Non-Core Market Testing: A Data-Driven Playbook for Expansion

Your board wants international growth. Your growth team asks: which markets?

Your board wants international growth. Your growth team asks: which markets?

The usual approach is to pick a few markets, localize everything, launch user acquisition, and hope the results follow.

A better way is to test more markets, measure conversion with localized store listing experiments, and focus only on the ones where the data shows real potential.

In this playbook, we’ll walk through a framework to help you validate new markets before investing heavily in full localization.

Step 1: Market shortlisting

Start by listing 10 to 15 possible markets. Casting a wide net helps you let the data guide your next steps.

Build your shortlist using three signals:

Download volume potential. Check category-level download data for your app’s genre in each market. Look for places where there’s demand but your app isn’t widely used yet. Tools like data.ai, Sensor Tower, or Google Play Console can help you find these numbers.

Competitive density. See how many well-localized competitors are in each market. Markets with lots of downloads but not much competition are usually your best bets.

Genre-market fit. Not every genre works everywhere. For example, strategy games do well in MENA, casual games are popular in Southeast Asia, and simulation games perform in LATAM. (Mobile Games - Southeast Asia | Statista Market Forecast, n.d.) Focus on markets where your genre already has traction.

Aim for a mix of markets you feel confident about and some where the data isn’t clear yet. Sometimes, only testing will show you what works.

Step 2: Define the experiment scope

You don’t need to localize your whole app yet. Just localize your store listing to see if users in each market are interested.

For each candidate market, define which store listing elements to test:

Short description (top priority). This is quick to localize and is what most users see first. A local short description helps users see your app is for them.

Screenshots (high priority). Adapt your screenshots to local preferences. Usually, adding local language text and small visual tweaks is enough for testing.

Icon (medium priority). Try icon versions that fit local tastes. Remember, colors and styles that work in one country might not work in another.

Feature graphic (medium priority). This is the banner at the top of your store page. Localizing it shows users you’re invested in their market.

Long description (lower priority). Wait to localize the full description until you know which markets are worth the extra effort.

The main idea is to invest just enough to get useful results, without risking too much budget if things don’t work out.

Step 3: Deploy localized experiments

Set up Google Play store listing experiments for each market. The setup is simple, since Google Play Console lets you run experiments by country or language. (Spiegel Online increased installs with store listing experiments, 2018)

Configuration decisions that matter:

Traffic allocation. Use a 50/50 split between your current listing and the localized version. This helps you get results faster.

Minimum traffic. Aim for at least 1,000 impressions per version to get reliable results. (Product Page Optimization - Acquisition - App Store Connect Analytics - Help - Apple Developer, 2026) In smaller markets, this might take a few weeks.

Experiment duration. Run each test for at least a week to cover both weekdays and weekends. In lower-traffic markets, you may need up to three weeks.

Test all your markets at the same time if you can. Running experiments together means you’ll get answers in a month instead of a year.

Localized store listings are a growth lever that many publishers overlook. Book a demo to see how PressPlay by Phiture can help you automate multi-market experimentation.

References

(n.d.). Mobile Games - Southeast Asia | Statista Market Forecast. https://www.statista.com/outlook/amo/media/games/mobile-games/southeast-asia

(November 1, 2018). Spiegel Online increased installs with store listing experiments. Android Developers. https://developer.android.com/stories/apps/spiegel-online

(2026). Product Page Optimization - Acquisition - App Store Connect Analytics - Help - Apple Developer. Apple Developer. https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect-analytics/acquisition/product-page-optimization