Google and Meta campaigns were once effective, but rising costs per install, increased competition, and stagnant growth have reduced their impact. How to advertise an app these days? To advertise your app without relying on these platforms, use a mix of app store optimization (ASO), alternative app stores, mobile OEM advertising, Apple Search Ads, and organic channels such as content marketing and email.
These strategies are not new, but the economics have shifted. Around 50,000 apps launch on the Google Play Store each month, increasing competition and driving up auction costs on Google and Meta. Whether marketers diversify early or wait, both groups end up paying high prices for limited inventory of untapped users.
This guide presents effective channels to test, points out their strengths, and explains how mobile OEM advertising, AVOW’s specialty, fits into your overall strategy.
Key takeaways
- App store optimization (ASO) is the cheapest lever most teams underuse: better keywords, screenshots, and reviews drive organic downloads with no media spend.
- Mobile OEM advertising and alternative app stores reach 86% of the global Android market through direct placements on Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and other device makers, entirely outside Google and Meta’s auctions.
- Apple Search Ads and Amazon Ads capture high-intent search traffic on platforms your Google campaigns never touch.
- Content marketing, email, and Product Hunt foster ongoing discovery and retention, providing long-term value rather than requiring resets with each budget cycle.
How to advertise an app – Alternate options
Why app marketers are looking beyond Google and Meta
The main challenge is market saturation. Tens of thousands of new apps compete for a limited number of auction slots each month, driving up CPMs on Google and Meta. Rising privacy restrictions, reduced attribution data, and diminishing returns despite higher spend have prompted performance teams to explore new channels.
Successful apps typically do not rely solely on larger Google budgets. Instead, they use a diverse channel mix, ensuring a slowdown in one area does not affect overall performance.
Regulatory shifts are pushing in the same direction. The EU’s Digital Markets Act now requires alternative app stores to be offered as a default option on devices, breaking down the gatekeeping that kept Apple and Google as the only viable distribution routes for years. For app developers in fintech, gambling, and other regulated categories, this new change matters even more. When Meta or Google restricts advertising in a category, a diversified mix is what keeps the acquisition engine running.
What Is App Store Optimization, and why should it come first?
ASO means optimizing your app’s title, keywords, screenshots, and reviews so the Google Play Store and Apple App Store surface it organically, without paid ads. It’s the foundation every other channel sits on. Paid installs from OEM inventory, Apple Search Ads, or Product Hunt convert better when the store listing does its job (clear screenshots, a strong first line, recent reviews).
Neglecting ASO lowers conversion rates from paid traffic. Prioritizing ASO first improves the efficiency of all subsequent paid channels.
What are Alternative App Stores and Mobile OEM Advertising?
Mobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), such as Samsung, Xiaomi, HUAWEI, vivo, OPPO, OnePlus, HONOR, and others, run their own app stores and on-device ad inventory. That inventory sits entirely outside the Google Play Store and Meta’s ad network. Combined, these OEMs account for 86% of the global Android market and reach over 1.85 billion daily active users, a pool most app marketers never reach because it doesn’t run through the usual auctions.
The advantage is reach coupled with user quality. OEM inventory appears during device setup, on the home screen, and in native app store placements, permitting users to discover your app in a brand-safe, first-party environment rather than a crowded feed.
Exness, an international forex broker, used AVOW’s OEM partnerships to expand into APAC markets it hadn’t reached through its existing paid mix. The result: over 250,000 monthly installs and a 1000% ROAS within key markets.
Kredivo, a Southeast Asian fintech app, saw a similar shift after tapping Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo inventory through AVOW: a 46% install-to-loan-application rate and 4.7x year-over-year growth in spending. Neither result came from Google or Meta. Both came from inventory those platforms don’t sell.
How do Dynamic Preloads and Native On-Device Ads fit in?
Preloaded apps offer an additional advantage. Dynamic Preloads place your app directly on the device during the initial setup, before the user accesses any app store. Native on-device display ads function similarly, integrating with the OEM interface rather than interrupting a social feed.
For developers targeting markets where Google Play is not the default app store, such as parts of China and Southeast Asia, alternative app stores are essential. They provide the primary distribution channel in these regions.
What about Apple Search Ads, Amazon Ads, and Product Hunt?
Apple Search Ads lets you bid on search terms directly in the Apple App Store, capturing users with download intent rather than interrupting a scroll. It’s an entirely different auction from Google’s search network, and it’s iOS-only, so it supplements rather than supplant OEM advertising, which is largely Android-focused.
Amazon Ads is a smaller but growing channel, especially for commerce or shopping apps that align with Amazon’s audience. While it will not replace a comprehensive user acquisition strategy, it is valuable to test as an additional source.
Product Hunt operates differently. It is not an advertising platform but rather a tool for launch-day visibility. A successful Product Hunt debut can generate a flood of engaged early users and valuable public feedback. However, this traffic typically doesn’t continue beyond the initial launch period, unlike paid or OEM channels.
How content and email marketing build long-term discovery
Paid channels drive initial user acquisition, while content marketing and email marketing support retention and ongoing growth without additional spend. A blog that addresses users’ real questions attracts consistent organic search traffic. Email marketing helps convert trial users into long-term customers through onboarding and re-engagement campaigns.
Neither channel replaces paid user acquisition, but both improve the effectiveness of paid efforts. Users acquired through search or email typically have greater context and higher intent.
FAQs
Do I need a Google Play Store presence to use alternative app stores? No. Alternative app stores run by OEMs, such as Xiaomi’s GetApps, Huawei’s AppGallery, and Samsung’s Galaxy Store, operate independently of the Google Play Store. Apps can list on both, or route users exclusively to one, depending on their distribution strategy.
Is mobile OEM advertising only relevant in Asia?
It started there, but coverage now spans EMEA, LATAM, CIS, and the Middle East. Samsung alone accounts for 30.88% of the European market, and OEM inventory holds meaningful shares of Android users in most regions outside North America.
How much of my budget should go toward channels beyond Google and Meta?
There’s no universal number, but most teams that diversify successfully start by testing a new channel with a small, well-defined slice of the budget (often 10 to 20% of monthly spend) before scaling based on results, rather than reallocating everything at once.
Conclusion
This article answers the crucial question: How to advertise an App as Meta and Google ads have become expensive? No single channel can fully replace Google or Meta. Successful apps use ASO as a foundation, add Apple Search Ads and Amazon Ads to capture search intent, and incorporate mobile OEM advertising and alternative app stores to expand scale and reach. Content marketing and email provide ongoing background support.
Diversification isn’t simply a risk-mitigation strategy. The examples in this guide show that a diversified approach uncovers new users and delivers better results than relying solely on Google and Meta.
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