ASO Tools Showdown: Mobile Action vs AppTweak vs Auto Fill

Today's post is an analysis of the accuracy of keyword search volume scores from two ASO Tools: AppTweak and Mobile Action, compared to our own internal benchmark: the App Store's Auto Fill.

We studied 41 keywords of all different types and calculated each keyword's Auto Fill score as:

• 100 - (((The number of  letters it took to bring the keyword up) * 10) -10 ) + the rank of the keyword in the SERP)
  • We multiplied the number of letters required by 10 and then subtracted 10 out in order to give proper scoring weight to the number of letters required to show the keyword, but not punish keywords found on the first letter.
  • Subtracting the score from 100 gave us a score where 100 was the maximum
  • Adding the rank of the keyword in the SERP gave weight for the actual position in the SERP

As to be expected, we found different findings between the auto fill and the tools; however, we also found that the volume scores between Mobile Action and Apptweak differed pretty widely.

It was difficult to determine a true winner, given our measuring stick (Auto Fill) doesn't provide an apples-to-apples comparison of search volume (i.e. a score of 1 in actuality is not the same for "t" and "x"); but we judged our winner by this data point:

Which ASO tool's keyword rank-order matched the most closely with the rank-order of Auto Fill results?

The winner was Mobile Action, with:

• 4/41 matching rank-orders with Auto Fill keywords
• An average distance from the Auto Fill rank of .64
• An averaged standard deviation of the distance from the Auto Fill of each keyword of 1.05

AppTweak showed more volatility in predicting the same rank as Auto Fill results:

• 1/41 matching rank-orders
• An average distance from the Auto Fill rank of 1.74
• An averaged standard deviation of the distance from the Auto Fill of each keyword of 4.28

 



AppTweak indicated that most terms were much in search higher volume than Mobile Action did, whose scores represent a bell curve; Auto Fill results were a mix between the Mobile Action and AppTweak graphs.







Notable differences in search volume scores included:

Plural vs singular

• Step counter
  • Mobile Action recorded step counter and steps counter both at 46
  • Apptweak recorded step counter at 57 vs steps counter (50)
  • Auto Fill recorded step counter at 77 vs steps counter (65)
• Task
  • Mobile Action recorded task and tasks both at 47
  • Apptweak recorded task at 92 vs tasks (81)
  • Auto Fill recorded task at 67 vs tasks (65)

Keyword spacings:

• Tasklist vs task list
  • Mobile Action recorded the same search volume for tasklist as task list (36)
  • Apptweak recorded tasklist at 4 vs task list (84)
  • Auto Fill recorded tasklist at 44 vs task list (66)
• Offerup vs offer up
  • Again, Mobile Action recorded the same volume for Offerup (61) as Offer up (61)
  • AppTweak recorded Offerup at 27 vs Offer Up (95)
  • Auto fill recorded Offerup at 88 vs Offer Up (99)

1 word vs 2+ word phrases

• Mobile Action took 15% volume away by adding extra words to a keyword
• Auto Fill subtracted 6% of a keyword's volume score by adding extra words
• AppTweak only reduced volume estimates for phrases made of two or more words  by 1% vs single word keywords
  
  

For a copy of the study, send an email to hello@incipia.co.

That's all for now folks! Thanks for reading - stay tuned to the Incipia blog or subscribe to our email list for more app store optimization tips, tricks and hacks.

Incipia is a mobile app development and marketing agency that builds and markets apps for companies with a development specialty in high-quality code architecture and keyword-based marketing optimizations. For blog/video or speaking requests, business or press inquiries please contact us at hello@incipia.co.