App Store Marketing
App Store Marketing covers the full app growth stack - ASO, Apple Search Ads, Google App Campaigns, paid social, DSPs, retention, CRM, creatives and app UX optimisation.
Daily thought from Tom, the ASM editor-in-chief... Half your trial cancellations can happen before the user even finds their footing, and the fix is often embarrassingly simple: treat the post-purchase moment like part of onboarding. Tiny win: add a one-screen confirmation with one next step to the first proof moment (plus an optional reminder toggle), then watch Day 0 cancels for a week.
Start here: core guides
View all guides
Start here: What is App Store Marketing?
What it is, what’s changed, and the levers that still matter.
ASO Guide 2026
Positioning → metadata → creative → iteration cadence (a repeatable system).
Apple Search Ads Guide
Structure, bidding, creative, and incrementality - without hype.
ASO checklist
A simple weekly routine to keep listings compounding.
App marketing tools
A curated toolbox for research, creative, and measurement.
App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 21 (2026)
This week’s theme: stop debating retention in the abstract. Benchmarks (and definitions) turn ‘churn feels high’ into an actionable diagnosis, and they force the right question: did users reach the proof moment you promised?
Latest
- UK finance Apple Search Ads: the auctions are fragmented, but Monzo is the clearest paid visibility winner
- App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 21 (2026)
- Apple Design Award finalists 2026: a useful swipe file for onboarding, motion, and ‘proof moment’ UI
- Google System Services (May 2026): the Play changes you feel before you can name them
- Brazil looks next for alternative iOS app marketplaces: iOS 26.5 adds a ‘default marketplace’ setting
- Mother’s Day Apple Search Ads (US, iOS): who bought the moment, and what their creatives reveal
News feed
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 21 (2026)
This week’s theme: stop debating retention in the abstract. Benchmarks (and definitions) turn ‘churn feels high’ into an actionable diagnosis, and they force the right question: did users reach the proof moment you promised?
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UK finance Apple Search Ads: the auctions are fragmented, but Monzo is the clearest paid visibility winner
A credited summary of ConsultMyApp’s APPlyzer-based scan of 40 UK finance keywords. The practical takeaway: ASA competition in Finance is really multiple intent pools (banking, savings, ISA/investing, insurance), so structure campaigns and CPPs around intent, not category.
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Apple Design Award finalists 2026: a useful swipe file for onboarding, motion, and ‘proof moment’ UI
A credited summary of Apple’s 2026 Apple Design Award finalists list, and how to use it as a practical reference library for UI clarity, feedback, and first-session ‘proof moments’ (not just vibes).
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Google System Services (May 2026): the Play changes you feel before you can name them
A credited summary of Google’s May 2026 System Services release notes (Play services v26.19 + Play Store v51.5), focused on what app teams should watch: AppFunctions groundwork, credential manager expansion, and new Store discovery surfaces like Play Collections.
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Brazil looks next for alternative iOS app marketplaces: iOS 26.5 adds a ‘default marketplace’ setting
A credited summary of 9to5Mac’s report that iOS 26.5 introduces an ‘App Installation’ setting for Brazilian users, suggesting Apple is preparing a marketplace-based model (not just web distribution). The practical implication: discovery, trust, and measurement may fragment beyond the EU.
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Mother’s Day Apple Search Ads (US, iOS): who bought the moment, and what their creatives reveal
APPlyzer-backed Mother’s Day snapshot for the US App Store: the organic winners across cards and photo intent, the Apple Search Ads advertisers who showed up on peak seasonal queries, and the Custom Product Page patterns that worked.
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Google outlines Android’s 2026 security and privacy roadmap (banking scam calls, threat detection, theft protections)
Google’s Android Security and Privacy team previews 2026 platform protections: verified financial calls to stop spoofed bank scams, expanded on-device threat detection, tighter Advanced Protection, and stronger device theft defenses.
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App Store Marketing Weekly – Week 20 (2026)
This week’s theme: relevance and proof are becoming inseparable. More Apple Ads inventory and screenshot craft both push teams toward the same question: can a user understand the promise and see evidence in 5 seconds?
More stories
- Apple warns of South Korea App Store price equalization updates (and a Latvia VAT edge case)
- Apple’s Developer app gets a Liquid Glass refresh ahead of WWDC26 (and why that still matters)
- App retention benchmarks 2026: the median D1/D7/D30 by category (and what it implies)
- Google Play Billing v8 migration: what actually changes (and what to fix before v9)
- Apple now requires a Brazilian betting license for fixed-odds gambling apps in the Brazil App Store
See more
- App Store screenshot guidelines (2026): the practical rules that actually trip teams up
- Google Play’s ‘safer apps’ push: more pre-checks, more guidance, and stronger signing
- Rave sues Apple over App Store removal: a reminder that ‘platform competition’ risk is real
- Supreme Court lets Apple’s Epic contempt order stand, the real fight is what ‘external links’ cost developers
- AI-generated UGC ads: why ‘replication’ beats reinvention (and where trust breaks)
- Apple vs Epic: the Supreme Court declines to pause the contempt order (why app teams should care)
- Retention in 2026: build habit loops, not feature lists (17 engagement tactics, filtered)
On the grapevine
Small notes and community chatter worth keeping an eye on (curated and capped).
- DMA interoperability: FSFE report says 56 Apple requests have produced 0 concrete solutions (so far) FSFE Public report worth skimming if you ship EU variants. Practical takeaway: “interoperability” may still mean slow, request-based access, so plan region-specific capability and support expectations.
- Search results ad placements (what can show where, and why you can’t pick position) Apple Ads Help Primary source. Useful when teams panic about “more ads”: you can’t choose placement, so intent matching and CPP alignment matter more than vibes.
- Apple Design Award finalists 2026 (a high-signal swipe file for UI clarity and “proof moments”) Apple Developer (Design Awards) Primary source. If your listing promises something your onboarding cannot prove in session one, this is where “good” looks like in practice. Steal interaction patterns, not aesthetics.
- Policy deadlines table (the one link you want in every compliance thread) Google Play Console Help Primary source. If you only bookmark one Play policy page, make it this. It turns “is this real?” into an actual date and gives you the enforcement clock.
- Push token requests: what Apple can disclose, and what a court order changes Apple (Transparency) Primary source. Handy context for security and privacy threads: push systems have metadata, and platform disclosure is now an explicit policy surface.
See more
- Apple vs Epic: Supreme Court declines to pause contempt order (link-out payments are still a live wire) SCOTUSblog Not a platform doc, but a high-signal legal datapoint. If you rely on steering or external payments, keep your UX and support expectations flexible, and document the exact flow you ship.
- iOS 26.4.2 security update (includes a fix related to notification deletion persistence) Apple Support Primary source. Useful reference when teams discuss notification previews, retention pushes, and what “deleted” actually means on-device.
- A look ahead: making it easier (and faster) to publish safer apps Android Developers Blog Primary source. A good “what’s changing” post: more pre-checks, more policy guidance, and a steady march toward safer defaults that reduce surprise rejections.