Good user acquisition doesn't have to be out of reach just because you're an indie app developer on a budget. From our own experience working with more than 100 apps and droves of indie entrepreneurs, we've put together the best user acquisition marketing and strategy advice to help get apps off the ground so they can start scaling the market quickly.

1. User Acquisition
An Indie Developer’s Guide

2. The Good Old Days are Gone
• 1,000 new games come out every day.
• It’s nearly impossible to secure a high
download rate based only on high
game quality & merit searches.
• And the gaming industry “big wigs”
aren’t exactly helping...

3. • Big-budget gaming studios spend $2
to $3 per user
• But for the rest of us, that’s not
exactly feasible
• ...it gets harder...

4. • If you offer a free iPhone app, you
need 70,000+ downloads per day to
get into the top 10.
• If it’s paid, just 4,000. But that’s still
four t-h-o-u-s-a-n-d downloads in only
24 hours. And then 4,000 more in the
next 24.

5. The Secret to Success
• We’ve got to get our hands dirty
and get really creative.
• The “secret” is a heavy dose of
creativity & old-fashioned hard
work.

6. There’s 3 Different channels of User Acquisition :
•
We’re going to show you how to use all 3 for your
•
•
We’ll also show you some other cool tricks ;)
advantage.
So hang tight.

7. Organic Search
• AKA merit search.
• It’s all about how important & valuable a
search engine or app store thinks your
game is. There’s 2 ways to take
advantage of this :
‣ Direct Search
‣ ASO (App Store Optimization)

8. Direct Search
• The end-all, be-all goal of every gaming studio, direct
search downloads happen when people type in your
game’s title, knowing that game is exactly what they
want.
• Yeah, keep dreaming

9. ASO (App Store Optimization)
• Here’s something you can actually work
with.
• But to be successful, you’ve got to make
the description & presentation of your
game absolutely rock.
• How?

10. Killer ASO
•
•
First things first, create a stunning icon.
Follow the 10 ft rule: make your icon stand out from a
sea of others, even if you’re looking at them from 10 feet
away.
•
As you can see, none of these icons stand out.
•
Think it’s too hard? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

11. 10 foot Rule
•
•
•
•
•
Despite our mothers’ best efforts, we
judge books by their covers. &
subsequently, apps by their icons.
Make the content elements pop out.
The icon should make it obvious what
the app is about.
Consider using a border so it looks
good on any background.
Try 2 different icons to see which one
converts best. It’s what we in the
industry call A/B testing.

12. •
•
•
•
•
So, how else to improve your game’s ASO?
Intriguing screen shots
A good video (for Google Play)
Ratings & reviews
Keyword integration

13. Intriguing Screen Shots
•
A good screen shot has
life in it. It doesn’t look
stale & static. It looks
like something the user
could jump right into &
instantly be a part of. It
invites him into the
game’s world.
•
•
•
So, how do you make your screen shots look this good?
Don’t know?
That’s fine, that’s why we’re here.

14. •
•
•
•
Screen Shot Tips
Add explanations
Choose a screen that helps tell the game’s story
Highlight the best features of the game
Provide multiple screenshots to give the players a walk
through

15. Getting a Good Video
• According to Kamcord, 6% of people who watch in-game
videos click through to download the game. Pretty good
for something that only takes one session to make.
• The percentage increases to up to 20% if the video is
posted by their friends.
• How do you get in on this slice of the user acquisition cake?

16. Getting Users via Video
• First things first : practice the game &
get good at it. Don’t make a fool of
yourself.

17. •
Next, choose a scene where the main character does something impressive
•
•
•
The more exciting it seems, the more people will want to be a part of it.
rather than a run-of-the-mill “boring” aspect of the game.
Tip : Show a victory so the viewer can imagine himself as a ‘winner’ as well.
Also : take 3-5 videos of the game. Ask around for different opinions before
choosing the best one to put in the app store.

18. •
Use a decent video-capturing software. We suggest
•
They’re both intuitive softwares that come with easy-to-
Everyplay (iOS only) or Kamcord.
understand instructions.

