ASO (App Store Optimization) competitive analysis is the process of evaluating and analyzing the strategies of competing apps to identify opportunities for growth and optimization of your own app.
Its purpose is to understand what your competitors are doing well, where their weaknesses lie, and what you can do to stand out in a crowded market. Its insights can help you improve your app’s visibility, attract more organic traffic, and increase downloads.
ASO competitive research is the groundwork for any ASO strategy or even any A/B testing strategy.
What are the goals of ASO competitive analysis?
Our goals are pretty straightforward:
Increase organic visibility: Identify the high-volume, relevant keywords your competitors are ranking for that you might be missing, or spot new opportunities by targeting those they don’t rank for.
Improve conversion rates: Analyze their icons, screenshots, and videos to create more compelling visuals that attract and convert users. Discern trends and patterns worth following and evaluate how you can stand out.
Find new ways to grow: Uncover emerging trends, identify successful in-app events, and analyze personalization and communication strategies to discover innovative approaches for user acquisition and retention that your competitors are leveraging or neglecting.
By conducting a thorough ASO competitive analysis, you can learn from your rivals’ successes and failures, make data-driven decisions for your own app, and create a strong, effective ASO strategy to improve your app’s visibility and success.
What’s the scope of research?
We recommend performing competitor analysis on two levels:
App category & relevant subcategories: A high-level analysis will give you proper context for a more granular evaluation of individual competitors.
Individual apps: Take the apps most similar to yours and use them as benchmarks of what to do to succeed.
To accomplish the aforementioned goals on both levels, we’ll be researching nine areas listed below. It may seem like a lot, but don’t worry: while steps 1 to 4 are critical, the others can be classified as love to have. The more you know about your competitors, the more data-driven your strategy will be, but ultimately, your scope will depend on your time & resources.
ASO competitive research step by step
We know our goals and scope, so let’s get down to business.
Step 1: Analyze your category & subcategory
It’s highly advised to perform a general category and subcategory analysis before you begin detailed ASO competitive research. This broader analysis serves as a crucial foundational step, providing context for your more specific competitor deep dive, as it helps:
Identify the right competitors
Uncover market trends
Find niche opportunities
In short, a general category analysis gives you a high-level view of the entire playing field, allowing you to choose your competitive battles wisely and avoid wasting time analyzing apps that aren’t truly relevant to your ASO goals.
How to do it: Investigate any ASO reports & benchmarks you can find. Explore both the App Store and Google Play, though advanced ASO platforms like App Radar offer robust features to make this process considerably easier and augment it with additional insights.
The result of this step: A high-level understanding of the market landscape, including key design trends, user expectations, and a preliminary list of potential competitors.
A higher-level analysis provides the necessary context for the following steps of competitive research for ASO. Here is an example of App Radar, an advanced ASO platform that shows metadata and creatives category benchmarks for the App Store and Google Play Store.
Step 2: Identify and classify your competitors
Start by making a comprehensive list of your competitors. Not all of them are equally important, and only direct competitors should be used as benchmarks.
Direct Competitors: Apps that offer similar features and serve the same target audience as you (e.g., Uber vs. Lyft).
Indirect Competitors: Apps that solve the same user problem but with a different approach (e.g., a food delivery app vs. a restaurant review app).
Keyword Competitors: Apps that rank for the same keywords you are targeting, even if they aren’t in your direct category.
Direct competitors should be your priority. Addressing the same audience, they’re the right target to find benchmarks or unexplored niches.
How to do it: Compile a list of competitors relevant to you and select a handful for benchmarking.
The result of this step: You should arrive with a standardized, comprehensive collection of top competitors, ready for a more in-depth analysis.
Step 3: Identify keyword strategies
Identifying keyword strategies should be the first step in your competitive research deep dive. Here’s the scope of it:
Discover their keywords: Examine keywords your competitors are ranking for.
Find “keyword gaps”: Look for relevant, high-traffic keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but you are not. These are your immediate opportunities.
Benchmark keyword performance: Compare your keyword rankings to theirs. This helps you understand where you stand and where you need to improve.
How to do it: This step might be difficult to do without a professional ASO tool to fetch all relevant metadata for you. Without it, you’ll be limited to a simple evaluation of what’s visible, not understanding the contents of the App Store’s keyword fields, for example.
The result of this step: You should now have a comprehensive list of keywords and relevant competitors that should give you an idea of how communication is shaped in your competitive environment and what keywords to rank for.
