Run one test yourself, in the free tools

The most useful thing you can learn this month is that you can run a store test yourself, in tools you already own, for free. Apple’s Product Page Optimization lives in App Store Connect. Google Play’s store listing experiments live in Play Console. Neither needs an agency, a subscription or a dashboard. They need one hypothesis and some patience.

The hypothesis is about your first screenshot. Look at it and write down, in one sentence, what claim it makes to a stranger. Feature? Outcome? Social proof? Price? Now write the opposite kind of claim. If your first screenshot shows the interface, the variant shows the outcome. If it lists features, the variant makes one promise. Change nothing else: same icon, same other screenshots, same text. One variable.

Set the test up with a fifty-fifty split and leave it alone. Do not look for a week. Small apps need three to six weeks to reach a readable result; the tools will tell you when confidence is high enough. Calling it early is the most common mistake, and it is the mistake agencies on a monthly clock make every month.

While it runs, notice something: the agency did not propose this test, or if it did, it proposed it inside a retainer. The test costs nothing. What you are paying the agency for is the hypothesis, and you just wrote one.

Today’s task

• Write the claim your first screenshot makes, in one sentence.
• Produce one variant with the opposite kind of claim. Change nothing else.
• Launch a 50/50 test in the console and do not look for a week.

Related: A/B testing, explained · Creative and conversion, explained · Why I am not an ASO agency