How to read Play Console store performance and acquisition reports
Play Console's acquisition data lives under Grow users: the Grow overview shows user acquisitions by traffic source, and Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis shows store listing visitors, Install, Open and Pre-register clicks and click-through rate by traffic source, country, language, search term and UTM tag, with click-through rate replacing the legacy conversion rate since mid-2026.
Play Console splits acquisition data across a few pages. The Grow overview answers "how many users did I get and from where"; Conversion analysis answers "how well does my store listing turn visitors into clicks"; Statistics and the monthly exports keep the long history. Since mid-2026 the listing reports count clicks, not completed installs, so older numbers need care.
Where are the reports in Play Console?
The reports sit under Grow users in the left menu, plus the Statistics page and the monthly reports.
| Page | Where | What it shows |
|---|---|---|
| Grow overview | Grow users (also reachable from the Dashboard) | User or device acquisitions, first opens, monthly active users and 7-day retention for the last 28 days, 90 days or 6 months, broken down by traffic source |
| Conversion analysis | Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis | Store listing visitors, Install, Open and Pre-register clicks, and click-through rate, filtered by traffic source, store listing, country, language, UTM source and campaign, or install state |
| Statistics | Statistics | Custom reports with dimensions; an App statistics tab and a Compare to peers tab; both the legacy acquisition metrics and the new click metrics |
| Store listings and experiments | Grow users > Store presence > Store listings | Your default and custom listings, and store listing experiments with their results |
| Monthly reports | Manage account > Play apps reports, and Google Cloud Storage | CSV files, including the store performance export by country and by traffic source |
Play Console's statistics help also lists a Store analysis page ("understand your installs from Play") and the Store listing conversion analysis page as the two acquisition views.
What changed in the 2026 report update?
Google changed the store listing reports in mid-2026. The note on its help page reads: "From July 2026, Google Play updated store listing performance reports to focus on user intent (clicks) rather than successful outcomes (acquisitions)." The same page also says the click-based metrics became primary "from June 2026", so date your comparisons carefully.
What this means in practice:
- Click-through rate (CTR) is now the main rate of the store listing pages, and "replaces the legacy Conversion Rate metric".
- Store listing acquisitions (completed installs) moved out of the listing pages; they are "available in Statistics and via Exports".
- The legacy CSV reports in Cloud Storage keep only the original acquisition metrics.
- Store listing experiments also use click targets: you pick unique user install clicks, open clicks or pre-registration clicks as the target metric.
Earlier dated note on the Dashboard: from January 2025 some legacy metrics are no longer supported in the Monitor trends section; if you remove one, you cannot add it back.
What does each metric mean?
These are Google's definitions, shortened.
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Store listing visitors | Users who visited your listing and did not already have the app installed on any of their devices; a user is counted once per day per dimension |
| Unique user Install Clicks | Unique users who clicked Install on your listing |
| Unique user open clicks | Unique users who clicked Open on your listing |
| Unique user Pre-registration clicks | Unique users who clicked Pre-register |
| Click-through Rate (CTR) | Share of store listing visitors who clicked Install, Open or Pre-register |
| Store listing acquisitions | Users who visited your listing and installed the app, without having it on any other device at the time |
| Store listing conversion rate (exports) | Share of store listing visitors who installed the app |
| User acquisitions | Users who installed the app and did not have it on any other device; includes device activations with the app preinstalled |
| Total impressions, Device impressions, User impressions | Views of your app on Google Play: icon, details page, promotional content and other content about your app |
Counting detail: a person who visits once via search and once via a direct link on the same day counts twice (two dimensions); two visits from the same link count once. Adding daily visitors across days gives a higher total than the weekly or monthly views.
Which traffic sources does Play report?
