Acquisition reports help you understand and optimize your app's user base throughout its lifecycle by providing overall acquisition trends and insights into where your users are coming from. They also help you evaluate the performance of your store listing on Google Play by providing overall acquisitions, opens and pre-registration trends, and the impact of your store listing changes.
How we measure your performance
Opportunities to acquire users
The acquisitions reports measure how well your store listing acquires users, rather than installs, meaning conversion performance is calculated based on users who do not currently have your app installed on any of their devices. This focuses the report on the segment of store listing visits where your listing has the most impact, as users who already have your app installed on another device are generally more likely to install, regardless of your store listing assets.
New and returning users
By default, the report includes acquisitions from new users, who have never installed your app in the past, as well as returning users, who have previously installed your app but have since removed it from all of their devices. Viewing your overall acquisitions across both new and returning users gives the most comprehensive perspective on your store listing performance.
Performance across the user lifecycle
The Store analysis and acquisition reports now provide insights across the user lifecycle. This includes:
- Lead generation (Pre-registrations): It measures the number of users who have pre-registered for your app from your store listing, prior to your app's general availability.
- User engagement (Opens): It tracks the number of installed users who opened your app from your store listings at least once a day.
- New user acquisition: Measures the traditional acquisition of users who do not currently have your app installed on any of their devices.
- Returning user re-acquisition: Measures the re-acquisition of users who previously installed your app but have since removed it.
- Conversion rate: The percentage of store listing visitors who complete a desired action, such as installation, open or pre-registration.
Different ways to view your app's acquisition
You can use the different report pages, metrics, and dimensions to analyze your app’s acquisition in different ways.
Review overall acquisition performance with store analysis
The Store analysis page (Grow users > Store performance > Store analysis) provides a high-level overview of your acquisition performance to give key trends at a glance, and identify any areas that warrant further exploration.
The "All user acquisitions by type" chart shows acquisitions from all surfaces on Google Play. This includes acquisitions from promotional content across home pages, store listings, and top charts.
The store listings acquisitions chart shows acquisitions from your store listings only, and allows you to understand and optimize your store listings.
The “Store listing analysis" section now includes Opens and Pre-registrations in addition to existing metrics.
- Opens: The number of installed users who opened your app from your store listings at least once a day.
- Pre-registrations: The number of users who have pre-registered for your app from your store listing.
Note: If your app has never offered pre-registration, the "Pre-registrations" option will not be displayed.
The traffic sources table provides a breakdown of store listing acquisitions based on whether they came from Google Play search, Google Play explore, or from ads and referrals. The store listing acquisition section below summarizes your store listing performance statistics, including overall store visitors, acquisitions, and conversion rate. You can configure this data by country, language, app install state, or time period using the filters at the top of the page.
The breakdown tables for country, language, store listing, install state, search term, and UTM source and campaign provide a summary of the top performing values for each breakdown dimension. You can select Explore to jump into more detail for the specific dimension, or click the right arrow next to a specific value to view that value plotted over time on the Conversion analysis page (Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis).
Explore specific dimensions with conversion analysis
The Conversion analysis page (Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis) shows the visitors, acquisitions, and conversion rate for your store listing over a selected time period.
You can filter data based on traffic source, store listing, country, language, UTM source and campaign, or acquisition state, to get a deeper understanding of how well a subset of your visitors convert.
Store listing acquisitions only
Conversion analysis reports focuses on your store listings only, and includes acquisitions from:
- your store listing page, and
- the inline install overlay (sometimes shown when attempting to install from an ad).
The Conversion analysis report does not include visitors or acquisitions from other surfaces on Google Play (such as editorial content). It also does not include acquisitions recorded by Google Play that happen through other mechanisms (such as backup and restore).
Conversion rate benchmarks
You can use conversion rate benchmarks to compare your performance to your peers' performance, allowing you to determine where you have the biggest opportunity to improve. For example, if your conversion rate for a particular language is lower than your peers', investigate whether your listing is correctly translated in that language.
The store listing conversion rate chart allows you to compare your daily conversion performance to your peers' median, 25th, and 75th percentile. The breakdown table below allows you to compare your total conversion rate for the period with your peers' median for the last 28 days in the selected period.
Note: Benchmarks are only available for acquisitions when viewing performance by country, language, install state, or traffic source. Filters for these dimensions are also supported for up to one selection per dimension.
The Conversion rate benchmarks information has been moved to this dedicated Conversion analysis section, streamlining your analysis. The core functionality of conversion rate benchmarks remains unchanged, allowing you to continue comparing your performance using the same metrics and filters. These updates consolidate conversion-related information and clarify key metrics, providing a more efficient user experience.
Metrics and dimensions
Acquisition data is based on Pacific Time (PT). History is available from February 25, 2020.
