Mobile marketing agency Admiral Media has audited the App Store listings of 1,000 top free apps in the United States and found that only 12.2% of them carry an app preview video. The research, titled State of App Store Listings 2026 and dated September 2026, also found that 24% of the apps ran at least one In-App Event and that 41.8% used fewer than 22 of the 30 characters Apple allows in an app title. The data was collected on a single day, September 29, 2026.

In Short

An agency looked at the store pages of 1,000 of the most popular free iPhone apps in the US and counted which ones use Apple's extra listing tools, such as short demo videos and event cards. Most big apps get the basics right, but only about one in eight has a video and about one in four runs an event, so a lot of space in search results and on the store's front tabs goes unused. The study counts what listings contain, not whether any of it brings more downloads, so it is a map of habits rather than proof of what works.

How the study was built

Admiral Media describes itself as a "performance marketing agency for mobile apps and games, founded in 2019," selling paid user acquisition, App Store Optimization, answer engine optimization and AI ad creative. The study was run through the agency's own ASO Checker, and the report page carries prompts to run an app through that checker and to book a meeting with the agency. That commercial context is relevant. The checker defines what counts as a complete listing, and its weights are not published.

The sampling is straightforward. "On 29 September 2026 we took the top 50 free apps from Apple's public US top charts in 20 categories," according to the report. Those categories are Games, Health & Fitness, Education, Lifestyle, Productivity, Finance, Entertainment, Photo & Video, Social Networking, Travel, Music, Shopping, Food & Drink, Utilities, Business, Medical, Navigation, News, Sports and Books. "That gave 1,000 unique apps," the report states. For each one, the agency read Apple's public app lookup and the public App Store page, then ran the checks its tool uses. "All 1,000 listings were read in full."

The score runs from 0 to 100. According to the report's FAQ, it takes in title and subtitle use, screenshots, preview video, rating and rating volume, update recency, localization, In-App Events, iPad screenshots and release notes. The weighting of each component is not disclosed. Nor does the report explain its thresholds: 22 characters for titles and subtitles, six iPhone screenshots, and 65 points as the cut-off it reports scores against. It also gives no rule for classifying release notes as "short or generic," and it does not say how iPad compatibility was determined.

On languages, the report adds a caveat of its own: "Language counts come from the languages an app declares, which can differ from localized store metadata." The page gives no exact publication day, only the label "September 2026."

Admiral Media is direct about what the data cannot do. "Top-chart apps are larger and better resourced than the typical app, so the wider market likely scores lower," the report states. "Public data cannot show conversion rates, keyword rankings, keyword fields or Custom Product Pages." And on causation: "The study shows what top listings do, not what causes rankings." According to the report, "Rankings also depend on downloads, ratings and relevance."

The findings

The headline is a gap between basics and extras, between the fields every listing needs and the optional formats such as the preview video and the In-App Event. "Most top apps get the basics right," according to the report. "Far fewer use the tools Apple added to help apps get found and chosen." The adoption figures show how wide that gap is. Of the 1,000 listings, 88.3% had been updated in the last 30 days, 84.7% held a rating of 4.5 or higher, 81.2% had a subtitle of 22 characters or more, and 77% showed six or more iPhone screenshots. Further down, 58.2% had titles of 22 characters or more and 56.5% listed three or more languages. Then the numbers fall away: 24% ran an In-App Event, 13.5% used all 10 iPhone screenshot slots and 12.2% had a preview video.

Preview videos

"Only 12.2% of top apps have an app preview video," according to the report. "Games lead at 28%. Outside games it is 11.4%, and in Finance and Books just 4%." The arithmetic holds: 122 videos across 1,000 apps, with 14 of them in the 50-game sample, leaves 108 across the other 950 apps, or 11.4%, by PPC Land's calculation.

The ranking, however, conflicts with the report's own category table. That table shows Photo & Video at 30% for preview videos, two points above Games at 28%. The report does not address the difference. Photo & Video is also the category with the highest median score, at 88.

In-App Events

"Only 24% run an In-App Event," the report states. "Games are the exception at 52%. In the Medical category it is 2%." Business, at 8%, is the next lowest. Photo & Video (50%) and Entertainment (44%) sit closest to games.

Why does the share matter? According to the report, "Events can appear in App Store search and on the Today, Games and Apps tabs, so most top apps leave that visibility unused." The FAQ offers two explanations for low uptake of both events and preview videos. "Both need production and planning time," it says, and "many teams treat the store listing as set-and-forget once an app is established." The exception is explained in operational terms: "Games, which run live operations, use them far more often than other categories."

