How much organic does paid UA create? Measuring the paid-to-organic uplift

TL;DR

• Paid UA lifts organic through (1) the store algorithm (more first-time downloads → better search ranks and browse placements such as “similar apps”), (2) brand awareness → brand search, and (3) virality; brand/TV activity drives brand installs directly.¹²³
• Tilting Point’s 2021 correlation study across all store parameters found UA had the strongest correlation with organic, on both stores.⁴
• Playtika’s method: pick a geo/OS with high traffic, a strong existing paid→organic K-factor and good user quality → regress organic on each paid source → scale the winning source ≥50% and check the prediction → scale further.⁵⁶⁷
• Case (Bingo Blitz, Brazil, iOS): rewarded-video ads in other games were the winning source; the forecast of 0.1 organic per paid install (10 paid → 1 organic) held over a ~2-week test and again at higher scale, arriving via browse/similar apps.⁸⁹
• Case (House of Fun, France, Android): native ads, forecast 0.5 organic per paid, actual ~0.4, arriving as brand search.¹⁰¹¹
• It depends on your mix: brand-heavy organic falls when you cut paid; Zynga apps that are ~85% organic from top generic ranks don’t move when UA is switched on or off.¹²¹³
• Ramp paid down gradually — a sudden stop after heavy spend can drag organic down with it.¹⁴

Details

Check the data first. Talia Hermesh (Playtika, ASO Conference 2023) first confirms that the paid–organic relationship seen in the MMP (AppsFlyer) also shows in the store consoles, and cross-checks with AppTweak, data.ai and MobileAction.¹⁵¹⁶

Reading the regression. The coefficient (beta) for a source is the number of organic installs per paid install: beta 0.5 means two paid installs bring one organic.¹⁷ Choose what you want to predict up front, and treat the regression output as a hypothesis to test with real spend.¹⁸

Where the Brazil uplift came from. App Store Connect showed the extra organic arriving as browse, and AppTweak’s similar-apps tracking showed Bingo Blitz gaining similar-apps placements in the same two spikes as the paid phases — the rewarded-video traffic “pinged the algorithm”.¹⁹²⁰ Second case (House of Fun, France, Android). Chosen again for a strong existing K-factor; the regression winner was native ads (ads beside article content, e.g. a solitaire game under an article on the benefits of solitaire).²¹²² Playtika bid higher on the strength of a forecast of 0.5 organic per paid install; the actual uplift was ~0.4 — short of the prediction but still large.¹⁰ This time Google Play Console showed the extra organic as search, and specifically brand search for “House of Fun” spiking on the test dates — native ads worked through brand awareness rather than the algorithm.²³¹¹ So the route differs by source: rewarded video → browse/similar apps; native ads → brand search.

Running it as a programme. Put these tests into your KPIs and budget plan rather than testing ad hoc; scale down gradually; and a small budget can still do it if spent on the right geo and source.¹⁴²⁴ Talia’s closing caveat: a source that works in one geo, platform or season may not work in another.²⁵

Why channel mix matters (Shoham Lashkar, Zynga, 2023). YouTube pre-roll viewers (e.g. via Google UAC) rarely install on the spot but may search for you later, outside the attribution window — cutting that spend shows up as an organic drop.²⁶

Disagreements / caveats

• Correlation and regression on observational data can’t fully separate causation from seasonality and other launches; the scale-up phase is what validates it. For holdout-style proof see Is paid acquisition incremental? Organic ceilings, cannibalization and geo holdouts and Designing incrementality tests (duration, budget, CTV and brand).
• The paid→organic halo is the mirror image of cannibalization: branded Apple Ads may buy users who would have come anyway (see How much to rely on ASO, and how it fits with Apple Ads and Meta).
• Gaming examples (Playtika, Zynga, Tilting Point); subscription apps with smaller budgets may see much weaker browse effects.

See also

• Which factors actually move App Store rankings (2026) — download volume as a ranking input
• Measuring the ROI of ASO and featuring

Footnotes

1. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 09:40 — Talia Hermesh ↩

2. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 10:25 — Talia Hermesh ↩

3. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 30:14 — Jonathan Fishman ↩

4. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 30:14 — Jevgen Tarasenko ↩

5. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 16:22 — Talia Hermesh ↩

6. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 17:13 — Talia Hermesh ↩

7. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 17:58 — Talia Hermesh ↩

8. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 18:45 — Talia Hermesh ↩

9. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 19:30 — Talia Hermesh ↩

10. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 23:34 — Talia Hermesh ↩ ↩²

11. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 24:27 — Talia Hermesh ↩ ↩²

12. The Science of Organic Acquisition @ 58:48 — Shoham Lashkar ↩

13. The Science of Organic Acquisition @ 1:00:25 — Shoham Lashkar ↩

14. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 25:32 — Talia Hermesh ↩ ↩²

15. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 08:48 — Talia Hermesh ↩

16. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 07:14 — Talia Hermesh ↩

17. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 15:36 — Talia Hermesh ↩

18. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 26:28 — Talia Hermesh ↩

19. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 20:20 — Talia Hermesh ↩

20. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 21:05 — Talia Hermesh ↩

21. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 21:57 — Talia Hermesh ↩

22. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 22:44 — Talia Hermesh ↩

23. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 23:34 — Talia Hermesh ↩

24. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 26:04 — Talia Hermesh ↩

25. Understanding Paid-to-Organic Relationships | Talia Hermesh | ASO Conference 2023 @ 27:14 — Talia Hermesh ↩

26. The Science of Organic Acquisition @ 59:34 — Shoham Lashkar ↩