How would you call somebody the controls your access to customers and asks a commission between 15 and 30% for your paid services? Yes, you would call this person an App Store.
App stores have been an astonishing success for Apple and Google which went from being a means for distribution of a handfull of apps to multi billion dollar business for Apple and Google. App Stores are the core piece of the mobile eco system: they are gatekeepers and control who can distribute their app to the users.
How Google and Apple profit from App Store Data
In this context, one often overlooked aspect is that Apple and Google sits between you and your customers. You have no way of directly reaching your customers that download your app. While Apple and Google know who is downloading your app, you don’t get any of this information. Apple and Google also know who is looking at your app in the search results and who is checking out the app store description. You get some basic statistics (views, installs, etc.) but you never get detailed information of users checking out your app that is available for Google and Apple. This information is hidden from you by the app stores.
For Google and Apple this is an extremely powerful position: they control your access to customers and collect tons of data in the process. In this context this kind of data is what marketeers call first-party data (for Google and Apple). It is data about customers that is collected and owned by the owners of app stores (again, Google and Apple). This information about customers is extremely valuable: it provides businesses that have access to this data (interactions, purchase history, behavior, preferences, etc.) insights about its users. What Google and Apple offer to your business is access to third-party data. This data doesn’t comes from the direct relationship between your customers and your business, but from the app stores that have collected the data. This data is aggregated and segmented, there is information of individual users.
How to get First Party Customer Data
Since first party customer data is extremely important for your business, you must gain access to it. But this cannot be done with existing app stores. The only alternative is to have your own “app store” where you are in control. Or even better: there is no app store for your customers at all: only apps and services that you offer.
With Zero Install Apps you get this kind of solution from IKANGAI: you have direct access first party data of customers and can distribute your apps and services directly to your customers. There are no gatekeepers that control the access to your customers. Get in touch with us and learn how your business can benefit from Zero Install Apps and how your business gets access to first party data. Follow us on our blog app to stay up to date.