19. Rating & Reviews
•
Ratings & reviews are an absolute must. If other people don’t say good
things about an app, the user isn’t downloading it. Simple as that.
•
Most of the time, when people take time out of their day to leave an app
review, it’s because they’re really pissed off.
‣
•
Not because the app is working exactly as it should & is making their lives
more enjoyable. (It’d be nice, right? But it’s just not the case.)
Unfortunately, You can’t get away from haters.
‣
‣
•
But you CAN find ways to incentivize or persuade happy users into
leaving good reviews.
And these good reviews are what will help improve your organic
rankings. Each positive review given is like brownie points to the
algorithms of both Android & iOS app stores.
So... how do you get them?

20. Getting Positive Ratings & Reviews :
A Mini Guide
•
In retail & real estate, it’s all about location, location,
•
In getting good app reviews, it’s all about
•
The key goal of presenting your request for an app
location.
presentation, presentation, presentation.
review is to NOT get on the user’s nerves.

21. Good Review Mini Guide: Page 2
•
First things first: we don’t condone black hat practices.
They’re cheating & will probably only come back to bite
you later on. So don’t demand your employees to write
fake reviews.
•
If there’s one thing our mothers taught us, it was to
learn from others’ mistakes & not to make the same
mistakes ourselves.
•
We present to you: Apple’s big review collection mistake.
(next slide please)

22. Apple’s Big Mistake :
Mini Guide Page 3
• Once upon a time, Apple asked for app reviews when a
user decided to delete it from his device.
• This generated a lot of negative ratings & made
developers pretty angry. (Imagine how you’d feel.)
•
Apple did delete this feature, but there’s something we
can all learn from it.

23. How to Do It Right :
Mini Guide Page 4
•
Instead of asking disgruntled users to review your app,
•
•
How?
ask happy ones.
Use Apple’s idea, but present it to frequent users.
‣
First things first: drop Appirater into your app.

24. •
Appirater : Mini Guide Page 5
Once you have Appirater, adjust your settings so after a
certain number of uses (or a certain time of usage
amount), a user is prompted to give you a review.
•
They can choose to rate it, do it later, or simply not rate
•
Hint : Adjusting the language you use to ask for the
it at all.
review can do 2 things for you:
‣
Increase the number of reviews you get
‣
Improve the quality of the reviews

25. Asking for a Review:
Mini Guide Page 6
•
•
•
•
Put yourself in the users shoes for a minute.
Which are you more likely to react to?
‣ “Send us your feedback” -or‣ “Send us some love”
See what we did there? Play with the language
you use to optimize reviews from your target
audience.
And finally, one more tip for getting positive
ratings & reviews...

26. Bonus Tip :
Mini Guide Page 7
•
Incentivize your reviews.
‣
You heard us right. Your users are scratching your
back, so why not scratch theirs in return?
•
Offer free coins, an extra life, or some in-app credit in
exchange for a review.
‣
Works like magic.

27. Keywords
•
And then, there were keywords. Here’s where it tends to
•
But having a proper app store keyword strategy is what
get boring... zzzzzzzzzzzzz
can make the difference between 10 downloads and
10,000.
•
Seriously.

28. How to Find ASO Enhancing Keywords
•
Hang tight, this can get really technical, boring & sad if
•
We’re really sorry - we’ll try to make it as interesting as
•
you’re not careful.
possible.
Just keep in mind that this section will be over in T-minus
6 slides.

29. How to Find ASO - Enhancing Keywords
•
If you’ve got an AdWords account, it’s time to log in.
Because, unfortunately, Google took away it’s free Keyword
Tool. :‘(
•
If you’re not buying into AdWords, you’ve got a few other
•
•
Freemium accounts with iSpionage, Keyword Eye & MixRank.
•
Alternatively, you can use Bing Keyword Research with a
options:
You can also use Ubersuggest. It’s Googles old keyword
database. It is outdated, but at least it’s something.
Microsoft account. It’s free, but the search volume the data
gets extracted from is only a small percentage of overall
web traffic.

30. An Overview - Finding Keywords with
Search Engines
•
•
Go to Google.com & start typing a broad phrase
Watch as Google auto-fills what the most popular search terms are associated
with that phrase & write them down, finding more specific longer-tail keywords
as you go.
•
Visit other country-specific Google sites (like Google.cn for China or Google.co.uk
for the United Kingdom) to find localized keywords to use in country-specific
versions of the app stores.
•
Wash, rinse & repeat with the search engines of your choice.

