startup XL: 1500 keywords. Price: from $110 per month instead of $̶1̶̶̶1̶̶̶8̶̶̶.
You can also get additional discounts and 20% more keywords when paying for an annual subscription. Explore all the plans here.
ASOdesk received 8 badges from the G2 platform
G2 noted customer satisfaction, ease of use, business collaboration, compliance with requirements, and the willingness of users to recommend the service. We received 8 awards for the highest ranking.
1. In the Mobile App Analytics category:
- High Performer and High Performer in Europe. This badge is awarded for high customer satisfaction scores with low market presence.
- Easiest Admin. This indicates that the ASOdesk admin area is easy to use.
- Best Meets Requirement. This shows the compliance of the service with user requirements.
- Users Most Likely To Recommend. This badge indicates that users often recommend ASOdesk.
2. In the App Store Optimization Software category:
- High Performer.
- Easiest To Do Business With. Indicates the ease of doing business with our service.
3. In the Mobile Analytics Software category:
- High Performer.
Apart from the awards, we received great G2 software reviews from users all over the world. Read more about the awards and see G2 reviews about ASOdesk.
We analyzed key reports from the App Promotion Summit London 2021
App Promotion Summit London 2021, a well-known conference in the field of mobile application marketing, was held on March 18–25. We recapped six important reports from this conference.
The article features Phiture ASO Guide, SplitMetrics reports on 2021 ASO strategies, App Store marketing trends, advertising creative testing, User Acquisition in 2021, and Huawei Ads & Search for app publishers. Read the article here and find some tips on ASO and app promotion from world-renowned experts.
