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We launched our App in only 45 days after our first meeting. It was an MVP, so at the time we hadn’t invested many resources designing our logo. We just chose an elegant typography for our brand name over a black background, and called it a day. As we were about to upload the App to the Stores, we found out that the chosen typography just didn't look right as an app icon. So instead we just added a heart outline with magenta and orange gradients, and hung it on the fine trace of the last R.
When we launched our first Universal App Campaigns on Google Ads, we were pleasantly surprised: our install rate was ~ 40%, which means that 40 out of every 100 clicks became installs. Our CPI was way below our initial forecast.
After a few weeks, it was time to focus on our brand, because event though we are a technology company, Telier is a fashion brand as well. So we started allocating resources on branding. You might not know this, but we are in an initial phase where we haven't raised money yet and are bootstrapping. Us, the co-founders, were uncomfortable to see that neither our brand name or logo was the App Icon. So our CEO himself took on the task of designing a new logo, mainly by changing its font to one that could be elegant but also that could be correctly applied to the App icon format. After sharing a few designs and iterating on it, we were extremely happy about our new brand image. All changes were quickly executed and everyone we knew said how better the brand looked. We were Happy.
Take a look on these changes:
At the time we released this new brand image, a Google Ads account migration was also taking place, among other changes. As soon as the new Google Ads account was up, a worrying sign arose: our cost per install suddenly increased. After a brainstorming session, we had several hypotheses. But the main idea was that the new ad account was to blame. Days passed and the conversion rate was now in the single digits, well below the 40 points we had started with.
As our KPIs were turning red, the whole team was focused on this issue. We had to find the reason, and we had to do it fast. The ad account change certainly mudded the waters, but suddenly we had a realization. Maybe it was the missing heart in the icon, but none of us could wrap our head around a small change having such an impact. After all the positive feedback we had received about it, that certainly couldn’t be the cause. Or could it? There was only one way to know for sure. We had to AB test it.
We decided to run our experiment using the Google Play Console feature, precisely designed for this type of testing. The performance difference was so significant that in a few days we were able to check that it really was the heart! The icon change was the factor with the greatest impact on the drop in Install Rate and increase in CPI that we had noticed. With a 7.5x download rate, the action we needed to take was so clear that we didn't even coordinate its implementation, it just got done. And the learning was clear: Always keep testing.
Have you noticed a similar impact on metrics from small changes like this? What other KPIs related to activation and retention should we follow now that we have the icon change implemented and a much higher install rate? What should be our next App experiment on stores?
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