Set up purchase flow recommendations to drive up your orders

By setting up purchase flow recommendations in Play Console, you can choose in-app products from your app that Google will proactively recommend at checkout based on users’ behavior.

Understanding purchase flow recommendations

Through purchase flow recommendations, you can:

• Increase post-purchase orders by showing products users might be interested in after completing a purchase.
• Reduce abandonment rate by showing users popular items to continue shopping when they abandon their carts.
• Keep track of metrics by analyzing how purchase flow recommendations impact performance results

During purchase flow recommendation setup in Play Console, you can define which of your app's in-app products you'd like to recommend. You can also select which countries/regions and audiences should be eligible to see these recommendations. Note that you can only use purchase flow recommendations to recommend in-app products, not subscriptions.

After launching your recommendations, eligible users in your selected countries/regions will see recommendations powered by a recommendation engine as they shop on Google Play. For example, if they have bought an in-app product, they may see a recommendation prompting them to buy another product that others were interested in buying. Similarly, if they have abandoned their cart before buying a product, they may see a recommendation for a different popular item that they might like.

You can expand the sections below to view examples of how purchase flow recommendations look to users on Google Play.

Example of recommendations the user sees after purchase Example of recommendations the user sees after abandoning cart

After launching your purchase flow recommendations, you will be able to view performance analytics charts on the Purchase flow recommendations (Monetize > Purchase flow recommendations) page. These charts can help you better understand how your recommendations are performing. You can also browse all of your existing recommendations.

Set up and manage purchase flow recommendations

You can set up purchase flow recommendations on the Purchase flow recommendations page in Play Console. You can edit purchase flow recommendations at any time. You can also view analytical data to help you understand how well your recommendations are performing and converting.

Prerequisites

Before setting up purchase flow recommendations:

• You must have integrated the Google Play Billing Library into your app so that it is able to handle multiple items.
• Your app must have at least one in-app product.

Set up purchase flow recommendations

To set up purchase flow recommendations:

1. Open Play Console and go to the Purchase flow recommendations page (Monetize > Purchase flow recommendations).
2. Click Set up.
3. Click + Countries/regions to select the countries where you want to show purchase flow recommendations:
   • Select the countries/regions in which you want your purchase flow recommendations to be visible, and click Apply.
4. Click + Products to select the products you want to recommend on the Play Store.
   • Select the products you want to recommend, and click Apply. You can select up to 1,000 products.
     • Important: if an in-app product SKU is tagged under setIsOfferPersonalized(), it will not be presented as a recommendation to users in the EEA.
5. In the "Select an audience" section, choose who will see purchase flow recommendations:
   • License testers only (recommended for validating your setup): Choosing this option means that only testers you've explicitly invited will be eligible to see your purchase flow recommendations. This is a great way of checking to make sure you have configured your purchase flow recommendations correctly. You can learn more about testing purchase flow recommendations below.
   • All users (choose after license testing): Choosing this option means that all eligible users will see your purchase flow recommendations immediately after completing setup. We strongly recommend using license testers to validate your purchase flow recommendations setup before making them publicly available.
6. Click Save.

If you need to make changes to your purchase flow recommendations, you can do so at any time. After launching your purchase flow recommendations, you will be able to view performance analytics on the Purchase flow recommendations page.

Test purchase flow recommendations (recommended)

Testing your purchase flow recommendations helps ensure they are working as expected before releasing them to all users. To test your purchase flow recommendations with license testers:

1. During purchase flow recommendation setup, after selecting the in-app products you want to recommend, choose License testers only in the "Select an audience" section. This ensures only your designated testers will see the recommendations.
   • Tip: Choose in-app products with a high volume of orders to increase the likelihood they are shown by the recommendation model in the purchase flow.
   • Tip: If you are testing from an EEA country, check that the SKUs selected for purchase flow recommendations are not tagged under setIsOfferPersonalized() because these SKUs will not be presented as a recommendation to users in the EEA.
2. Click Save to launch your purchase flow recommendations.
   • Important: Ensure your Play Store app version is 25.5 or higher.
3. Open your app and perform the following tests:
   • Post-purchase recommendation:
     1. Make an in-app purchase.
     2. Verify that an in-app product recommendation appears after the successful purchase. If it does not, go back to step 1.
     3. Tap Buy in the recommendation and verify the purchase is completed successfully.
     4. Confirm that both purchased items are correctly delivered.
   • Post-abandonment recommendation:
     1. Add an in-app product to your cart and then press the back button to abandon the purchase.
     2. Verify that an in-app product recommendation appears after abandoning the purchase.
     3. Tap Buy button in the recommendation and verify the purchase completes successfully.
     4. Confirm that the purchased item is correctly delivered.

Note: Recommendations typically have a "snooze" period before they reappear. To facilitate testing, this snooze period is removed for license tester accounts.

After you've finished testing, you can modify the products as required and select All users in the audience section to launch your recommendations to all users

Edit purchase flow recommendations

After setting up Purchase flow recommendations, you can change their settings, pause, or resume them at any time. To edit purchase flow recommendations:

1. Open Play Console and go to the Purchase flow recommendations page (Monetize > Purchase flow recommendations).
2. Scroll to the "What's being recommended" section, and find and select the recommendation you want to edit in the table. You can search by product name or ID.
3. You can adjust the recommendation's settings just as you did when you set the recommendation up (steps 3-5 above).
4. Click Save changes.

View analytical data

The charts on the Purchase flow recommendations page help you understand how well your recommendations are performing by comparing them to the performance of products without recommendations. These charts provide the following insights:

• Overall performance: This shows the total revenue or number of orders driven by recommendations within the selected time period.
• Daily trends: See the daily breakdown of revenue or orders from recommendations to identify trends and fluctuations.
• Comparison: This highlights the difference in revenue or orders between products with recommendations enabled and those without, demonstrating the impact of using recommendations.

To view analytical data for your purchase flow recommendations:

1. Open Play Console and go to the Purchase flow recommendations page (Monetize > Purchase flow recommendations).
2. Review the charts and table as needed:
   • Orders: This chart displays the number of transactions from recommended products compared to those without recommendations, broken down by total and daily trends. You'll also see a clear comparison highlighting the impact of recommendations on order volume.
   • Revenue: This chart shows the total revenue generated from recommended products compared to those without recommendations, again broken down by total and daily trends. A visual comparison emphasizes the revenue difference between products with and without recommendations.
   • What's being recommended: This table provides details about your existing purchase flow recommendations, including product names and IDs, price, status, and the total number of units sold through recommendations.