Step 4: Examine textual metadata
Textual metadata like the app’s name or subtitle on the App Store, or short and long descriptions on Google Play, are critical to apps’ organic visibility and have an impact on conversion rates.
Examine it to see how your competitors use keywords in their app titles, subtitles, and descriptions to see how they can give you clues about their strategy and why their rankings are better than yours.
Naturally, there are many more ranking factors at play, both on Google Play and the App Store, but keyword selection is the starting point of building organic visibility.
How to do it: Look at how keywords are used to describe key features. Try to get an idea of what the focus is. Look at how keywords are put to work in delivering something meaningful.
The result of this step: Following steps 2 and 3, you should now have a clear idea of how to optimize your app’s metadata, from the name to the keyword field on the App Store. While step 2 leaves you with a range of possibilities, step 3 should effectively narrow them down.
App’s product page and store listing visuals are key to converting visitors into downloads. Evaluating a competitor’s creative assets may seem trivial, but it’s far from it, as it can be quite challenging to pinpoint elements that may have contributed significantly to the product page’s or store listing’s high conversion rates. Take this example:
Finance apps frequently feature social proof on their screenshots, be it an app store rating, number of downloads, or an article in the media. Source: acquired the App Store and Google Play, for SplitMetrics’ ASO Benchmarks & Mobile Trends Report.
Completing the first step of a broader category and subcategory research will be immensely helpful here, as it should allow you to narrow down the list of potential elements having an impact on conversion rates and downloads.
How to do it:
App Icon: Compare your icon to your competitors’ icons. Does it stand out? Is it recognizable and relevant to your app’s function?
Screenshots: Analyze their screenshots. What features do they highlight? Do they use text captions? What is their visual style and color scheme? The first 2-3 screenshots are the most important, as they often appear in search results.
App Preview Video: If they have a video, watch it. How do they tell their app’s story? What features are they demonstrating? A good video can significantly increase conversion.
The result of this step? You should arrive with a multitude of ideas that you can implement on your app’s product page.
Football-related apps are among the most popular in the Sports category on the App Store in all European markets. Image source: a compilation of visualizations from App Radar’s Metadata Benchmarks.
Step 6: Analyze Ratings & Reviews
Ratings and reviews have a tremendous impact on the conversion rate of an app’s product page or store listing. Jumping from average 3-stars to 4-stars can result in 89% conversion uplift.
From the perspective of ASO competitive research, highly rated apps are great benchmarks, and reviews are a critical source of information on user expectations, something you can use to your advantage when designing key messages to highlight on your screenshots or address on custom product pages.
How to do it: Finalize this step simply by reading the reviews of your top direct competitors. AI summaries can be invaluable here, as categorizing large quantities of opinions can be difficult.
The result of this step: A deep understanding of user sentiment, common pain points, and highly valued features based on competitor reviews, which can inform your app’s development and messaging strategy.
Step 7: Examine updates
Analyzing an app’s update history provides crucial insights into how often a competitor pushes new versions, what features they prioritize, and whether they are addressing bugs or adding new content. By tracking their updates, you can anticipate their next moves, identify emerging trends, and understand what changes are resonating (or not) with their user base. This is a foundational step to stay ahead in a dynamic market.
How to do it: This step can be done with an ASO platform equipped with the necessary functionality, like App Radar’s App Timeline. Pay close attention to the dates and the descriptions provided in the “What’s New” section. Look for patterns in their update cadence—are they monthly, bi-weekly, or sporadic? Note any major feature releases, bug fixes, or performance enhancements.
The result of this step: You will gain a clear understanding of your competitor’s product roadmap and their commitment to app improvement. This knowledge helps you identify their strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to prioritize features that they may be neglecting or to build upon successful concepts they’ve introduced.
App Radar visualizes all ASO updates you and your selected competitors have made historically, easing your teamwork and internal impact analysis. Read more about the feature here.
Step 8: Explore their in-app events
In-app events are time-sensitive, in-app experiences that are prominently featured on the App Store. They offer a unique opportunity to attract new users and re-engage existing ones. By exploring a competitor’s in-app events, you can learn about their marketing calendar, the types of events that drive engagement, and how they use these features to promote new content or special promotions. This step helps you understand how competitors keep their audience engaged and what kind of dynamic content resonates with them, informing your own engagement strategy.
How to do it: On the App Store, navigate to a competitor’s product page and look for the “Events” section. Examine their upcoming and past events. Analyze the event titles, descriptions, and the featured images or videos. Take note of the event type (e.g., live competition, movie premiere, new content drop) and whether it’s tied to a specific holiday or season.
