Google offers new tools for developers in Google Play

Google on Thursday announced during the I/O 2015 keynote that Play Store saw over 50 billion app installs over the past year and it is now accessible to more than one billion users every month. Now, to help the developers reach more of these billion users and drive their application downloads, the company is introducing several new tools, which will be available to the Google Play app developers over the next few months.

Here is quick look at some of what Google announced:

A/B testing for Play Store listings: Google has now given you the ability to A/B test your Play Store listings to check what works with the users and what doesn’t. You can run experiments with different versions of text and graphics to see which are most effective in converting visits into installs on Google Play.

Developer pages: To help you make your application discoverable in Google Play, the company is giving you the ability to create your own developer page. In this page, you will be able to add your own graphic, text about what your company is about and an app to highlight. These developer pages will help you promote your applications.

Cloud Test Lab: No need looking for devices to test your Android app or paying the third-party service that offers device testing support, Google will soon integrate their brand new Cloud Test Lab in dev console, which will allow you to automatically test your apps on hundreds of popular physical Android devices for free.

“For each APK you upload to an alpha or beta channel, Google Play will execute fully automated testing of your app against physical devices matching your app targeting criteria and output a report with a detailed analysis of issues, including screenshots and logs. Google Cloud Test Lab will roll out to all developers later this year; you can sign-up to become a tester in the Developer Console now,” Google wrote in a blog post.

App install ad campaigns: In the coming months, the developers will be able to setup Adwords ad campaigns directly from the Google Play developer console. All you will need the total budget and the amount you are willing to spend per user and Google will intelligently scale your ads across their networks including Search, AdMob, YouTube and Google Play search ads (currently in pilot phase).

Metrics on where the users are coming from: Whether or not you have paid for ads, Google will soon show information about how many users visited your Play Store listing, installed your app, or made purchases. You will also see the source of users – organic or paid. It is pretty much like having Google Analytics in dev console.

New data in Play Games: Over the next few months, Google will add new reports, player segments, game metrics, and event types to Player Analytics in Google Play Games.

As I mentioned with the specific tools, most of these will be arriving in the coming months, so keep an eye out at your Google Play developer console for these new features.