When starting a new role at a game company to help out their marketing efforts, I begin with the low-hanging fruit, especially when the publisher already has a bunch of apps on the mobile platforms. Working on App Store Optimization (ASO) initiatives isn’t a quick fix growth strategy but more of a branding, long-tail conversion and visibility strategy. In other words, it’s not going to bring in a lot of organic growth, however, if you optimize and improve the conversion rate on the app store pages, you’re going to save money in the long run, and maybe enough savings for several sponsored pizza parties where you’ll end up as the hero. Yes, please think of increasing your organic lift KPIs from ASO changes as # of pizza parties! I will look at a few top developers’ apps out there and walk you through what they did as their app icon strategies.
First Let’s Unpack & Mythbust This.
ASO blogs like this make this recommendation all the time.
There is some truth in the above statement. I work with a casual games client with over 100 million downloads who will not make any kind of extreme visual changes to their app icon. While they often test art variants to optimize for their Android conversions with Experiments they say that the base “evergreen” icon always wins out. They have a good point and did the work testing multiple variants of icon art and found a winner. Their players may want to find the game icon quickly when they come back to the app. Personally, when I’m looking for my games or non-gaming apps like Settings, Meditation, Health, or Streaming on my iPhone, I tend to use the phone’s search function more often than none, so finding an app by its app icon is not an issue for me. That said, if Apple changed the Settings icon to look more like a Netflix icon with a giant “S”, it would be jarring to say the least but it might be fun.
Finding your game’s evergreen app icon
In my game developer journey, finding that evergreen base app icon takes a long time of testing variants for conversions, and art approvals by brand stakeholders, but ultimately it’s the quality of the art that’s going to reflect on your game (and studio reputation) by your players. At the end of the day, go with the one your team is most proud of. Then, keep optimizing after the launch. My rule of thumb for changing app icon art is that it depends on your audience and your genre and how it adds to your players’ delight and discovery. Also, remember that “Patience is a virtue” when it comes to testing app icon art since you will not see results in 1 or 2 days, but are likely to see change over time (~2 weeks or longer).
High Profile Examples
Let’s look at 3 high-profile games and see what kind of changes they’ve made to their app icons.
> Pokemon Go
One app in particular that I play religiously daily is Pokemon Go. As a player, I know what to expect when I see its app icon on my phone. There’s the classic pokeball, the red top white bottom, and black lines. However, I noticed the more I play and when I look for it on multiple devices that there are subtle changes to the app icon.
You would think that a large-scale game with a gazillion downloads with name brand identity would not need to change its app icon, but
Pokemon Go
does. The original icon launched back in 2016 and began to evolve back in 2020. Starting in 2021, the icon backgrounds kept changing, mirroring the themes of their in-game events or seasons. Now Niantic, the developer, updates the “P-Go” app icon art four times per calendar year. I don’t know whether they test variants, but for every season they match the background to it, enough to delight their players (like me), and something for fans to
keep track of here!
> Hay Day
Supercell’s blockbuster farming sim Hay Day launched in 2012 hasn’t changed its app icon since 2019 according to this FB post. It went through 5 iterations and does not change AFAIK. The developer is famously known for its small teams so it’s possible the marketing team doesn’t have the time to spend on iteration and testing. Or it’s double-downing on its brand recognition. While it’s reassuring that the highly efficient team has found their evergreen app icon over the years by testing 5 variants, it seems like they might be leaving something on the app store conversion table by not testing any variants. Reminder to self, ask any Supercell folks you meet if they perform App Icon testing.
> Stumble Guys
One of the top downloaded games from the publisher Scopely is
Stumble Guys. In the past 30 days the combined IOS/Google Play apps have around ~5 Million downloads (* data from AppMagic). I played Stumble Guys recently and noticed they have changed their app icons several times from January thru May 2024. When the original game came out in 2020 from Kitka games, the app icon did not change much
until Oct 2022 when they applied a Halloween themed icon and fans of the game noticed.
During the time I’ve been playing, Scopely, the current publisher and IP owner, recently swapped out their iconic green baseball hat dude to newer characters. During my playtest, I’ve seen a wizard-like character take over the branding in March and in mid-April the app icon brand was changed to a Ninja turtle character to coordinate with their TMNT collaboration (Can you guess which character? Yes, the blue bandana is Leonardo. You win a prize. I’ll buy you a slice of pizza!). As of today, the app icon has changed back to its evergreen app icon on the app stores, but personally I liked it when they changed it up and kept me on my toes when I look for the game on my phone. The marketing team at Scopely are top notch so they know what they are doing!
A quick (free) analysis of a live app
A couple of folks over at Mythical asked me to look at their game: NFL Rivals. Its app icon feels fun with the funky mohawk hair and shades on the helmets, the NFL logo branding is strong, obviously an American football game, with the solid neon green color background giving it a ‘gaming feel’, and the text for RIVALS pops. It’s a solid app icon IMHO.
You can find the history of their app icons variants they tested with tools like
AppTweak or
Data.AI, and it seems like Mythical Games tested 2 iterations before deciding on the current one. They have NOT experimented with any new app icons since launch. Are they leaving something on the table by not optimizing and testing the app icon? Should they be testing other ASO aspects on the mobile app stores?
Let’s add and ask them to test a couple of hypotheses:
- Lowest hanging fruit: Test colors combinations, backgrounds, see what converts best. Slight changes to the background similar to P-Go is no-brainer to test
VS.
