Esther Schatz
Host of Mobile Growth & Pancakes at Storemaven (ASO/store testing vendor). Contributes industry anecdotes from games and subscription apps (e.g. free-coin slots creatives, 8fit’s early paywall, Supercell-copycat icons).
Bias to keep in mind: works for an ASO testing vendor; anecdotes are second-hand and from 2022.
Sources: sources/youtube/storemaven/.
Notes citing Esther Schatz
- Copy or innovate? Differentiating in a "saturated" app categoryJake Castillo's view that saturation means proven demand (win with a novel, easier feature or a hyper-specific niche, and avoid social apps), Gleam's "copy Duolingo's defaults, add a twist", and Nami/Storemaven's warning against copying competitors' pricing and paywalls without knowing why.
- Google Play ASO specifics — listings, quality signals and data quirksHow Google Play differs from the App Store for ASO — description indexing and higher ratings bars, custom store listings (up to 50, Google Ads targeting), technical quality thresholds (ANR/crash) that cut browse traffic, app size, the Data safety form, and why Play "organic" and "search" numbers are mixed.
- How often to run paywall tests — and why a 5% ARPU lift can be your whole ad marginCal AI ran ~4 paywall tests a week (~300 in 18 months), single tests worth $10–50K/month, starting from ~100 users/day; Gleam argues a 5–6% ARPU lift can be the entire margin on paid ads and unlocks channels (and acquirers); treat the paywall as a never-finished marketing asset.
- In-app events (iOS) and LiveOps / promotional content (Google Play)Why in-app events and Google Play promotional content matter for ASO — extra search indexing and featuring (incl. Today tab), re-engaging lapsed users — with Tilting Point's 9-events-in-3-days launch (4 featured), Google's LiveOps eligibility and claimed lifts, and how to plan and measure them.
- Moving an app to subscriptions — existing users, segmentation and who should subscribeDan Burcaw's (Nami ML, Feb 2022) advice for switching to subscriptions — grandfather existing buyers with lifetime access, target the model at new users, accept that subscription isn't for every cohort (lifetime, one-time "appetizers", ads), and tie behaviour cohorts to acquisition channels; plus Visualizee's one-time → monthly switch.
- Personalising the paywall with what onboarding (or the ad) already told youCarry intent signals into the paywall — Fastic's 20–30-step onboarding (~80% completion) puts the user's target weight on the paywall; Gleam returns a persona scorecard and course picks before asking for money; Apple Ads keyword or ad group can pick the paywall variant.
- Reading store A/B test results — when to stop, applying ties, validating winnersWhy you shouldn't stop a Google Play experiment when it first shows a winner, how to read performance bars as confidence intervals and apply "positive ties", using a Bayesian calculator for PPO, and three ways to cross-check a winner.
- Setting your first subscription priceStart higher than feels comfortable — Ravi Mehta's $20–30/month "high waterline" doubles as a PMF test — then anchor on competitors, cost-plus-perceived-value (AI apps), ROAS/payback math and the value of the user's whole problem; text-AI wrappers cluster at $30–40/year, niche custom-prompt chat apps get $20+/month.
- Store A/B tests — sample size, MDE and why bold variants winHow much traffic a screenshot/icon test needs, what minimum detectable effect (MDE) means for ASO, Klarna's market-tier rule for where to test, and why "one hypothesis, bold change" beats "one small change at a time".