We normally analyze apps that are very popular and command the top of their categories, but in this App Teardown, we're going to focus instead on one of the apps I use most often, too many times a day to count, and one that has stiff competition on the App Store—Spark Mail.
Spark Mail is, as you may expect by the name, an email client. Its advantage is that it makes handling your inbox easier than just having a bunch of emails in a list. Spark connects to Gmail and other popular email services, and those also happen to be its biggest competitors.
Overall, Spark earns a C, and 3 actionable suggestions, which you'll find highlighted throughout the teardown.
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Here's how Spark is performing in the U.S. App Store, based on our Competitor Intelligence:
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Spark has had pretty stable and consistent downloads over the last few years, with a few exceptions, such as the release of its long-awaited Android app.
Year over year, Spark's downloads have been growing at a (low) double-digit pace. Since 2017, yearly downloads have grown by 56%. Competing with Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo (I know...) isn't easy, but Spark's stability means there's an opportunity here.
Spark is obviously the underdog in this race, but it's not a newcomer. That spells opportunity.
When I say opportunity, I don't mean Spark can make a few changes and dethrone Google. While it's possible to take over some keywords, it won't happen overnight. But that's not the only opportunity.
Google and outlook aren't only well-known brands, they also get downloads because their email services are bundled into a bunch of other things. Spark doesn't have that because it isn't a service but rather a client.
But!
Spark can be a client for all of them, so a download for Gmail can also end up being a download for Spark.
Competing with Google and Microsoft isn't the goal here. Instead, Spark can target the next app in the chain, which in this case is Edison. Take a look at those downloads, that's nearly 5x Spark's, and I suspect organic discovery has a lot to do with that.
As we get into the meat of this teardown you'll see why I say that and what Spark needs to do to take over.
Let's start by zooming out to see which keywords contribute the most to Spark's downloads:
I don't see much that I'd call useful here, and as you'll see below, that's directly related to how unoptimized the app's name and subtitle are. In addition, it also means Readdle, the team behind Spark, doesn't make any changes to those areas often, so the algorithm doesn't have too many opportunities to learn more about the app.
Let's dig in by looking at the keywords Spark Mail is targeting in its name and subtitle:
Strictly based on these, here are the popular keywords Apple sees:
Hmmm... see anything interesting there? Exactly!
It might look like someone tried to optimize this name and subtitle combo, but if you look a bit closer, you'll see that's unlikely the case.
There are a few issues here, which start with the developer name taking up precious real estate for some reason and end with keyword duplication, dilution, and a lack of keyword variety.
Let's unpack these and see how they can be improved:
Suggestion #1 - The name and subtitle
To make things simple, I'll turn these into direct suggestions:
If I had to phrase them, they'd look something like:
Together, these two will help put Spark in front of Apple's algorithm more clearly. It may take some time to see movement for the main keyword, email, but all the other new keywords should see better positions pretty fast. Spark certainly has the ratings to support fast changes.
Now, let's reverse-engineer the keyword list. The list isn't public, but we can attempt to uncover it by looking at all other keywords the app is ranked in.
🤷🏻♂️
This one was hard. Nay. Impossible.
Normally, this analysis involves looking at hundreds if not thousands of keywords and removing ones that aren't likely in the keyword list, this time, the starting list was not even a hundred keywords long.
That's, obviously, not great. But it means that there's a lot of unused potential here.
There could be a few reasons why this list is so "invisible". The first is that it might be extremely focused. So focused that it helps focus Spark on keywords like email and nothing else. The second, is that it just isn't there or doesn't contain enough keywords.
Including spaces, pluralizations, and wrapping multiple words with quotes are common issues I see app developers make. These mistakes are super wasteful and can really hurt the app's chances of ranking.
👉 ASO Techniques: How to Optimize Your Keywords List in App Store Connect
Suggestion #2 - Amplify your keyword coverage
The keyword list is a great place to throw keywords into that may not be as important as the ones in the name and subtitle, but work with those to create combinations that are relevant.
If I had to pick those for Spark, I'd consider the following:
calendar,organize,fast,inbox,address,message,contact,widgets,imap,schedule,filter,delegate,smart
There are a few in here that are probably going to end up duds and some that are obviously useful. That's a good mix to start experimenting with.
Video shmideo... I'll rephrase. No video = missed opportunity. We don't see too many videos on the App Store these days, which means apps that do have one really stand out.
The screenshots aren't too bad at first (and even second) glance:
I do love the look and feel. They're captioned, there's a good amount of contrast, so those captions are readable, and all 10 possible screenshot slots have a screenshot. Those are all wins.
But...
Suggestion #3 - Tell your story
In this (somewhat) new section, we look at the privacy labels apps declare on the App Store. At that, Spark Mail collects the bare minimum:
Linked to You:
Not Linked to You:
Seems pretty fair, and to see non-personal usage means Readdle is using the usage data as a means for understanding how the app is used and not to target specific behaviors.
These can all be backed by looking at the SDKs and APIs Spark uses, which we do below.
Spark's as clean as a whistle!
I don't come across many apps that don't use many 3rd party SDKs, but that is the case for Spark.
Here are all the SDKs and APIs we see powering Spark:
3rd Party + Open Source Projects:
Native APIs:
No known trackers or attribution services, and Spark is native with Swift.
Don't see a lot of those these days.
I really love to see (and use) apps that someone worked hard to make great, and that's how I feel about Spark.
Spark's edge is that it already has pretty significant traction, usage, and new downloads and ratings. Combined, all of these mean that spending a little bit of time on keyword optimization will go a long way towards putting Spark in front of an even bigger audience.
Is your app in a similar situation? Now you know what to do.
I did this entire analysis with our App Store Optimization and Competitor Intelligence tools, the same ones hundreds of thousands of app makers rely on to monitor and optimize their apps. Get ahead + outsmart your competitors with Appfigures. Get started →
Download and revenue figures used in this teardown are based on estimates extracted from our Competitor Intelligence tools.
Ariel analyzes apps submitted by the audience using his checkup process + answers questions about App Store Optimization (ASO).
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