Create custom store listings to target specific user segments (original) (raw)

With custom store listings, you can tailor your app’s store listing to appeal to specific user segments or to users who visit your listing via a unique custom store listing URL.

If your app has a global audience, you can use custom store listings to accurately showcase your app’s features and communicate what’s great about your app in ways that are relevant to different audiences. You can use custom store listings to target users in different countries, users who have pre-registered, users who search for specific keywords, or inactive users.

Another way to use custom store listings is to show a specific store listing to users who visit via a unique custom store listing URL, or from a specific Google Ads campaign. This can be an effective way to showcase relevant features about your app depending on where your users visited your store listing from.

Note: Custom store listing is one of two ways that Play Console can help you deliver differentiated experiences to users in different locations. To deliver store listing and app content based on the user’s language preference (or language preference-market pairs), consider adding translations for your app.

View examples of how you can use custom store listings

To help you think of creative ways to use custom store listings, here are a couple of different examples of how you can use them:

Example 1: Highlight features for English speakers in different countries

Imagine that you have a video streaming app with a potentially large audience in the United States and Singapore, two countries with a high percentage of English-speaking users.

To effectively market your store listing to users in both countries, you want to highlight different content (for example, popular TV shows) and features that appeal to most users in each country. Here’s how you can do this using your store listing:

• Create a main store listing in English: Since the United States is your primary market, you can create a main store listing for users in the United States and other countries that use English (en-US) as its default language. You can include celebrities that are popular in the United States in your screenshots, and mention your app’s “offline viewing mode” in your short description because it’s a popular feature in the United States.
• Create a custom store listing for Singapore: To market your app to Singapore, you can create a custom store listing that targets users in Singapore. Since your target users are likely to be English speakers, you can set your custom store listing’s default language to English (en-US). You can also include celebrities that are popular in Singapore in your screenshots, and mention 4K video in your short description as it’s a popular feature in Singapore.

Results

Example 2: Use multiple default languages to market your app

Imagine that you have a cookbook app that’s popular in the United States and Latin American countries, specifically Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil.

To attract users with recipes and descriptions that would appeal to them, you want to customize your store listing for specific markets. Here’s how you can do this using your store listing:

• Create a main store listing in English: Since the United States is your largest market, you can create a main store listing in English (en-US) that’s designed for both users in the United States and a global audience.
• Create a custom store listing for Latin American countries in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese: To market your app to users in Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil, you can create a custom store listing called "Latin America" that targets users in those countries. You can make Spanish in Latin America (es-419) the default language, and add a translation in Brazilian Portuguese (pt-br). You can also include screenshots and descriptions that appeal to Latin American users.

Results

Example 3: Highlight features of your app depending on how your users visit your store listing

Imagine that you have a fitness app that covers many different activities such as swimming, running, cycling, yoga, or similar. These different activities are marketed to different audiences outside of Google Play.

To make your store listing more relevant based on what your users may be interested in, you want to feature a specific activity based on whether a user visited your store listing via an embedded Google Play link on a page talking about that specific activity.

• Create a main store listing in English: Create a regular main store listing for users who visit without navigating via a custom store listing URL. This listing may include aspects of all the activities that the app offers.
• Create a custom store listing for each of your activities: For each custom store listing, add screenshots and descriptions that match the activity it is for. Choose a unique URL parameter name that matches the listing’s activity.
• Share the unique custom store listing URL on relevant pages: Each unique URL will navigate the user to the corresponding activity’s custom store listing. Embed these unique custom store listing URLs on relevant web pages that describe or market each activity.

Example 4: Create a store experience matched to a specific Google Ads App Campaign

Imagine that you are running an online campaign highlighting a new feature of your app to a specific demographic using a Google Ads app campaign.

To make your store listing more consistent with the message of your campaign, you want to include similar creatives in your Google Play store listing assets. This way, when a user clicks through from an ad, they will continue to see consistent information as they consider whether to install your app or game.

• Create a main store listing: Create a regular main store listing for users who visit without navigating via an Ad. This listing may include aspects of all the activities that the app offers.
• Create a custom store listing for each of your Google Ads campaigns: For each custom store listing, add screenshots and descriptions that match the Google Ads creatives it is for. You will be asked to paste in the Google Ads AdGroupID, which you can find in your Google Adwords dashboard.
• Save and publish your store listings: Once saved and published, users who click on an ad with your given AdGroupIDs will see your custom store listing's assets across different Google Play surfaces.

Results

Note: Ads-targeted listings do not yet support all of Google Ads' formats for app campaigns. You should expect to see custom assets when arriving at your listing from Google’s AdMob network on Android. More formats will be supported in the future.

Guidelines

You can create up to 50 custom store listing pages. If you’ve already created an app with a store listing, its existing store listing becomes its default store listing, which is shown to users in countries that you don’t target with a custom store listing.

Before you create your first custom store listing, here are some important things to know:

What you can customize

• For each custom store listing, you can customize your app’s name, icon, descriptions, and graphic assets.
• Your app’s contact details, privacy policy, and app category are shared across all versions of your app's store listing.

Targeting via a unique custom store listing URL

• To target using a unique custom store listing URL, you must provide a string parameter that is unique across all your custom store listings.
• Valid inputs for the parameter include lowercase alphanumeric characters and the following symbols: [".", "-", "_", "~"].
• Once created, your custom store listing can be accessed by users via the following URL: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=\[packageName\]&listing=\[parameter\]

Country targeting

• You can target multiple countries with a custom store listing, but you can only target a country with one custom store listing at a time.
• For example, if you have a custom store listing that targets the United States and Canada, you can’t target the United States and Canada with other custom store listings.

