Promoting the 7VPN App: Increasing Impressions by 88% and Installs by 36% Among 500+ Competitors

Service:
Sector:
Utility
Author:
Published:
June 27, 2024
Team:
Vitalii Hubaryk
ASO Specialist
Olha Hrek
ASO Team Lead
Tetiana Ilienko
Project Manager

In the competitive world of VPN apps, standing out from the hundreds of similar services is a real challenge. However, 7VPN has achieved results by increasing impressions and downloads due to the effectiveness of text and image ASO. In this article, the RadASO team explains what strategies and approaches allowed 7VPN to outperform more than 500 competitors and take a leading position in the market

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Client

7VPN is a VPN application designed for secure and confidential internet browsing. The app allows you to connect to servers in 60+ countries, add your own servers to a connection, block online ads, and check your connection speed in real time.

Purpose of the Promotion

Increase the app’s visibility and boost the number of installs in target countries.

Main Challenge

An extremely competitive niche with more than 500 apps, including strong brands such as Nord VPN, Turbo VPN, and others.

Team Actions

Step 1. Analyze app functions and gather relevant competitors. 

Step 2. Based on the analysis of the niche, particularly the total number of downloads and competitors’ profits, the team identified priority countries for optimizing text metadata.

The team focused on the regions with the largest traffic share, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, France, and Germany.

Before that, the app had already used 13 of the 39 available localizations in the App Store, but the RadASO team decided to rework them and expand the plan with other localizations.

Step 3. Gather the semantic core from relevant search terms by which competitors are ranked, their titles and subtitles, as well as search suggestions from the store:

Step 4. Several iterations of updating metadata for approved countries using cross-localization. This allowed the team to use the largest possible number of key search terms.

For example, in Spain, there are 4 localizations used at the same time: English (UK, US), Spanish (Spain), and Catalan, and 3 in Australia – English (UK, US) and English (Australia). For more information on the list, follow the link.

Noteworthy. The team decided not to use the original brand name “7VPN” in the title, but to separate “7 VPN” with a space. This is necessary in order to use the main keyword “VPN”, which forms connections with several search terms and saves space for other keywords.

Based on the following metrics, the RadASO team made conclusions about prioritizing the metadata inclusion of a particular search term:

  • search term popularity – we focused on keywords of high and medium popularity;
  • whether the search term was included in the current metadata and the app’s position based on it – the team saved search terms for which the app had high rankings and replaced with new those that failed to get those rankings;
  • the best position of the application for the search term over time – if the position of the application is currently low, but from time to time it appears on top, then such search terms should be saved in order not to lose potential traffic from them;
  • the number of competitors in the top ten – the more competitors in the top ten, the more relevant the search term is to the app;
  • the total number of apps in the search results – the lower the total number of apps in the search results, the less competitive the niche, consequently, there is a higher probability of getting a high ranking;
  • conversion (if this indicator is available with Apple Search Ads) – targeting less popular search terms with high conversion rates may be more appropriate than highly popular ones with low conversion rates, and, as a result, your app may get more downloads.

Step 5. Testing graphic elements to increase conversion to downloads. To perform this, the RadASO team uses the CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization) Loop strategy:

Step 6. Analyzing the app’s icon and screenshots for further improvement. Before testing, the graphic looked like this:


Hypothesis #1. The image of the keyword “VPN” on the app icon will explain its functionality and attract more users’ attention.

Based on the hypothesis, several new variants of the icon were created:

The testing results proved that the icon with VPN at the bottom showed a 1.83% improvement in conversion compared to the current icon and other test variants:

Note. A/B/C/D testing is an ideal solution to determine the best icon variant in one test. *The built-in testing tool in the App Store allows for testing up to three creative variations against the default page simultaneously. In this case, A is the default page, and B/C/D are the test variations. They were tested simultaneously, with variant B performing the best.

Hypothesis #2. The first screenshot demonstrates the main advantage of the app – the connection to a secure server.

Hypothesis #3. Demonstration of the main need and benefit for users – seamless access to the desired content and games. 

Screenshots that are based on two hypotheses:

According to the test results, the new screenshots showed an average conversion rate improvement of 3%:

Note. Variants B and B’ are identical versions of the test screenshots. The team performed A/B/B testing.

Promotion Results

The number of positions in the 1-50 range has increased:

As a result of the new positions, we see an increase in the app’s visibility in countries with updated metadata:

The number of downloads has also increased: 

Comparing the number of impressions and installs in the target countries during the 2 months before and after the first release, we can see an increase in these indicators. In just two months of working on ASO, the organic impressions in the targeted countries increased by 88% and installs by 33%:

