ASO Academy

Mobile App Seasonality

February 24th, 2022

by Anh Nguyen

COO & Co-Founder at Gummicube, Inc

App Store Optimization (ASO) is a one-and-done deal, right? Let’s answer this question with another question: Would you still wear a winter coat in the dead of summer? Neither would we – and your app shouldn’t wear one either, even if it could.

When it comes to mobile marketing changes, there are always opportunities to stand out from competitors and engage with customers in new and relevant ways.

While there are many ways to build on the relevance of your app like iteration or keyword updates, seasonality directly accounts for the most timely and trend-sensitive changes surrounding in-app events or user search trends.

In this week’s ASO Academy, we’ll take a look at what seasonality changes are and how you can take actionable steps to further your ASO strategy in a positive direction.

What is Mobile App Seasonality?

Seasonality is the process in which app developers make adjustments to their app assets to account for changing user-facing, external, and competitive forces. Seasonality, among other ASO activities, is just one of the many ways app developers should continually optimize their apps.

By nature, optimizing for seasonality is a temporary adjustment of metadata and creative assets. The duration of a “season” may depend on the length of time an app developer may want to market a particular feature or event of their app to maintain relevancy. It may also depend on the “season’s” length, which can sometimes be indeterminable.

As the pandemic lockdowns have shown us, some trends and changes came and went with the wind, but some stayed with us. Some apps still market “contactless delivery” in their app assets, despite it being an apparent seasonality change from the start of the pandemic.

But to further illustrate seasonality in action, let’s take a look at a metaphorical personal finance app called, “Widget King Savings”. This app offers year-round financial advice, free tax returns, and allows users to save money for important financial goals. With tax season slowly approaching, Widget King Savings may need to adjust what they market in their metadata and creative assets to gain the most relevant users to their tax return feature for the coming weeks and months.

How does Widget King Savings do this?

Seasonality for App Metadata Assets

The app developers of Widget King Savings realize that users may be searching for terms associated with tax returns around tax season. With that in mind, the app developers make sure to shift their metadata to directly address these changes by including title tags with tax-related terms.

They do the same for any other relevant metadata assets across Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store. Using Keywords like “taxes 2022”, “file tax forms”, “W2 scanner”, among others to capture this timely tax season search trend.

Seasonality for App Creatives

Now with seasonality-optimized metadata assets, Widget King Savings needs a creative revamp as well to adjust for the impending tax season. Creatives such as screenshots, app icons, and videos directly impact conversion rates.

With that in mind, Widget King Savings needs to include relevant tax-related information in these creative assets. This allows for users to engage with app features in ways that are solely focused on User Interface (UI) and are more visually stimulating and aid in recall.

Widget King Savings updates a screenshot to include a tax document, with bright visual copy across the top that reads, “File Your Taxes with Us Today!”: an enticing proposition for a user that may be looking for a nudge in getting their tax filing started.

Mobile App Seasonality Quick Tips

With the help of a trusted ASO Company, app developers can navigate and prepare for these changes. However, there are a few simple tips to keep in mind when adjusting for seasonality changes:

Seasonality changes vary across different regions.
Timely actions are quintessential to success. Plan ahead.
Paid Campaigns Offer a temporary springboard, not a long-term solution.

Implement Mobile App Seasonality into Your ASO

Seasonality updates offer app developers and mobile marketers an opportunity to further optimize their ASO strategy for sustainable success.

Relevancy is at the forefront of app success. Without it, an app runs the risk of falling behind in an increasingly competitive app store marketplace, and app developers may miss the mark on what their users want from their app at a given moment. Seasonality helps maintain and even boost visibility and relevance across app store platforms despite these changing trends.

While navigating through these changes and seasonal shifts may not be an easy feat, ASO tools help app developers track and navigate trends that may affect their app.

Want to learn more about App Store Optimization? Contact Gummicube and we’ll help get your strategy started.

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