Google Ads campaign targeting

• You can target users that land on your store listing from a Google Ad.
• You can enter one or more Ad group IDs, separated by a comma.

Translations

• Custom store listings aren’t automatically translated, so you need to choose a default language when you create them.
• Unless you add translations for your custom store listings, they’re shown to users in the countries that you select in your custom store listing’s default language.
• It’s recommended that you add translations for all of the languages that are spoken in the countries that you target with a custom store listing.

Create a custom store listing

To create a custom store listing:

1. Open Play Console.
2. Select an app.
3. On the left menu, select **Grow users > Store presence > Custom store listings.
   • If you don’t already have a default store listing for your app, you need to create one and publish your app before you can create a custom store listing.
4. Select Create custom store listing.
5. Select an option:
   • Create a new listing: You will provide all the assets.
   • Duplicate an existing listing: You will start with a copy of the assets from one of your existing listings (including your default store listing).
   • Create a new listing within a group: The listing will use the group’s available assets by default. For more information, see Create a store listing group.
6. In the "Listing details" section, type a name for your custom store listing.
   • Tip: Your custom store listing’s name is only for your reference and isn’t visible to users, so choose a name that’s helpful to you, like "North America" or "Countries in Asia." The name can’t be edited once created.
7. Next to "Targeting," select the group of users that you want to see your custom store listing, by selecting country, URL, search keyword, and/or user state.
   • Note: Your app’s distribution and testing settings may affect your ability to select certain options or certain combinations of options. Here are some common examples of why certain segments may not be available:
     * Used in another custom store listing: Country or region is unavailable because you’ve already targeted the country with a different custom store listing.
     * Pre-registration: User state targeting allows you to show a different store listing to users in countries or regions where your app is in pre-registration. Users in countries or regions where your app has been released to production or open or closed testing will not see this listing.
     * App not yet released to production or testing: Country/region is unavailable because you haven’t yet released your app to production or a testing track there. If the app is in internal, open, or closed testing tracks, it will only be discoverable for users in these tracks.
     * Unavailable in Google Play: Country is unavailable because you don’t distribute the app there.
     * Inactive users: These are users who have done the following:
     * Downloaded your app over 28 days ago.
     * Haven't used it within the last 28 days or have uninstalled it from all their devices
8. In the "App details" section, choose a default language by selecting Manage translations > Change default language.
   • Note: Unless you add translations, users in the countries you select will see your store listing in the default language. If you want to add translations for your app, select Manage your own translations.
9. Next to "App details," type a name and a short and full description.
10. In the "Graphics" section, upload your graphic assets.

• Tip: Go to Graphic assets, screenshots, and videos and read through our content guidelines for each asset type.

1. Select Create.

Create store listing for search keywords

With search keyword targeting, you can define the set of Play Search keywords that will lead to your custom store listing.

1. When selecting your target audience, select Search keywords.
2. Click Select search keywords.
3. Choose from the available keywords, we know bring you traffic, by clicking them. Note the following:

• You can also enter and run searches for new keywords.
• You can click View variations for any keyword to see the spelling corrections and translations that are also included in this bundle of keywords. You can select and deselect items as needed for your listing.
• Click Save to keep your variation selections and return to the previous screen.

1. Click Save.
2. On the new setup page for your new search keyword listing, enter the relevant details and provide assets as required by following the steps in the previous section.

• Note: You may see a blue highlight box offering to "Generate descriptions using Gemini." We use Gemini models to generate a new set of descriptions using your published default store listing text, and your chosen search terms. You can insert these suggestions and edit them or discard them.

Create a store listing group

You can make groups based on anything you find helpful. For example, a holiday-themed group with custom screenshots for each country.

All apps start with a default group called "Default store listing group," which is based on the assets from your default store listing. Use this group to quickly create variants of your default store listing.

When you create a listing within a group, the listing will inherit the icon, screenshots, descriptions, and other assets from that group by default. You can then add custom assets to adjust any individual listing. Updating a group asset will update that asset in all listings in the group. For example, you can update the icon for all the listings in a group by changing the group’s icon only.

To create a custom store listing group:

1. Open Play Console.
2. Select an app.
3. On the left menu, select **Grow users > Store presence > Custom store listings.
   • If you don’t already have a default store listing for your app, you need to create one and publish your app before you can create a custom store listing.
4. Select Create group.
5. Select an option:
   • Create a new group: You will provide all the assets.
   • Duplicate an existing group: You will start with a copy of the assets from one of your existing groups.
6. In the "Group assets" section, type a name for your custom store listing group.
   • Tip: Your group’s name is only for your reference and isn’t visible to users, so choose a name that’s helpful to you, like "North America Group" or "Holiday Group." The name can’t be edited once created.
7. In the "Group details" section, choose a default language by selecting Manage translations > Change default language.
   • Note: Unless you add translations, users in the countries that you select will see your store listing in the default language. If you want to add translations for group’s listings, select Manage your own translations.
8. Next to "Group assets," type a name, and a short and full description.
9. In the "Graphics" section, upload your graphic assets.
   • Tip: Go to Graphic assets, screenshots and videos and read through our content guidelines for each asset type.
10. Select Create group.

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