Koo witnesses a 15% spike in organic installs with custom store listings
Koo is a microblogging platform that came about in 2020. It was inspired by the discovery that out of the entire Indian population of 1.4 billion people, only 10% speak in English. It turns out that globally, 75% of internet users prefer content in their native language over English. This is where Koo saw a potential gap to fill.
The mission - to unite the world despite its language barriers. To provide a sense of inclusiveness & connectedness in a world that is divided by languages and borders. Koo's intent was simple: build a platform with a vernacular capability that would enable people to connect with others and express themselves in ways that feels most natural and authentic to them.
So, how did Koo fare?
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Became the world's second largest microblogging platform
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Ranked #1 in Brazil within a week of its launch and gained over 2 million installs in 1 week
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Surpassed the 60-million installs mark within 3 years of launch
The challenge
Despite the promising numbers and milestones achieved, growing the number of organic installs was a challenge, as it is for most app-based businesses. To help address this dilemma, Koo was introduced to the custom store listing feature on Google Play.
As it turns out, providing people with a microblogging platform with multilingual capabilities was only one piece of the colloquial puzzle. Considering Koo's primary audience is a user who prefers (and is probably familiar only with) content in their native language, it was crucial to share any and all information related to the app in the user's discovery phase in those vernaculars as well. Not communicating the app's features and offerings in the preferred languages of its users seemed like a missed opportunity.
After going through some basic do's & don'ts of the custom listing features, the Koo team started to experiment and improve upon the same.
What they did
Koo decided to make use of Google Play's custom store listing feature to create localized listings for its different markets. In Koo's case, it was tailored to countries.
Custom store listings are essentially a way to tailor an app's store presence to specific user segments via unique URLs, countries, or pre-registration campaigns, and more. Among other things, this feature supports both machine as well as human translation services in 48 languages - and this can be utilized at little to no cost. This helps business owners localize their app's experience for users around the world.
Koo has been experimenting with the store listing feature to help explain the app and its features to its prospects in various languages across geographies. To help with the same, they've also been using images, feature graphics, and screenshots in their listing process. They report having seen the most impact from the use of optimized images, which, as per them, works due to its visually captivating nature.
Having spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with the custom store listing feature, here are some best practices they recommend for businesses who are (thinking of) using the same for their business:
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Design the feature graphic in such a way that there is minimum to no important information hidden behind the 'Play' icon of the feature video
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Communicate in the language that the user would prefer
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Use relevant graphics for every listing based on geography
Koo has experimented with the designs in terms of layout, color, orientation, and text, resulting from a combination of self analysis and metric monitoring.
Results
These experiments with custom store listings have resulted in an uptick in Koo's organic installs by 15% in non-English languages in countries where the national language is not English. This has also led to the app ranking in the top apps list on several occasions.
This has validated Koo's hypothesis that providing information about the app and its features in the user's native language helps them understand the app better and as a result, leads to better product adoption.
Koo reports having witnessed the increase in organic installs as a result of listing experiments, ratings management, and custom store listings. They have also reported a 3x increase in DAUs.
Additionally, they have seen a reduction of 10% in churn rate, which they primarily attribute to the improved app experience. For this, they use Android Vitals on a regular basis and at the time of releases - they've found this tool to be a good indicator of the stability of the app and improvements compared to the previous versions.
The features of the Play Console have led to better observations, analysis, and pace of experiments. It has helped in gaining more velocity to achieve [our] business objectives. It has also allowed us to try out some unconventional marketing opportunities.
The team reports that the custom store listing has now become a 'must do' when it comes to targeting users in different geographies. Their parting advice: do not miss using this powerful feature!
While Koo is available in most countries, their current focus is the Indian and Latin American market. They plan to continue expanding across geographies strategically in the coming times.