Key takeaways
- Apple opens pre-orders 2 to 180 days before release, and the build must pass App Review first (Apple's App Store Connect Help).
- Google Play pre-registration campaigns can last at most 90 days per country (Google's Play Console Help).
- Google Ads advises turning pre-registration on at least 2 weeks before pre-launch marketing starts, 3 to 6 weeks for most campaigns and 9 to 12 weeks if you expect very high interest (Google Ads Help).
- Nexon reported that about 50% of its Google Play pre-registrations historically converted to installs, and a pre-registration reward lifted that by 20% (Nexon case study on the Android Developers Blog). One game publisher, 2019: treat it as a ceiling, not a forecast.
- Apple's TestFlight documentation allows up to 10,000 external testers for up to 90 days; new Google Play personal accounts need 12 testers for 14 days before production (Google Play's testing requirements).
- Only 17.3% of new subscription apps reach $1K a month within two years (RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026), so a launch with no audience is a weak bet.
What the video covers
- 0:00 Why pre-launch marketing matters. Hype, investor interest and a runway of weeks or months.
- 1:34 Know your audience and competitors. Buyer personas, then a competitor teardown to find your angle.
- 3:24 Social buzz, landing page and lead magnet. Teasers, a sign-up page with a clear promise, quizzes and calculators.
- 6:06 Invite-only access, referrals and influencers. Scarcity and word of mouth before the public launch.
- 9:23 Giveaways and gamification. Contests, rewards, progress bars and leaderboards.
- 11:33 Pre-launch ads and press. Collecting sign-ups with paid campaigns and earning coverage.
- 13:38 ASO and putting the plan to work. Store listing basics and how to sequence the steps.
When should you start pre-launch marketing for an app?
Start 8 to 12 weeks before your release date. The store rules set the floor and the ceiling. Apple lets you open a pre-order only 2 to 180 days before release, and the build has to pass App Review first. Google Play pre-registration can run at most 90 days in a country, and Google Ads recommends switching it on at least 2 weeks before your pre-launch marketing begins, with 3 to 6 weeks enough for most campaigns. Add the time to recruit beta testers, build a landing page and write store metadata, and a 12-week runway is realistic. Start earlier than 90 days and you get a list and a following but no store-side sign-ups. Start later than 4 weeks out and there is little time for paid pre-registration to learn, for Apple to approve a pre-order build, or for testers to find real bugs.
The table is our working plan. The limits in the right column come from Apple's App Store Connect Help, Google's Play Console Help, Apple's TestFlight documentation and Google Play's testing requirements.
| Weeks before launch | What we do | Platform limit |
|---|---|---|
| 12 | Landing page and email capture live. Persona and five-competitor teardown done. | None |
| 10 | Open a TestFlight beta or Play closed test. | 10,000 external testers, 90-day builds (Apple). 12 testers for 14 days (new Play personal accounts). |
| 8 | Switch on Google Play pre-registration. Submit the iOS build and open the pre-order. | Pre-registration: 90 days max. Pre-order: 2 to 180 days, after review. |
| 6 to 3 | Run pre-registration ads. Send each channel to its own custom product page. | Google: 3 to 6 weeks for most campaigns. |
| 2 | Give early access to press and creators. Countdown emails. | None |
| 0 | Release. Email the list, notify pre-registrants, ask beta users for reviews. | Pre-registrants get a Play Store notification. |
Pre-orders force a discipline most teams skip: the app has to be nearly finished eight weeks before the date you announce. That is a feature. It stops a launch date from becoming a hope.
What can you actually collect before an app launches?
You can collect four kinds of sign-up before launch, and they are not equal. An email waitlist is the one you own, so it works on both platforms and survives any store change. An Apple pre-order puts your app on the App Store ahead of release, so people can commit before the date. A Google Play pre-registration adds a Play Store page that notifies each person when you publish, and on eligible devices installs the app automatically if the user opted in. Beta testers are the fourth group. They are fewer, but they find bugs, write the first honest reviews and become your earliest referrers. Collect all four, give each a single clear promise, and track how many people each one sends to launch day, so you know which channel to repeat next time and which to drop.
