Unlimited Guide to App Store Optimization

Introduction

Google I/O 2023 and the Google Play Store Updates:

Google I/O is an annual developer conference held by Google, where the tech giant unveils its latest innovations and updates. The event serves as a platform to showcase advancements in software, hardware, and services, with a keen focus on Android and its associated ecosystem. 

Let’s dive into the major announcements made at Google I/O 2023, highlighting the Google Play Store updates and their implications for app marketers and publishers.

Store Listing Enhancement 

Google announced improvements in Store listings to drive growth. One of the most anticipated announcements was around Custom Store Listing (CSL), which includes two updates:

1. Targeting Users by Status:  You will soon be able to target the inactive users specifically. This will surely help all the ASO practitioners re-engage the lost users who have already uninstalled the app or the users who have become inactive, i.e. haven’t used the app for at least 30 days.
2. Custom store listings for Google Ads: Developers will now be able to use custom store listings for the Google ads, but note that this will only be available for the youtube and admob inventory where you’ll be able to link the CSLs with a particular campaign ad group. Also add that no custom store listing will be shown in the Google Play search results, or the apps or games section.

3. Store listing Grouping: To help the marketers/developers edit CSLs in bulk and create new ones with much more ease, you’ll now be able to create custom store groups. This will empower you to create multiple variants of store listings, increasing speed and efficiency. 

AI-Powered features

AI is the buzz today. With not much surprise, there were a lot of announcements related to the numerous advancements in AI technology.

1. Generative Content – Not only delving into its efforts to integrate AI with Google Workspace, but Google also introduced an experimental feature in Google Play Console called “Generative Content” that leverages AI to create short and long descriptions. 
2. Translation Service – Google also highlighted the AI-powered translation service at the event, which will support 10 languages. This feature is available within the console at no extra cost to the developers, thus making localization a much easier task.
3. AI review summaries – Powered by Google’s generative AI technology, it launched the review summaries, helping the users learn from each other about what makes your app or game special at a glance. This will initially be available only in English but will expand to other languages later.

Improving the App Discovery – Promotional Content: Several announcements pertaining to the “promotional content” were made with Google planning to increase the scope of Promotional Content. Currently, only around 25000 apps have access to this feature but this is all set to expand and be available for more apps later this year. 

The strategic use of PC is to re-engage the app users prompting them to re-visit the store and app, presenting a win-win strategy for all the entities, i.e. developers, users and Google.

All the app marketers should get ready to create compelling Promotional Content, to get a chance to be featured prominently within the Google Play Console, including having their app listing positioned at the top of search suggestions, search results and explore tab of the Play Store.

Reporting Events – Reports will be updated to explain to the users how are where their Promotional Content is viewed on Google Play to enable them to track and optimize their events.

Monetization Optimisation – Google unveiled new monetization options for app developers and publishers. Developers will now be able to run price experiments to promote the in-app products in different markets to identify when they are undervaluing themselves or pricing out of the sale.

Final Words