Agencies that market their own apps are applying lessons the’ve learned by launching their own apps

Agencies that have built their own mobile products don’t just talk about performance marketing, app store trends, or user behavior — they’ve actually lived through it all with their own apps. As a result, they’ve made the mistakes, tested the solutions, and iterated over time. More importantly, they truly understand the pressures that come with every install, review, and retention challenge. So, you’re not just hiring a service provider, you’re gaining a strategic partner that knows what it takes to succeed in the ever-evolving world of app growth.

1. Deeper Knowledge of the Mobile App Lifecycle

Agencies with their own apps have walked through every phase: from ideation and product development to launch, growth, and user retention.

They understand the intricacies of ASO, UI/UX design, app monetization, and analytics—because they’ve done it all internally. They’ve handled A/B testing for onboarding flows, experimented with pricing models, and responded to real user reviews in both app stores.

This perspective allows them to approach your app with practical solutions backed by experience, rather than just theory.

2. Smarter, Data-Driven Decisions

Running their own apps gives these agencies access to unique performance data, allowing them to make smarter and faster decisions when marketing your product.

They can identify trends, test ad creative, and adjust user acquisition strategies using real insights. Their tactics are informed by the metrics they monitor every day—not by what’s trending in a blog post.

This means your campaign is built on solid data, not assumptions.

3. Faster Execution and Proven Processes

When an agency manages its own apps, they’ve already refined workflows and built tools that streamline execution. From launch checklists to retention email flows and ad templates, they have ready-to-go strategies that save time and improve results.

Whether it’s launching campaigns across Apple Search Ads, Google App Campaigns, TikTok, or Meta, they’ve already optimized each platform for performance.

4. Always Ahead of the Curve

Agencies invested in their own apps tend to be early adopters. They’re the first to test new features, explore platform updates, and adjust strategies when algorithms shift.

This proactive mindset benefits you. They’ll keep your campaigns updated, test new formats and creatives, and ensure your app stays competitive as trends evolve.

5. Alignment With Your Product Goals

If your app is at the center of your business, you need a partner who understands what that means. This type of agencies understand these priorities because they share them and the have solved similar problems and know what it trackes to move metrics that matter. This makes communication clearer, strategy more focused and collaboration more effective.

When it comes to app marketing, choosing an agency that has launched and grown its own apps can give your business a powerful advantage. These partners bring tested strategies, valuable insights, and a deeper understanding of what drives real growth in the mobile space.

You don’t need theory, you need partners who’ve done it themselves. And that’s exactly what agencies with their own apps offer.

The post Why Partnering with a Marketing Agency That Builds Its Own Apps appeared first on saltypistachio.

Let’s start with why it was understandable:

Years ago, the app stores (especially Apple’s App Store) did not provide much in the way of data analytics when it came to creative testing. The Google Play Console did allow for basic AB testing with Google Experiments, but there wasn’t (even today) any way to control of the source of traffic. In our view, this renders AB Tests invalid: If one of your variants matches that of an acquisition campaign accounting for most of your traffic, it might outperform other variants, but this doesn’t mean it was a better performing.

There was clearly a need for companies (especially in the gaming space) to optimise app store creatives. After all, a 5% improvement in conversions thanks to AB testing can equate to huge savings and increased organic downloads for high volume apps (and/or those with high CPIs). Enter companies like StoreMaven and SplitMetrics (now Splitmetrics Optimize):

It worked a bit like this: You could create a ‘pretend’ App Store Product page that had all the tracking that the App Store or Play Store didn’t provide: You could get click tracking, heatmaps, and even how many images were scrolled or for how long they spent viewing videos.

Clearly, having this information would be useful, but there were a couple of ‘catches’: As mentioned, the traffic was going to a ‘pretend’ Product Page, that once the user decided to install, they were sent to the real Product Page. Of course, that leads to some users being confused and abandoning their intention to install.

The other catch is that you needed to send traffic to those pages. For instance, you could send traffic from a Facebook Ads campaign (and this before counting on the cost of using the platform – especially considering their opaque pricing)

Clearly, both things combined meant there was a significant cost to learning. Still, for the right company this could be valuable. And so many gaming companies used these kinds of tools.

Move forward some years and while Google Play Console’s capabilities remain pretty much untouched, the App Store first added Creative Tests on Apple Search ads, to then improve the testing capabilities with last year’s introduction of the Custom Product Pages:

Apps can now create up to 35 Custom Product pages (read Landing Pages) and send traffic to these. Not only Tap Through Rates and Taps to Install can be asserted, but also the ultimate CPI. And if you use a tool like Appsflyer, you can even learn ARPUs or LTVs per user. All of this directly from within Apple’s Search Ads.

It’s no wonder the value of these tools like StoreMaven was decimated. We’re certain some companies could find an edge in using those marginal games, but we’d be hard pressed to recommend them ahead of the benefits of using Apple Search Ads directly.

Let’s move to the why it raised eyebrows:

And so, it wasn’t that surprising these companies ended up struggling, or that StoreMaven was acquired. Yet what we found surprising was the lack of buzz at Activision / Take2 being the acquirer.

It clearly makes sense for a company like Activision – counting with loads of games in the app stores to get expertise leading to improvements in the Stores. We’d guess some of their apps would have been some of their last loyal clients. But it must have been quite a reaction for CMOs of Activision / Take2 competitors who used StoreMaven: Surely their first thought must have been regarding experiments data carried during years.

Not only they spent traffic to acquire that traffic over years and paid their licenses for it, but Activision and their apps could now correlate their experiments with their decision making on creative iteration for years. AFter all, tools like MobileAction or AppTweak give visibility on historical changes made.

More recently, German agency Phiture acquired ASOGiraffe (a small competitor of StoreMaven), so a similar situation arises: If you used ASO Giraffe and your competitor uses Phiture, they’ll have indirect access to your data.

Had these been acquisitions at larger scales, we think it would have triggered concerns by competition regulators. And so, it makes us think that for any brand, using these kind of analytics raises a grave concern: What if your data ended up with your competitors?

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