App Store Digest #13: Collections, custom audiences, and new Search Tab on Google Play

In this edition, we’ll dive into the latest big updates from Google Play, including the launch of "Collections," a powerful new feature that could help marketers greatly enhance app discoverability and user engagement. 

We’ll also break down Google’s new Custom Audiences tool in the Play Console, giving developers new tools to optimize user journeys, and the rollout of customizable interest filters to tailor app recommendations. 

Let’s dive in!

🤖 Google Play Store 

New Collections on the Play Store 

Announced at I/O this year, Google has launched "Collections," a new feature available on Google Play, which showcases personalized content from installed apps directly on store users’ home screens.

This new addition to the Play  Store could be a game-changer for your app marketing strategy: 

• Continuation Journeys:

Allows users to resume activities with a tap, such as picking up an abandoned shopping cart or continuing a playlist.

• Improved User Experience:

Collections offer a seamless and immersive experience, leading to better user satisfaction, higher ratings, and more positive reviews.

• Enhanced Discoverability:

Apps featured in "Collections" gain higher visibility, making it easier for users to discover them.

• Higher Engagement and Retention:

The personalized recommendations and continuation journeys increase user engagement and retention, potentially leading to a positive impact on app rankings. 

How to leverage Collections?

Users can access "Collections" by long-pressing the Play Store icon, revealing categories such as "Food," "Game," "Listen”, Read”, “Shop”, “Social”, and “Watch. Each category highlights relevant apps recently interacted with, allowing users to quickly resume activities such as watching a show or browsing content. 

1. Developers can create personalized recommendation clusters and broad appeal content for users, even those not logged in. Up to five personalized recommendation clusters can be developed based on user behavior.
2. Collections could be an ideal spotlight for personalized promotions with 

• Personalized deals
• Announcing new products and app features
• Highlighting memberships and loyalty programs.

Collections are currently only available in the US and for device only on devices running Android 12 or above. Source.

Google Play introduces Custom Audiences 

There is a new section on the Google Play Console - Custom Audiences. 

Accessible to developers who also have access to Promotional Content, this feature allows you to define groups of users by behavior and create tailored content for them, potentially increasing user engagement and retention.

With this, marketers and developers will now have better tools and settings to optimize their user journey and strengthen their acquisition, retention, and monetization strategies. Source.

Custom audiences can be defined using tags created through Google's Grouping API. Source.

Play Store customizable interest filters

With these interest filters, Play Store users can select preferences and receive game and app recommendations tailored to those interests. This supports Google’s efforts to make the Play Store experience even more enjoyable for its users.

Users can choose to disable interests if they prefer not to use the feature. Source.

According to Google, this feature is currently only available to US-based test users and will become widely available to all later this year. Source.

Google rolled out the new Search Tab 

Google rolled out the new Search Tab - this change includes personalized recommendations from previous searches and ads:

This new Search Tab from Google follows several UI tests on the App Store, showing header images of the store's Top Charts (Source):

🍏 Apple App Store 

View-Through Installs metrics live

Apple recently released new dimensions for the Installs, New Downloads, and Redownloads metrics in Apple Search Ads (Source):

• Tap-Through: Installs directly from ad taps.
• View-Through: Installs within 24 hours of viewing an ad without tapping.
• Total: Combined count of both Tap-Through and View-Through installs.

How could these metrics help you better track the performance of your ASA campaigns?

• Awareness Inventories (Today Tab, Search Tab, Product Tab): While these are not the best campaigns for direct installs, adding a figure on the number of installs an awareness campaign contributed to could help marketers make the case for these inventories.
• Non-Brand Search Results: Metrics will provide more insights into ASA's impact on organic search installs.
• Brand Defense: Metrics will show how brand defense campaigns can uplift installs, but could lead to underestimating costs if not carefully analyzed as they don't distinguish the percentage of organic installs from the installs coming from the ad placement.

💥 App Store Trends

With the recent close of the 2024 Paris Olympics, keywords related to the event such as “olympic games 2024”, “the olympics 2024” or “olympics schedule” have been slowly diminishing in popularity. 

Our new Trending Keywords feature indicates the fastest-growing keywords searched by users in your country and category.

In the US App Store, the upcoming NFL season is gaining momentum, already surpassing the Olympics buzz.

️🔥 Enhance your app marketing strategy with data-driven insights!

👋 That’s a wrap!

That's it for now! Stay tuned for the next updates on Android and iOS.

Anything that caught your eye? Let us know in the comments!