Launching your app is a huge accomplishment… but it’s just the beginning. If you want to actually increase your app’s visibility, reach your target audience, and drive downloads, you need an effective app marketing strategy alongside the right tools.
But with so many software options available today, it’s hard to know the right ones to use. On G2, there are over 2,000 tools in the “app marketing” category – and you can’t possibly try every single one unless you have a LOT of time and money.
So, to help you out, we’ve compiled a list of the (in our opinion) best app marketing tools in 2024 across different categories. Let’s get into it.
Top 12 app marketing tools across 5 categories
Category 1: user feedback and market research
When building an app, the first set of tools you’ll need are user feedback and app market research tools. This helps you understand your audience’s needs to ensure your app solves their problems. For this category, we have survey and insights tools, user interview tools, and Net Promoter Score (NPS) tools.
Survey & consumer insights tools, e.g. PickFu
PickFu Homepage
PickFu is a platform that allows businesses of all sizes to collect feedback through polls and surveys. It has a built-in audience of 15 million global consumers, plus flexible question formats to help you get the insights you need quickly.
Key features
- Fast turnaround times. You start receiving results in minutes, and most polls finish within a few hours, allowing you to gather and act on valuable insights quickly.
- Access to a large, built-in pool of respondents, which saves you the time and effort of looking for your own respondents to poll.
- 90+ demographic traits you can use to segment your audience by country, gender, age, income, hobbies, and more, so you can get feedback from people who best represent your ideal customer base.
- No bot responses, only high-quality data. PickFu vets all respondents and uses a combination of AI and manual checks to ensure quality feedback.
- Wide variety of poll types and templates to fit your consumer research needs. Compare up to eight options (including text, images, video, and audio), generate heatmaps, or just ask an open-ended question.
You can use PickFu to get feedback at any stage of the app development (iOS or Android) process, from the initial “I have an idea for an app” stage to developing app name ideas, prototype testing, launching and marketing your app, and even designing new features.
For example, someone had an idea for a trail companion app and wanted to know if it would interest people. So they ran a Star Rating poll on PickFu as proof of concept testing:
Star Rating trail companion app poll on PickFu
The poll had a 4.0 rating on average, which is a great interest indicator.
Or, if you’re in the gaming industry and are trying to narrow down a theme or art style for your game, you can run a Round Robin poll like the one below:
Round Robin game poll on PickFu
Option D (Wild & Fire) is the clear winner of this poll, with 65.5% of the votes.
How to use PickFu for app marketing
Gathering data and feedback from your target audience is vital for any business. Use PickFu to stay on top of consumer preferences and test your app and marketing campaigns at every stage of its lifecycle. If you’re struggling to decide between multiple options, want to know what potential users will think, or need to validate your idea with data, just PickFu it.
Pricing
It’s free to sign up for PickFu and you can pay as you go, with polls starting at $1 per response. There are also subscription plans with additional discounts and features, starting at $79 per month.
User interview tools, e.g., Hotjar Engage
Hotjar Engage is a user research tool that helps you conduct remote interviews with app users to observe their user experience and obtain valuable insights. It automates the process by helping you find participants, schedule sessions, and record user interactions.
Key features
- Hotjar Engage screens potential participants based on various criteria such as job title, industry, age, and more to ensure you get the right people for your user research studies.
- Automated recruitment & interview scheduling with qualified participants.
- Interview hosting platform with features like screen sharing and recording capabilities so you can conduct moderated interviews with ease.
How to use Hotjar Engage for app marketing
You can use Hotjar Engage to identify the pain points or issues users face that could affect UX and app ratings. It will also help you understand user preferences to improve your product.
Pricing
There’s a free basic plan, but paid plans are roughly ~$100 USD to ~$350/month, depending on how many interviews per month you need (at the time of this article being posted).
Net Promoter Score (NPS) tools, e.g., SurveySensum
SurveySensum offers a cloud-based software solution designed to help businesses of all sizes measure, analyze, and improve customer loyalty and satisfaction through NPS surveys.
Key features
- Craft NPS surveys with the core NPS question (“How likely are you to recommend our product/service to a friend or colleague?”) alongside optional demographic questions or open-ended feedback sections to gather richer insights.
- Automatic NPS score calculation based on user responses, categorizing them into Promoters (scores 9-10), Passives (scores 7-8), and Detractors (scores 0-6).
