What is an organic install?

Organic installs are any install of an app that’s not attributed to a specific install source. This means that any install which can’t be tracked from performance marketing or advertising sources is considered to be organic.

In real terms, organic installs are called as such when a user installs an app without directly responding to a mobile advertising campaign. While a user who sees an advert and interacts with it, later installing an app, would be considered a non-organic install, anyone who is not directly driven into an app by advertising is defined as organic.

Organic installs matter because they often result in the most high-value users.

It’s these users who have discovered the app and decided to download without prompting. As such, organics tend to be more committed to a product or service. It’s proven that they retain more effectively, and, at least on Android, organic users have more sessions in-app than their paid counterparts.

There’s also an important business reason for driving organic installs: cost. Though no organic install is likely to be truly free, organic installs can save on CPI costs considerably, as they aren’t paid for at the point of install.

There are some ways to generate valuable organic installs for an app, but here are a few that we recommend thinking about:

1. App Store Optimization (ASO). ASO can help generate organic installs by increasing an app’s visibility in the store while also improving conversions by making sure the app’s listing is up to scratch. There are tons of guides on how to do this, but the best method is through tagging as accurately as possible.
2. Encouraging word-of-mouth. What this entails can vary from app-to-app, but in app-sharing options, and articles about featuring your in various media outlets can help to get people interested, and drive downloads.
3. Localizing an app so it can launch in another territory can also help boost installs. If an advertiser does their homework and hits the right market, it’s possible to tap into significant user-demand to help generate installs.

We track organic installs right in our dashboard, free of charge. For any and all installs, Adjust also allows you to perform cohort analysis, segmentation by country and platform, as well as events performed in-app among some functions to help you better understand your users, organic or not.