Sensor Tower Helps Drive AliExpress's Organic Growth and Store Ratings Improvement

About AliExpress

As part of the Alibaba Group, AliExpress is a global e-commerce platform popular among users aged 18-65 worldwide, known for its diverse, cost-effective products and convenient shopping experience. To further expand its user base and improve conversion rates in the global market, the AliExpress user growth team aims to increase organic app installs and usage by enhancing the performance of its App Store Optimization (ASO) efforts.

About Sensor Tower

Sensor Tower is a trusted provider of enterprise-level market intelligence and performance metrics for the mobile app ecosystem. By delivering comprehensive data on the global mobile app economy, Sensor Tower empowers businesses to expand internationally through insights into key market metrics, user behavior, and digital industry trends.

“Sensor Tower’s tools, including product update timelines and review analysis, have significantly enhanced our natural conversion rates and app store ratings, driving user growth across diverse markets.” - Jin Liang, AliExpress User Growth Product Team

"Through the deep integration of Sensor Tower's products and services, AliExpress has established a robust foundation for developing effective business strategies and plans. This collaboration has been instrumental in achieving remarkable results in organic growth and App Store Optimization (ASO), while also shaping a highly effective user acquisition strategy. AliExpress's success stands as an inspiring benchmark for other Chinese e-commerce companies aiming to expand their presence on the global stage." - Robert Wu, Sensor Tower Greater China General Sales Manager

The Top Challenge for AliExpress

Amid intensifying competition in global markets, Jin Liang and her team face the critical challenge of driving organic user growth and improving app store performance worldwide to distinguish AliExpress in a crowded landscape. To achieve this, the team must swiftly analyze and evaluate market conditions across diverse regions, identify marketing opportunities, and track user behavior trends. Additionally, they need actionable insights into competitive product trends to craft differentiated product promotion and optimization strategies, ensuring AliExpress stays ahead in the global e-commerce arena.

Quickly Access Product Update Timelines of Competitors

With Sensor Tower's product update timeline dashboard, AliExpress gains clear visibility into the update activities of competitive products and associated user interaction data. This valuable insight empowers the AliExpress team to craft compelling, region-specific marketing strategies. As a result, the company achieved a 14 percentage-point increase year-over-year in organic conversion rates on the Apple App Store and a 5 percentage-point growth on the Google Play Store, demonstrating the effectiveness of this data-driven approach.

Image source: screenshot of SensorTower app update page

Enhancing App Store Ratings with Review Analytics Tools

Obtaining user feedback and suggestions on products in the most direct and authentic way has always been a priority for publishers. Leveraging Sensor Tower's review analysis tools, the AliExpress team meticulously analyzed a wide range of user reviews and crafted targeted reply templates to address specific concerns, embodying the principle of "suit the remedy to the case." By combining this approach with an automated reply tool, they efficiently addressed user messages, resulting in a significant improvement in app store ratings, with increases of 0.3 stars in several key markets.

Image source: screenshot of Sensor Tower review analysis

Capitalizing on Marketing Opportunities and Creativity

In a fiercely competitive environment, relying solely on existing strategies is no longer sufficient to capture market trends and opportunities. Sensor Tower's multi-dimensional data and analysis tools provide AliExpress's user growth product team with a systematic and quantitative foundation for evaluating marketing trends, listing dynamics, and store reviews across various countries. These insights empower AliExpress to adapt advertising creative materials seasonally and precisely, ensuring relevance and resonance with local audiences.

"After using Sensor Tower to conduct a comprehensive analysis of competitors' promotional content, we developed specialized campaigns tailored to sports seasons, holiday themes, and local styles during Q2 and Q3. This allowed us to successfully plan the back-to-school season, the European Cup, and hot sales in Mexico by aligning with local trends. Throughout this process, our visual and copywriting solutions became more refined and localized than ever before, gaining favor from both Google and Apple platforms. This approach not only secured free exposure during major promotion seasons but also significantly enhanced market visibility." - Jin Liang, User Growth Product Team Leader at AliExpress

As a result of these efforts, AliExpress achieved three store features on Apple and two on Google in Q3 2024, underscoring the effectiveness of its innovative and localized marketing strategies.

Image source: Screenshot of Sensor Tower

Summary

By leveraging Sensor Tower's powerful tools, AliExpress successfully secured additional store features, significantly enhanced organic conversions and user ratings on both Apple and Google Stores, and achieved remarkable improvements in download rankings across multiple markets.

Image source: Screenshot of SensorTower

Notably, during the Double 11 Shopping Festival, AliExpress claimed the top spot on the shopping download charts for both Apple and Google Stores in the UK, gaining a strong lead ahead of the Black Friday shopping season.

Image source: Screenshot of SensorTower app ranking