New Changes in Google Play for 2023

The Google Play team has been working on several new, exciting features and bigger changes over the past few years to help app developers and marketers.

The most recent Google Play and Console improvements aim to change how app developers and marketers tackle their tasks. Such upgrades will make producing and exhibiting high-quality products on the platform much easier than before, with an emphasis on seamlessness and performance.

Moreover, Google is speeding up the development process and improving store visibility and discoverability to help users easier discover apps and games they wish to use. Google is also releasing advanced AI tools to improve your app’s store listing and easily reach your audience through ASO efforts.

Let’s see how you can benefit from such changes and what you can expect to change in the way you approach your tasks.

1. Driving Growth With Listing Improvements

Getting users to download your app is the core of every app company, and it all begins with your store listing. The upgrades from the Google Play team could help you create better, more tailored content to boost audience growth.

The most notable changes are the following:

In addition to country and pre-registration position, you may now modify your listing for inactive users, emphasizing why they should try your app or game again.
In the recent future, the team will also bring out Custom store listings for Google Ads App campaign ad groups. It allows you to show distinct listings to visitors coming from particular AdMob and YouTube ads for a smoother transition from Google advertising to Google Play.
Google Play is also launching store listing groups to streamline these processes. App marketers may now design for many audiences by developing a base listing and overriding particular parts.
There are also 10 Google Translate machine translation models in Play Console to enable you to communicate with users in their native language. It translates for free your app and store listing in a few minutes.

Use store listing groups to customize your base listing for different audiences—source: Android Developers Blog.

2. Showcasing the Best of Your App via AI-Powered Features

The Google Play team is also bringing advantages of AI to make things less complex for you and your users. From highlighting the greatest aspects of your app experience to helping people discover your title, AI-powered functionalities let you promote the best of your app experience.

Here are the new features summarized:

Since the 10th of May, you can start English store listings with Google’s generative AI technology. This test feature simplifies content creation. Open the Google Play AI assistance and enter audience and main topic questions to create a draft you may modify, dismiss, or use. Submitting and publishing are now in your total control.
The team is also introducing Google’s generative AI-powered review summaries to help users quickly understand what makes your app or game exceptional. It started with an English trial, which will be extended later this year.

3. Boosting User Discovery With New Events

Promote important occasions, new content, and interesting offers with Google Play to build your audience. Promotional content is already available for around 25,000 apps and games and will expand to more titles later this year.

Summarized below, you can see the new opportunities that may benefit the way you market your app:

Google Play team is establishing numerous dedicated high-traffic areas to promote your most captivating content, including via Play notifications. Participating games are witnessing a median 20% boost in store-wide acquisitions and reacquisitions, driven by more than 60% organic Explore traffic.
There is also an improvement in Google Play’s reporting so that you can track and improve your events’ direct performance. You can test it in Play Console under “Promotional content performance reports.”

Source: Android Developers Blog

“To be eligible for these new growth opportunities, your app or game needs to be of high quality and deliver the great experiences your users expect.” – Google Play team notes.

On the 10th of May, a unified framework was introduced for app and game quality, explaining how Google Play analyzes quality across several aspects for promotion and featuring.

4. Pushing Out Improved Monetization Features

Google Play will provide several advanced monetization options to assist you in optimizing revenue generation. A/B testing price trials for in-app purchases, featured products, and major changes to subscription services are among them.

Experiments tool in Play Console—source: Android Developers Blog

Subscription services have been redesigned to increase conversions and retention by allowing for several prices each billing month. Because of this flexibility, developers may provide different auto-renewing and prepaid plan costs, such as ongoing discounts for “VIP” users.

Marketers and developers will be able to test multiple price points in various markets, recognizing possible pricing problems or undervaluing their in-app products. In addition, featured products allow developers to sell in-app items straight on Google Play, increasing user engagement and conversions.

5. Improving Privacy and Security Protection

The Play Integrity API verifies user actions and server requests that originate from unmodified app versions on authentic Android devices. Moreover, an updated beta integration option provides verdicts ten times quicker, and status.play.google.com keeps you updated on the service situation and status.

In addition, expanded automatic integrity protection provides one-click anti-tamper and anti-piracy security without an API connection to a backend server.

Google Play also creates tools that encourage users to avoid damaged app versions. When an improved version of an app becomes accessible, an automatic update prompt happens, and developers can also ask users to upgrade specific app versions. This capability will be available to all apps created with app bundles shortly.

The App Content page has been improved to indicate outstanding tasks, making it more straightforward for developers to keep up with Google Play norms. Future Google Play declaration requirements and deadlines will also be revealed, allowing for better preparation and planning.

Conclusion on Google Play Updates

Google Play provides a wealth of options for marketers and developers to increase their user base, access new markets, and monetize their apps while maintaining confidentiality and safety.

There are even more strategies to enhance app exposure, improve user experience, and yield revenue with the latest improvements. From new features to shifts in support regulations, marketers must make use of these improved features and resources to get the absolute most out of their app store presence.

Looking for a team of App Store Optimization experts that can help you scale your organic growth? Talk to one of our consultants and start growing your app today.