Play uses two different source lists, one per page. Do not mix them.
| Page | Source | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Grow overview | Google Play explore | Installs from browsing without searching your name: home pages, suggestions, top charts, category searches such as "racing game" |
| Grow overview | Paid and direct | Installs from an ad, a referral, or a Play search containing your app's name or closely associated brand |
| Grow overview | Not attributed | Not enough information, including reactivations and backup-and-restore installs |
| Store listing reports | Google Play search | Searches for your app's name or closely associated brand; ads on search results excluded |
| Store listing reports | Google Play explore | Browsing, autocomplete suggestion taps and category searches; ads excluded |
| Store listing reports | Ads and referrals | Ads and referral links, including the inline install overlay outside the Play Store; all Google Ads visits land here |
The key point: in these reports "Google Play search" means brand search. Generic searches count as explore. A rise in "search" therefore usually reflects more people looking for you by name, not a better rank for generic keywords.
How do you see search terms?
Open Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis and choose search term as the breakdown. Google defines it as the term the user searched for before navigating to your listing. Terms, UTM sources or UTM campaigns with too few visitors over time are grouped as "Other". The monthly store performance export (traffic_source breakdown) has the same field; its documentation says the search term is "only available for Google Play search".
How to use the list:
- Sort by visitors and keep the top 20 terms per country.
- Mark which are your brand and which are generic.
- Compare visitors with your daily rank for the generic ones. A term with many visitors and a weak rank is a candidate for your title or short description; see Google Play store listing.
- Use high-visitor terms and countries as candidates for custom store listings, as Google itself suggests.
How do peer benchmarks work on Play?
In Conversion analysis, the click-through rate chart compares your daily rate with your peers' median, 25th and 75th percentile, and the breakdown table compares your total with the peers' median for the last 28 days of the period. Benchmarks show only when you view by country, language, install state or traffic source, with at most one selection per dimension, and only when the peer set has enough data. On the Statistics page the Compare to peers tab shows growth metrics normalised for scale.
Why did my Play conversion change?
Work through these in order:
- Definition. Are you comparing a click-based CTR with an older acquisition-based conversion rate?
- Traffic mix. Did explore, brand search or ads and referrals grow? Each has a different intent.
- Country and language. A new market with an untranslated listing lowers the total.
- Your own changes. A store listing experiment, a custom listing rollout, new screenshots or text.
- Visibility. A rank change on a broad term brings visitors with weaker intent.
- Calendar. Compare whole weeks, the same weekdays, and avoid holiday weeks.
For a full before-and-after method see how to measure the impact of an ASO change.
How fresh is the data?
Google states that installation data is based on Pacific Time, and that monthly CSV reports in Cloud Storage are captured daily and posted within 3 to 7 days. It recommends building systems that do not depend on exports arriving at a set time. Ratings data is also based on Pacific Time.
How Uptika helps
The free Keyword Atlas shows the popularity, difficulty and top 3 of one term in up to 10 countries on both stores, which helps you judge the generic terms in your search term list. In the panel, Analytics (Starter) reads your Play Console store performance data next to App Store Connect, so downloads, sources and countries sit in one place, and Keyword radar (free) adds the daily Google Play rank for each keyword. Create a free account. For the App Store side, read App Store Connect analytics; for rivals, app competitor analysis.
Questions
Where are the Google Play Console acquisition reports?
Top-line acquisitions are on the Grow overview page (Grow users in the left menu). Store listing visitors, clicks and click-through rate are under Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis, and the Statistics page holds both the legacy acquisition metrics and the new click metrics.
What is store listing conversion rate on Google Play?
The legacy store listing conversion rate is the percentage of store listing visitors who installed your app, counting only users who did not have it on another device. Since mid-2026 the main rate in the store listing reports is the click-through rate: the share of visitors who clicked Install, Open or Pre-register.
How do I see search terms in Play Console?
Open Grow users > Store performance > Conversion analysis and break the data down by search term. Terms with too few visitors are grouped under "Other". The monthly store performance export in Cloud Storage also has a search term field.
Why did my Play conversion change?
Check the definition first: in mid-2026 Google moved store listing reports from acquisitions to clicks. Then check the traffic mix, the country, any store listing experiment or custom listing, ads and referral links, and whether you compare the same days of the week.
How delayed are Play Console reports?
Google states that installation data is based on Pacific Time and that the downloadable reports in Cloud Storage are captured daily and posted within 3 to 7 days. Google recommends not depending on exports arriving at a specific time.