Effective strategies for growing Shopify apps are constantly evolving. Techniques that boosted growth last year may not work this year, and some of what’s possible this year wasn’t possible last year. The pressure keeps rising — new app releases have exploded from ~50 a week to over 750 a week (Store Leads), as AI-assisted development floods every category.
My name is Boaz Lantsman. I help Shopify apps grow through my Shopify app growth agency, Convert2x, and measure what works through the Shopify app growth platform I co-founded, Prys. Exposure to some of the most sophisticated apps in the ecosystem — and the ability to measure their results — is the basis for everything below.
To grow your app you need traffic, conversion, and monetization. This article covers traffic. Also read Part 2: Conversion Optimization and Part 3: Pricing & Monetization.
Evaluate every source — blogs, partners, ads — by its contribution to conversions and revenue. For search, keyword-level data is everything: Prys attributes installs, subscribers, and revenue to each keyword and campaign, so you prioritize by value, not by traffic. Search volumes matter too — your #1 keyword may carry as many searches as the rest of your top 10 combined. You can read true volumes from impressions on exact-match Shopify ads keywords.
Placement in Shopify’s organic results is driven by keyword relevance in your listing, review count and quality, install rates, the Built for Shopify badge, and engagement. The lever you control fastest is keyword placement. There are only so many prominent slots, so prioritize ruthlessly, then place:
The full prioritization and placement methodology — and a 3× case study — is on our Shopify app store SEO services page.
Begin with 15–20 high-value keywords, mixing broad match (discovers new terms) with exact match (targets proven ones). Review search terms continuously — promote winners to exact, add losers to negatives. Details and structure: Shopify app store ads management.
Shopify prohibits bidding on its brand, but the workaround is established: skip the term and run a comprehensive negative-keyword list of other ecommerce platforms, leaving pure Shopify-intent searches.
Value-based Smart Bidding remains the winner by a wide margin — Optmyzr’s research across thousands of accounts shows Maximize Conversion Value campaigns returning ~575% ROAS versus ~137% for manual CPC. The 2026 ramp: start on manual CPC while conversion volume builds (AI bidding needs ~30 conversions; reporting three funnel events per merchant — install, subscribe, payment — gets you there much faster than payment-only tracking), then switch to Maximize Conversion Value and expand into PMax and AI Max. Feed the AI per-keyword conversion values, not account averages. Prys sends install, subscribe, and payment events with their click IDs and values automatically — and covers landing-page traffic too, so attribution stays end-to-end whichever destination you run. Managed version: Google Ads for Shopify apps.
Meta now runs Maximize ROAS campaigns for advertisers who send conversion values. For Shopify apps this is new territory: send install, subscribe, and payment values via the Conversions API and Meta’s AI optimizes delivery toward merchants who pay, not merchants who install. Almost no app is doing it yet — see Meta ads for Shopify apps.
Beyond search: cross-promotion with apps outside your category, cold outreach to target profiles, content marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer partnerships, and email marketing to convert trialists. Different tactics work for different apps — try what you believe in, and make sure you can measure it. Connected to Prys, you’ll see which tactics actually drive revenue.
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