11 ways to legally spy on competitors’ mobile apps

Alexander Sergeev

wrote this on Мар 11, 2015

How to find your competitors?

First of all, find out who are your competitors. In order to do this you need to know the field and the players well. It’s essential to understand what do they offer and what you can do better than they do.

There are many ways to do this and Google search for app keywords is one of them. Try searching “keyword + app”. You may also try searching in stores by entering keywords. Or may use special-purpose service Xyo.

Make up a list in a form of a table. Each line should include name, link to the app in the store, web site page and social network pages.

How to get info you need for analysis?

Installs quantity

It’s easy to find out total installs quantity with the help of Xyo. To do this, enter app name in the search line.

If you want to learn installs quantity in a store of a definite country, change filter search on the service main page. You may also get information for a specific platform and even device (eg. iPhone or iPad).

Positions

Natural traffic depends directly on competitors’ positions in store top lists. While analysing your competitors, it’s useful and interesting to know their ratings dynamics. App Annie provides all this information for free.

There’s another service for spying on your competitors - appFigures. But it’s a paid tool - starting at $9 per month (it offers a free month trial period).

Apptrace gives the same kind of information.

Earnings

It’s easier to make up a business plan, if you know how much do your competitors earn. App Annie can help to get such a confidential information but only using a paid subscription ($59 per month).

Web presence level

This metric is essential as it helps to evaluate depths of competitors’ marketing campaign. Web presence level is all possible app mentions in the Internet including social networks, blogs and mass media.

How many app reviews has a competitor published? A paid service Mention will answer the question. Its subscription costs start at €29 per month.

GoogleAlerts is a free tool but its work isn’t stable.

An alternative tool is Alexa. It allows to get information about competitor’s app web site.

Keywords

In order to choose the right keywords for an app promotion, learn the ones that your competitors use. SensorTower tool suits perfectly for the task. Subscription costs start at $79 per month but basic possibilities are available for free.

It also tracks competitors’ dynamics.

Another efficient free tool allowing to compare apps according to keywords is MobileDevHQ.

Marketing campaign

Use Adbeat service in order to learn the details about your competitor app promotion campaign. It helps to look through competitors’ marketing campaigns, release dates, budget and even A/B tests. But such valuable information is never given away freely. The service costs $249 per month. The system contains data about more than 50 advertising networks.

User attitude

While analysing your competitors, it’s important to know users’ opinion on the apps. Apptrace will help you a lot in doing this.