How to promote an app on Google Play with Play Console’s own tools

With pre-registration, people can find your store listing and sign up before the app is out, in the countries you choose. When you publish, every pre-registered user gets a push notification from Google Play to install it, and eligible devices install the app automatically on launch day. A campaign can last only 90 days, after which you have to launch to production, and Google strongly recommends testing on a test track first. If your personal developer account was created after 13 November 2023, you have to meet the testing requirements for new accounts before you can use pre-registration. You can also add one pre-registration reward, a free one-time product, for the lifetime of the campaign. This is the Android half of the plan in our app launch checklist.

A store listing experiment shows a share of your listing visitors a variant and compares it with your current listing on install and open data. For each app you can run one default graphics experiment, testing the icon, feature graphic and screenshots in your default language, or up to five localized experiments at the same time, which can also test text in the languages you choose. Each experiment takes up to two variants, and you set what percentage of visitors see them. Google notes that users who view your app in a language where you added localized graphics are left out of the default graphics experiment. Start with the asset people see first; the sizes and rules are in our guide to screenshot sizes.

You can create up to 50 custom store listings. Each can target users in specific countries, users who searched for specific keywords, users who pre-registered, or inactive users, and a listing can also be shown only to people who arrive through its own unique URL or a specific Google Ads campaign. That last option is useful when you promote the app elsewhere: a post aimed at teachers can link to a listing that talks to teachers. For showing the same listing in different languages, Google points to translations instead of custom listings.

In Play Console you can create promotions that give people a paid app, a one-time product or a subscription for free with a promo code. One-time codes are generated for you and can be redeemed once, from Google Play or inside the app; custom codes are only for subscriptions, can be redeemed several times up to a limit you set, only work in the app, and only for people who have not subscribed before. Subscription promo codes give a free trial of between 3 and 90 days. You can create up to 500 non-subscription promo codes per quarter for an app, and you must state the terms of the offer clearly. Promo codes are a clean way to give reviewers, testers or a community access without asking anything in return; for reviews, see what the stores allow in how to get more app reviews.

Promotional content lets you publish events, such as an offer, a major update or a live event, which show on your store listing by default. If you are eligible and have requests left in the quarter, you can also request featuring for an event, and it may then appear in high-visibility places on Google Play such as the homepage and search results. Events with featuring requested must be submitted at least 14 days before they start. The full rules, and Apple’s equivalent, are in how to get featured.

Play Console tools work on people who already reached your listing; the other half is getting them there. Censuus ranks apps by the real visit traffic they draw: adding your app is free on the submit page, and it can rise on the visits it earns. Sponsorship raises placement and adds a followed link to your website; details are on the sponsor page. For more places to list an app, see our checked list of free app promotion sites. We do not promise installs or store rankings.