- Automation of the survey-sending process based on pre-defined triggers, such as user onboarding, in-app actions, or specific events. This ensures timely NPS surveys reach the right users for valuable feedback.
- Actionable insights derived from your NPS data. It helps you prioritize areas for improvement and identify opportunities to enhance customer experience and drive loyalty.
How to use SurveySensum for app marketing
Use SurveySensum to learn more about how users perceive your app and use that information to improve your marketing campaigns. For instance, if you get a low NPS score, you’ll know there’s a problem with your app. You can then use this feedback to make changes and send out another survey later to see if the score has improved.
Pricing
Free for 25 responses/month and $99/month for 250 responses/month. The price goes up the more responses you want.
Category 2: marketing & user acquisition
This second category is for software that helps you promote your app, attract new users, and ultimately drive app downloads and engagement – directly impacting your app’s success. Tools here include influencer and partner marketing platforms, social media management tools, and paid advertising platforms.
Influencer tools, e.g., HypeAuditor
HypeAuditor positions itself as a one-stop shop for influencer marketing. It offers a suite of analytics and tools designed to help brands and marketers make data-driven decisions for their influencer marketing campaigns.
Key features
- HypeAuditor boasts a vast database of over 138 million influencer profiles across various social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch.
- You can search for influencers based on relevant criteria like demographics, audience interests, engagement rates, and brand affinity.
- In-depth influencer analytics, including audience demographics (age, gender, location), authenticity scores (identifies fake followers and engagement), and reach estimates. This empowers you to identify high-quality influencers with genuine audiences aligned with your target market.
- Gain insights into your competitors’ influencer marketing strategies. Analyze which influencers they partner with, the type of content they create, and the performance of their campaigns.
How to use HypeAuditor for app marketing
HypeAuditor helps you identify high-quality influencers that are aligned with your target audience. You can then partner with these influencers so they can promote your app to their followers, leading to higher app downloads and brand awareness.
Pricing
Reach out to HypeAuditor for a quote.
Partner marketing tools, e.g., PartnerStack
PartnerStack is a platform that helps businesses grow through partnerships. It simplifies the partnership journey by providing a centralized platform for managing all aspects of your partner program, from recruitment to payout.
Key features
- Marketplace with over 80,000 active partners, making it easier to find and connect with potential partners who can help you expand your reach and market your app.
- Manage all your partner relationships in one place, including recruitment, onboarding, tracking, and payouts.
- Tools and analytics to help you optimize your partner programs for maximum impact. You can track the effectiveness of different strategies and make data-driven decisions to improve your partner ROI.
How to use PartnerStack for app marketing
Use PartnerStack to find and connect with potential partners who can help expand your reach and market your app. It also reduces the number of tools you need for partner marketing as it has different functions to manage the whole process.
Pricing
You’ll have to fill out a form to get a customized price.
Social media management tools, e.g., Buffer
Buffer is an all-in-one social media management and marketing platform empowering individuals and teams to manage their social media presence effectively. While Buffer caters to businesses of all sizes, it can be particularly valuable for app marketers looking to streamline their social media efforts and maximize their app’s reach.
Key features
- Buffer allows you to schedule posts in advance for all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. This streamlines your workflow and ensures a consistent social media presence for your app.
- Collaborate with your marketing team on creating, scheduling, and approving social media content for your app.
- Get valuable insights into the performance of your social media posts with Buffer’s built-in analytics. Track metrics such as engagement rates, reach, clicks, and conversion rates to understand what content resonates best with your audience.
How to use Buffer for app marketing
Use Buffer to save time, stay organized, and improve your social media strategy.
Pricing
Buffer has a free plan that works for those just getting started. Paid plans are $6/month/channel (Essentials), $12/month/channel (Team), and $120/month/channel (Agency).
Paid advertising platforms, e.g., Google Ads
The largest and most widely used paid advertising platform in the world, Google Ads is a great way to promote your app and reach a wider audience. You can design effective app marketing campaigns that drive user acquisition and growth by leveraging its targeting capabilities, ad format variety, and budget controls.
Key features
- Google Ads allows businesses to show their ads to a large audience of potential customers across the Google Ads network, including Search, YouTube, Display, and Discover.
