For the game, Merge Ragdoll Fighting Azur Games made a new icon and tested the version on the audience. In this article, the company shares the results of the test.

In the A/B test, the version on the right showed an estimated increase in conversion from views to installs of 100%. Such a result has never been seen in the entire time of the ASO department at Azur Games. The case is unique, so let’s get into the details quickly.

Test results. Blue — original version, orange — new version

Installs did increase, but not without nuances.

Intermediate results

Promotion channels. The new icon showed itself best in Google Ads – the peak growth of installations was not even 100, but 200%. A little later came organics, which grew by two times and remained at this level for quite a long time.

At the same time, traffic from other ad networks remained in place, most likely because it is much more important to record good creativity on other sites. A user who comes to the store after a video already has expectations and doesn’t look so closely at the icon or text – nothing unusual here.

And Google Ads in the store shows our users ads for the first time already with an icon – it can be a text ad or a selection of genres.

Audience. Due to the sharp growth of coverage, the project has not reached the target audience, so we even had to optimize the UA to avoid losing out.

Organics. Although it doubled, the expectations were much higher. Azur Games hoped that after a surge of players’ interest, the stock’s «algorithms» would pick up the project and begin to show the game more often in various selections and recommendations on the pages of other games. This did not happen.

Key queries. The number of conversions in the sets increased significantly, but the number of key-queries conversions went down. Perhaps someone looking at the icon expected to see a battle between man and Hulk or a game about superheroes. But the actual gameplay looks like this:

The conclusion is inescapable. The icon is not tightly associated with the gameplay. In the selections, the image looks appealing to new players because of references to a well-known character and other icons of popular games. But when gamers search for a game genre in a search, the icon gives the impression that the stor algorithm shows a project of a different genre. The old icon had a worse conversion rate to installs across all traffic channels, but it worked much better for keywords related to fighting games. For example, the branded keyword clicked on it better by 6%, as the image better reflected the actual gameplay.

Aleksandr Darchenkov, ASO-manager of Azur Games

Conclusions

The app icon is significant for Google Ads and gives an unexpected install boost. The tests don’t lie here and help to find the best options. The current option remains unequivocally. Now Azur Games will sort out what strings of the players’ souls are touched and transfer that experience to video creations, screenshots and so on.

And also, we must not forget that even a large number of installs is not a panacea. If an untargeted audience comes – we must keep a close eye on it to attract users competently and not sag far behind on the main keywords for the project.

Side note: Azur Games invests in Pinpin Team.

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