Metrics| Metric | Definition |
| Open rate | This is the percentage of users who have your app installed, and opened it from your store listing. |
| Pre-registration rate |
This is the percentage of eligible users who pre-register for your app, showing initial interest. It's calculated by dividing successful pre-registrations by the total users offered that option. A higher rate indicates strong early interest, helping developers assess launch potential and refine pre-launch strategies. |
| Store listing |
This serves as your app or game's public-facing presence on the Google Play Store. It encompasses all the details and visuals that potential users encounter, including the app's name, descriptions, icon, feature graphic, screenshots, preview video, category, tags, and contact information. This listing is crucial for informing users about your app's capabilities, attracting downloads, and building trust. It offers flexibility through main and custom listings. Custom store listings enable targeted marketing by tailoring content to specific user segments, such as those from different countries or arriving via specific campaigns. This level of customization allows developers to optimize their app's appeal to diverse audiences within the Play Store. |
| Store listing acquisitions |
The number of users who visited your store listing and installed your app, who didn’t have it installed on any other devices at the time. Note: Your store listing acquisitions will be lower than your installs, as a user that installs your app on multiple devices is only counted once. |
| Store listing conversion rate | The percentage of store listing visitors who didn’t have your app installed, that resulted in acquisitions. |
| Store listing opens | This tracks the number of times users who have the app installed, opened it from your Store listing. |
| Store listing pre registration | The number of users who have pre-registrated for your app from your store listing. |
| Store listing visitors |
The number of users who visited your store listing who didn’t already have your app installed on any of their devices. Note: A user that visits your store listing multiple times is only counted once per day and per dimension. For example, a user that visits your listing once via search and then again via a direct link on the same day is counted twice. A user that visits your listing twice from the same link is counted once. |
| Dimension | Definition |
|---|---|
| Traffic source |
How the user got to your store listing. For example, by searching on Google Play. Go to the Traffic source values section below for a breakdown of traffic source values. |
| Country/Region | The country or region where the user’s Google account is registered. |
| Language | The language setting on the user’s device. |
| Search term |
The term the user searched for before navigating to your store listing. Only available for Google Play search. Note: This dimension is only available when traffic source is filtered by Google Play search. |
| UTM source |
The value of the |
| UTM campaign |
The value of the |
| App install state |
Whether the user is installing your app for the first time (new user), or has previously uninstalled it (returning user). Note: When you see references to "reacquisitions," we are referring to returning users. |
| Store listing | The store listing that the user visited. Either your default store listing, or a custom store listing. |
Overall store analysis
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Total store acquisitions | The total number of users who installed your app from any surface on Google Play and who didn't have it installed on any other devices at the time. |
| Google Play explore | Users who discovered and installed your app from browsing Google Play, without searching for it by name. This includes users who discovered your app on home pages, suggestions and top charts, or by searching for a category of apps. For example, "racing game." |
| Paid and direct |
The number of users who installed your app from an ad, referral, or search on Google Play containing your app's name or closely associated brand. |
Store listings analysis
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| All traffic sources | The total number of users who visited your store listing or a mini-detail page, then installed your app, who didn’t have it installed on any other devices at the time. This doesn't include acquisitions from surfaces such as banners on app category pages. |
| Google Play search | Users who visited your store listing by performing a search on Google Play for your app’s name or closely associated brand, then visited your store listing or a mini-detail page, before installing your app, and who didn’t have it installed on any other devices at the time. This does not include visits from ads shown on Google Play search results. |
| Google Play explore | Users who browsed Google Play, then visited your store listing, before installing your app, who didn't have it installed on any other devices at the time. This includes users who clicked on search autocomplete suggestions and users who searched for a category of apps. For example, "racing game." This does not include visits from ads shown on Google Play. |
| Ads and referrals | Users who visited your store listing from an ad or referral and who didn’t have it installed on any other devices at the time. This includes users who installed your app from an ad using the inline install overlay we sometimes show outside of Play Store. |
Frequently asked questions
How are ads acquisitions reported?As of November 2022, all visits from Google Ads are attributed to the Ads and referrals traffic source. Before this, visits from ads were reported based on where the ad was shown.
The Play Console does not provide reporting for Google Ad impressions or conversion. To track the performance of your Google Ads campaigns, sign in to your Google Ads account.
Use the Export report button on the Conversion analysis page to download the data currently displayed in the chart and table.
Note: You can also programmatically access the Retained installers and Buyers reports from the old Play Console using Google Cloud Storage. It is not currently possible to programmatically access the data presented in the new Play Console.
Benchmark data is only shown if there is sufficient data from your selected peer set for your current report configuration. If you don’t see benchmark information, try selecting a different peer set, removing filters, or selecting a different breakdown to display.
Note: Benchmarks are only available when viewing performance by country, language, install state, or traffic source. Filters for these dimensions are also supported for up to one selection per dimension.
The "Other" breakdown is shown when there are search terms, UTM sources, or UTM campaigns that did not have enough visitors or acquisitions over time to be reported individually.
Why are some countries/regions listed as "Unknown Region"?
Here are some common ways you can use the acquisition reports to analyze your store listing performance:
- Evaluate how changes to your store listing have affected conversion rates.
- Review Google Play search terms driving the most visits to see what users are most interested in.
- Monitor the performance of your UTM tracked campaigns.
- Identify countries with high visitors which may be good candidates for custom store listings.
- Identify languages with low conversion rates to determine where you need to improve translation.
- Evaluate whether offline marketing is driving high quality visitors to your listing.