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AppDNA: AI-powered app taxonomy in AppTweak

With AppDNA, understand the core identity of different apps and get a more precise picture of the app competitive landscape.

Abbin Mathew avatar
Written by Abbin Mathew
Updated over a year ago

Use AppTweak's unique app and game taxonomy, AppDNA and GameDNA, to paint a more precise and comprehensive picture of your competitive landscape.

What is AppDNA?

Powered by Atlas AI, an app's DNA is a more precise category describing its core purpose. Comparing apps with the same AppDNA will allow you to identify more relevant competitors, understand more relevant market trends, and derive key insights that can nurture your ASO strategy.

What's the difference between AppDNA and standard categories on the App Store / Play Store?

While the app stores each group apps into around 30 categories, we have been able to identify over 200 AppDNA types that more accurately define an appโ€™s core identity.

More specifically, there are 3 differences between AppDNA and store-given categories:

  1. An app can only have one DNA,

  2. An app's DNA does not differ from store to store,

  3. An app's DNA is constant through time, as long as the app's core identity doesn't change.

For instance, although the apps Calm and Fitbit: Heath & Fitness belong to the same App Store category, Health & Fitness, they do not fulfill the same user needs or expectations. However, we can more accurately understand their differences in purposes by considering their respective AppDNAs: Calm's AppDNA is Meditation while Fitbit's is Wearables.

On the contrary, despite the apps DuckDuckGo and Google Chrome not belonging to the same Google Play category (Tools vs. Communication, respectively), they do both have the same core identity. Because of this, they share the AppDNA Browser.

What are the different AppDNA types?

Specifically, we have been able to identify over 200 AppDNA types that can be further grouped into 20 broader, more general categories: Productivity & Tools, Finance, Business, etc.

Where can I see the AppDNA?

You can find AppDNA details in the app header, just below the app name.

Why is my AppDNA indicated as "Other"?

You might notice AppDNA indicated as "Other [broad category]," like "Other Photo & Video."

This is because each broad category (Finance, Business, Photo & Video, and so on) includes the subtype "Other [category]", like "Other Finance," "Other Business," "Other Photo & Video," etc. These subtypes gather all the apps that do not fit further into a specific AppDNA.

For instance, Flickr belongs to the broad category "Photo & Video" and shares common characteristics with other apps in this broad category. However, Flickr doesn't fit further into our defined AppDNA types.

Why is my AppDNA unavailable?

There are specific reasons you may see AppDNA as "Unavailable:"

We are currently computing the AppDNA of apps that fulfill all of the following characteristics:

  • Available in supported countries*

  • With sufficient available public information.

Though we only compute the AppDNA for apps in supported countries (e.g. US), you may still see this information for other countries if it is already available in the database. For instance, having already computed the information for the US, we will understand that the AppDNA of Facebook in any country will be Social Networks.

How to use AppDNA in AppTweak

  • AppDNA is available in many sections of our ASO tool. You can find new competitors sharing the same DNA, access more relevant keyword suggestions, identify leading apps in Top Charts, see the creatives from your DNA competitors, and more.

  • You can also leverage AppDNA and GameDNA in Market Intelligence to understand the true potential of your app in specific markets, based on market share and Top Charts.

Feedback? We are continuously refining our model. If you believe that an AppDNA misclassification is wrong, don't hesitate to let us know!


*Available AppDNA & GameDNA languages:

Languages for which an app/game's DNA is available. If the app you are looking for has one of these languages in its metadata, we should be able to assign it a DNA.

Afrikaans

Arabic

Bulgarian

Bengali

Catalan

Czech

Welsh

Danish

German

Greek

English

Spanish

Estonian

Persian

Finnish

French

Gujarati

Hebrew

Hindi

Croatian

Hungarian

Indonesian

Italian

Japanese

Kannada

Korean

Lithuanian

Latvian

Macedonian

Malayalam

Marathi

Nepali

Dutch

Norwegian

Punjabi

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Slovak

Slovenian

Somali

Albanian

Swedish

Swahili

Tamil

Telugu

Thai

Tagalog

Turkish

Ukrainian

Urdu

Vietnamese

Chinese (Simplified)

Chinese (Traditional)

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