How to Improve Your App Rating to Support User Acquisition Campaigns

lisafeng

September 1, 2021 6 minutes read

Uncategorized

How much value do you place on your app rating and reviews? If it’s not a high priority of your mobile app marketing strategy, we think it should be. That’s because your rating is a symbol of trust, credibility, and reliability.

While it doesn’t tell the whole story on the usability and effectiveness of your app, prospective users do pay attention to it. It could be the reason they do or don’t download. While your rating is something to monitor all the time, it’s especially crucial when you’re launching a user acquisition (UA) campaign. If you’re going to push people to your app store profile page, you’ll want to improve your app’s rating as part of app store optimization (ASO).

App Rating Has an Impact on Visibility

One critical component to call out is that an app’s rating impacts how the app stores rank results in an organic search. For example, when a user searches for “scanner,” it will return apps that provide this functionality. Beyond the paid ads, it will list organic results.

If your app has a healthy rating, it’s likely to be higher on the list. However, not every review an app receives is equal. They consider volume, freshness, and type. To maintain an over four-star rating, you’ll need to entice users to leave ratings.

Consumers Listen to Others

You can tell the world how great your app is, but it’s not going to be as powerful as your users saying it. This is because your brand has a bias, and consumers trust each other. In fact, 90% of consumers trust online reviews.

They may put a lot of stock in what someone engaging with your app has to say. While not every review will be positive, you need to gain as many authentic ones as possible. It could even be a competitive edge.

How to Get Users to Leave Reviews

Is it hard to get reviews for your app? What types of techniques did you try? Every user of your app has an opinion on it (as long as they’ve adopted it), and you need to entice them to give you feedback. Here are a few things you can do to increase reviews:

Use rewarded ad units that provide the users something in return for a review. Once the user completes the review and returns to the app, they get something of value—coins, a discount, a new feature, etc. The reward should be something they want!
Be candid about why you need reviews: You have an opportunity to start a conversation with a user about reviews beyond—leave one! Tell them why it matters and why you want them to share their experience. Further, explain that their feedback is critical to continuing to improve the app.
Give users time: Asking for a review as soon as they open the app isn’t a good move. It disrupts the normal flow and can make it more likely that a user will close the app. Asking for a review should come after they’ve been on the app and completed a tutorial or begun to use it. One way to let them review on their terms is by placing it on an offerwall, so it’s user-initiated.
Make it easy to review your app by making it possible to do in-app. It’s more convenient for users this way.
Create an integrated campaign to get reviews: You can request reviews in more places than just the app. For example, put a banner ad on your website. Promote it on social media. Send a request via email for those that opted in to receive communications. A concerted effort via many channels could improve your review volume.

Don’t Forget to Respond

Responding to app reviews is another part of the process. Positive or negative, you should try to respond to all of them. Keep responses concise and friendly. Acknowledge the feedback and guide a user to resources if they have a complaint. If possible, personalize them, but they may not be possible, depending on how many you receive.

You could collect some beneficial information that can help you improve your app’s functionality. For things that weren’t clear to users, you may want to update your description on the app stores or add more information to an FAQ. They may also be a goldmine for keywords because you’re capturing how your audience speaks about your app and what it does.

Responding shows that you care about the user experience and could prompt someone new to download the app.

When It’s Most Important to Improve Your App Rating

Keeping your app rating top of mind is always a good idea, but there are certain times when you’ll want to boost it as part of UA app install campaigns. Such campaigns that could benefit from a higher app rating include:

Burst campaigns: In this scenario, you are increasing advertising dollars for a concentrated period of time. You can burst by keyword or category. Either way, they’ll be landing on your profile, and users will decide to upload and are likely considering your rating as a reason. If you see an influx in downloads during this time, your app could increase its category ranking, causing an organic uplift. Thus, the reviews on your app landing page should be as current and positive as possible.
Expanding to new geos: If your app UA goals are to pick up new users in different regions, you’ll need some standing because it’s a new market. You’ll need to boost your reviews before you start UA campaigns.
Sustained campaigns: This type of campaign works differently than a burst. It helps you reach the goal of remaining in a good position of ranking in the vertical. You’re looking for consistent traffic. Getting traffic to your app profile is only part of the strategy. To get users to click download, they’ll weigh your rating.
Seasonality: There may be certain times of the year or seasons where your app category is more in use. If so, you’re likely to launch some type of install campaign to align with how users search. Before you do that, plan at least 30 days to freshen up your reviews.
Digital advertising campaigns that direct users to your app profile: When you launch a digital advertising tactic with the goal of more uploads, you’ll need to convince people it’s worth the click. Your rating, if it’s over four stars, could be a great thing to lead with in copy. It signifies social proof of your app’s credibility.
Scaling your mobile app before an initial public offering (IPO): In that situation, you may be using various rewarded campaigns to drive more uploads, as it could be a valuation factor.