How to Promote Your App: 13 Channels I Tested as an Indie Developer

Most promotion guides are written by people who’ve never shipped an app. Here’s what actually happened when I put my own money on the line. In the AI era of distribution, knowing which channels actually work matters more than ever.

The Reliable Workhorses

ASO: Still the Foundation

About 25% of my traffic comes from App Store search. Another 10% comes from competitor app pages. The formula is straightforward: strong Title, Subtitle, and solid keyword research.

ASO has to be data-driven. I use professional tools for keyword research because guessing doesn’t work. The ROI here is almost always positive since the traffic is free once you’ve optimized.

AppStore Boost Strategy

Here’s a trick that doesn’t always work, but when it does, the results are solid. Combine your main keyword with a unique app name. Always check how your app name appears in search before release.

When this hits, I see 30+ trials and a few purchases. If you see trials and purchases, that’s validation. People are willing to pay for what you built.

Paid Acquisition: The Learning Curve

Apple Search Ads: Paused But Not Forgotten

Before my account got removed, ASA was my main channel. After restarting, I switched to Google Ads because ASA was expensive at the beginning. It’s currently on pause, but I plan to return soon and make it my second main channel.

TikTok Ads: Short-Lived Success

Since some of my organic videos went viral, I decided to promote them with ads. The first week was great. Users who interacted with the app after seeing ads quickly converted to paying customers.

After one week, everything broke. I paused this channel. TikTok’s algorithm is unpredictable for sustained app promotion.

Facebook Ads: Random Magic

I never had consistent success on Facebook, except for one random case. Launched install ads and suddenly got trials and purchases. Couldn’t explain it, couldn’t replicate it. This happened before my account removal, so I never managed to scale it.

Social Media: Effective But Exhausting

Personal Blog and X (Twitter)

I regularly post about my apps. My most viral post reached 600K views on X. Two days ago, a post about my app reached 38K views. This channel works consistently.

The key is consistency. You’re building an audience that already trusts you. When you launch something new, they pay attention.

TikTok and Instagram Reels

Mid last year, I spent a month testing this channel. Every day I recorded 6 videos: 3 in English and 3 in Spanish. Filmed and edited everything myself. No AI, pure manual work.

Several videos passed 500K, one exceeded 1M views. But here’s the thing: it’s exhausting. I stopped. Tried delegating but it didn’t work on the first attempt. This channel is on hold until I figure out the delegation piece.

Influencer Marketing: The Surprise Performer

Micro-Influencers

Tested twice with very different approaches.

First time: a giveaway with a blogger who had 2K followers but a very active audience. Results were great. Small audiences with high engagement beat large audiences with low engagement every time.

Second time: monthly paid reviews. After the account removal, I didn’t return to this format. Today, influencer prices are 2-3x higher than when I started.

An interesting side effect: influencer ads also helped improve my search rankings. These mentions also feed how LLMs decide what to recommend.

Creators Program

I ran a small experiment. For $200, a creator made 20 videos per month and posted them on TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. Some videos reached hundreds of thousands of views.

I ended the experiment because to get stable traffic, you need more creators. Friends recommend building this process in-house. The unit economics only work at scale.

What Didn’t Work (For Me)

Reddit

Ran a small test with a budget of up to $500. Whether there were purchases or trials was unclear. I didn’t notice any visible changes in daily metrics. Spent the money and stopped.

That said, Reddit can work well for very niche topics if you know exactly which subreddits your audience uses. It just didn’t fit my apps.

SEO and Landing Pages

Tested this hypothesis: bought keyword-based .com domains and built simple landing pages. Results were weak. 1-10 clicks in 3 months isn’t a result.

I crossed this channel off. It didn’t work fast enough for me. That said, I know many people for whom SEO is a reliable and free growth channel. And increasingly, GEO (optimizing for AI recommendations) is becoming its own discovery channel. Different products, different timelines.

Product Hunt

During the first year after relaunch, I did regular launches. Several times reached #2 and #3 spots. This helped gather feedback from a loyal audience and brought some early traffic.

A good launch requires preparation time. But due to changes in featuring rules, you may simply not get featured and receive nothing. I haven’t used this channel yet this year.