With more than one billion people now using Android devices, being an app developer can be heavenly at this point, until you see that there are also over one million apps clamoring for mobile users' attention in the Google Play Store. While Google has offered a lot of tips and tricks on how to get discovered among the many apps out there, it is still only now that they're experimenting with bringing mobile app ads in search results to the Play Store.
Google announced that they will be doing a pilot test of letting app developers advertise directly on the Google Play Store by including paid search results when people look for certain categories or key words for apps. So for example, if you search for puzzle games, included in your results would be both paid and organic apps. The differentiation would be a small "Ad" button under the app that is being advertised.
Over the next few weeks, the first to be offered this capability are publishers that have already been advertising Google search ads for their apps. Not all users will also be able to see the ads first, just a select number of those who go to the Google Play Store. This is for both the pilot developers and users to test out this feature and provide feedback on mix of ads, keyword targeting, how the paid search affects the algorithms in their Top Chart, etc.
This new program will allow new developers the ability to compete with the already popular and established ones. That is, if they have enough money to bid for the keywords, just like you would any normal Google ads. One of the questions thought is that will it actually be detrimental to smaller developers and publishers who have great apps but maybe not the budget to advertise. We'll see more feedback as the pilot program goes underway.
SOURCE: Google
VIA: Tech Crunch