Apple Search Ads might be the most innocent app advertising service in China - P...

Apple Search Ads might be the most innocent app advertising service in ChinaApple

Apple Search Ads might be the most innocent app advertising service in China

Zhifang Ma

posted on October 25, 2021 4:16 pmEditor : Wang Boyuan

There are dozens of Android app stores in mainland China, all of which have more ways to make ads visible than Apple.

Apple has launched Apple Search Ads (ASA) in the United States and other 59 countries/regions since September 2016. However, as a substantial market of apps for Apple, China was not on the initial list. Due to regulations on digital advertising, the ASA for the Chinese App Store was not ready until July 21st, when qualified developers could leverage ASA to promote their applications in China.

As the official advert service of the exclusive application store of Apple iOS system, ASA is the only way for developers to showcase their applications at the top of search results and the suggested section with money. 

According to ASA's official website, "70% of App Store visitors use search to find their next app; 65% of all downloads happen after search; average conversion rate for search results ads is above 50%," What's more, in 2021, Apple's advertising segment is the only media source that enjoys full data access in iOS with the rollout of App Tracking Transparency framework of iOS 14.5. 

While Apple App Store is the only source for iOS application download; consequently, ASA could leverage all iOS users as its user base. In contrast, with the inaccessibility of Google Play in mainland China, there are dozens of Android app stores. Mainstream Android app stores include Tencent My App Store (应用宝), Huawei App Market Store (华为应用市场), MIUI App Store (小米应用商店), VIVO App Store (vivo应用商店), etc. Hence the advertising of each Android app store tends to be radical to grasp users' attention.

Taking MIUI App Store as an instance, whose accumulated application distribution volume has exceeded 168 billion. As Xiaomi's official app store, it provides 9 types of advertising for MIUI developers to extensively promote their applications, including search ads, must-have app ads, home page recommendation ads, ranking ads, red envelope ads, relevant ads, etc.

Once users open MIUI App Store, they would see the home page where a list of recommended applications is shown in the first place. If they click the "must-have" tab on the top of the page, they will have the chance to download a bunch of applications with just one click.

As for the "red envelope" section, as its name suggests, users can earn a cash bonus if downloading listed applications. Although every Chinese user is familiar with the red envelope, they could earn 0.2 RMB yuan ($0.031) only for downloading one application.

The complexity of MIUI App Store pages implies how Xiaomi tries its best to assist various MIUI developers. The 9 types of advertising take elements like classification, market share into consideration. Each developer could find its most suitable advertising solution within MIUI App Store. The same goes for other Android app stores in mainland China. One of Xiaomi's biggest competitors, Huawei, also provides complex advertising solutions to its developers.

Apart from ASA, Apple has introduced other channels for application promotion: pre-order, product page optimization, etc. But overall, Android app promotion in mainland China is much more excessive.

Android developers in mainland China are concerned when selecting distribution channels, partially due to various commission rates. Moreover, each Android app store's return on advertising (ROAS) might influence developers' decision-making as well. When it comes to iOS developers, they feel somewhat relieved as Apple App Store is the only official iOS channel, not only because of the unicity, but also the simplicity of the rules and expense.