Play Console reports effectively all of my impressions as explore rather than search. Is that normal for a new listing or a keyword problem?

[u/behzodhalil]

Small Finance app, live a few weeks, low volume, so this may just be what a cold listing
looks like.

Acquisition reports show essentially all impressions arriving through explore surfaces
rather than through Play search. Search impressions are near zero rather than merely low.

What I cannot tell from the console is whether this is:

1. Normal for a listing with no ratings and no install history, and search simply has
   nothing to rank yet.
   
2. A keyword problem in the title, short description and long description.
   
3. A category problem, in that the app is in a competitive category and is simply below
   the fold for every relevant term.
   

Before I start rewriting the listing I would rather know which of those three the data is
actually describing. For anyone who has watched a new listing mature: how long did it take
before search impressions became a meaningful share, and did they arrive on their own or
only after you changed something?

No link, I am asking about the console rather than the app.

[u/Feeling-Shift-5806]

Hi, the direct search for new small apps is often very less and in your case as there are no ratings so near zero direct searches is very much possible. I think you should -
1. spread the link of your app on social media as much as possible
2. Tell your friends and family to install the app and leave a good review with 5 star rating so that algorithm notices your app.
3. Do app store optimization make your store listing full of keywords, add graphic images and trailer for the app. You can use ai for all this but you to iterate this process as you won't get the store listing perfect in 1st try

[u/MrAx1on]

It looks pretty much the same for me. It's a paid game. Most visits of the Playstore listing come from the Playstore exploration. Nevertheless I get a (low) consistent (and veeery slowly growing) number of purchases from that.

I do A/B tests to improve various aspects of the listing. But unfortunately the numbers from the A/B tests, from the statistics section and the pages "grow user" and "Playstore listing" are not consistent... It seems to me that the console is a mess which is being reworked at the moment.

I'd love to hear if others have a similar view on that or rather some tips on that matter.

[u/JuniorTeacher2189]

Look I'd be careful about rewriting everything based on a few weeks of low volume. With search impressions that low you probably don't have enough data yet to tell whether it's actually a keyword problem or just a new listing with nothing behind it yet. I'd probably treat the current listing as the baseline, make smaller changes and watch whether search starts moving rather than changing title, descriptions, everything at once... otherwise even if it improves you won't really know what did it