Each has a hard limit. Apple's TestFlight stops a build after 90 days and caps external testers at 10,000 (Apple's TestFlight documentation). A pre-registration campaign ends after 90 days and you must go to production (Google's Play Console Help). New personal developer accounts on Google Play must run a closed test with 12 opted-in testers for 14 days before applying for production (Google Play's testing requirements), so start that test early.
Do not count email addresses and pre-registrations as the same thing. An address is interest. A pre-registration is a store-side intent that Google will remind the person about for you.
How do you build an audience before you have an app?
Build the audience around one problem, not around the app. Write down who has the problem, what they use today and what they hate about it. Then collect those people in a single place: a landing page with a clear promise, one sign-up field and a reason to join now. Add a small useful thing in exchange for the email, such as a quiz, a calculator or a checklist, because it filters for people who care about the problem. Post teasers and behind-the-scenes updates where those people already spend time, and answer their questions in public. Study your top five competitors and read their lowest-rated reviews, because those complaints are the headline for your page. Measure one number weekly: new sign-ups from each source. If a channel sends nothing for three weeks, stop it and put the time somewhere else.
The video walks through personas, competitor analysis, social teasers, landing pages and interactive lead magnets, and uses well-known apps as examples. Our additions are about cost and measurement. A persona should be one page and based on real conversations with at least 10 people, not a fictional composite. A landing page should have one call to action. Every source link should carry a tag so you can tell, at launch, which sign-ups became installs.
If your app has a store listing to point to, use it. Apple's custom product pages page says an app can have up to 70 additional product pages, that apps available for pre-order can use them, and that they can appear in search results for keywords you assign. One page per channel lets you match the screenshot and message to the source of the click.
Do invite-only access, referrals and giveaways work?
They work when the reward is the product itself, and they fail when the reward attracts the wrong people. Invite-only access adds scarcity and gives early users something to share. A referral loop turns each sign-up into a way to reach new ones, but only if the invited person sees a reason to join that is stronger than the discount. A giveaway collects names quickly but attracts people who want the prize, so offer something only your target user values, such as early access, a founder-tier plan or a premium feature. The best evidence we found is for rewards at the store level. Nexon reported that about half of its Google Play pre-registrations converted to installs, and that adding a reward raised conversion by 20%. Pre-registrants also had almost 50% higher day-60 retention. It is one game publisher, in 2019, so use it as a direction, not a forecast.
The source is the Nexon case study on the Android Developers Blog. Note what it does not show: it does not say a reward works for a utility or finance app, and it does not separate the effect of the reward from the effect of caring about the game in the first place. Test it on a small list before you promise it to everyone.
Gamification follows the same rule. Progress bars, streaks and leaderboards help when they push people toward the first useful action. They add noise when they only decorate it. Build the reward after you know which action predicts retention.
How should you use ads, press and ASO before launch?
Use ads to fill the list, press to add proof, and ASO to make sure the page converts the people they send. Google Ads has an App campaign type for pre-registration. It links to your Play Store listing and can run on Google Play, YouTube and the Display Network, on Android devices only. On iOS we collect through email and the pre-order page. Press works best when you offer early access and one clear angle, not a launch announcement. ASO comes first because it sets the page every other channel lands on: the title, subtitle, screenshots and first lines of the description decide whether a pre-registration visit becomes a sign-up. Fix those before you spend on ads, and keep the keywords in your metadata consistent with the problem your landing page names, so the message does not change between click and install.
Google describes the campaign type in Google Ads Help. Its guidance on timing is the part worth copying: turn pre-registration on early, let the campaign learn, and budget for a longer run if you expect strong interest. For the on-page work, our ASO guide and the free ASO Score extension check a listing against the basics.
Keep ad spend proportional to what you can measure. If you cannot yet say what a sign-up is worth, run a small test and set the budget from the result.
Is 100K app downloads before launch realistic?
For most apps, no. A 100,000 install target before launch needs a very large list, and most new apps do not have one. If you assume about half of pre-registrations install, as Nexon reported for its game, you would need around 200,000 sign-ups to get 100,000 launch-window installs. Most first-time founders should plan in the thousands, and measure what happens after the install. RevenueCat's 2026 report shows how small the typical outcome is: for new subscription apps, median monthly revenue one year after launch is about $72, only 17.3% reach $1K a month within two years, and 4.6% reach $10K. Plan for that spread honestly. The goal of pre-launch is not a vanity number. It is a first week with enough real users to learn retention, pricing and the onboarding drop-off while the app is still easy to change.
