The two new features have been eagerly awaited and will finally allow developers to test different creatives and product page designs for different audiences – a feature that has been available on Google Play for quite some time. While this is great news for the Apple App Store, native A/B testing will only be supported on your app creatives, not app titles, subtitles and descriptions which you can test with Google Play experiments. 

So, what are the key capabilities of Apple’s new App Store features? 

Product Page Optimization

Apple’s new product page optimization allows you to do the following:

• Compare different app icons, screenshots, and app previews on your App Store product page to find out which resonate with people most.
• You can test up to three alternate product page versions against the original, view the results in App Analytics, and set the best performing version to display to everyone on the App Store.
• For example, you can find out if:
  • Showcasing a certain character or value proposition gets better results.
  • Highlighting a particular feature or culturally relevant content boosts downloads in a certain location.
  • Changing your app icon to a different style or color results in increased conversion.
  • Including seasonal content leads to more downloads.

What does this mean for app marketers?

Product Page optimization will be a game-changer for app marketing and will certainly become a determining factor when shaping your app growth strategy. Native testing will allow you to accurately understand through user feedback which features, designs and creative elements resonate best with your target audience. 

Custom Product Pages

Apple’s new custom product pages will allow you to do the following:

• You can create up to 35 custom product pages per app published, each of which highlights a feature or specific content, then just share the page’s unique URL in your corresponding marketing efforts. 
• You can also use these pages to showcase seasonal or culturally relevant content. Each custom product page can include:
• Screenshots, 
• Promotional Text 
• Alternative app previews
• Apple will also allow any metadata updates to be submitted for review independently of an app update. 
• Custom product pages won’t appear when someone searches for your App in the App Store but could appear in the curated selections on the Today, Games and Apps tabs

What does this mean for app marketers?

This is the opportunity to bring personalization into app marketing and tailor your messaging to the right audience. Finally marketers can move away from the ‘one-size-fits all’ approach and target Paid and Organic separately. Ad relevance will be an important pillar in our strategies moving forward, looking to tailor creatives and features, to the right keywords and audiences. When done right, this can multiply your conversion rates!