Create promotional content - Play Console Help (original) (raw)

Promotional content event can be created at any time, but the earliest they can be submitted is 60 days before the event start date. It can take up to four days to approve your event; so we recommend that you submit your event at least four days before the start date to ensure it goes live in time.

Promotional content eligibility

Note for Game Developers: The new Google Play Games Level Up program is here, replacing our previous premium growth tools. Feature access for promotional content is now different for games and apps. Please see the details below relevant to your content type.

The following steps outline how to create your promotional content event.

Step 1: Create a promotional content event

1. Go to the **Promotional content**page (Grow users > Store presence > Promotional content).

2. Click Create Event.

Step 2: Add event information

After you've created your event, you must add the following information:

• Event name: An internal event name that is only displayed in Play Console.
• Event type: Choose an event type (see Types of promotional content).
• Countries/regions: One or more countries or regions where this event will be displayed
• Start date and time and End date and time: The start and end dates and times for your event, which can have a maximum duration of four weeks. The same event can be run across multiple countries with different start and end dates:
  • Select +countries/regions to choose one or more countries to have the same start and end dates.
  • Repeat this for additional countries that share different start or end dates
  • Note the following:
    * Events should all start within the same quarter and each event will consume one item of quota.
    * Offers can be set to have no end time. This is useful when you have a standard offer for a type of user, such as a new-starter offer. Selecting this will automatically set eligibility for your offer to new users only. We plan to introduce more eligibility criteria such as buyer-state, time since the last engagement, and churned users in the future.
    * Major updates have a set duration of 28 days, and pre-registration announcements have a set duration of one week.
    * Preview event: Choose whether or not you want to show your event on Google Play before its start time and specify a number of days before your start date, up to a maximum of 14 days. This allows users to choose to be notified when your event begins. Preview events are selected by default, so make sure you change the selection if you don't want to show your event before the start date. You cannot preview offers.
• Choose audiences: You can choose to target different audiences, these are defined by Google Play:
  • Everyone or potential users:
    * Everyone: Everyone on Play who already has your app, or is eligible to install it
    * **Potential users:**Users who have never installed your app from Play
  • A specific audience: Note: Buyer state options are only compatible with purchases that use Google Play billing system.
    * User state:
    * Churned users: Users who uninstalled your app
    * Lapsed users: Users who haven't opened your app in the last 28 days
    * Lapsed and churned users: Users who uninstalled your app, or haven't opened your app in the last 28 days
    * Buyer state:
    * Non-buyers: Users who installed but never bought from your app
    * One-time buyers: Users who only bought from your app once
    * **Repeat buyers:**Users who bought from your app more than once. This includes subscription payments.
    * Lapsed buyers: Users who bought from your app, but haven't bought in the last 180 days
    * Custom audiences: You can create your own audiences based on your data that is unique to your users. Learn more.
    * Note: Buyer state options are only compatible with purchases that use Google Play billing system.

Note:

• The different start dates should be within the same quarter.
• The overall event will use a single featuring request.

Deep linking

You can use deep linking to direct users to specific content and track their engagement. Add deep links to your events to guide users to a precise location within your app. This not only improves user experience but also allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your events by tracking user actions initiated from those deep links. Learn more.

Step 3: Request featuring

By default, all events will show on your store listing page.

If you are eligible for promotional content featuring, and you have available requests, then you can also request featuring when creating an event. After creating an event with featuring requested, your app and/or event may be shown on high-visibility areas of Google Play, including the homepage and search results.

For your featuring requests to have a chance of success, both your app and your event content must meet Google’s app quality guidelines and content quality guidelines. Even with featuring requested and your app and content meeting our guidelines, featuring is not guaranteed.

The number of times you can request featuring is limited per quarter. Your featuring requests reset at the beginning of each quarter. Each audience you can target has a different and independent allotment of featuring requests.

• Events targeting a broad audience (all users or potential users):
  • Game developers: 4 featuring requests per quarter
  • App developers: Up to 6 featuring slots per quarter
• Events targeting a specific audience:
  • Game developers: 2 featuring requests per quarter
  • App developers: 2 featuring requests per quarter

Note: You can create as many events as you'd like each quarter without requesting featuring. This will not use any of your featuring requests.

Important: Events with featuring requested must be submitted at least 14 days prior to the event start date.

How featuring works

The featuring request tracker on the Promotional content page updates only after the event is submitted.

A featuring request is used when all of the following conditions are met:

• You requested featuring for the event
• The event starts in the current quarter
• You submitted the event (not a draft)

Note: Events that target multiple countries with different start and end dates will only use one featuring request.

A featuring request won’t be used if any of the following conditions are met:

• The event with featuring requested is a draft
• You cancel the event with featuring requested before it starts
• You resubmitted an event after it failed a quality review (the original featuring request is used but no additional requests are used).

