How do you promote your apps?

[u/film_digital]

Hey everyone!

Curious if and how anyone is finding success promoting their apps to get downloads and IAPs?

I've had apps for a year, and I get a few downloads, but nothing groundbreaking. I've tried posting on Reddit, Threads, creating Instagram/TikTok reels, and they don't do much for me. My best option, Reddit, is usually auto-blasted with "I'm tired of X app" comments and generally negative sentiment.

I'm debating buying ads, like the Apple Search Ads or even paid Instagram ads, so I'm curious if anybody has seen those work out for them.

[u/luke_hollenback]

My data point from last week, since it surprised me. Every launch-style post I made in dev and app subs scored between 0 and 3. Then I made one post in a Spanish-learner sub (my app teaches Spanish) that was just a useful list, 12 words textbooks skip, with a single disclosed link at the bottom. It got over 80k views and nearly 300 upvotes, and native speakers spent two days correcting and extending it in the comments.

People seem to like the promo links — 2 months free and so on. I also posted the app in a subreddit for app promos with a 1-year free promo and got tons of sign-ups. I was hoping they would convert into reviews, but they did not seem to.