Now that you have your copy and your app is up and running, what about the visual aspect? Visuals are equally important for acquiring new users and leading them to download your app.

Although it’s great to have your USPs and features written down, users won’t be motivated to click the install button if they don’t understand what they are looking for. That’s not what anyone wants. Screenshots are your best friend in the world of app marketing.

Everyone knows that screenshots can be a powerful marketing tool. Make them engaging, informative, and persuasive. You need to make them useful for your marketing goals.

You’ll need to break down some elements according to different app stores, as you do with many things in the ASO industry (that’s App Shop Optimization). Because different app stores have different requirements, this is necessary. We’re sticking with Apple App Store and Google Play in this instance.

1. Screenshots Design

Layout

Explore in your screen captures. To avoid abandonment, think about fluidity and engagement. This can be done in many ways, including cutting out the middle of the images so users have to swipe to view the other half or displaying mockups of the device diagonally across the screenshots. This allows users to scroll more easily and gives them a different perspective.

Moburst clients also have the option of using landscape orientation but with portrait-like images. This makes it stand out in the app store. It appears that there are fifteen screenshots, but there are only five. The bolder text appears to be floating above the white space. Pretty cool, huh?

We also like to emphasize the UI (User Interface) in our designs. It gives potential users a glimpse into your app and can be persuasive if they are impressed by what they see. This provides proof behind the copy. Although you have described the features, users can see them.

USPs

In the design, include USPs (Unique Selling Points). To market the app’s worth, each screenshot should have a unique USP. Your unique selling points will help you differentiate yourself from other competitors and educate potential users about your product. You must promote them everywhere you can. Your creative assets can help you convert more customers by including them in your design.

It is also important to ensure that the most important USPs appear first. Only 30% of users scroll horizontally for more screenshots. Therefore, you should highlight the most appealing features in the first three screenshots. Only the first screenshot for landscape will be visible on the App Store and Google Play.

An anecdote to add: It is an urban legend that Google uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition), to extract the text from the screenshot. This is the process of extracting text from images. This means that your screenshots could be used as keywords to rank your app. This can be explored by looking at the indexation of keywords in the images.

CTAs

To encourage users to convert, a Call To Action should be placed at the end of each screenshot. Use actionable language like “download”, install”, discover, etc. to write the CTA. Call to Action can be powerful tools because they direct users to take action. This can help you target your marketing goals. You can let users know that if you like what they see, then that is the next step.

Readability

Fonts should be easily readable. This is often the biggest problem with the design, especially in Google Play, where the screenshot relative area on your phone screen appears smaller. Make sure you tick this item off your checklist.

Accessibility of content is enhanced by the ability to read it. It must be simple to read, which can make it difficult to process. Over the last couple of years, there has been a shift to larger text and fewer words. The larger text lends itself better to processing.

To highlight the most important features of your app, you should encourage a hierarchy within the screenshots. You can make certain text larger to attract attention. To achieve the same effect, you can change the color or size of the text box.

Contrast is more effective in making the text more readable. You won’t see the results you want if you have yellow text on an orange background.

To encourage exploration of the screenshots, you can also make the text more readable. You can guide users through the screenshots easily by keeping the text organized and consistent. This will help you maintain the fluid feel that you want.

Dimensions and Orientation

This one will be split between Google Play and Apple App Store, as they have different features.

Google Play is our #1 tip. We recommend that you play around with it! You can adjust the dimensions and orientation of your screenshots. You can choose from portrait, square, or landscape orientations. There are many options, so be creative. Find out what works best for your product and then test it to confirm.

The App Store screenshot dimensions are much more rigid. You have two options for screen sizes. Most commonly, the 6.5 and 5.5-inch iPhones. It’s only landscape or portrait, with different specifications depending on the size of your phone. They are larger for the larger phone models.

2. Video

To determine the impact (or lack thereof) of a video, you can test how many people saw it, how long they watched the entire thing, abandonment rates, and so forth. Consider adjusting the USPs to the second half of the video if it receives more engagement. Most users will abandon a video within the first three seconds.

These first three seconds are crucial in converting users. These videos must be engaging and highlight the most important features/ USPs of the app. It is important to note whether or not the video added value and not just how many engagements it received.

To encourage viewers to take action, always include a Call to Action at the end.

3. Try it!

This will again be divided according to the app store since each option has its price.

Google Play Experiments is a free tool that allows you to test A/B pages and app store listings. It’s free! It’s not bad, we think. This is especially true when you consider the high price of paid iOS solutions.

Google Play Experiments, which is free, offers far fewer insights and is far less powerful than the paid version. This can sometimes be limiting.

Splitmetrics and Storemaven are the industry leaders in A/B testing paid solutions. The latter is the most expensive. Splitmetrics and Storemaven offer a wide range of insights, including audience segmentation, video views, and engagement breakdowns. They also provide advanced statistical tools that can speed up the convergence process. It’s worth the effort, but it all depends on your budget. The cost of setting up tests on these platforms is often negligible when compared to the media budget required to drive traffic to the test.

Both the visual and textual assets should be tested against the current (currently active)concept. So that you can better understand the impact of each variant’s changes, we recommend that you only test one element at a given time.

4. Strategize

It doesn’t matter if you think something looks best. Only actual evidence is important, and A/B testing provides this evidence. This can form the basis of your creative strategy moving forward. Based on previous results, you can always plan for future tests.

The key takeaways should be: 

• Portraits in iOS are more common than landscapes, but it is important to verify that your app supports portrait screenshots.

• Google Play allows you to quickly test winning screenshot variants with very limited granular insight.

• You will need to have a large budget to set up iOS tests and buy media to drive traffic to your test pages.

• Google Play screenshots can be enlarged to any size. It is important to determine which size works best for your app. Portrait or square has the advantage of being able to read more text because the screenshots taken on Google Play (which are smaller than iOS) take up vertical space.

• You shouldn’t assume design concepts that work on iOS will work on Google Play. It is a good idea to test each platform separately if possible.