Campaign
Expenditure
Impressions
Taps
Installs
TTR
CR
Installs/Impr
Avg CPT
Avg CPA
Common term
-65.64%
-49.85%
-64.01%
-63.52%
-1.69%
0.81%
-0.98%
-5.13%
-6.06%
Data collection
-44.45%
-29.55%
-44.22%
-50.2%
-0.7%
-6.39%
-0.6%
0%
11.65%
Competitors brand
98.56%
80.41%
103.76%
92.01%
0.38%
-3.58%
0.12%
-2.38%
2.94%
Our brand
21.39%
23.01%
33.84%
32.65%
3.14%
-0.72%
2.27%
-8.33%
-6.82%
Discovery
-100%
-100%
-100%
-100%
-3.61%
-30.16%
-1.09%
-100%
-100%
Total
-0.6%
7.92%
11.72%
12.3%
0.2%
0.35%
0.16%
-11.36%
-12.31%
Group
Spend, $ %
Impressions %
Taps %
Installs %
Installs/Impr October, %
Installs/Impr November, %
Installs/Impr %
Avg CPT, $ %
Avg CPA, $ %
Competitor 1
42,98
83,11
63,3
50,48
3,74
3,08
-0,66
-12,2
-5,66
Common term
3,26
-3,73
3,92
26,67
0,57
0,75
0,18
0
-18,8
Competitors brand
120,26
59,82
47,02
0
0,49
0,31
-0,18
47,37
119,4
Data collection
15,12
-0,55
0,36
73,33
0,5
0,86
0,36
13,73
-33,51
Competitor 2
0,27
13,2
8,47
10,11
1,12
1,09
-0,03
-6,56
-9,02
Competitor 3
21,51
-2,06
-6,67
-8,33
0,43
0,4
-0,03
32
32,95
Our brand
3 575,62
3 646,79
3 544,9
3 553,66
37,61
36,68
-0,93
0
0
Competitor 4
-29,36
-35,77
-24,07
-33,7
0,61
0,63
0,02
-7,46
6,25
Relevant Competitors
69,42
26,03
51,35
48,95
6,3
7,45
1,15
12,2
14,29
Competitor 5
32,21
17,63
57,48
53,16
1,71
2,23
0,51
-15,71
-13,77
Competitor 6
-9,31
9,42
22,92
17,89
5,3
5,71
0,41
-27,08
-23,44
Total
33,96%
13,44%
87,29%
127,08%
1,36%
2,73%
1,37%
-29,09%
-40,74%
Custom region
Impressions
Units
1/7/2021 - 1/15/2021
1/16/2021 - 1/24/2021
Change
%
MoM
1/7/2021 - 1/15/2021
1/16/2021 - 1/24/2021
Change
%
MoM
United States
12 970
39 436
26 466
204 %
88 220
1 116
1 904
788
71 %
2 627
UK + Ireland
8 731
10 197
1 466
17 %
4 887
438
462
24
5 %
80
Germany + AT + CH + LU
1 974
6 235
4 261
216 %
14 203
203
291
88
43 %
293
France
1 500
4 390
2 890
193 %
9 633
182
237
55
30 %
183
Netherlands / Belgium
1 593
3 599
2 006
126 %
6 687
159
201
42
26 %
140
Ukraine
697
4 010
3 313
475 %
11 043
85
189
104
122 %
347
Canada
2 569
3 614
1 045
41 %
3 483
145
178
33
23 %
110
Northern Europe
1 273
2 024
751
59 %
2 503
117
175
58
50 %
193
Australia + NZ
1 754
3 324
1 570
90 %
5 233
137
160
23
17 %
77
Vietnam
352
2 712
2 360
670 %
7 867
32
144
112
350 %
373
Thailand
679
2 016
1 337
197 %
4 457
57
142
85
149 %
283
Arabic World
268
1 745
1 477
551 %
4 923
40
119
79
198 %
263
Spain
844
2 058
1 214
144 %
4 047
78
108
30
38 %
100
Eastern Europe
458
1 070
612
134 %
2 040
63
95
32
51 %
107
Italy
826
2 145
1 319
160 %
4 397
77
94
17
22 %
57
Turkey
338
2 309
1 971
583 %
6 570
34
87
53
156 %
177
Rest of World
426
1 457
1 031
242 %
3 437
48
81
33
69 %
110
Japan
553
5 113
4 560
825 %
15 200
18
80
62
344 %
207
India
234
1 169
935
400 %
3 117
15
75
60
400 %
200
Brazil
294
1 332
1 038
353 %
3 460
34
67
33
97 %
110
Hispanic America
318
784
466
147 %
1 553
42
51
9
21 %
30
Indonesia
206
525
319
155 %
1 063
20
41
21
105 %
70
Korea (South)
308
2 055
1 747
567 %
5 823
22
36
14
64 %
47
Malaysia
119
663
544
457 %
1 813
11
27
16
145 %
53
Taiwan + HK + Macau
145
532
387
267 %
1 290
9
24
15
167 %
50
Rest of Europe
82
287
205
250 %
683
12
22
10
83 %
33
Portugal
17
273
256
1 506 %
853
2
18
16
800 %
53
Israel
23
120
97
422 %
323
3
9
6
200 %
20
China / Singapore
78
134
56
72 %
187
6
7
1
17 %
3
Total
39 629
105 328
65 699
166 %
218 997
3 205
5 124
1 919
60 %
6 397

Conclusion

Due to a detailed niche analysis, a consistent process of preparing textual metadata, and testing graphical elements, the team has achieved results in the selected countries and significantly expanded the app's user base.

As a result, the app’s visibility has almost doubled after the ASO work, and installs have increased by a third. Testing of creatives showed an improvement in conversion by 2-3% in each iteration.

Testimonials

Tetiana Ilienko, Project Manager

Promoting yourself in the VPN software market is quite a hard challenge. From the very beginning, our client demonstrated a high level of professionalism and understood the importance of optimization. The client’s team was actively involved at all stages, open to new ideas, and fast to respond to our suggestions and comments.

The cooperation was extremely productive. Due to the well-coordinated work of the RadASO and 7VPN teams, we have achieved significant results – an increase in the views and downloads. I am grateful to the 7VPN team for their trust and cooperation.

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