31. ASO-Enhancing Keywords with AdWords
•
AdWords is not as good as it used to be, but it’s
•
Within a campaign, you can add select keywords
•
If they’re suitable, add them to your campaign &
still pretty useful - as long as you pay for it.
to get data on them.
integrate them into your app store titles &
descriptions.
•
If not, add them to your negative keywords so
you don’t get traffic from them.

32. ASO-Enhancing Keywords with Freemium
Accounts
•
Freemium keyword tools are generally quality paid service tools that let
you keep data for 10 keywords for free, or use their service for a 30-day
trial.
•
These are a good option if you’re only wanting to mess with your keyword
•
These services work very similarly to the way Google’s Keyword Tool used
strategy once & for all until your app is ready for mass-market advertising.
to:
‣
Type in a keyword term you think will work for your app’s search
rankings
‣
See all the search, competition & cost per click data compared side-byside in a chart
‣
Track the keywords you like & see their performance over time

33. Keyword Problems
•
Keyword strategies are hard. Even for SEO experts, uncovering
quality keywords & finding ways to effectively integrate them in
descriptions can be like pulling teeth. Here’s why:
‣
Popular keywords aren’t always the best. Sometimes, it’s
more effective to go after lower-volume, expensive keywords
because those usually represent people who are ready to take
action.
‣
The outside influence of how your competition interprets &
implements some of the same keywords can change how
users interpret them, rendering your initial keyword set
ineffective.
•
But, not all is lost. Even an outdated keyword strategy is better
than no keyword strategy.

34. Other Keyword Tips
•
Use SensorTower to spy on your competition’s
•
•
Make your description top-heavy with keywords.
keywords. It’s quite handy.
Keep your keyword frequency high without over-stuffing:
Write for people, not robots.

35. Paid Methods
•
Don’t worry, the big dogs use these shamelessly, so you
•
The 2 most effective paid methods :
can too - even if you’re on a tight budget.
‣
Burst Campaigns
‣
Email Marketing

36. Burst Campaigns
• Imagine getting 20,000 to 30,000 downloads in a short
amount of time.
•
‣ Now snap out of it.
It isn’t the cheapest way to get things done, but it’s pretty
darn effective - why?
• As soon as you get a lot of downloads, the app stores
notice. You get in the top lists, and if your game is good, it
stays there.

37. Why a Burst Campaign ?
70% of smart phone users don’t bother to
look past the top charts when they
download apps.

38. So How does a Burst Campaign Work?
•
Typical burst campaigns involve hiring a 3rd party marketer and paying a
•
You’re lucky to find a company that doesn’t use download bots & charges
set amount of money per download.
$1 or less per download.
‣
But if you’ve got the cash, it usually pays for itself in a short amount of
time.
•
Because you need thousands of downloads per day to get into the top
charts & you can get punished for download bots, you might want to try
some unconventional burst campaign methods.
•
Why?
‣
Money doesn’t grow on trees.
‣
Bots are bad.

39. Alternative Burst
Campaign Methods
• Free Stuff: Who doesn’t love it?
• Smart Networking: Saying “hi!!!” to the
movers & shakers
• Email Marketing: The bulk of it all

40. But if You Hire Someone to
do it for You?
•
Take these things into consideration first:
‣ The size of their user base
‣ The number & type of devices they can reach
‣ Countries & numbers within those countries
‣ Demographics & interest areas of their user base
‣ How quickly they can get you into the top charts
‣ How much it will cost to get there

41. •
Free Stuff
If your app is paid, offer it for
free for a certain amount of time.
‣ Time sensitivity works hand-
in-hand with a gratis price
tag. People go wild.
•
Offer free in-app credits & let
users know their value.
‣ Do this with time sensitivity
as well.

42. Smart Networking
•
•
Start saying “Hi!” to influential people.
•
Say “Hi!” without an agenda - and if you can help it, 6
We can’t promise they won’t bite - but really, what’s the
worst case scenario?
months before your app launch.
‣
This gives you time to get on their good side ;) (without
losing your dignity, of course)
•
When the time comes, tell them about your app. You
never know what could happen.
‣
If they decide to mention it to their audience, that’s
another potential 20,000 downloads - for free.

