How and When to Prompt App Users for a Review

Image Credit: App Store user reviews for Trigger — Real-time alerts & reporting

One of the more important app store optimization activities involves increasing the number of positive (4 and 5 star) reviews that your app receives in the app store. In fact, Apple’s guidelines encourage developers to ask for reviews (but not incentivize), and reviews are one of the most important signals for earning a top keyword rank.

Highlighting the importance of generating a high volume of review naturally begs a couple key asks:

When is the right time to ask for a review, and how?

Apple’s guidelines indicate that you should:

• Wait until they have enjoyed a few sessions before prompting.
• Ensure that the app is stable before you ask, and choose an appropriate time in the session to make the request.
• Not prompt users too soon.
• Look for moments when users are most likely to feel satisfaction with yourapp, such as when they’ve completed an action, level, or task.

Designer and founder of Realmac software, Dan Counsell wrote a very helpful article detailing his answer to these questions, along with some examples.

Review prompt optimization is something we often consult on for our app clients with as well. Here are a some of our ideas for growing positive review volume:

Prompt users for a review when:

Usage triggers

• They achieve the average number of launches (ensures users have come back and are regular users before prompting) — medium impressions, medium conversion
• They achieve the average number of minutes spent in-app (ensures that the user has used the app for long enough to derive value) — medium impressions, medium conversion

Key action triggers

• They perform one or more key actions (ensures users have derived some value before asking) — high impressions, medium conversion
• A user completes some “happy path” chain of several key actions (more confidence that users receive good value than a single key action) — low-medium impressions, high…