Help article
What are the alternatives to placement in the app stores?
To provide a small selection of possible options and answer some questions, we’ve compiled a few Q&As for you below. These address, among other things, situations where your app is no longer listed in one of the app stores, and serve as a supplement to our popular blog post “The Web Is the New App Store – App Marketing 2.0.”
Is my app still available to users?
If users have already downloaded your app, it will continue to be available on their respective devices. In addition, your app has always been accessible anywhere on the internet via its standard web address. You can find this address in the admin panel at the top left, next to our company logo. It usually ends with “zur.app” or something similar. Through this address and your app’s content, it can also be found on Google, Bing, and other search engines.
However, due to ongoing updates to smartphone operating systems, it may happen that your users can no longer install the listed app. See the section here titled “What does direct marketing via the Internet mean for my app?”
My app is still listed in a store—what will happen to it?
Depending on the store provider, the app may be removed at a later date. For some time now, Apple has been automatically removing apps if there are only a few downloads or if the last content updates were made quite some time ago. This also happens with Apple as soon as you request an update through our access points.
What do I need to do to get listed in the stores again?
Marketing an app of this type through the well-known app stores is proving to be less and less effective and, in many cases, acts as a barrier to increasing reach.
Therefore, we strongly recommend marketing the app as a modern progressive web app—that is, in the form of a meaningful app URL.
We’ve put together a few videos on this topic:
Was placement in the app stores not part of the contract when you purchased the app?
The service ordered includes making the app available via the Internet. This occurs on an ongoing basis, even without listings in the app stores. The additional placement on Google and Apple (i.e., the work involved in the initial release) was merely included in the package at the time. Due to changes in Apple and Google’s guidelines, we are no longer permitted to do this through our own accounts. We were already required to point out this circumstance in our Terms of Use and at the time of ordering when the release was approved. We are also not aware of any provider that contractually promises such placement, as no provider can guarantee influence over the app store operators. Therefore, such contractual arrangements would not be legitimate.
What does direct marketing via the Internet mean for my app?
Unfortunately, simply being listed in the app stores is no longer enough. Users won’t automatically become aware of it. This new type of marketing without a store now works much more elegantly, following the same principle as your website. Here, you use your app’s URL and share it through various channels—such as Facebook as a post, Twitter as a tweet, on your invoice as a printable QR code, or by providing the URL directly. Your content will also be found in search engines, so that most users who enter your company name in the search bar on their devices will be directed there directly.
These so-called Progressive Web Apps—as your app is also known—offer many other advantages.
Attention! Recently, it has become possible to give your app address a personalized, shorter name that ends directly with ".app." For example, pizzeria-berlin.app or kfz-meier.app. In the medium term, addresses ending in “.app” will automatically be ranked higher by Google, making them much easier for users to type in and, therefore, find quickly. This gives you a huge advantage over the millions of irrelevant search results in the App Store search.
Doesn’t this type of app marketing have any drawbacks, or is it too complicated for users?
On the contrary, because it eliminates the need to download the app—a step that has sometimes become unnecessary. Once the app is found on Google or the address is entered directly, it’s immediately usable. Installation is optional. Depending on the device, even push notifications can now be easily activated “on the go” without installation. Users have the choice to access only the information they want. In the case of traditional downloads from app stores, it’s been shown that many users never downloaded the app in the first place, meaning you lost them right from the start.
So as soon as the app appears on the user’s device, a brief prompt explains how to install it. This is now firmly established in many users’ minds as an option and is widely used. So don’t let the initial appearance throw you off.
Google and Apple are constantly working to further simplify the installation process.
Will I still receive push notifications?
Yes and no. On Android and Apple (iOS) devices, push notifications can be enabled and disabled just as easily. With online distribution, even PCs and Macs can now install your app and become ready to receive push notifications.