The arithmetic is ours; the inputs are the cited figures. All the RevenueCat figures come from RevenueCat's State of Subscription Apps 2026 and cover subscription apps, so they will not describe every category.
| Day-one installs wanted | Sign-ups needed at 50% install rate | Sign-ups needed at 25% install rate |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 2,000 | 4,000 |
| 10,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 |
| 100,000 | 200,000 | 400,000 |
The 50% column uses the Nexon figure for games. The 25% column is our planning assumption for lists that were not pre-registrations, such as email. We have no published benchmark for it, so test it with your own list.
What we see across 300+ apps
We have shipped 300+ apps since 2015, and those apps have passed 52M+ installs. The pattern in pre-launch is consistent: the teams that do well treat the weeks before release as a test of the product, not just a countdown.
Three habits separate them. First, they fix the promise before they build the audience. If a landing page cannot say in one sentence who the app is for and what it does for them, the ads will only make that problem more expensive. Second, they ship a real beta early. A TestFlight or closed-test group of a few dozen people finds the onboarding problems that no amount of marketing can fix. Third, they plan the first 30 days after launch before launch day: who gets the email, what the first push message says, which reviews to ask for, and which single metric decides whether to spend more. Our post-launch marketing guide and launch checklist cover that part.
The mistake we see most is spending on installs before the store page is ready. Pre-launch money is cheapest when it goes to the page, the beta and the list, in that order. After that, ads have something good to point at, and every install they bring has a better chance of staying.
Frequently asked questions
How early should I start pre-launch marketing for a mobile app?
Start 8 to 12 weeks out. Apple allows pre-orders 2 to 180 days before release, Google Play pre-registration runs at most 90 days, and Google Ads suggests 3 to 6 weeks for most pre-registration campaigns. That leaves time to test the build, collect sign-ups on both platforms and fix problems before the date is public.
Can I run a pre-order on iOS and pre-registration on Android at the same time?
Yes. They are separate store features with separate rules, so you can run both. Use one landing page and one email list to cover both platforms, and tag each store's sign-ups separately. That tells you which platform to push harder in the final two weeks.
What is the difference between an app waitlist and Google Play pre-registration?
A waitlist is an email list you own and can message on any platform, at any time. Pre-registration is a Play Store feature: people who sign up get a notification from Google when the app is published, and may get an automatic install if they opted in. Use both.
Do I need beta testers before I launch?
Yes, if you can get them. TestFlight allows up to 10,000 external testers, and new Google Play personal accounts must run a closed test with 12 testers for 14 days before production. Beta users also find bugs early and give you your first honest feedback, which is worth more than any early download.
How many sign-ups do I need to get 10,000 launch installs?
If about half of your sign-ups install, as Nexon reported for its Google Play pre-registrations, you need about 20,000. If your list converts at a lower rate, such as 25%, you need about 40,000. Test your own list with a small campaign first.
Should I pay for ads before the app is live?
Only after the store page and landing page convert well. Google Ads offers a pre-registration campaign for Android. On iOS, drive traffic to a landing page or pre-order page. Start small, measure cost per sign-up, and scale only after you know what a sign-up is worth.
Related
- Pre-launch app marketing: the full guide
- App pre-launch strategy
- App launch checklist
- Post-launch app marketing
- ApsteQ app marketing services
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- Offer your app for pre-order, App Store Connect Help, Apple, 2026. https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-your-apps-availability/publish-for-pre-order
- Set up pre-registration, Play Console Help, Google, 2026. https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859047
- About App campaigns for pre-registration, Google Ads Help, Google, 2026. https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9441344
- TestFlight overview, App Store Connect Help, Apple, 2026. https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/test-a-beta-version/testflight-overview
- App testing requirements for new personal developer accounts, Play Console Help, Google, 2026. https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/14151465
- Custom product pages, Apple Developer, Apple, 2026. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/custom-product-pages/
- Nexon increases day 60 retention and ARPDAU with pre-registration rewards, Android Developers Blog, Google, 2019. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2019/08/nexon-increases-day-60-retention-and.html
- State of Subscription Apps 2026, RevenueCat, 2026. https://www.revenuecat.com/state-of-subscription-apps