43. Email Marketing
• Email marketing gets a bad rap because
it’s hit-and-miss for inexperienced
marketers - causing a lot of frustration.
• But if you know what you’re doing... Say
hello to downloads.

44. •
What’s the point of writing a killer email if only 3 people
will read it?
‣
You might not be able to control what happens to
your emails when they get into a person’s inbox.
‣
But you can control how many inboxes your emails
reach & their relatability to the recipients.
•
To have a successful email marketing campaign, you
•
And if you don’t already have an email list of 50,000 to
need to target LOTS of potential users.
100,000, it’s time to get to work.

45. •
So - say you’ve got an email list of 10. And 6 of them
•
Don’t lose heart. A successful, affordable email
are your parents and grand parents.
campaign with thousands on your list is still
possible.

46. Get those Emails!
•
•
Getting lots of emails is very possible, but it isn’t pretty.
•
Data mining for email addresses has no magic formula,
Data mining is a grueling task, but if you put in the work
for it, you’ll reap 100x what you sow.
but we’ve got a few insider tips for you:

47. Email Mining: Insider Tips - Google
•
Use Google - the tool we’ve been using to answer all of life’s
important questions since 1998 (ok, so maybe this one’s not that
“insider,” but it’s still pretty darn good)
‣
•
Search terms like “list of tech reporters” - you’ll unearth the
mother load
Want a real insider tip from our experience?
‣
Go deep into the search results. Like the 5th or 7th page &
beyond. Willingness to do this is what separates the boys from
the men. And the effective email lists from the not-soeffective ones.

48. Email Mining: Insider Tips - Alexa
•
•
•
•
•
Go to www.alexa.com
•
•
Pick your sub-category.
•
Easy, right?
Sign in with Facebook
Click on the “Top Sites” tab
Click on “By Category”
Click on “Science” (or other related category for your
app)
Get an instant list of the most popular websites to try to
get coverage on.

49. Email Mining: Insider Tips - Quora
•
Search Quora with the same kind of terms you searched
•
•
You’ll get a lot of good info for adding emails to your list.
using Google.
Bonus: Quora is part the “Smart Networking” we
mentioned earlier. If you’re nice to people there, they’ll be
nice to you back. And maybe even help promote news
about your app, boosting downloads. ;)

50. Email Mining: Insider Tips - Writing Emails
• Now that you’ve got a huge list, it’s time to wow your new audience
with your app.
•
Thankfully, the formula’s pretty simple:
‣
Introduce your app as the THE thing they’re looking for (& why)
‣
Tell them the cool features that will make their lives better &
revolutionize X, Y & Z (whatever those factors may be)
Show them what it looks like, give a happy testimonial or two,
‣
and make them an offer they can’t refuse (free download, inapp credits, etc.)
•
AND!! Tailor the email message to your different lists.
Words can’t describe the ROI of your time on this one.
Really.

51. Email Mining: Insider Tips - List
Management
•
•
Use an email list management service.
Good ones to start with are: MailChimp, Amazon SES, Constant
Contact, Campaign Monitor & Sendy. (Note: you will probably
have to start paying after a certain number of email IDs are
saved and/or emails are sent out. But the costs are minimal in
comparison to what reaching all these people could do for you.)
•
Keep your lists separate. Base different lists on where you get
the emails from & what interests the recipients would have in
your app. For example, if it’s a strategy game, separate the
potential players from the tech reporters and app reviewers.

52. Why Email Marketing?
• If you do it with taste, you’re not a
spammer.
• ROI of $40 for every $1 spent - that is, if
you spend money hiring someone else.
Otherwise, it’s straight profit in
exchange for your time.

53. Other Channels
•
Aside from paid methods, you can really
refine your online user acquisition strategy in
5 key ways:
1. Social media marketing
2. Review exchange websites
3. Competition marketing
4. Press releases
5. App review sites

54. Social Media Marketing
•
Find your users where you know they’re
•
•
...Facebook!!
already hanging out...
But, you have to do more than like pictures
chat with your friends

55. •
Social Media Tips
Your mission, should you choose to accept it:
‣
Get new users’ attention away from distraction of pretty
pictures & status updates.
•
How?
‣
Integrate your game into social media.
‣
It’s really easy - especially with Facebook. Read about it
here & get all the tips you need to make & implement a good
strategy.

