11 don'ts i learned marketing my app on TikTok

prpro

I've spent the last few months experimenting with carousels on TikTok to promote my mobile app, and I've collected quite a few hard-won lessons. Here they are, in the hope they save you some pain.

Don't post on a fresh account. Warm it up first-there's plenty of info out there on how to do that.
Don't post more than three times a day. When starting, I'd suggest one post a day for the first week, two a day for the second, then three after that. Keep warming up the account.
Don't delete posts you start to dislike. Just hide them.
Don't create an account with your brand name. Make it about your target audience, not your app.
Don't post 'builder story' or 'how I implemented...' unless your audience is other builders. Otherwise, nobody cares.
If you're under 1,000 followers, don't put a link to the app store in your bio. Users won't type it manually.
If you're above 1,000 followers, still don't put the link to the app store in your bio. It won't be clickable-TikTok protects users from leaving the app.
Don't hope that a link to your site will work. Users will click, TikTok's internal browser opens your landing page, but the app store button on that landing page won't work either. You need a smarter approach: create a special landing page for TikTok's browser. On that page, show an arrow pointing to the three dots in the upper corner with instructions for users to open the link in an external browser. And make it auto-redirect to the app store immediately.
Don't use text like 'download app in bio' or 'use our app' on the carousels. TikTok scans slides for those phrases and stops showing the post on the For You page.
Don't make 'download app' the main CTA. Instead, make a screenshot of your app part of the story you're telling in the carousel. Sooner or later, viewers will ask in the comments, 'What app is this?'
Don't put the screenshot of your app on the last slide. Very few viewers will reach it. Make it the second or third slide.

Hope this helps. Let the downloads be with you 😉

budgetburner

Yeah, that "what app is this" comment bait is the only thing that's ever actually worked for me on TikTok. CTAs are basically noise in that environment. I just pinned a reply with the app name after a few people asked organically - drove more installs than any "link in bio" nonsense ever did. The platform rewards engagement, not blatant promotion. Took me way too long to figure that out.

noahcontent

Spent a month testing carousels against short videos for a client. Conversion rates were roughly 30% lower on carousels despite easier production. Useful for top-of-funnel awareness, not bottom-line actions.

miaaffiliate

Three times a day isn't nearly enough if you're serious about cracking the viral ceiling. On TikTok, volume is part of the game-pushing 5-7 posts daily is what the top accounts do. And no, deleting posts isn't "bad," but it kills your account's watch time history. Better to just let them sit or archive them. If you're trying to build a real asset, you burn through that runway fast.

ethan-pr

key addition: set up proper attribution tracking from day one. TikTok's internal analytics give a misleading picture of actual user quality. tools like AppsFlyer or Adjust show which creative formats drive valuable users, not just hollow download numbers. track LTV by creative type to confidently reinvest in what's truly working

prpro

That's a solid list. i've found similar pitfalls with carousel content myself - it's tempting to keep adding slides, but the drop-off after slide three is brutal. The ones that work best for me treat each slide as a self-contained hook rather than building to a punchline nobody reaches

prpro

absolutely. it's one of those truths that sounds obvious in hindsight, yet so many still skip the groundwork. a carousel is just like a shelf in a shop - if you cram every product on it without a story, people walk past. The real work happens before you even open the design tool.

prpro

TikTok really isn't a fan of mass-posting. You can upload loads of reels to YouTube without issue, but on TikTok the recommended daily maximum sits around three. I haven't personally dealt with problems from deleting posts, but the advice pops up so often that it's definitely worth following. The common explanation is that deleting confuses the algorithm - it's already factored in that post's likes and audience, so removing it throws a spanner in the works.

noahcontent

highest conversion I've seen was around 14% view-through to swipe, but that's with a very specific hook and a three-slide structure - anything longer tanked. would be curious what others are hitting with different formats.

prpro

You're not alone - tracking individual carousel conversions is a complete black box. i've landed around 40 downloads from roughly 40k daily views, so that's a 0.1% conversion rate, but honestly it's a guess. No way to separate what came from the carousel versus organic ASO traffic

noahcontent

yeah, that tracks. With carousels, you're basically gambling on volume-anything under 100k views is just statistical noise. Can't reliably attribute conversions below that threshold. i've found the same: the data only becomes usable once you hit that critical mass