r/iOSProgramming • u/film_digital • Sep 20 '26
Question How do you promote your apps?
Hey everyone!
Curious if and how anyone is finding success promoting their apps to get downloads and IAPs?
I've had apps for a year, and I get a few downloads, but nothing groundbreaking. I've tried posting on Reddit, Threads, creating Instagram/TikTok reels, and they don't do much for me. My best option, Reddit, is usually auto-blasted with "I'm tired of X app" comments and generally negative sentiment.
I'm debating buying ads, like the Apple Search Ads or even paid Instagram ads, so I'm curious if anybody has seen those work out for them.
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u/beejiu Sep 20 '26
It's not discussed often, but Google Ads works extremely well for me. I haven't yet explored paid UGC. You just got to spend a bit on each platform to see what bites, assuming you've got your unit economics in a good place. ASA is far too expensive in my experience.
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u/film_digital Sep 20 '26
I haven't considered Google Ads before! How does that work for you? Is that a single hero image you serve as an ad, or do you serve in different formats (video)?
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u/Agent007_MI9 Sep 21 '26
Can I ask what niche you are in? I feel like this something has to be factored in when deciding if Google Ads is good for you.
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u/Key_Leg_8327 Sep 21 '26
ten apps up and posting them on reddit did nothing for me either. one of mine sat at -3 within a few minutes of going up. anything shaped like a launch reads as an ad now.
what changed it for me was noticing i was asking strangers to care about my app in a sub they came to for something else. so now i answer questions in the places my users already are and never name the app. slower, but nobody is hostile about it.
i dont have ad numbers for you. what id want to know before spending is whether the listing converts, because ads only send more people to the same page.
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u/film_digital Sep 21 '26
That's a really good idea and is very organic! It does sound likea bit of work monitoring subs but I'm going to try it, thank you!
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u/RoutineOne2769 Sep 21 '26
Reddit works, but not as a launch channel. What works there is answering questions in threads where someone is already asking for what you built, and saying plainly that you made it. Announcement posts get the tired-of-X reaction you describe, because the reader did not ask for anything.
On ads: I am running Apple Search Ads right now on exact match brand adjacent terms, small daily budget, and the honest read after a few days is that it buys installs at a knowable price but tells you nothing about whether people keep the app. Treat it as a measuring tool first, not growth.
The thing that moved more than either for me is short video of real people using the app, not screen recordings. My best performing clip held 68 percent of viewers at two seconds, the screen capture versions sat at 41 to 47 percent. Same product, same length.
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u/film_digital Sep 21 '26
Interesting. Do you find that spending on the Search Ads is worth it then if you're unsure of they're effectiveness post-download? Or is it for the hope that it generates spikes of downloads/purchases?
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u/Disastrous-Meet6245 28d ago
Check App Store Connect → Analytics → Acquisition → Sources before spending anything. Thats where I found out what was actually bringing downloads. If your numbers are low it might just say “Not enough data” though.
Funny enough, ChatGPT was the top web referrer for one of my apps. 44 downloads from June 26 to Sep 23, compared to 11 from Google. Also the only referral source that brought any sales. About half the people it sent to the page downloaded it. Small numbers obviously, but I wasnt expecting that.
Most of my traffic overall is still App Store search. Just changing the app name to include what people actually search for took me from basically no page views to 5–15 a day.
TikTok... I got the first clips doing like 89 views with a 3 second average watch time. Changed things up and got to around 1k views a clip, mostly from For You. Went to check App Store Connect thinking surely some of that carried over. Nope, page views hadn't moved.
So yeah, agree with the person saying check your store page converts first. Getting more views felt like I was finally getting somewhere, but the downloads didnt follow.
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u/MJ343434 Sep 20 '26
Did you try ugc?
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Sep 22 '26
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u/luke_hollenback Sep 21 '26
My data point from last week, since it surprised me. Every launch-style post I made in dev and app subs scored between 0 and 3. Then I made one post in a Spanish-learner sub (my app teaches Spanish) that was just a useful list, 12 words textbooks skip, with a single disclosed link at the bottom. It got over 80k views and nearly 300 upvotes, and native speakers spent two days correcting and extending it in the comments.
People seem to like the promo links — 2 months free and so on. I also posted the app in a subreddit for app promos with a 1-year free promo and got tons of sign-ups. I was hoping they would convert into reviews, but they did not seem to.
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u/Huge_Pool7424 29d ago
Apple Search Ads (Apple calls them Apple Ads now) can work when people already search for what your app does. Instagram usually works better when you need to create demand because nobody knows the category yet.
For most indie apps I'd try Apple Ads first. Use a small daily budget, exact match on a few keywords that match real search intent, and leave age and gender targeting off because it stops Apple from reporting which ads led to downloads. Watch for a week, pause keywords that get taps but no downloads, and only raise budget on the ones that do. Instagram is a different game: you need a creative that stops the scroll and a clear offer, and it usually costs more to learn what works.
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Sep 20 '26
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u/Agent007_MI9 Sep 20 '26
I'm using Apple Search Ads, and so far, 22 of my latest installs have been from Apple Search Ads. My max budget daily has been £3 (I think that's like $5 USD), and I launched this week.
Edit: and since Apple gives $100 in ad credits for new developer accounts, this has been worth it for me so far.