- You can target your ads to specific demographics, interests, and online behavior so they are only shown to interested parties.
- Google Ads offers a variety of ad formats, including text ads, display ads, video ads, and app ads. You can choose the format that best suits your app and target audience.
- Set a budget for your advertising campaigns and track your spending. This allows you to manage your advertising costs effectively.
How to use Google Ads for app marketing
With Google Ads, you can run targeted app install ads on different Google platforms to acquire new users and drive in-app actions.
Category 3: app performance and optimization
Category three includes tools that help you analyze app usage data, track user behavior, and optimize your app store listing for better performance and user engagement. App analytics and app store optimization tools fall squarely in this category.
App store optimization (ASO) tools, e.g., App Radar, PickFu
App Radar
App Radar assists beginner app marketers in improving their mobile app optimization or (ASO) efforts. It provides a comprehensive suite of tools and features to help apps rank higher in search results within the app store.
Key features
- Analysis of the app market landscape so you can track competitor performance and discover new opportunities to optimize your app’s ranking.
- Helps app store SEO by conducting keyword research to identify relevant keywords that potential users are searching for. This way, you can target them in your app’s title, description, and metadata.
- ASO experts who can provide personalized guidance and support for your app marketing strategy.
How to use App Radar for app marketing
If your app isn’t showing up among the first search results in the app store, use App Radar to identify the problem, improve discoverability, and increase organic downloads.
Pricing
$59/month for Essentials Pack, $169/month for Growth Pack, $299/month for Scale Pack, and customized pricing for Enterprise companies.
PickFu
Yep, PickFu again! It’s a helpful tool for ASO, letting you A/B test various elements of your app like name ideas, screenshots, messaging, color schemes, icons, titles, etc. Respondents vote in minutes (so you see results in real time) and provide reasons behind their choice.
Best of all, you can validate all of this outside the app store – either before you launch, or as you’re working on updates. Live A/B testing in the app store can take weeks, and by default, you’re always showing a worse version to some of your potential users. But you can avoid those problems with PickFu by testing your app store listing with a built-in audience before you even launch.
See an example of someone trying to determine the best game screenshot to use in the App Store by running a PickFu Click Test:
Best game screenshot via a Click Test on PickFu
Different things in the designs caught the attention of respondents, like the glowing buildings, diverse characters, tags, etc. Here are some real comments:
- “I would first notice the glowing barn. It’s eye-catching and it shows how the abilities/squares are used in the game. I also like the second one with the blond haired lady. It clearly shows it’s a grid type layout and I like the water.”
- “I love farming games and the mention of ‘design your farm!’ as well as the pictures of the bananas/other fruit caught my attention quick. I also like the look of the background image and love how it looks like an island farm.”
Another example is a Head-to-Head poll to pick a sheet music app color:
Best sheet music app color Head-to-Head poll on PickFu
The winner of this A/B testing poll, as voted by respondents, is the blue color design because of reasons as follows:
- “I prefer B because blue is far less abrasive to view. Typically if I am reading sheet music, it will be for prolonged periods so I would select anything that was the least taxing on my eyes as well as the least distracting.”
Analytics tools, e.g., Localytics
Localytics, a product under Upland Software, is a unified platform for mobile app analytics, marketing, and engagement. It caters to businesses of all sizes, from startups to established enterprises, aiming to empower them to acquire, engage, and retain users effectively.
Key features
- Rich analytics with in-depth insights into user behavior within your app and website. You can track key metrics like app launches, feature usage, customer journey, and conversion funnels.
- Campaign attribution to understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts across different channels by attributing user acquisition and conversions to their source. This data helps you optimize your marketing budget and focus on marketing channels with the highest return on investment (ROI).
- Predictive analytics capabilities to anticipate user behavior and identify at-risk users (potential churn). This allows you to take proactive measures to retain users and prevent churn.
How to use Localytics for app marketing
You can see the marketing channels bringing in the most results on Localytics, so you focus on that channel. You can also use it to identify your core base and tailor your marketing messages and creatives to resonate with them.
Pricing
Reach out to the Localytics team for a quote.
User demographics tool, e.g., Data.ai
Data.ai Homepage
Formerly known as App Annie, Data.ai is a leading provider of mobile app market data and app analytics. It delves deeper than just basic demographics like age and gender to offer insights into user preferences, behavior patterns, and app usage trends based on various demographic segments. This allows you to tailor your app and mobile game marketing strategies to specific user groups for better engagement and conversion.