Titles, subtitles and repeated words

Apple allows 30 characters in an app title. "41.8% use fewer than 22 of their 30 title characters," according to the report, and the median title runs to 24 characters. Games stand out again, this time at the other end. "Games are the most brand-only: a median of 16 characters, with 60% below 22."

The category spread is wide. Shopping apps fill their titles most consistently, with 86% at 22 characters or more, followed by Books at 78% and Health & Fitness at 74%. Business and Medical are lowest, at 36% each.

Subtitles show a smaller gap. Some 10.5% of the top apps have none at all. The report explains why that matters: "The subtitle is one of the text fields Apple names as a search ranking input, together with the title and the keyword field." A further problem is duplication. According to the report, 24.3% of apps repeat words between title and subtitle, rising to 42% among games. "A repeated word adds no new search coverage," the report states.

Screenshots on iPhone and iPad

Apple allows 10 iPhone screenshots per listing. "23% show fewer than 6 iPhone screenshots," according to the report. "The median is 7 of a possible 10, and only 13.5% use all 10. No game in the sample used all 10." That last detail is notable, given that games lead on events.

The iPad gap is larger. "34% of iPad-compatible apps show no iPad screenshots," the report states, with a plain consequence: "iPad visitors then see iPhone screenshots instead of the app on their own device." The report does not say how many of the 1,000 apps were iPad-compatible, so the 34% cannot be turned into an app count.

Languages

"36.1% list only one language," according to the report. The median is five languages, and 56.5% of apps list three or more, which leaves 7.4% with exactly two, by PPC Land's calculation. English-only listings are most common in Finance (72%), Food & Drink (70%), and Sports and News (66% each). They are least common in Photo & Video (12%) and in Productivity and Utilities (14% each).

The English-only column in the category table averages 36.1% across the 20 equal-sized categories, the same figure as the overall single-language share. By PPC Land's reading, that means every single-language listing in the sample was English-only.

Release notes

Frequent updates do not translate into informative notes. "53.2% ship short or generic release notes," according to the report. "'Bug fixes and performance improvements' is still the default for half of the top apps, even though 88.3% updated in the last 30 days."

Ratings and the overall score

Ratings are the strongest basic after update frequency, with 84.7% of listings at 4.5 stars or higher. Across all checks, the median score is 83 out of 100. "10.5% of top apps score below 65. Photo & Video has the highest median (88) and Medical the lowest (74)," the report states.

Category by category

The report ranks the 20 categories by median score. The table below reproduces its figures; the title column shows the share of apps using 22 or more title characters.

Rank Category Median score Title 22+ chars Preview video In-App Event English only
1 Photo & Video 88 64% 30% 50% 12%
2 Health & Fitness 87.5 74% 14% 36% 26%
3 Shopping 87 86% 10% 28% 44%
4 Entertainment 85.5 68% 12% 44% 20%
5 Education 85 66% 14% 24% 42%
6 Music 85 64% 12% 30% 18%
7 Games 84 40% 28% 52% 24%
8 Productivity 83 44% 8% 26% 14%
9 Finance 82.5 70% 4% 18% 72%
10 Navigation 82.5 64% 16% 18% 36%
11 Sports 82.5 66% 22% 36% 66%
12 Social Networking 82 58% 6% 20% 26%
13 Business 81 36% 10% 8% 16%
14 News 81 58% 18% 22% 66%
15 Travel 81 46% 6% 14% 28%
16 Lifestyle 80.5 50% 6% 14% 22%
17 Utilities 80.5 52% 6% 12% 14%
18 Books 80 78% 4% 12% 46%
19 Food & Drink 78 44% 8% 14% 70%
20 Medical 74 36% 10% 2% 60%

Medical trails on most columns the table shows. Its apps have the lowest event share, the joint-lowest share of full-length titles and the fifth-highest English-only share. Finance presents a split picture: 70% of its top apps use long titles, yet 72% are English-only and only 4% carry a video. Games, the leader on events, ranks seventh overall. Its apps have the shortest median title in the sample, at 16 characters, and none uses all 10 screenshot slots. Because the score weights are not published, it is not possible to say how much either factor costs.

The gap between the top and bottom category medians is 14 points. The sample may compress that range: these are chart leaders, already in the top 50 of their categories, and the report itself expects the wider market to score lower.

What the agency recommends, and what it does not measure

The report closes with a list introduced as "the changes we see pay off first." According to Admiral Media, those are filling the title and subtitle with two different keyword themes and removing repeated words; reworking the first three screenshots around the main benefit, then using all 10 slots; adding a short preview video for games and feature-heavy apps; running In-App Events around launches, seasons and challenges; and localizing for the next market with local keyword research, alongside keyword-linked Custom Product Pages. The report publishes no install or conversion data showing the effect of any of those changes, and its FAQ says the findings should serve as a checklist to be tested against App Store Connect data.

