Exclusive insights into working in ASO at one of Europe’s leading mobile technology and marketing consultancies

Author: Anna Priester – Former App Marketing Content Specialist at Customlytics

App Store Optimization is one of our most popular services clients ask us to support them with. Just publishing an app to the app stores doesn’t do the trick for a high visibility and conversion rate (CVR) – our ASO experts work their magic to boost these crucial metrics for our clients. To be fair, there’s no magic behind ASO. Our team of ASO enthusiasts has broad expertise in all ASO-related fields and therefore knows exactly how to present an app in the best possible way. This includes creating sets of screenshots, drafting texts, A/B testing and conducting keywords research on a regular basis. What else it takes to create an effective ASO strategy and become an ASO superstar, we’ll cover in this article.

The skill set of an ASO Manager

Let’s start off with the skill set an ASO Manager should bring to tackle challenges in daily work. First and foremost, an ASO Manager is required to have a broad knowledge. This knowledge goes beyond ASO-related matters and includes technical mobile knowledge as well as special soft skills.

Quick to adapt: ASO is a fast-paced area in mobile app marketing (which is itself already quite fast-paced). An ASO Manager should bring a big interest in continuing education and wanting to be constantly up-to-date in regards to ASO. Every other week, there are changes within the ASO area. The fundamental structure remains the same but app stores are changing constantly, new privacy features make a big impact, requirements for metadata can change – all of this requires a hands-on mentality in order to implement those changes quickly.

Creative mindset: An ASO Manager needs to understand its clients’ needs and requirements and should be able to empathize with their desired user group in order to create assets that attract new users. As screenshots have the biggest impact on the CVR, they are a vital part of the daily work and an ASO Manager needs to get highly creative on how to put the best visual and textual elements. When approaching existing problems and trying to solve them by A/B testing assets, creative thinking is paired with analytical thinking.

Communication skills: An ASO Manager is in close exchange with external clients and internal designers. Both need to be approached proactively on a regular basis to get the input needed to successfully deliver a project. In particular with clients, an ASO Manager needs to have a self-confident appearance to present his professional skills and win the clients’ trust to have the freedom to get creative.

Project management skills: Good time management and setting up initial processes that work throughout a project are the way to succeed as an ASO Manager. With a good structure, an ASO Manager can plan the to-dos accordingly using the latest project management tools for collaboration across teams and time tracking. The job requires an ASO Manager to know what information/ input they need from clients to get to work and conduct successfully ASO.

The career progression of an ASO Manager at Customlytics

So what’s in it for you as an ASO Manager? When joining the Customlytics team,  you’ll grow your professional and personal skills in many areas: First and most importantly, in mobile app marketing. We are a full-stack consultancy. Our work goes beyond ASO – limitations between departments don’t exist at Customlytics. That’s unique in the agency sector. With a holistic understanding of mobile marketing, every one of the team is aligned, eg. an ASO Manager can draw conclusions from bad reviews and knows who to approach in our team to fix product-related problems. We are a team and our motto is “sharing is caring” when it comes down to our knowledge and taking projects further. Customlytics is growing fast, but organically – small teams are growing together which has a positive impact on the atmosphere at our workplace. Meaning for you, by the side of experienced mobile experts, you’ll gain deep insights into mobile marketing. This approach is beneficial for your further development – if you should decide that you prefer another area of mobile app marketing, there is the opportunity to get trained and change internally as we have the resources and enough interesting projects.

Gaining expert knowledge in ASO: With time, you’ll get a feeling for design and develop a good eye for detail with the close collaboration with our designers. Not for long, and you know straight from the beginning what is possible within the scope of design work in line with the client’s brand guidelines. Having internal designers with whom you’ll create screenshots together is a great advantage. This speeds up the process a lot and is more efficient in bringing valuable results.

Through the variety of clients, you’ll gain a deep understanding of brand identities (especially in projects with big brands like Audible or Deutsche Telekom). You’ll soon know what to expect from different brands and work accordingly. If your time at an agency should ever come to an end, this knowledge about brands is extremely valuable to join a company and start working in-house. This gives you a competitive advantage over other candidates.

Here’s an overview of the career progression within our ASO team.

With more experience, your responsibilities will grow and you can take over projects independently as you’ll know exactly what apps need in order to be successful in the app stores – even in global markets.

Let’s take a closer look at the tasks of an ASO Manager and the fields of development to tackle to climb up the career ladder at Customlytics.

