Achieving organic growth in today’s highly competitive app ecosystem is no small feat. With millions of apps vying for attention, app developers are finding it increasingly difficult to break through the noise and secure the organic numbers that once came more naturally. The organic install rate—the holy grail for sustainable app growth—has steadily declined as paid marketing tactics in the Google Play Store dominate the landscape, driving up acquisition costs while diminishing the opportunities for organic visibility.
App developers thus face a fundamental challenge: how do you drive organic growth with paid advertising?
Enter Dynamic Preloads, a strategic solution that offers a direct route to the user’s device, bypassing traditional app store bottlenecks. With Google Play Auto install’s ability to dynamically preload apps onto devices, it delivers guaranteed installs and catalyzes organic growth by enhancing visibility and driving user engagement. This solution addresses the core problem developers face—achieving organic uplift—by strategically positioning their apps in front of the right audiences, resulting in increased downloads and better app store rankings without the escalating costs of user acquisition.
This guide will explore how Dynamic Preloads, specifically through Google’s PAI (Play Auto Install) and mobile OEM partnerships, offer an effective strategy for organic uplift. With our exclusive data from real apps that have worked with AVOW, both gaming and non-gaming, this guide will help app developers navigate the complexities of the modern app marketplace whilst maintaining visibility.
In the world of mobile app marketing, organic uplift refers to the observed correlation between organic and non-organic installs. Essentially, when a paid campaign (non-organic installs) is executed successfully, it often leads to a boost in organic installs as well. This phenomenon occurs because paid campaigns drive greater visibility for an app, pushing it higher in the app store rankings, which in turn leads to increased discoverability and installs from users who were not directly targeted by the campaign.
Organic uplift can be understood as the incremental increase in organic installs that follows a surge in non-organic installs, often driven by paid user acquisition campaigns. For every app installed through paid methods, a certain percentage of users discover and install the app organically. The goal of any app developer is to achieve a strong multiplier effect—where paid installs not only boost paid performance but also trigger a cascading rise in organic growth.
When it comes to these two terms, it is important to separate fact from fiction. In a nutshell, are these two terms interchangeable? Well, yes and no. While they do mean the same thing in a broader sense, and they both seek to explain a similar phenomenon, they both do differ in how they approach answering the question of organic growth.
In marketing terms, incrementality is usually defined as “organic growth that comes about from or after a paid campaign.” Sounds familiar right? But incrementality is more than just that. When it comes to marketing campaigns, incrementality is usually lead by the question, “Would I still have this organic growth if I DID NOT DO this paid campaign?’. In other words, incrementality is wondering if the same organic growth can be achieved organically or if that incrementality can be attributed to a particular paid campaign other than the one that is being observed or measured.
Organic uplift is a simpler metric to understand. It simply refers to the organic growth observed either during or after a paid campaign and is usually lead by the question, “Did my paid campaign lead to growth in my organic channels?”
Over recent years, organic uplift has been on a steady decline. In its earlier years, the correlation between paid campaigns and organic installs was stronger, with well-executed paid efforts consistently driving significant organic growth. However, data from industry reports show that organic uplift has decreased by approximately 20% over the last few years, signaling a tougher landscape for app developers relying on organic growth strategies.