When the search engine giant announced the availability of Google Instant Apps for Shopify on the Play Store, it opened doors for many businesses to address their mobile consumers effectively. Here’s everything you need to know.
What are Google Instant Apps?
Android apps have been evolving at a fast pace. With the Google Instant Apps, they are now given the ability to run instantly, without installation. The goal is to improve user experience by reducing the friction of app discovery, installation and use of Android apps.
To give you a better picture of how Google Instant Apps work, here’s a video from Google I/O ‘17:
Simply put, Instant Apps Google will allow your eCommerce stores to load native applications from not just search results, but all other web links. The store’s new links will no longer direct users to their mobile websites, but open the specific page in the app itself without nudging them to download it first.
For example, when you share a product from Amazon with a friend who doesn’t have the app on their phone, the web link will take you directly to the product on the mobile app (without having to install it), instead of their mobile site.
Instant Apps offer all the functionalities of a standard Android app of your business like browsing or searching products, adding or wish listing products and even completing a checkout / purchase, all without ever having to download an app!
But if you’re talking about a mobile friendly version of your online store, Google Instant Apps are sure to take over those and offer a better shopping experience to your customers.
In fact, Google has even shared a lot of their success stories on the developer blog. Instant Apps have proven to improve the acquisition, engagement and retention rates for apps across different industries. One of them being Jet, that increased their conversion rates by a whopping 27% by simply making shopping faster and easier.
They attribute their increase in purchases to the reduced install friction, quicker payment interface and reduced sign-in friction.
The benefits Google Instant Apps
1. Easier user acquisition
When a smartphone user has at least 10 retail apps to choose from while searching for a product, getting them to ‘download’ your app is a big challenge. The commitment required from the user to interact with the business through the app creates a lot of friction – going to the app store, waiting for the app to download, signing up and being okay with the app taking up space on the phone.
With Instant Apps, users can directly reach what they are looking for with a link click. They are able to interact with the app interface and interact with the business without having to download their app.
2. Offers better user experience
No matter how mobile friendly your online store is, shopping on the mobile site is always a nightmare. Downloading the app only adds to the consumer’s tasks and results in drop offs.
With Instant Apps, online stores will be able to use the power of deep linking. Whether a customer has their app or not, they will be able to direct them to the specific product page they’re looking for with a native app experience.
3. Improves user retention
When it comes to online stores, users have the option of usable mobile sites and native apps from different brands. This has resulted in most brands losing their stickiness and losing their customer base over time.
Since Instant Apps offer an easy-to-use and frictionless interface, they improve user retention rates of brands drastically.
4. Easy sharing
Think about how irritating it would be for you to share a product with your friend and them not be able to view it by clicking the link.
With Instant Apps, you can be sure that the shared product gets viewed instantly by the new consumer. This would not just improve your product discoverability, but also give your brand more word-of-mouth promotion.
Launch your Google Instant App with Plobal Apps
Converting a consumer into an app user is getting more challenging by the day. Without thousands of apps entering the market on a daily basis, it’s hard to grab their attention – which is actually limited to just a few seconds.
Here’s an example.
You share a product you loved on an online store, with your friend. If the app requires the person to first download it, there is a high chance that they wouldn’t. Similarly, if they’re redirected to the mobile friendly site, they don’t get the shopping experience that you have had.
All in all, you’ve lost the chance to grab a new customer’s attention and you’ll have to start all over again.
Now, what if someone just shared a link to the product with you and you could be taken into the app’s experience to view it – all without downloading it? Just how a website would load!
That’s where Plobal Apps steps in.
We just launched the Google Instant Apps to take your online Shopify store’s Android app to an all new level. By removing the friction of discovery, acquisition, and engagement, we now ensure that your mobile consumers get hooked instantaneously.
Earth Food, an Indian Shopify store for grocery, is already leveraging the technology with Plobal Apps. With their Google Instant App, they’re enabling their consumers to easily purchase and share their products across the web. With smart deep linking, they are now offering a native app experience to all their mobile customers, increasing their conversions and sales drastically!
Here’s how they do it:
Are Google Instant Apps for you?
We have a pretty simple way to get you to an answer:
- Does your online store have a mobile app?
- Are your mobile site visitors not willing to download the app?
- Has user acquisition become a challenge for you?
If you had a positive response to all the above, you’re ready to take your online store to a new level with Google Instant Apps.
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