App Store Pre-Orders Now Available

A feature that the App Store has been lagging on is now finally available to developers – App Store Pre-orders! Developers can now list apps in the App Store up to 90 days prior to release (minimum 2 days). Only new apps that have never been published on the App Store qualify for the pre-order status. Once released, pre-order users will be notified by the App Store, and the app will automatically download on the user’s device within 24 hours.

What App Store Pre-Orders mean for ASO

Once App Store Pre-Orders are available, users will see a “limited version” of your product page will be shown, along with the expected release date. An important note here is that your pre-order app will be visible in search results even though the app is not technically live. This gives our app a chance to index into keyword prior to launching. Along with the pre-indexing, an ASO strategy can leverage the launch day installs/usage to help boost rankings. In addition to search results, the app can be displayed across the entire store, including the “Today” screen if your app is featured.

At The ASO Project, we’re a huge advocate of building your content marketing & PR strategy through the web with backlinks, content generation and more. Apple has provided pre-order badges that you can utilize in different ways (social, email marketing, website, etc…). Just remember to update these badges on your launch day!

We first saw the App Store pre-order functionality with Super Mario Run, where users could opt in to be notified when the game went live and, on the day of release, a push notification was sent from the App Store in order for you to download the game. Now the functionality is open to all developers and we’re excited to see how we can utilize this feature with our clients in order to leverage interest and pre-indexing prior to launch!

What do you think about App Store Pre-Orders? Comment below or contact us for more information.