- My assumption is that they don’t have NFL player licenses otherwise they’d be putting Josh Allen (Madden’s current cover athlete) or other athletes on their icon as well. Seems odd that they can use the player’s likeness in the screenshots and not in the app branding, but then again it may have to do with permissions in licensing. (note to self, add something about seasonality since NFL season doesn’t really start until the fall EVERY year)
- Test iconic American football imagery: Quarterbacks throwing, Running Backs breaking tackles, footballs flying through the air and iconic moves or gestures like pointing to the sky, screaming in joy, any kind of big touchdown energy emotion.
- Add company branding: Mythical logo on the corner or bottom. An old school tactic but seems to be coming back for several top downloaded mobile games (i.e. Hoyoverse, Netmarble)
Extra credit (more freebies!):
I can’t help but mention this as an ASO optimization suggestion. If Mythical has not rotated their screenshots, THEY SHOULD BE DOING THIS, COME ON, IT’S FREE! Test the screenshots positioning. While screenshots do not have the same impact as the App Icons, a diligent mobile marketer would be testing the value props and rearranging them: for example, why not test and place “Upgrade your Players” in the first slot on the app store page featuring a famous athlete like Josh Allen, and place “Score…” depicting action shots like touchdowns of 2nd most popular teams like the 49ers.(note the most popular american football team, according to Google, is the Dallas Cowboys (bleh!).
Icon Testing Tools
In the early days of mobile app marketing, there were only a handful of services like Storemaven (now part of Zynga) to test your conversion rates and set up ‘fake’ app store pages for multivariate app icon testing. Now there are built-in tools for all mobile app developers: Google Experiments on Play Console (for Android only) and Product Page Optimization (PPO) on Apple’s App Store to easily set up multi-variate app icon testing. The problem that I’ve run into with these platform tools is that both need a considerable amount of time to run (1-2 weeks) and require a sizable amount of new downloads to process data. In some cases, the tests come up inconclusive or they never conclude 🤔.
While these ‘free’ tools are great for all developers, when it is fiscally possible, I prefer using external tools that are more advanced and less ‘black box' to see the data and make optimization decisions. While you will still need to procure downloads (via paid traffic or strong word-of-mouth) for these tests, you’ll find using options like Splitmetrics-Optimize, Geeklab, or other app icon testing tools to satisfy the control freak in you and you can make better decisions based on the data.
At the end of the day, I recommend all developers use the platform tools since they are free, and when there is a budget, try the external tools for pre-production (fake app store pages) and better data.
Common Blockers (and tips to persevere)
This is more of a heads-up (and slightly autobiographical). As a mobile marketer, you’ll face some challenges within organizations. Sometimes you’ll feel as though everyone hates you for focusing on changing app icons. But in reality, you just need to be persistent and spearhead the ASO tasks for product marketing as part of your job description.
You don’t have product buy in. Start with your product lead. Your counterpart here is your key supporter in prioritizing your ASO needs in sprint planning. They may even be waiting for you to suggest a change in the icon. Your battle starts here especially if most are not willing to change the app icon, but work with your supporter in product and you’ll have a better chance in future requests.- You don’t have design buy-in. I’ve been lucky to work with some of the best marketing artists in the gaming business. They already know what I want. However, you will need to provide some kind of direction and hypotheses (i.e. creative brief) that you want to test. They can’t read your mind, so take the time to look at competitor apps and give them something to work with and they may surprise you in coming up with even better hypotheses or icon variants to test. One laborious task that most artists are not keen on is to have the deliverables in different sizes but if they are pros, it’s no big deal.
- How good is your engineering team? Once you find a winner of an app icon and it is a new variant, the engineering team will have to replace it everywhere to the bundle/package for IOS/Android release builds. I’ve seen that inexperienced teams have issues replacing it, but if they are pros, they can do it in a second, so don’t despair, especially when they say they don’t know how to do it.
- You don’t have buy-in from up top. This is rare and happens when part of a small studio. The CEO/President may hate doing optimizations because it didn’t work ONCE. To be fair, just ignore this, and keep doing your job. You may or may not get a budget for app icon optimizations, but it’s your job to keep asking to do it. Do your research, add it to a deck, share it on Slack, and campaign for a test.
- Lastly, your marketing colleagues may ask you to stop your tests. User acquisition, brand, and other product marketing buddies are also constantly testing top-of-funnel creatives, value props, and messaging, as they should, and you need to be mindful of their testing while you test your hypotheses. These are your best friends at the organization, so make sure to communicate your plans, and don’t go rogue!
Don’t worry, be mindful. Blockers can be solved. Work with your team, communicate your intentions, hypotheses, and goals, and share the results with them. The more they know, the easier it will be next time.
Main takeaway:
App Icons are the #1 conversion factor for App Installs. Test and iterate, and give your players a delightful experience. Updating your App Icons keeps them fresh to your users. Time your app icon changes with your live ops events schedule.
- Recommended cadence is to update every quarter or time it with seasonal events.
- Real world example: Japanese beermakers sell limited time pink colored cans during cherry blossom season
- Pokemon Go: backgrounds are updated quarterly and tied to event themes
- Patience is a virtue. When testing new app icon art, you will not see immediate results in 1 or 2 days, and are more likely to see changes over ~2 weeks or more.
- Don’t give in to naysayers! You may face resistance and feedback like: “the app icon change made things worse”, “no one cares about seasons or holidays”, “no one will notice”, “we’re too busy doing other things.”
Anything you want to see in future ASO articles?
Feel free to email us at
eisok@mobilegamedoctor.com if you’d like to see other ASO-themed blog posts or have any feedback. Although there have been many articles like this one on Pre-Launch testing, I can elaborate further on the fake-app store CTR testing that most developers are doing to test their game concepts and GTM strategies.
