Seventeen years ago, Apple’s App Store forever changed how people interact with technology. For developers, the App Store gave users direct access to a new world of games, productivity tools, and entertainment right at their fingertips. For developers, this marked the beginning of an entirely new digital economy, which has grown to include more than two million apps.
But despite this growth, developers now face an increasingly competitive market. Building a great product is no longer enough to be seen. The real challenge lies in finding users who will use an app beyond the free trial period.
Experts in App Store Optimization (ASO) agree that most users never scroll past the first page of search results, leading to millions of apps remaining unseen, buried beneath top contenders.
As the app marketplace becomes more challenging to break through, Israeli ASO startup Applift has developed a unique technology designed to work with algorithms rather than against them. Powered by a continuously learning dataset built over years from Google Play and Apple’s App Store, the company is essentially doing what SEO did to Google searches, by optimizing search results based on user preferences. Applift’s platform constantly learns how users think, search, install, and engage to match their clients' apps with the most relevant audiences.
Drawing from this data, the platform identifies “high-intent keywords” that signal when somebody is ready to act, like when someone is looking for a VPN right before a trip, for example. By understanding the psychology behind user searches, Applift positions its clients' apps in front of the right users at the right moment.
While some developers turn to paid promotion to reach new audiences, campaigns can cost thousands of dollars just to get a handful of downloads. In many cases, the money generated from a user, whether through subscriptions, ads, or in-app purchases, fails to exceed the cost incurred to acquire them.
Waste of money to chase uninterested users
“The paradox of paid marketing is that the more you advertise, the less you earn,” says Bar Nakash, CEO of Applift. “At some point, you’re chasing the same uninterested users or reaching irrelevant ones. We offer a third way: Applift creates organic momentum so the app store algorithm itself recommends our clients’ apps to the most relevant users, achieving maximum visibility at minimal cost.”
This data-driven strategy allows developers to reach audiences already searching for what they offer, resulting in higher retention and a stronger return on investment (ROI). As the system gathers new data, it creates a feedback loop that refines which search terms and audiences deliver the best results. Its results speak for themselves: a fintech app in the US working with Applift has cut its CPI by more than 97 percent and increased its users by 3 percent in less than 3 months.
Nakash adds: “Just like how travelers abroad instinctively line up outside the bakery with the longest queue — because that’s where the best pastries are, users today trust the apps that rank highest in search results. If you appear first, the wisdom of the crowd says you’re the best option. Our technology ensures that’s exactly what happens.”
As the app landscape expands, outdated marketing tactics are no longer the most effective way of reaching new audiences. The future lies in harnessing algorithms and their insights to connect the right app with the right user at the right time. In an industry that is constantly changing, that kind of connection will be what sets one app apart from another.