Measure your app's acquisition and retention

This article describes the acquisition report available in the old Play Console. This report is no longer available in Play Console as of November 2, 2020, however you can continue to export the acquisition and retention data from this report using Google Cloud Storage until August 1, 2021. A programmatic export for the new acquisition report will be made available in March 2021.

For more information about the acquisition report available in the new Play Console, including the ability to export data, refer to this article.

Once you've published an app on Google Play, you can review data on how users find and engage with your app's store listing.

If your app offers in-app products and/or subscriptions, you can also view your app’s average revenue per user and your app’s overall performance converting users to buyers and repeat buyers by acquisition channel or country.

Notes:

The Subscribers report is no longer available as of July 2019.
Acquisition and retention data is based on Pacific Time (PT) and is refreshed on a daily basis.
Some metrics are calculated based on data from users who have agreed to share their data with developers in aggregate. The metrics that we provide in Play Console are adjusted to more closely reflect data from all of your users. Historic information may be recalculated to reflect users that have opted out of sharing usage data.
Google will not display data that falls under certain minimum thresholds. You may see this data grouped into the "Other" category.

Review performance by channel or country

On your app's Acquisition reports page, you can review how users find your app's Play store listing and how they're using your app once it's installed.

Overview

Select and track a user cohort

Open Play Console.
Select an app.
On the left menu, click User Acquisition > Acquisition reports.
Select the Retained Installers or Buyers tab.
- Retained Installers: Shows unique users who visited your app's store listing, then installed your app, and kept your app installed for up to 30 days.
- Buyers: Shows unique users who visited your app’s store listing and the number of users who then bought one or more in-app products or subscriptions.
Set up the details of your report:
- To switch between acquisition channel and country views, use the "Measure by" drop-down.
- For your report to include users who installed your app without visiting your store listing or had the app pre-installed, check the box next to "Include installs without store listing visit."
- To choose a time-based user cohort, use the "Visitors from" drop-down.

Note: You can only select a tracking period on the Buyers tab. To select a tracking period, your app must offer in-app products or subscriptions. Otherwise, you'll see a 6-month tracking period by default.

See an example

If you updated your app with a new icon and in-app products on January 6, 2017, you can see how this affected your app's user acquisition performance for a week by selecting:

Visitors from: January 6, 2017 - January 12, 2017
Includes users that didn't already have your app installed on any of their devices and visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app during this period.
Range: Week
Tracks users who installed your app or bought an in-app item or subscription on your app within a week of visiting your app's store listing on the Play Store app.

Ways to use your user acquisition data

See how many of your app's store listing visitors took action within 7 days of visiting your app's store listing on the Play Store app.
Compare buyer data between acquisition channels or countries to find out which channels or locations attract the highest value users.
Compare date ranges to see how your app's user acquisition metrics have changed over time.
Compare how many of your app's installers kept your app on their device for 7 days vs. 30 days.

Acquisition report installs compared to install statistics

Your app's Acquisition reports page tracks user activity that can happen after the end of your date range. This means your install statistics can be higher on your app's Acquisition reports page compared to its Statistics page for the same date range.

See an example

If you select a date range of January 6, 2017 - January 12, 2017 and track visitors for a week:

A user that visits your app's store listing on the Play Store app on January 11 and installs it on January 15 would still be included in your Acquisition reports page's install data. This user would still be included because they visited your app's store listing within the specified date range and their activity was tracked for a week afterwards.

Types of user metrics

When viewing user acquisition data by channel or country, you'll see the following categories. Keep in mind you'll only see buyer metrics if you have permission to "View financial reports" and your app offers in-app products or subscriptions.

Store listing visitors: Unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app but haven't installed your app.
First-time installers: Unique users who installed your app "X" days after visiting your app's store listing on the Play Store app.
In the Buyers report
- Buyers: Unique users who bought at least one in-app product or had one or more subscription occurrence(s) "X" days after visiting your app's store listing on the Play Store app.
- Repeat Buyers: Unique users who bought at least two in-app products or had two or more subscription occurrences "X" days after visiting your app's store listing on the Play Store app.
In the Retained installers report
- Retained installers: Installers who kept your app on at least one of their devices for the number of days shown. Installation doesn't mean that the app was opened over this period.
  Note: Starting in September 2017, you may notice a decrease in your app's retained installers data. This is because we've reduced the time period over which we update retention data for reinstalls.

Note: Installs completed over-the-air or from the web on play.google.com are included in the "Play Store (Organic)" acquisition channel.

Download monthly reports

You can download and export monthly reports that include data on retained installers and buyers on the Download reports section of Play Console.

Here’s how to get to the monthly reports from your app’s Acquisition reports page:

Open Play Console.
Select an app.
On the left menu, click User acquisition > Acquisition reports.
Above the “Visitors from” drop-down, select Download.

