The New App Discovery Journey Starts Before the Search
TikTok's Savannah Smith explains how creative, creator credibility, and a connected customer journey are changing the way people discover and download apps.
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Someone watching a creator prepare for their first 5K may not be looking for a running app. A person following a food creator’s weekly grocery routine may not be thinking about downloading a shopping app.
Yet both can come away with a product they had not considered before.
That is increasingly how app discovery works. The search for a solution does not always come first. Sometimes, the need becomes apparent only after someone sees a product being used in a situation they recognise.
For app marketers, this changes the challenge. Getting noticed is no longer just about reaching the right audience; it is about giving people a reason to care before they have decided to look.
Savannah Smith, Head of Apps, Services & Gaming – Brand Partnerships at TikTok, sees creative and creator-led storytelling playing a central role in that shift. But discovery is only the beginning.
What follows has to give people enough reason to move from watching a video to choosing an app.
The First Download Begins with a Reason to Watch
An app advertisement competes with everything else people have come to watch. That makes the conventional language of advertising – features, benefits and calls to action – a less reliable way to earn attention.
“For me, creative is the single most important factor in a campaign’s success on TikTok,” says Smith. “You can have the right audience and the right optimisation strategy, but the creative is really what gets someone to stop, watch and really care.”
The distinction is not simply about making an advertisement entertaining. It is about understanding why someone would choose to watch it in the first place.
Smith argues that creative approaches that work on other platforms do not necessarily translate to TikTok, where people come to discover new things and be entertained. An app’s value needs to come through quickly, without making the content feel detached from the environment in which it appears.
That can involve several creative decisions:
- Start with a recognisable situation: Show how an app fits into something people already do, rather than opening with a list of features.
- Use trends with a purpose: A relevant trend can provide an entry point, but the app’s value still needs to come through.
- Give creators room to tell the story: Their own experiences can make a product demonstration feel more natural and relatable.
Smith offers the example of a running app. A creator training for their first 5K could show how the app’s features help them stay motivated. The audience sees the product in use, but the reason to watch is the person’s journey.
The creative, she says, should be treated as an ongoing source of learning. Different angles need to be tested, adapted for new audiences and markets, and refreshed when performance changes.
The Creator is Becoming Part of the Discovery Journey
A creator’s value is not necessarily measured by how many people follow them. It can lie in how much their audience trusts what they say.
That distinction is important for app brands deciding between a large creator with broad reach and a smaller voice with a more closely connected community.
“I’d always start by asking what you need the creator to achieve and how well they align with your brand and how they can bring your story to life, instead of actually looking at how many followers they have,” Smith says.
The two approaches serve different purposes. A large creator can introduce an app to a substantial audience and help build awareness around a new offering. A niche creator may be better placed to make the same product feel relevant within a community that already values their recommendations.
Smith describes a food creator explaining why they use a particular app for their weekly grocery shopping. The recommendation can feel immediately useful because the audience already trusts the creator’s judgment in that area.
The difference is between being introduced to a product and seeing why someone like you might use it.
For app marketers, the choice comes down to the role a partnership needs to play:
- Large creators: Useful when the priority is broad reach, awareness and cultural impact, particularly around a launch.
- Niche creators: Valuable when brands want to reach a specific community through a voice that already has credibility with its audience.
- A combination of both: Can bring reach and relevance into the same campaign, provided the partnerships serve clear objectives.
Smith favours testing a mix when budgets allow, rather than assuming one creator category will consistently outperform the other.
Ultimately, she says, “it really comes down to how well a creator can connect with your audience, how authentic the message is, and whether it’s delivering the results that you need.”
The Hardest Part is Turning Discovery Into a Decision
Someone can discover an app in seconds and take days to decide whether to download it. The path from interest to action is rarely as orderly as a marketing funnel suggests.
Smith describes two different behaviours. One person might see a creator’s video and download the app immediately. Another might watch several videos, read the comments, share the content with friends and return later when they are ready to act.
“Some audiences can absolutely act on impulse when something feels relevant, but others might need a few touchpoints,” she says.
That means an acquisition strategy built entirely around immediate downloads risks overlooking people who need more time to make a decision. Awareness and consideration have a role alongside campaigns designed to drive conversions.
Smith argues that the strongest and quickest performance comes when advertisers support the full journey rather than concentrating only on lower-funnel objectives.
But generating interest is only part of the job. The experience after the click has to match what the creative promised.
For app brands, that means paying attention to a few practical details:
- A clear next step: People should understand what to do after discovering the app, whether that is downloading it, exploring a feature or learning more.
- A consistent promise: The App Store page should reflect the experience shown in the creative, rather than introduce an entirely different proposition.
- Less friction: The journey from the advertisement to the app experience should be straightforward, without unnecessary steps or confusing messages.
The final point is particularly important. A creator can make an app look useful, but a generic store listing or a disappointing first experience can undo that interest.
“Removing that friction is really about kind of connecting the whole journey and keeping your messaging consistent and making it easy for someone to go from being interested to actually engaging,” Smith says.
Discovery Has to Lead Somewhere
The first encounter with an app may happen while someone is watching a running video, following a creator’s recommendation, or simply scrolling without a particular need in mind. That makes discovery less predictable, but it also gives brands more ways to become relevant before a customer starts searching.
The challenge is what happens next. Attention does not guarantee consideration, and consideration does not guarantee a download. Each stage needs to give people a reason to continue.
Smith’s perspective points to a change in how app campaigns should be judged.
The creative has to earn the first few seconds; the creator has to make the proposition credible; and the experience after the click has to deliver on what the audience was shown.
For app marketers, the task is to make its usefulness apparent in a moment when someone may not have been looking for it at all – and give them a convincing reason to come back when they are ready to act.
Sign up to TikTok Academy and learn how to drive high-value users with App and Gaming ads: https://www.tiktokacademy.com/student/path/3596803-apps-and-gaming?utm_source=industryrelations&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=_gbm_eui&utm_content=custom_lp
