Google Play adopts new marketing features including custom store listings and in-app events

At this year’s Google I/O, Google announced that Android developers can now make up to 50 custom store listings, each with analytics and unique deep links, to let them show different listings to users depending on where they come from.  

The new capability follows the Custom Product Pages feature Apple announced in January. Apple’s Custom Product Pages feature allows iOS developers to create up to 35 additional versions of your App Store product page to showcase different app features, content, or promotions.

Google also said the company has made improvements to Store Listing Experiments. Developers will now “see results more quickly for most experiments, with more transparency and control to help you anticipate how long each experiment is likely to need,” the company says. 

Google will also soon launch a new Play Console page dedicated to deep links with all the information and tools related to an app’s deep links in one place. 

Another feature Google announced during this year’s Google I/O is LiveOps, which allows developers to submit content to be considered for featuring on the Play Store. The new LiveOps cards are self-service merchandising units in the Play Store that surface limited-time events, offers, pre-registration announcements like global release announcements, and major updates for apps or games. 

According to Google’s internal analysis, LiveOps  drive 5% more 28-day active users and 4% higher revenue for developers using the feature than those that do not. The LiveOps cards will be displayed Games Home, Store Listing Page, Events Tab, and Search Results on the Play Store. 

Google says apps and games should meet the requirements below to be eligible for LiveOps beta program:

+ 100,000+ global monthly active users

+ Great content, user experience, and technical performance

+ Wide user appeal, excluding apps in specific categories such as family, utility, and medical

+  Policy compliance, as evaluated every 4 weeks

During this year’s Google I/O, Google also introduced new subscription capabilities for Android developers and Google Play SDK Index, a new public directory filled with the most widely used commercial SDKs, and data and insights about each one.