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During Google’s I/O 2015 developer conference, the search giant showed off all sorts of new projects and advances such as Now on Tap, Android M and more. However, one of the announcements that got the most applause from those in attendance seemed to be the changes to what Developers can do in the Google Play Store. Since evolving from the Android Market some years ago now, Google finally seems ready to tighten their grip on the Play Store and create a better app store for Android in the process. However, the company hasn’t lost their will to give Developers control over what they do, and with A/B Testing, Google announced a powerful tool coming to the Play Store.
On stage, Google announced that Developers would be able to perform A/B Testing on their Play Store listings, and see which combination of graphics and text worked the best. While testing things with partners like Kongregate, Google found that small changes to things as subtle as the app icon made a big difference, with installs increasing by as much as a third in some cases. Now, in a recent video, the Google Developers channel has detailed just what a Developer can change, and what sort of affect that will have on their app listing. Subtleties like new app icons, different screenshots and header images seem to make a huge effect, but the fact that you can scale things is really interesting. Developers can perform tests on a global scale, changing just the graphics, or on a regional scale allowing for the change of graphics as well as the language text. This would allow a developer to see what mix of graphics works in different parts of the world, better targeting the right audiences in different cultures.
How this Store Listing testing works is through experiments, and Google will collect and document the results from your experiments in the Play Store. Once all the data has been collected, you can go ahead and make this changes stick to your Play Store listing. This, along with the new Developer Pages, gives Developers on Android a fresh way to reach a new audience as well as better sell their brand to those looking for a new app or game. The video, which gives a brief introduction, is embedded below.