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In-app events (iOS) and LiveOps / promotional content (Google Play)

Why in-app events and Google Play promotional content matter for ASO — extra search indexing and featuring (incl. Today tab), re-engaging lapsed users — with Tilting Point's 9-events-in-3-days launch (4 featured), Google's LiveOps eligibility and claimed lifts, and how to plan and measure them.

Updated 2026-10-24·4 sources·asoin-app-eventsliveopspromotional-contentfeaturinggoogle-playapp-store

In-app events (iOS) and LiveOps / promotional content (Google Play)

TL;DR

  • In-app events (IAE) are cards for time-limited things happening in your app (competitions, new content, premieres); on Google Play the equivalent is LiveOps / promotional content, which since 2022 also has an “offers” type for limited-time deals.12
  • Their value is mostly featuring and browse visibility, plus some search: event text is indexed.34
  • Tilting Point shipped 9 events within three days of the Oct 2021 launch; 4 were featured by Apple, with substantial impression lifts — mostly browse, less search.53
  • By 2023 Apple sometimes turned an IAE into Today-tab featuring directly, and Google listed regularly refreshed promotional content among its app-quality factors.6
  • Submit early — approval took up to a week or more (2022) — and use the event deep link in UA campaigns for tracking.78
  • Measure re-downloads and engagement, not just new installs: events bring lapsed users back.910

Details

Early-mover featuring (Jevgen Tarasenko, Tilting Point, Feb 2022). The team watched WWDC’s June 2021 announcement, brainstormed when events went live, and pushed nine events the first day possible. Jevgen thinks Apple featured four partly because it had placements to fill. Before App Store Connect added event analytics, they estimated impact as the console uplift in impressions over baseline.5

Planning. Prepare events well before the event date, get them approved, then release them when it’s time.7 Storemaven’s Jonathan Fishman (2022) counts them as a discoverability lever because events also appear in search results.4

Measurement (iOS 15+). App Store Connect splits event performance into new downloads vs re-downloads; Storemaven’s Jonathan Fishman frames re-engaging churned players with new content as a key benefit.9 Simon adds: watch sessions and revenue from the event, useful for small teams without full product analytics.10 In 2022 he predicted Apple would match Google’s ability to attach in-game rewards to events.11

Google Play LiveOps (May 2022). Beta open to apps with 100,000+ global MAU and a good-quality product; Google claimed ~+5% D28 MAU and +4% revenue for participants. Event text (title, description) gets indexed; there is a dedicated Events tab plus featuring across many Play surfaces; events can deep-link into the relevant screen.21213

Adoption benchmark. Storemaven’s 2022 analysis found IAE used by roughly a third to half of top-100 developers in each category.1

2023 view. Anton Tatarynovich (Freeletics) initially saw IAE as a minor visibility add-on but rated them “more important than I thought”: Freeletics’ event was turned into Today-tab featuring (pre-arranged with Apple).14615

Disagreements / caveats

  • Google’s lifts are self-reported and correlational (apps that run LiveOps differ from those that don’t).
  • The 100K-MAU threshold and beta status are 2022 rules; check current Play Console eligibility.
  • Most evidence is from games with frequent live content; subscription utilities may struggle to produce recurring events.

See also

Footnotes

  1. What Are the New Marketing and ASO Capabilities in Google Play, and What Do They Mean? with Esthe... @ 07:26 — Jonathan Fishman ↩ ↩2

  2. What Are the New Marketing and ASO Capabilities in Google Play, and What Do They Mean? with Esthe... @ 06:33 — Esther Shatz ↩ ↩2

  3. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 09:10 — Jevgen Tarasenko ↩ ↩2

  4. Mastering ASO in 2022 with Simon Thillay of AppTweak @ 10:15 — Jonathan Fishman ↩ ↩2

  5. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 08:18 — Jevgen Tarasenko ↩ ↩2

  6. ASO: Focus on what actually matters | Anton Tatarynovich | ASO Conference 2023 @ 32:14 — Anton Tatarynovich ↩ ↩2

  7. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 10:55 — Jevgen Tarasenko ↩ ↩2

  8. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 12:30 — Jevgen Tarasenko ↩

  9. How Do In-App Events Influence ASO and What is the Correlation Between Organic and Other Metrics... @ 10:55 — Jonathan Fishman ↩ ↩2

  10. Mastering ASO in 2022 with Simon Thillay of AppTweak @ 18:08 — Simon Thillay ↩ ↩2

  11. Mastering ASO in 2022 with Simon Thillay of AppTweak @ 19:02 — Simon Thillay ↩

  12. What Are the New Marketing and ASO Capabilities in Google Play, and What Do They Mean? with Esthe... @ 08:19 — Esther Shatz ↩

  13. What Are the New Marketing and ASO Capabilities in Google Play, and What Do They Mean? with Esthe... @ 09:14 — Jonathan Fishman ↩

  14. ASO: Focus on what actually matters | Anton Tatarynovich | ASO Conference 2023 @ 31:29 — Anton Tatarynovich ↩

  15. ASO: Focus on what actually matters | Anton Tatarynovich | ASO Conference 2023 @ 33:04 — Anton Tatarynovich ↩