Why Integrating Mobile UA and ASO is Essential in App Promotion Strategy

In this article, we will discuss one of the promising yet often overlooked opportunities for improving mobile app metrics — integrating Mobile User Acquisition (paid traffic) and ASO (App Store Optimization) into a single advertising strategy.

The last five years have seen a rapid evolution in advertisers’ acquisition strategies within the app promotion niche. According to Sensor Tower statistics the average advertising split for brands promoting mobile apps consists of the main channels: in-app (DSP/SSP) (57%), OEM sources (16%), retargeting (17%), contextual advertising (3%), social networks (6%), ASO (1%).

A trend towards strategies working with in-app purchases is observed, as well as significant advertiser attention towards OEM sources. However, there are also “problem areas”: ASO strategies still do not occupy a large share in the split. Why is this happening?

1. User Acquisition and ASO strategies often operate in isolation.

The User Acquisition team drives traffic to a non-optimized store page: according to the statistics from the previous section, a fairly small portion of advertisers pays sufficient attention to ASO in their mobile strategy.

The opposite scenario is also possible: the ASO team optimizes the app’s store page without knowing what kind of traffic will arrive. This refers to its quality and quantity, targeting specifics — everything the mobile ad launch team knows on their end.

2. Many “hidden pitfalls” in working with alternative stores.

OEM sources and alternative stores have gained more weight, and advertisers have started exploring them more actively: GetApps (Xiaomi), AppGallery (Huawei), etc. As well as a separate category of local stores. Working with each of them has its own peculiarities and nuances in optimization.

The Solution for Enhancing Mobile Advertising Effectiveness: Integrating Mobile UA and ASO into a Single Funnel

A unified strategy and user acquisition funnel that UA and ASO teams need to work on together. Data from each stage of the funnel should help achieve the goals of the next stage.

Ad Creative → Store Page → Install → Target Action within the App.

User Acquisition and ASO share common goals: to increase the conversion of high-quality users while simultaneously reducing the Cost Per Install (CPI) and maximizing ROAS. An important step towards effectively using User Acquisition and ASO is to understand how advertising traffic can impact organic metrics.

According to a StoreMaven study, the correlation between mobile ad spending and the volume of organic installs (on a scale from -1 to 1) is about 0.69 — indicating a positive correlation. In other words, as spending on User Acquisition and the number of paid installs increase, a growth in the number of organic installs is observed.

This happens because the total install volume determines an app’s ranking within its category. The higher your ranking, the more installs you get. The more an advertiser spends on ads, the more users will see the app in the store. Greater visibility leads to more downloads. More downloads lead to greater revenue.

Another consequence of this correlation is a reduction in the effective Cost Per Install (CPI). For example, if $1000 is spent on mobile advertising and 100 installs are obtained, the CPI is $10. However, the effective CPI should be calculated as spending divided by the total number of installs (paid and organic combined). The real CPI will be lower because organic installs are also counted in addition to paid ones.

Creating Custom Store Pages for Advertising Campaigns

App stores provide working tools that help integrate User Acquisition and ASO into a single strategy. For example, Custom Product Pages (CPP) allow creating unique versions of an app’s page with their own URL.

During organic search, users will land on the original app page, while in advertising campaigns, traffic can be directed to specially created pages most relevant to a specific audience or search query. This allows for optimizing user acquisition strategy, lowering CPI, and increasing the conversion rate.

By the way, starting July 2025, CPPs can work with traffic from within-store search. Previously, CPPs could only be used for advertising, but now they also work with organic search results — if the page is linked to relevant keywords.

Implementing CPP capabilities into the mobile strategy will allow User Acquisition and ASO teams to work more closely together and test various creatives with relevant visuals in the store.

Using Hypotheses from Advertising for ASO, and Vice Versa

Insights from mobile advertising can be used to enhance ASO optimization effectiveness. This also works in the opposite direction. There are two paths.

First Path:

Analyze top-performing ad creatives (CTR, CR): understand which messages, characters, and CTAs work.
Transfer successful elements to screenshots, videos, and the description. Ad creatives are ready-made A/B tests. It’s possible to use winning concepts and implement them directly in the store, for example using CPP.

Second Path:

Use ASO report data: identify which user queries have the highest conversion to install.
Add these keywords to User Acquisition campaigns in ad platforms. Organic search results show which queries are converting right now.

What Happens if User Acquisition and ASO Remain Isolated?

If mobile advertising and optimization are not synchronized, the consequences can be felt:

A bright creative leads to an irrelevant, non-optimized page in the store. This can contribute to a lower conversion rate and increased CPI.
Without advertising support, ASO will not reach its full organic potential. There is a risk of missing out on conditionally free installs.
Teams end up “putting out fires.” Instead of focusing on growth, teams are busy figuring out the causes of low conversion.

Integrate the data and efforts of User Acquisition and ASO teams into a single strategy — the growth of metrics and business indicators for the mobile app will accelerate significantly.