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12 tactics from Sarah Karam
Insider Tips for Building Better, More Profitable Android Apps — Sarah Karam, Google
Watch the full episode“We often urge people who are so fixated on getting featuring from the store that is wonderful and there's so much else you can do... really urge everyone to not anchor exclusively on featuring as the method for growth.”
Getting Featured on Google Play Is a Spike, Not a Strategy — Build the Foundation First
Google's own Play Store lead cautions against treating editorial featuring as a business strategy. Even when featuring happens, it produces a spike that still requires marketing infrastructure beneath it. Developers who anchor on featuring instead of building sustainable growth loops are outsourcing their fate to an editorial team they can't control.
“The best way to get their attention the editorial team is to build an incredible app have a very high user rating... that is what we look for in featuring because we know that typically is what will actually work really well.”
High App Ratings Are a Hard Prerequisite for Google Play Editorial Featuring
Google's editorial team starts with app quality signals — most importantly, user rating — before considering any app for featuring. Low ratings are a signal of product problems, not just a ranking issue. Reaching out for featuring while sitting at sub-4-star ratings wastes everyone's time; the product work must come first.
“You can now target based on keywords so if I find your app based on a certain keyword search you might want to show me a very different custom store listing experiment to maximize my conversion... we're also suggesting the keywords that are important ones for you to customize.”
Custom Play Store Listings Targetable by Keyword Boost Organic Search Conversion
Google Play now lets developers serve different store listing variants based on the search keyword that brought a user to the page. Someone searching 'meditation for sleep' should see a sleep-focused listing, not a generic brand one. The store even suggests which keywords warrant custom listings based on traffic signals — a largely unused conversion lever.
“Google has 190 markets supported 165 carrier billing options 300 different local payment options... the ease of payment on Google Play is something the teams have been putting a ton of effort into to make it so much easier for people to pay.”
Google Play Offers 300 Local Payment Options — Web-Redirect Advocates Often Miss This
Developers advocating to bypass Google Play billing in favor of web payments often overlook the platform's payment breadth: 300 local payment methods, carrier billing across 165 operators, and coverage in 190 markets. For emerging markets especially, Google Play's native payment options convert far better than web redirects, which lack familiar local methods.
“Installment payments like you mentioned is not just popular in Brazil for users who might feel the sticker shock of a large amount it's actually just the way to pay... it's not about being creative it's being thoughtful and not everyone in the world subscribes the same way.”
Installment Payments Unlock Markets Where Recurring Subscriptions Are Regulated or Culturally Avoided
In markets like India, recurring subscription auto-renewals face regulatory pushback. Google Play's installment payment option lets users pay for a full year of access in fixed chunks — no auto-renewal, no sticker shock, no regulatory conflict. For apps targeting global users, offering installments can capture an audience that would never subscribe on a recurring basis.
“It is very cool and I love that we're allowing a flow for when you're no longer a student that you can quickly move to the next non-student plan in a seamless way as well so you don't churn out that user.”
Student Plans With Auto-Expiry Convert Young Users Without Leaving Value on the Table
Google Play's student plan feature lets developers offer discounted access with verified student status, and automatically transitions the user to full-price when student status expires. This captures a price-sensitive but high-lifetime-value cohort — students who build habits on an app often become paying professionals. The key is the seamless graduation flow, not just the discount itself.
“Instead of offering a 7-day free trial maybe you offer a 7-day pass that's two bucks and if there's a really low barrier to entry and the user sees a lot of value then you kind of get them in at this cheaper price and then if they do see a ton of value that's the on-ramp to the subscription.”
A $2 Paid 7-Day Pass Beats a Free Trial for High-COGS AI Apps
For apps with high cost of goods — particularly AI apps where inference costs are real — a 7-day paid pass at $2 replaces a free trial. It filters out users who would never pay, generates contribution margin to offset inference costs, and still provides the on-ramp experience. Users who complete a $2 week have already demonstrated willingness to pay before committing to an annual subscription.
“The majority of users who will purchase in an app including subscriptions and beyond tend to wait over a year before they make their purchase... there's a big audience out there that won't be convinced in the first few days of your app that they're willing to pay but they will be one day.”
Most Android Purchasers Wait Over a Year Before Buying — Freemium Patience Compounds
Google's internal data shows the median Android subscriber converts more than a year after installing the app. This fundamentally changes how to value freemium users: the free user who has been in the app for eight months is not a lost conversion — they are likely a future subscriber. Lifecycle marketing, habit formation, and ongoing value delivery for free users compound into subscriptions on a multi-month timeline.
“Hitting copy and paste on your iOS strategy is probably not going to work on Google Play... you've got the $2,000 device and you've got a $200 device and the users who are on the more premium devices actually behave quite similarly to iOS... but that will not get you the full benefit.”
Don't Copy-Paste iOS Strategy to Android — Devices, Users, and Willingness to Pay Differ
Premium Android device users behave like iOS users — but they are a fraction of the 2.5 billion Android install base. The majority of Android users worldwide are on mid-range and entry-level devices with different price sensitivities, payment preferences, and usage patterns. Developers who narrow their strategy to iOS-parity targeting leave the majority of the platform's scale untouched.
“The developers who are based out of Asia Pacific and who have been more willing to experiment with subscriptions and IAP actually tend to find really good success in the US... the US is one of the largest mid to entry level device markets for Android — everyone being on a premium device is just not true.”
Asia-Pacific Developers Who Run Hybrid IAP + Subscriptions Outperform US-Only Subscription Approaches in the US
Asia-Pacific developers, accustomed to building for diverse price points, bring hybrid IAP + subscription models that perform surprisingly well in the US — a market with more mid-range Android users than most people expect. Their comfort with non-subscription revenue experiments gives them an edge over US developers who default to subscriptions-only without testing the demand curve.
“I'm going to say something radical right now — I think it could be a fit for anyone's business and I think there's something out there that is a good fit for consumable... if you're very early stage and you're a subscription model a year or two in that might not be the right time.”
Consumables Can Fit Any Business — Start With Pricing Experiments Before Virtual Currency
Sarah argues consumables — often dismissed as a gaming mechanic — have analogs in almost every app category. The sequencing matters: start with pricing and plan experiments (low complexity), then layer in small consumables (a podcast bundle, a 7-day pass), and only move to virtual currencies at maturity. The trap is jumping to full IAP ecosystems before mastering simpler monetization primitives.
“Apps that find solid secondary product market fit have almost triple the minutes with their daily active users and almost double the daily active user to monthly active user ratio... what Calm did really well is they were out to solve a set of user problems that have some common symptoms.”
Secondary Product-Market Fit Nearly Triples DAU Minutes and Doubles DAU/MAU Ratio
Google's internal data shows apps that find a secondary use case — Calm expanding from meditation to sleep stories — see engagement metrics nearly double and triple. The insight is to think about the underlying user problem (poor sleep, anxiety) rather than the feature category (meditation app). Secondary PMF comes from solving adjacent symptoms of the same problem, not from bolting on unrelated features.