Depending on what kind of apps you are promoting and what regions you are promoting at. Also, your mobile apps user acquisition of strategies will definitely be different when promoting your iOS app vs. Android.

We based out in China and is running UA campaigns in multiple regions (including US, ). I'd like to share my experience in marketing app (photos & videos), hope it helps.

I will start with free UA campaigns.

Blog marketing

Building a blog dedicating to your products is a way to build-up your search index. In our case, we owned several blogs that write pretty much about everything (obviously each of them has different focus). And you can write stuff that is being discussed online and associate it to your product. A quick example, Bujo, bullet journal is everywhere and we happen to have a productivity app that functions that same way like an electronic journal. I created multiple posts relating to the topics. That way we joined in the discussion and we slipped our products in posts.

Forum marketing

There are many forum out there that discuss app. You can always jump in the discussion. Another community that is always overlooked is comment section on Youtube. Go to influencers and topics that are highly related to what you are doing with your products, and comment sections is a good spot for your promotion.

The above methods are free but are also very time-consuming. So if your budget allows, paid marketing is definitely recommended.

Paid marketing

Besides Google ads, you should definitely consider running ads on top social media platforms. Youtube, Facebook etc are a must especially if you own entertainment apps.

But this requires a whole team of specialists. And what we did is cooperating with a third-party ad platform. We've worked with a couple in the states, just to name one, Kenshoo is quite experienced in terms of running social media campaign. And as we are promoting in China, we always worked with local service provider who has the necessary resources to efficiently do UA campaign for us. The one that we worked with is called Mobvista. And i believe they are right now one of the top providers on performance marketing. They worked with a bunch of platforms in China, Bytedance, Tencent for example. They also have teams based out in EU, US, and APAC. So working with a third-party like this is easier as you can advertise on local social media, and also publishers everywhere.

Besides the above-mentioned effective APP marketing channels, we also embrace other marketing methods such as KOL operation and email marketing. All in all, there are lots of channels for APP promotion, but the analysis of positioning of APP needs to be conducted, followed by formulating and executing promotion schemes, analyzing the execution effects, and formulating new promotion schemes.