The daily routine of an ASO Manager 

We had a discussion with our ASO team about their daily routine – turns out there’s not such a thing as a working routine in an ASO role. Their day pretty much differs depending on current projects they’re working on. Nevertheless, they do have recurring tasks and responsibilities which we will dig deeper into. An ASO Manager’s main concern is an app’s app store presence. The app store is a marketplace for users to find and install mobile apps – here, we’re talking about millions of apps in the leading app stores: Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store. It takes a whole lot to stand out from this huge crowd and this is where ASO comes into play. With a well thought out ASO strategy, it is possible to secure a high position in the search results page for specific keywords for an app and become more visible to a large number of potential new users. Eventually, you can convert them to customers by convincing them to install the app with a neat app store appearance. Therefore, one of the main tasks of an ASO Manager is to know exactly for which keywords the app gets ranked and create and maintain a visually pleasing as well as textually compelling app store page providing the user with relevant information about the values and features of an app. What does this look like in a typical project? It is a process and always starts with a kickoff meeting with the client in which the project scope and needs are clearly defined. To get to work, it is crucial that an ASO manager knows the competitors, product, users, trends and brand in detail. He gets information provided by the client but has to deep-dive proactively further into these ASO-related fields.

Visual elements have the most impact on app store conversion rate. Visuals include different elements (app icon, screenshots, video and feature graphic (Android only)). Among all elements, the screenshots are the most optimizable asset for CVR. Screenshots are a gallery of images that showcase an app. An ASO Manager creates these screenshots together in close collaboration with our internal design team. The client provides a design manual with brand visual design guidelines, the designers receive this with a detailed briefing from the ASO Manager and work accordingly on the first set of screenshots. Usually, many internal feedback loops and checks with the marketing team of the client follow until they are final. It’s a constant exchange with the ASO Manager as a mediator between both teams giving the right direction to reach the best possible outcome. Another important aspect of ASO involves optimizing the textual elements (app title, subtitle, short description, long description, keywords field) of an app store page in terms of keyword usage. Using the right keywords in the right positions will boost visibility by helping the app to appear on top of the search results page for all relevant search terms. An ASO Managers’ task is to find suitable keywords and review if the selected keywords drive the right people towards the app and make adjustments if needed. More about the process of keyword optimization (KWO), you’ll find on these series of blog articles: part 1 & part 2.

Talking about reaching the best possible outcome, A/B testing is a big contribution. A/B testing for mobile apps works by segmenting an audience into two (or more) groups and seeing how a variable affects user behaviour. It is a common practice to approach existing problems and test if the elaborated changes to solve the issue work. Before implementing any test, the ASO Manager develops a hypothesis and defines what should be monitored to find the result. If the result is positive, the ASO Manager can confidently expose a larger audience to the successful changes. If this is not the case, the test can still provide useful data (into other ASO-related fields) and should be used to update a hypothesis.

Do you want to get a better idea of our projects and take a closer look at our competencies in ASO? Check out our ASO case studies to learn how our ASO team helps our clients to increase the visibility of their apps in the leading app stores, boost their conversation rates and successfully conducts keyword optimization – the results are astonishing.

As the clients’ products (their app) are being continuously developed and expanded, the relevant information about the values and features of the app communicated to users ought to change. A part of an ASO Manager’s responsibilities is to always stay up to date with any changes, rework the existing app store presence and adapt screenshots and texts to fit the new approach of what needs to be communicated.

With the variety of recurring but constantly changing and challenging tasks, a day in the life of an ASO Manager at Customlytics is never boring and monotonous.”

Workflow of an ASO Manager at Customlytics 

As a leading mobile technology and marketing consultancy in Europe, Customlytics has a wide range of clients in various industries – including startups as well as big corporations like Audible and Deutsche Telekom. Depending on the needs of each individual client, ASO is part of our provided services. An ASO Manager steps in as an expert for this field and usually manages up to 5 clients/ projects at the same time – depending on the seniority and scope of work. An ASO Manager gets its own projects and works independently on the implementation of new things but is in its decision and time management often dependent on feedback from clients and our designers. As there are many internal and external feedback loops, time management can vary greatly. An ASO Manager gets back and forth with different projects in its workflow and needs to be able to switch easily between different projects at a time. No client is alike – for each project, an ASO Manager is confronted with unique requirements and challenges for the individual app. That makes the work so exciting. At Customlytics, a consultant gets assigned to a client who takes responsibility for the full scope of our provided services within the project – an ASO Manager is responsible for ASO-related services and reports to the consultant. Internal collaboration with the team including regular check-ins and 1:1 with the lead is very important for us to learn and grow together. An ASO Manager works closely together with experienced designers, consultants and our COO and CO-Founder.

Are you interested in learning the ins and outs of ASO and climbing up the career ladder? We’ve got you covered! Don’t be afraid as a young professional or career changer – You don’t necessarily need to have prior experience with ASO to succeed as an ASO Manager. ASO is open for anyone with a general interest in mobile app marketing willing to dig deeper into this specific area. If you’ve already worked in the field of mobile marketing, you can benefit a lot from basic knowledge (about the technical infrastructure of apps, user acquisition, attribution, CRM) to start with ASO as you understand the principles and can link problems to their sources. 

“Don’t be scared of being a newbie to ASO – general interest and knowledge in mobile marketing will help you to become a quick starter in ASO!”

Get in touch with our ASO team consisting of Clif, Paul and Noah to clear your last doubts. They are more than happy to have a chat with you about everything you’ve ever wanted to know from an ASO professional.

Take your career to the next level and check out our open positions in ASO from entry to expert level!

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