56. Review Exchange Sites
•
•
“I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine.”
On a review exchange site, you given an honest review
about another developer’s app & they do the same for
you.
•
•
Just be careful not to do too many of these exchanges.
A couple of our favorites include AndroidKi and Review
Exchanger.

57. Competition Marketing
•
So, the big guys want to play dirty by driving up the cost of
•
You can play dirty by doing the things they don’t have time
•
How?
user acquisition?
to do.
‣
Find a similar game from a big-wig competitor.
‣
Go to forums, blog comments & social media threads where
people are talking about it & complaining about the various
problems the game has.
‣
Build your credibility as a game expert in these forums and
start to offer your (obviously better) game as a solution to
their problems. It’ll drive some downloads.

58. Press Releases
•
•
Press release services are both free and paid.
•
Let the world know about your game, get a credible
•
People will want to be the first in on a new game or killer
Obviously, you sometimes get what you pay for, but
even the free ones are better than nothing.
“news” link people will trust, and spread it around.
update, especially if a trusted news service reports on it.
Downloads will happen.

59. App Review Sites
•
Though tough to break, these are a gold mine for indie
•
A review on a high-ranking review site gets your app in
app developers.
front of the eyes of thousands upon thousands of serious
gamers.
•
Here’s the trick: you only have one chance to get
•
So how do you do it??
someone’s attention in an email.
?

60. Must Haves
•
First things first. If you don’t have these things, forget
getting a review:
‣
Short, concise description
‣
Free download code
‣
Smart subject & intro
‣
App store link
‣
Price
‣
Video link
‣
Relevance to site’s audience
‣
Uniqueness - reviewers are tired of “me too” apps

61. The App Review Guru
•
•
Here’s advice from Erica Sadun
She’s an iOS developer, author of the iOS Developer’s
Cookbook series, writer at TUAW, and basically the endall, be-all guru of getting your app reviewed.

62. The Guru’s Advice
•
“We just want to see what the app is about without having to download
•
•
“Always include 2 links. OK?” (product page + download link)
it.” (thus deciding if it’s worthy of a review)
“In your paragraph, this is what you got to do. You have to say what is your
app, who your audience is. Oh my gosh, that is so important. We want to
know who the app is for. Please, please, please tell us.”
•
Here’s the full interview courtesy of App Design Vault

63. Where to Start?
•
•
•
Phew, still there?
That was a lot to go over.
Now you know what steps to take, but exactly which
order to take them in can be difficult to assess & varies
from one game audience to the next.

64. •
Getting Started
Here’s our suggested outline of how to get started
with user acquisition as an indie game developer:
‣ Design & implement a simple strategy to
integrate the social graph. Like incentivized
invites. This can’t be under estimated.
‣ Optimize your app store presence: description,
video, etc.
‣ Publicize with app reviews and press releases
surrounding your launch and all significant
updates.

65. Or.....
• You can leave the headache & work to
us.
• We’re experienced at attaining users for
a wide variety of apps, from children’s
games to dieting apps to business
solutions.
• And we’ve got some budget-friendly
packages for you to choose from.

66. $1,200 Fixed Package
•
Setting up the campaign tracking SDK -
•
•
•
•
Refining target audience
•
Deciding KPIs and tracking metrics for
HasOffers, Kochava, etc.
Selecting most effective advertising networks
Integrating SDKs
Advertising campaign setup: creative aspects &
financial settings
effectiveness

67. $1,600 Paid UA & ASO
• Everything in $1,200 Fixed Package
• Keyword optimization
• Competitor keyword tracking
• Keyword rank tracking

68. $3,000 Premium Downloads Package
• Everything in $1,200 Fixed Package +
$1,600 Paid UA & ASO
• Social media management
• Press release
• Outreach to app review sites
• Competition marketing

69. Ready for more users?
Call or email us today. We have app
marketing experts on hand to help you
come up with the most effective user
acquisition strategy for your app.
415-758-1522
contact@click-labs.com