Key features
- Insights into overall app store trends, user spending habits, and growth forecasts for different app categories.
- Monitor how users interact with your app, discover areas for improvement, and measure user retention.
- Mobile Performance Score (MPS) metric to evaluate your app’s overall performance relative to similar apps. This can help you track your app’s progress and identify areas for improvement.
- Analyze in-app purchase behavior and optimize your monetization strategy.
How to use Data.ai for app marketing
You can use this tool to understand the mobile market and your customers, retain them, and grow your business. You can also use it to monetize your app effectively. For instance, Data.ai can show you which in-app purchases are most popular and which ad formats/platforms generate the most revenue so you can replicate them.
Pricing
They offer a 10-day free trial, after which you have to upgrade. For specific pricing details, reach out to their sales team.
Category 4: app review management
You also need to manage your app reviews and ratings on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store by monitoring and responding to them. This improves user engagement and your app’s overall rating.
App review management tools, e.g., Appbot
Appbot is a mobile app marketing tool that helps teams manage app feedback, improve communication with users, and enhance their app’s reputation.
Key features
- Automated replies to common user feedback within reviews.
- Sentiment analysis based on the tone of the reviews. This lets you prioritize your responses and address critical issues effectively.
- Classify reviews by keywords and phrases to categorize user feedback by topic or feature. This allows you to identify recurring themes and areas for improvement within your app.
How to use Appbot for app marketing
You can track your app’s performance in the app store, analyze reviews/ratings, and adjust your product roadmap based on the data you get.
Pricing
14-day free trial before paying $39/month, $79/month, $149/month or $449/month.
Category 5: special mention
The software below doesn’t really fit into any other category, but it’s a really helpful marketing tool that we wanted to call out anyway.
Canva
Canva is a user-friendly and accessible online graphic design platform. It caters to a broad audience, from individuals with no design experience to seasoned professionals. Canva offers a vast library of templates, tools, and assets specifically valuable for creating compelling visuals for your app’s marketing needs.
Key features
- Explore thousands of pre-designed templates specifically tailored for app marketing needs, including social media posts, app store screenshots, presentations, and infographics.
- Access a massive library of free and premium stock photos, videos, graphics, audio tracks, and illustrations. This is to create stunning creatives for your app store listing, social media posts, landing page, marketing materials, and more.
- Drag-and-drop editor with an intuitive interface, making design creation accessible even for those with no prior design experience.
- Establish a consistent brand image by uploading your logo, color palette, and fonts to Canva. This ensures your app’s visuals maintain a cohesive style across all platforms.
How to use Canva for app marketing
Use this tool to save time and money while still creating aesthetically pleasing visuals that you can use for marketing and promotional purposes.
Pricing
Budget management tool with its freemium plan, which works for basic design needs. If you want something more advanced, it costs $119.99/year/person for Canva Pro and $300/year for the first five people for Canva Teams.
Effective app marketing is essential
Having a great app that goes unnoticed is a big disappointment – not to mention a waste of time, money, and effort. To prevent this scenario and sell your app effectively, you have to invest in digital marketing strategies and tools like the ones listed here. Ensure you have tools in all the categories covered to build a well-rounded app marketing arsenal.
And when it comes to using PickFu to gather audience insights – we have templates that make it super easy to get started. A few examples are app store icon tests, gameplay reviews, game character feedback, and more. Just sign up for a free account to get started today!
FAQs
What are the 4 P’s of marketing for an app?
The traditional 4 P’s of marketing (Product, Price, Place, Promotion) apply to apps as well. However, some models substitute “Place” with “Promotion” for the mobile application context.
How do you do app marketing?
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Effective app marketing requires a strategic plan that considers the entire user journey, from discovery to advocacy. This plan should combine ASO, user acquisition strategies, user engagement tactics, and ongoing app performance analysis to ensure a smooth and positive experience at every touchpoint.
What is a mobile app marketing strategy?
A mobile app marketing strategy is a roadmap that outlines the specific actions you’ll take to promote your app, acquire new users, and keep them engaged. It’s essentially a plan to ensure your app gets discovered, downloaded, and actively used by your target audience.