The result of this step: You will uncover a competitor’s content strategy and their approach to user retention. This insight enables you to plan and execute compelling in-app events, schedule them effectively, and create content that keeps your users coming back for more.
In-app events are crucial for boosting re-engagement and highlighting which seasonal events or features are most important to our competitors. A collection of selected in-app events from the App Store, run in Germany and UK, fetched with App Radar’s Timeline feature.
Step 9: Examine custom product pages & store listings
Custom product pages (CPPs) allow developers to create different versions of their app page to showcase specific features or content to different audiences. Examining a competitor’s CPPs and general store listings provides a direct view into their ASO keyword strategy and how they tailor their messaging.
How to do it: Custom product pages (CPPs) on the App Store and custom store listings on the Google Play Store are designed to be targeted to specific user segments, and discoverable by the target audience an advertiser or developer intends. They are typically accessed through unique URLs tied to paid ad campaigns, specific promotions, or by users in a particular location or with a certain search query. Consequently, even though technically possible on a limited level, it’s best to use a dedicated market research platform, like SplitMetrics Acquire’s CPP Intelligence.
The result of this step: You will identify the core keywords, key selling points, personalization strategies, and communication methods your competitor is using to attract their target audience. This knowledge allows you to refine your own ASO strategy, inspire your design, discover untapped keyword opportunities, and create a store listing that is more compelling than theirs.
An example of showcasing specific features of an app with custom product pages, depending on the keywords introduced. Read the full case study on our blog.
Step 10: Investigate localization approach
Localization is the process of adapting an app for a specific region or language. Investigating a competitor’s localization strategy reveals which markets they prioritize and how they adjust their messaging to resonate with different cultures. A competitor with a strong localization effort in a specific region is likely seeing success there and considers it a key market. Understanding their approach to localization helps you identify high-potential markets for your own app and adapt your content and keywords for a global audience.
How to do it: Note which elements of competitors’ app pages are translated, is it just the title, or are the screenshots and app description also in the local language? See if they have tailored their app’s content to local holidays or events.
The result of this step: You will learn which international markets your competitor is focused on and how deeply they have invested in them. This insight helps you decide which new markets to enter, what level of localization is necessary, and where you might have an opportunity to gain an early advantage.
A comparison between product pages of Hopper for the Japanese and American markets. Notice the annotations on larger mockups and different selections of information. Image source: the App Store, fetched with SplitMetrics Acquire’s CPP Intelligence.
Recommended tools
The scope of comprehensive ASO competitive research makes it challenging to complete without proper tools. While exploring both app marketplaces can be insightful for a keen and experienced eye, aggregating all the data points and structuring them to make them more actionable in any ASO strategy may not be possible without some support.
A professional tool can make even a very comprehensive research affordable and ultimately, a fun experience. In essence, here are the four types of tools that could aid you significantly in competitive research for ASO:
ASO platform: An all-in-one ASO platform like App Radar can be the central hub for your competitive analysis. These tools aggregate data from both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, providing a single source of truth for your research. They are essential for tracking keyword rankings, analyzing competitors’ metadata, and monitoring key performance metrics, such as estimated downloads and revenue.
Paid user acquisition platforms: While primarily for running ad campaigns, platforms like Apple Ads (ASA) are invaluable for ASO competitive research. They give you a direct window into which keywords your competitors are bidding on, which often overlap with their organic keyword strategy. By seeing which keywords they’re willing to pay for, you can gauge their commercial intent and identify high-value search terms.
Artificial Intelligence:An AI agent like Iris is a new and powerful addition to the ASO toolkit. AI can go beyond simple data aggregation to provide advanced insights and summarizations. It is handy for analyzing large volumes of qualitative data, such as user reviews and ratings, which can be a time-consuming and manual process.
A/B testing platforms:A/B testing platforms like SplitMetrics Optimize are essential for validating your ASO findings and implementing them effectively. These tools allow you to test different versions of your app’s creative assets (like icons, screenshots, and videos) to see which ones resonate best with your audience and drive the highest conversion rates.
Final words
App Store Optimization (ASO) competitive analysis is crucial for app growth. By examining competitor strategies, you can boost visibility, attract organic traffic, and increase downloads. With the right tools, all apps can increase its scope, for a more data-driven strategy.
Improve ASO and maximize organic growth with App Radar
Gabriel is a professional writer with more than a decade of experience in bringing advanced b2b tech solutions closer to the people - with content in all forms, shapes and sizes.
Gabriel Kuriata 
