Guide — practical ASO · 28 September 2026

ASO audit checklist: find what is stopping your app from growing

An ASO audit should end with a decision: what to change, why it matters, and how you will know whether it worked. Use this checklist for one app, one store and one market at a time. It works for a first review or for checking the recommendations in an agency report.

By Gabriel Machuret · Editorial methodology

1. Record the baseline before changing anything

Write down the store URL, market, language, app version and observation dates. Save the current listing and screenshots. Record store exposure, listing visits, downloads and the conversion metric available in your console, with its exact definition. Keep iOS and Android separate: similarly named metrics are not necessarily comparable.

Use a recent period with enough traffic to be useful and compare it with a similar period. Note releases, promotions, paid campaigns and seasonal events. A before-and-after change alone does not establish that ASO caused the difference. If you only have the public listing, mark conversion, retention and revenue as unknown.

Question	Evidence to collect	Decision it supports
Are relevant people finding the app?	Search visibility and acquisition sources by market	Investigate discovery before redesigning the listing
Do visitors choose to download?	Store conversion, segmented where available	Identify a message or creative test
Do new users get value?	Activation, retention and revenue from your analytics	Check whether the listing promise matches the product

2. Check whether the keyword targets match the product

Build a shortlist from the problems your app solves, customer language and relevant competing listings. Separate your own brand from generic needs. For each candidate, record the market, user intent, current ranking if measured, competing apps and the feature that fulfills the promise. Treat third-party demand scores as estimates, not verified search counts.

Reject terms that describe a feature you do not offer, even if they look popular.
Inspect the results for each priority query. An unrelated set of apps can signal the wrong intent.
Choose a focused set of relevant opportunities rather than maximizing the number of tracked keywords.
Keep dated evidence. A ranking checked in one storefront is not a global ranking.

3. Review the metadata for the correct store

For the App Store, check the app name, subtitle, keyword field and category. Apple limits keywords to 100 characters and advises against repeating words already in the name, subtitle or category. Do not add competitors' names or irrelevant terms. Apple also supports assigning keywords to custom product pages: audit those assignments when used. See Apple's search guidance in the sources below.

For Google Play, review the title, short description and full description as a coherent explanation of the product. Check current requirements in Play Console before submitting. Do not paste an iOS keyword list into customer-facing copy or chase a target keyword density. Every claim should describe something the current app can do.

4. Audit the first impression

Open the listing on a phone and look at the assets at their actual display size. Can a new visitor identify the main use case and understand what they will receive? Record the first screenshot's promise, the evidence shown inside the app, text readability and the order of the remaining screenshots. Compare the message with the query or campaign that brought the visitor.

Show the relevant product experience, not only decorative claims.
Check whether the icon is recognizable at a small size.
Check that screenshots match the current app and supported language.
Review Google Play preview assets against its current asset requirements.
Identify one specific uncertainty to test, such as whether a benefit-led opening communicates the use case more clearly.

5. Read reviews as product and messaging evidence

Sample recent positive and negative reviews and record how you selected them. Group recurring themes such as missing features, confusing onboarding or unexpected pricing. Distinguish a misleading listing from a product issue: copy cannot repair a broken feature. Avoid describing a few selected reviews as representative of every customer.

6. Prioritize markets before translating

Choose markets using observed demand, product availability, customer support and business value. Research local search language rather than translating an English keyword list word for word. Have someone fluent in the language check the copy and screenshot text in context. A country with many downloads may still be a poor priority if the product cannot serve those users well.

7. Turn findings into a test plan

Use Apple's Product Page Optimization or Google Play's store listing experiments where the asset and app are eligible. Define a hypothesis, a primary metric and a decision rule before launching. Check the console's current test settings and result guidance. Avoid changing unrelated assets during the experiment, and allow for an inconclusive outcome when traffic is insufficient.

Example hypothesis: a screenshot showing the app's core workflow will help first-time visitors understand it better than a general lifestyle image. Keep the remaining screenshots consistent, measure the test in the native console, and record whether the evidence supports keeping the change. This is an illustrative test, not a claimed client result.

8. Deliver a backlog your team can use

Give each finding an owner, evidence, expected effect, effort and validation method. Prioritize inaccurate claims and broken assets first, then evidence-backed opportunities in important markets. Keep speculative ideas in a separate list until you can investigate them. A numeric audit score is less useful than knowing which change to ship next.

Finding (illustrative)	Action	Validation
Screenshots show a retired feature	Replace with current product screens	Check the published listing against the released app
First screenshot does not explain the main use case	Test a clearer opening screenshot	Read native experiment results and uncertainty
Generic keyword demand is unknown	Research relevant queries in the target market	Save dated observations and label tool estimates
Downloads increased during a paid campaign	Separate acquisition sources where possible	Avoid claiming the whole increase as organic lift

Copy this audit record

App, store, market, language, version and audit date
Baseline period, traffic sources and metric definitions
Finding and supporting evidence, or unknown
Recommended change and expected user benefit
Priority, confidence, effort and owner
Test hypothesis, primary metric and decision rule
Result, limitations and next review date

Revisit the backlog after releases, meaningful market changes and completed tests. Some apps need continuing experimentation; others need a focused repair and a monitoring routine. Choose the cadence from the evidence and your capacity, rather than assuming every app needs the same monthly package.

Explore the full ASO guide library, including a plain explanation of what ASO services really are, reviews of every named agency, and the country-by-country guide.

Sources and platform guidance

Platform documentation checked 28 September 2026. Console features and requirements can change; verify the applicable settings before publishing.

Questions and answers

“Can I audit an app without paid ASO tools?” +

Yes. You can review the public listing, compare relevant competitors and use your store consoles. Paid tools can add keyword and competitor estimates. Label anything you cannot measure as unknown.

“Is a public teardown the same as a full ASO audit?” +

No. A public teardown can identify messaging and creative hypotheses. A full audit also needs private acquisition and conversion data, and ideally product outcomes, to prioritize confidently.

“How long until an audit improves downloads?” +

An audit itself changes nothing. Results depend on implementation, demand, traffic and the changes you test. Do not promise a fixed ranking lift or interpret a few days of movement as proof.

“Which checklist item should I do first?” +

Fix inaccurate or broken listing elements, then establish your baseline. Use that evidence to decide whether discovery, conversion or the product experience needs attention first.

Turn your audit
into a clear plan.

Share your store URL, target market and the problem you want to solve. A fixed-scope engagement can turn the findings into metadata changes, a creative test and a handover your team can use.