What Trending Searches Can Reveal About Global Markets

Apple's Trending Searches feature appeared last September with the release of iOS 8. We quickly incorporated this information into the Sensor Tower dashboard, so that our customers have yet another resource for conducting keyword research.

But other than ideas for hot new keywords, what more can be learned from Trending Searches? We've run the data, and have some interesting new use cases for this tool.

For this study, we looked at Trending Searches from the first half of 2015. Here's what we learned from the year to date.

Staying Power of Trending Searches

Having your app's name show up as a trending search is a good sign that you can expect a lift in organic downloads. (We'll be analyzing the impact on several apps in a coming post.) Are these trends just a flash in the pan, though? Or do they tend to stick around? Or even reappear days later?

We found that staying power varied quite a bit based on market. First, let's look at terms appearing on consecutive days.

In terms of "stickiness," the country-by-country comparison for iPhone keywords didn't show much disparity. However, the range broadens for iPad. In India, we saw that trending searches stuck around for an average of two days or more. The U.S. market, which is jam-packed with an influx of new apps, had the fastest turnover rate.

How is this useful? When using trending searches as an ASO tool, developers have to gamble with time. Spotting a trend quickly is crucial if you want to include new terms in your keyword string, as an update must be submitted to Apple and approved. Knowing where trending terms stick around the longest can help identify keyword testing opportunities.

Next, let's look at non-consecutive recurrences.

Here, we're looking at which term, for each country, came back the most frequently (on non-consecutive days). For iPhone, countries like Canada and the U.S. had trending searches that returned nearly 100 times! Identifying, and strategically targeting, terms with numerous recurrences over time has a high potential for increasing an app's visibility.

Unique Trending Search Terms

When we looked at which countries had the highest number of unique, trending searches in 2015, there's an obvious, inverse correlation to our "stickiness" graphs. In countries where terms disappear more rapidly, there is a higher influx of new terms.

In China or the U.S., for example, a trending search may only appear for a few hours. But the probability that a smaller app (or less trafficked term) will surface increases.

In Canada, trending searches have greater staying power, meaning fewer apps in this market have garnered this featured slot.

What Is Everyone Searching For?

We would never leave you hanging without answering this age-old question.

Again, we're looking at the year-to-date, so in 2015, "Uber" has had quite a hold on the iPhone's trending searches. Interestingly, we see an exact numerical match in Canada and the United States, at a total of 93 appearances in each market.

And on the iPad? The term "calculator" (and localized versions) had the highest number of appearances in six of the markets we investigated. If you're marketing an iPad app for which this term is relevant, it's certainly worth investigating further with our App Intelligence Dashboard.

Are you currently using the App Store's Trending Searches to bolster your ASO efforts? We'd love to know more about how you incorporate this into your workflow. Share your thoughts in the comments below.