Several parts of Apple's current listing toolkit fall outside the study. The report does not mention creative assets, the image and video format Apple previewed at WWDC26. It does not mention App Store tags, product page optimization tests or Apple Ads. Custom Product Pages and the keyword field are named only as things public data cannot see. The sample is also narrow by design: free apps only, US charts only, one day.

Why listings carry weight for advertisers

For app marketers, the listing is not only an organic asset. It is also the raw material for paid placements. When Apple said in December 2025 that more ad positions were coming to App Store search results, it cited 2022 data showing that nearly 65% of App Store downloads happen directly after a search. Those positions began rolling out on March 3, 2026, starting in the UK, with advertisers unable to choose or bid on a specific slot. The ads draw either on default product pages built from App Store metadata or on custom product pages created in App Store Connect. On that basis, a thin title, a missing subtitle or a short screenshot set can carry over into paid search results unless a custom page replaces it.

Custom product pages have a longer history in paid campaigns. Apple allowed them to be used for ad variations in Apple Search Ads in January 2022, when developers could build up to 35 of them. At WWDC 2025, Apple let developers assign keywords to custom product pages so that a tailored page appears in organic search results for those terms, and introduced App Store tags generated by large language models from app metadata. Admiral Media's recommendation of "keyword-linked Custom Product Pages" matches that 2025 feature. Yet the study, by its own account, cannot measure how many top apps already use it.

Creative assets add another layer the study does not count. Apple previewed creative assets, an Asset Library and a product page preview tool at WWDC26 on June 8, 2026. In August, Apple's best practices for the format placed creative assets in the product page header, in search results, in custom product pages, in Apple Ads campaigns on the Today tab and in search, and in In-App Events, with launch set for fall 2026 alongside iOS 27. That guidance also set a fallback. Where no search results asset is supplied, In-App Events, app previews and screenshots appear instead, with up to three screenshots shown in search results. Admiral Media's advice to rework "the first three screenshots" does not cite that limit, but the overlap is direct. On the study's figures, at least 63.8% of the 1,000 apps had neither a preview video nor an event, by PPC Land's calculation. Without a creative asset, such a listing falls back to screenshots alone in search results.

Relevance does not settle paid placement either. A ConsultMyApp analysis of 132 UK keywords in March 2026 found that the most relevant app took the top Apple Ads position in only 43.9% of cases. Admiral Media's point that organic rankings "also depend on downloads, ratings and relevance" sits alongside that finding rather than contradicting it. Listing quality is one input among several on both sides of the results page.

The money involved is large. Apple rebranded Search Ads as Apple Ads on April 14, 2025, with placements on the Search tab, the Today tab and other developers' product pages. An Analysis Group study commissioned by Apple put App Store ecosystem billings and sales at more than $1.4 trillion in 2025, of which $151 billion came from in-app advertising, with more than 850 million average weekly users. In July, Apple reported a June-quarter advertising record as services revenue rose 12% to $30.739 billion, although the company does not break out advertising revenue.

The release notes figure is the plainest in the set. Nearly nine in ten top free apps had been updated within a month, yet "Bug fixes and performance improvements" remained the default for half of all top apps, according to the report. Is the listing being maintained, or only refreshed? Admiral Media's data cannot answer that question.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Admiral Media, a performance marketing agency for mobile apps and games founded in 2019, which ran the audit with its own ASO Checker tool. The subjects are the developers and marketers behind the top 50 free apps in 20 categories of Apple's US App Store.

What: An audit of 1,000 public App Store listings. It found that 12.2% had a preview video, 24% ran an In-App Event, 41.8% used fewer than 22 of 30 title characters, 10.5% had no subtitle, 34% of iPad-compatible apps showed no iPad screenshots, 36.1% listed only one language and 53.2% used short or generic release notes. The median score was 83 out of 100, ranging from 88 in Photo & Video to 74 in Medical. The report's text names Games as the preview video leader at 28%, while its table shows Photo & Video at 30%.

When: Data was collected on September 29, 2026, and the report is dated September 2026, with no exact publication day.

Where: Apple's US App Store top free charts, with the findings published on Admiral Media's website.

Why: App Store listings feed both organic discovery and Apple Ads placements, which Apple expanded in search results from March 2026 and is extending with creative assets alongside iOS 27. The study shows which listing features top apps use, but by its own account it cannot show conversion rates, keyword rankings or whether any feature causes more installs.