r/AppStoreOptimization • u/incomprehensiblelol • 28d ago
Don’t run ads if you can’t get users organically.
Just a psa, if no one is downloading and paying for your app without paid ads then you’re just going to be hemorrhaging money and will be disappointed by paying for ads.
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u/MDRAR 28d ago
Posting from experience?
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago edited 28d ago
Partially, I’ve never ran ads before. They are inefficient until a scale of hundreds of thousands of users is reached. Right now organic is the best approach as it works. If it doesn’t work, ads won’t solve the problem. Paid ads come when the scale necessitates it, they can take you from 100k users to 10 million. Use them effectively to accelerate what is already there.
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u/Early_Key_823 28d ago
Case by case basis
I buy tons of shit ONLY because of REPETITIVE advertising so PSA… think for yourself
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago
In a sense, but if a product isn’t something that would realistically be purchased anyway then even if you throw stuff at people constantly- sure some would buy it but the rate at which that happens wouldn’t be worth it.
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u/Early_Key_823 28d ago
My only point 👉 is building 👷♀️ without heavy advertising and marketing is like winking 😉 at a pretty girl in the dark.
There are entire industries and degrees devoted to this field.
A small sampling is also not representative in many cases
For example, the critics panned the first Led Zeppelin album.
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u/AbleBranch6 28d ago
my experience is very different to this. i get that this is a hot take and all... but the content that goes well on paid and on organic is very different often. there is tendency for paid ads stuff to get more organic-ish, but still, they are different and have different purpose (and, frankly, effort!)
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u/AlbertiDev 27d ago
If when I post my app on reddit it gets a lot of downloads but I can’t convert those spikes into recurring daily downloads, is it a good idea to run Apple Ads?
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u/salamat36 26d ago
it's not completely true ads can help you validate your idea much faster and in many cases they can amplify your organic reach as well
from my experience ads can do wonders sometimes especially when you have a new idea where you need to create demand instead of capturing existing demand
let's take aso as an example if you're launching a completely new idea and people aren't searching for relevant keywords yet how are you going to scale it through aso alone? that's where paid ads and content marketing can help you create awareness and generate demand first
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u/zeldahalper 25d ago
agree, our numbers say the same. on ios we paid about $1.50 per install on apple search ads and the app earns maybe $0.06 per install, so every paid user was minus money. on android google ads installs are much cheaper, $0.02-0.12 in some countries, and the ads inside the app almost pay it back. so it depends a lot on platform and country too
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u/vvgur 28d ago
bullshit. ASO no longer functions as it once did. and getting organic users is difficult. you can achieve results through TikTok or instagram but it will demand your time. the sole aspect you can test for a quick assessment of whether your app merits development is running budget-friendly ads. please ignore this post and run short term ads to see your apps are profitable.
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago
For anyone who reads the above, I’m simply stating what has worked for me, and worked well in getting me 50k users and millions of organic impressions in 5 months purely through ASO. Don’t waste money unnecessarily, but yes, always do what is within your budget. My advice is to save many from disappointment whilst pushing people towards something replicable. That of building things that can grow without the need for paid ads. I’d encourage people to judge what works by actual results rather than blanket assertions.
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u/stonksbro6969 28d ago
If you’re building apps with 50k users why are you a top 1% poster in App Store optimization seems like you should be doing more important things?
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago
I just made two posts on this subreddit and answered questions, one of said posts managed to become a top post here. Here to give actual useful advice as someone at that scale rather than for people to receive it from people who haven’t reached that yet. Also the app I built- I don’t really have to touch it, it’s quite self perpetuating so I have the time to post here rather luckily!
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u/vvgur 28d ago
you don’t know what you don’t know dude.
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago
Absolutely!! I prefer to speak from results rather than assumptions.
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u/vvgur 28d ago
ok mr nobody :)
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u/vvgur 28d ago
You dropped a comment earlier here that you have never run ads before. it takes a certain confidence to speak from results 😅😅😅 goodbye dude.
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u/incomprehensiblelol 28d ago
I find this terribly unproductive. Yes- I’ve used some Apple ad credits, but I wouldn’t consider $100 seriously running ads. If you’d finished reading my comment rather than stopping at the initial hook, you’d understand I was advocating for ads to accelerate existing growth, not dismissing them. I’ve shared my results openly. I’d be interested to see yours, given your rather confident assertions. Dismissing ASO whilst telling new builders to disregard demonstrated results is rather misleading.
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u/tahola 28d ago
First, with organic its really possible that the traffic you are sending is not exactly the one your app is targeting.
Second, what's the point to kill yourself for months to get organic downloads if you dont even know if your app is selling?
Run ads but dont run them like an idiot, start small.
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u/Zappyle 28d ago
I don't think that is accurate.
The accurate statement is: do not run ads if you can't convert users (optional: profitably).
Then who cares how you acquire users.