Launch week: the first fourteen days
A new listing has text and nothing else. What to have in place on day one, what to read each morning, and the two mistakes that cost the launch.
A new app ranks on its text alone: there are no ratings and no download history for the index to weigh. That is the one moment the metadata is the whole ranking, so it has to be right before the app is live, not fixed in a 1.0.1. The name, subtitle and keyword field from the first-ten playbook, the screenshot captions written as search terms, and the localizations for the stores you launch in, all in the first build.
From the first night, every term on the list is checked, so the launch is measured from day one rather than reconstructed later. Expect nothing on day one and two: the index picks up a new app within a day or two, and positions on real terms settle over the first week as the first downloads and ratings arrive. A term you rank for on day three and lose on day six was never yours; a term that climbs through the second week is.
The two mistakes: asking for a rating at first launch (the prompt is rate-limited per device, and a first-launch ask lands on people who have done nothing yet) and changing the metadata in the first week because the positions look wrong. Ask after the first thing the app does well; change nothing until the fourteenth day, then change one field.
The other public number to watch is the rating count. Each rating in the first weeks is a large share of the total, so the count is the clearest growth line a new app has, and the one that moves rank.
In order
- 01Before submission: name, subtitle, keyword field and captions from the playbooks above; the keyword list added for every launch store; the app followed on the Overview.
- 02Day 1: confirm the app is in the results for its own name in each store. If not, wait a day; the index has not seen it.
- 03Days 2 to 7: read positions each morning on the Keywords tab. Note which terms appear at all; do not change anything.
- 04Day 7: the rating prompt goes in the build you ship next, after the first success in the app. Not before.
- 05Day 14: judge. Terms in the top 30 stay. Terms absent everywhere are replaced, one field at a time, in the next release.
In the US store, read October 4
- 83% of the searched US top 10s have most of their apps updated within six months. A listing that stops shipping after launch is competing with ones that did not.