Step 4: Add event text and graphical assets

Next, provide the following text and graphical assets event:

• Tagline (required): Make sure that your tagline is descriptive and specific to your event. Don’t use a generic tagline that could be reused for other events or by other titles. If you're configuring an offer, include the items that are being discounted, and by how much. For example: "Holiday sale! 25% off when you spend over $50," "New course: try Prince’s Highway this weekend and unlock your exclusive legendary car," or "Buy any 4 books for the price of 3."
• Description (required): Don't duplicate your tagline text in your event’s description; it will be shown alongside the tagline in Google Play. Make sure that your description is relevant to the event. If you're configuring an offer, include any relevant limitations or conditions, such as eligibility, total number available, number per user, or how to claim. The description should be as expressive as possible so that even users who may not know your app or game would understand it. See description requirements.
• **Animated image (optional):**Aim for animations that clearly and concisely communicate the core message of your event, update, or offer. A great animation is both informative and engaging. Ensure the animation is smooth, does not have cutoff zone issues, and does not contain text such as brand logos, slogans or app/game names. See animation requirements.
• Primary image (required): Make sure your image is relevant to the event and helps users to visualize the event. Don't include any text on images (including brand logos, slogans, or app/game names), and don't include critical visual elements into cutoff zones. See image requirements.
• Square image (required): Required to be shown on various Google Play surfaces and lists. See image requirements.
• Video (highly recommended): This must be a public YouTube video with monetization turned off. See video requirements.

A common reason for events and offers being rejected by our review team is that they have been entered in the wrong language. Make sure that you enter your tagline and description in the correct language(s).

Note: The default language is the language the developer has set when the app was created.

Step 5: Localize (Recommended)

We recommend that you localize your event into different languages so you can reach users in different countries, similar to custom store listings. Select Manage translations > Manage your own translations and select the additional languages you’d like to provide for your event.

Note: Other languages will use the graphic assets you uploaded in step 3 by default. You can manually provide locale-specific assets by selecting a language and uploading the required graphic assets for each locale.

Step 6: Submit and publish your event

Click Submit event to publish it on Google Play. You can click Save as draft to save your work without submitting it to Google Play.

Important: You can’t edit your event after you submit it, so double-check your work before submitting it.

Copy an event

To make it easier to create similar events, you can copy information from previous events.

Prerequisite: Review the content quality guidelines to ensure that this event is sufficiently different from the original. You cannot have events that are identical or very similar to each other live at the same time.

To copy a promotional content event:

1. Go to the Promotional content page (Grow users > Store presence > Promotional content).
2. On the main page, click Copy to new event.
3. A copy of the event will be created. You can edit the details you want to change (these details are described in the preceding section Create promotional content).

Tips for completing the CSV template

• event_ID: Leave this blank for new events
• Event_type: Must be one of: OFFER, TIME-LIMITED_EVENT, MAJOR_UPDATE
• Priority: Must be one of: FEATURING_REQUESTED, FEATURING_NOT_REQUESTED
• submission_state: Must be one of: DRAFT, SUBMITTED
• start_time_utc and end_time_utc: Times are in UTC and must follow the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
• default_language_code: Enter language code separated by ";"
• countries: Enter country codes separated by ";"
• taglines and long_description: Should use the format: language code=tagline and separated by ";" for each language.
  • For example: en-US=testUS;en-GB=testGB
• images/video_ids: Similar to taglines, you can target graphic assets by language. If you don’t have localized assets, just use the default_language_code and we will use that same asset for all other languages you are targeting. For example:
  • en-US=testus.jpg;en-GB=testgb.jpg
  • en-US=YeT0t1C_y20;en-GB=r-ERajkMXw0
• user_eligibility: For offers, one of EVERYONE, NEW_USERS_ONLY (keep this empty if event_type is something other than _OFFER_)
• preview_opt_in: Is one of: OPT_IN, OPT_OUT
• preview_time_utc: Follows the format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM
• Event_subtype:
  • If Offer must be one of: DISCOUNT, VALUE_ADD, FREE_REWARD, SUBSCRIPTION_TRIAL
  • If Time-limited event, must be one of: COMPETITION_CHALLENGE, REAL-TIME, or SPECIAL
  • If Major update, must be one of: FEATURES_&_ANNOUNCEMENTS, NEW_CONTENT, or PRE_REGISTRATION _UPDATE

Frequently asked questions

How much featuring quota does an event with multiple countries groups with different start or end dates consume?

A single multi-country event uses only one quota item, no matter how many country groups you create.

Are there any limitations on start and end dates?

Yes.

Start dates: All start dates across all country groups must be within the same calendar quarter. If you need to run the event across multiple quarters, you must create separate events for each quarter.

End dates: Existing event end date rules still apply (e.g., Time-limited events must end within 30 days of the start date.)

Does this new feature affect content quality reviews?

No. The content quality review process remains unchanged.

How will events with different start dates be featured?

Events will be eligible for featuring from the start date selected for each country.

What is "Preview event"?

The "Preview event" feature allows users to sign up to be notified when the event launches in their country. It's a great way to build excitement and pre-launch engagement.

Important Note: If you attempt to set start dates outside of the current calendar quarter, you will receive an error message. You will need to create a separate event for each quarter.

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