How to prepare a release and measure what it did

This guide gets one change out the door in a state where you can tell what it did. It needs a tracked app, ten minutes before the release and two short readings after it. The discipline is what makes the numbers readable: most ASO work is unreadable because two things shipped at once.

Preparing a release and measuring what it did, in sequence:

1. Decide the single thing this release changes.
2. Track the keywords it should move, so you have a before.
3. Score the draft before you submit it.
4. Ship, and let Applyra date it.
5. Days 1 to 3: look, do not act.
6. Day 7: first real read, across the whole set.
7. Day 14: keep it or revert it.

1. One change per release

Change the title and the screenshots together and you have permanently lost the ability to tell which one did anything. So pick one.

If you do not know which one, let Applyra point. The ASO Health widget at the top of your app page names the Biggest lever, the sub-score holding the listing back most, and the first finding on that sub-score in the ASO Health tab is usually the change to make.

The ranking effects come from our study of real metadata changes, measured against untouched control keywords from the same apps. The iOS keyword field holds ground rather than takes it, and on Google Play the full description does the same job for the terms in your title and short description, which is why Applyra marks one that goes missing there. Both are places to be careful rather than places to experiment.

What good looks like: you can say in one sentence what this release changes and which number should move.

2. Track the keywords it should move

A before and after needs a before. Every term the change targets should be tracked before you submit, so its position the day before is on record.

From any word in the ASO Health breakdown, the magnifier opens the Keywords Inspector; Track keyword, under Tracking Status, adds it and measures its first position right away. The Keywords to track card on the app page does the same in one click for terms from your own listing. Then star those keywords in the Keywords Tracker, so the star filter shows this release's set on its own at day 7.

3. Score it before you submit

On the ASO Health tab, press Simulate changes. The Metadata Simulator opens on your live listing. Type the change and press Score this listing: the chip under the score shows the points gained or lost against your live listing, and each sub-score shows its own movement.

You are looking for two things:

• A higher score, with Keyword coverage up and Targeting fit no worse.
• Room left in the words. The line under Simulate changes on the ASO Health tab, such as "62 today, up to 81 from the text alone", gives the ceiling of any wording. A listing already near it is telling you the words are finished and the next release should be a screenshot set. The simulator lets you test that too: set the screenshot count or the rating you are planning under The app behind the listing and score again.

Every run is kept under Your scored listings, so the draft you shipped stays one click away. The screen is covered in the metadata simulator, and the two field by field walkthroughs are optimizing an App Store listing and optimizing a Google Play listing. Free accounts get ten simulations a month (see pricing), which is more releases than most indie apps ship.

4. Ship, and let Applyra date it

Before you submit, open the algorithm change detector on your market. A release shipped into a store-wide update cannot be read, so if the store is moving, wait a few days.

Then submit. You do not have to write the date down: Applyra watches the live listing and logs each change as a release. On your app page it becomes a dot on the visibility chart, dated the day it went live; hover it for the version and the fields that moved. See release history. The iOS keyword field is the one exception, because Apple never publishes it: paste the new one into Applyra, or press Re-sync on the app page, and note that date yourself.

While you are there, note that both stores favour active apps. A listing that has not moved in a long time collects the Your listing is going stale finding on the Store appeal axis of ASO Health, and the cheapest fix for it is the release you were going to ship anyway.

5. Days 1 to 3: look, do not act

The store is already done. A keyword entering an iOS title has made most of its gain by the first daily reading; Google Play delivers most of its effect on day zero too and finishes settling inside two weeks.

So the first three days are not a waiting room, they are a trap. What you see is your change plus the ordinary daily churn, and the churn is large: track twenty keywords and, on a completely uneventful day, one or two move five places or more and about one moves ten or more. Acting now means stacking a second change on top of a measurement you have not taken.

The one rule for this window: never ship a fix on top of a change you are still measuring. Your clean before and after becomes two overlapping experiments.

6. Day 7: the first real read

Read the whole set, not the keyword you care about. A single keyword is noise with an opinion. Ten keywords that all received the same new title word are a signal.

Three places to look:

• The Keywords Tracker, filtered to your starred keywords. Position gives today's rank. For the before and after, open a keyword in the Keywords Inspector and set its Tracking Status chart to Last 14 days, which puts the days before the release on the same line.
• The visibility chart on the app page, with the release dot on it. It reads your standing across a fixed set of keywords from your niche rather than the ones you track, so it tells you whether the change moved you in your niche, not only in your list. See the visibility score.
• The ASO Health tab, whose Listing version picker switches between the current listing and the ones before it, each with its own score.

If the set moved up together, you have your answer early. If it is mixed, that is normal at day 7 and the decision is not due yet.

7. Day 14: keep it or revert it

Now decide, and write the decision down somewhere you will find it.

• It worked. Keep it, and let it sit. The next change goes out after this read, not during it.
• It did nothing. The field you changed was probably not the one that ranks, or the term you added has little demand behind it. Check the term in the Keywords Inspector: a traffic score under 25, which Applyra marks Low, had little to move.
• It went backwards. Before reverting, run diagnosing a ranking drop. A store-wide day in the same week produces exactly this picture, and so does a competitor who shipped the same week, which shows as a dot on their line in the head to head chart.

One caveat about reverting: there is no grace period on a title edit. In the same measurement, a keyword dropping out of an iOS title lost 18 positions on the first reading and settled about 22 worse. The store gives and takes on the same schedule, so treat a title as reversible in principle rather than in practice.

What history you need to do this at all

Measuring a release means comparing two dates, so the comparison is only as long as your history. The free plan keeps 7 days: enough to see the jump while it happens, but by the day 7 read the day before the release has already left the window. Unlimited keeps all of it, which is the main reason the day 14 habit is worth a subscription rather than a spreadsheet. See plans and limits and pricing.

To keep the reading going without having to remember it, set ASO recap emails to Weekly or Monthly under Email notifications on your account screen: the recap brings your visibility scores, your average rank change and your biggest gains and drops to your inbox. The rest of the monthly pass is in a monthly ASO routine.