View data by acquisition channel or country

Types of acquisition channels

When viewing user acquisition data by channel, you'll see the following categories:

All acquisition channels: Total number of unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app.
Play Store (Organic): Unique users who saw your app's store listing by browsing or searching on the Play Store app.
- Search: Unique users who found your app on Google Play from search results. These users are also counted in the Play Store (Organic) row.
- Explore: Unique users who found your app on Google Play but not from search results (for example, browsing a category or similar apps cards). These users are also counted in the Play Store (Organic) row.
Installs without store listing visit: Unique users who installed your app without seeing your store listing or had the app pre-installed. Includes some installs directly from search results, Play Store on the web, and installs available outside of your store listing. Excludes sideloads. Tracking period and user cohorts are defined by the installation event instead of the visit.
Tracked channels (UTM): Unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app from a UTM-tagged link.
Google Search (Organic): Unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app from a Google Search.
Google Ads: Unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app from a Google Ads ad. Data between Google Ads and Play Console can differ. For more information, go to using different data sources below.
Third-party referrers: Unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app from an untagged deep link to the Play Store.

Note: Over-the-air and web (play.google.com) impressions aren't tracked on your app's Acquisition reports page.

Detailed data

To see a detailed view of an acquisition channel, click the channel's name (if available).

Measure performance across countries

To view user acquisition data by country:

Open Play Console.
Select an app.
On the left menu, click User Acquisition > Acquisition reports.
Using the "Measure by" drop-down, select Countries or Countries (Play Store Organic).
- Countries: Total number of unique users who visited your app's store listing on the Play Store app per country.
- Countries (Play Store Organic): Unique users who visited your app's store listing by browsing or searching on the Play Store app per country.

Note: User acquisition data by country is available after February 1, 2016.

View average revenue per user by acquisition channel or country

If your app offers in-app purchases or subscriptions and you have “View financial data” permissions, you can view your app’s average revenue per user (ARPU) by acquisition channel or country. You can use this data to optimize your acquisition strategies and understand where your most valuable users come from.

Average revenue per user is calculated by taking the total revenue generated by a set of users through paid app purchases, in-app purchases, and subscriptions during time periods that you select and dividing it by the number of unique users that apply to a user metric (e.g., store listing visitors).

Note: Any refunds that occur during the selected time period are subtracted from the total revenue amount.

Open Play Console.
Select an app.
On the left menu, click User Acquisition > Acquisition reports.
Select the Buyers tab.
Set up the details of your report:
- To switch between acquisition channel and country views, use the "Measure by" drop-down.
- To adjust how long you want to track how much users spent after viewing your store listing for the first time, use the “Visitors from” drop-down.
Below each acquisition channel or country, the average revenue per user (ARPU) is available for each category of users.

Note: Average revenue per user includes all types of revenue generated on Google Play, but only from users who contribute to that metric. For example, a user has to make an in-app or subscription purchase to be included in “Buyers.” If an app is a paid app, the average revenue per user for “Buyers” also includes the cost of purchasing the app.

View charts and compare data

To view an acquisition channel's data as a chart, select a checkbox next to a channel. On the chart, the displayed percentages represent the conversion rate of users from one segment to the next segment.

Conversion rate peer comparison for Play Store traffic

When viewing your Acquisition or Countries Play Store (Organic) data, you may also see data showing how your app's store listing conversion rate performs against peers. These comparisons help you understand how you perform in relation to similar apps on Google Play.

When conversion rate peer comparison is available, you'll see a red or green bar and percentage listed under your performance metrics (including "Installers" and "Retained Installers"). The percentage indicates your app's conversion rate compared to the median. Expand the row to see the following details:

Peer group: Use the Peer group selector to choose a set of apps to compare your app with.
Monetization: Your app will be measured against others with the same monetization model, which can be either free, paid, or apps that include in-app purchases or subscriptions.
Conversion rate: To see your app's conversion rate, look for the "Your app" arrow.
Percentile of apps: Percentiles show the breakdown of conversion rates for apps from the selected peer group and using the same monetization model.
Opportunity: In some cases, you'll see a card with recommendations for how to improve your app's conversion rate.

Note: Comparisons will be available when there are enough apps with the specified peer group matching your app's monetization model.

Using different data sources

Due to different measurement methods, user acquisition data can vary across sources (including Google Ads, Google Analytics, and third-party tracking sources).

For example:

Play Console "Store listing visitors" data will differ from Google Ads clicks, since ad clicks won't always result in a Play Store visit; this may happen if a user clicks an ad but taps the back button before the Play Store loads. Ad clicks from the same user are only counted once in Play Console.
Play Console "Installers" data may differ from Google Ads conversion data. Your "Installers" data only includes unique users who installed your app for the first time. Google Ads conversions include all install events, including reinstalls and installs on multiple devices.

Download reports from Google Cloud Storage

You can access and download reports as CSV files from Google Cloud Storage. Reports are generated daily and accumulated in monthly CSV files.

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