A preview video can lift conversion meaningfully, and it can also lower it. The difference is decided almost entirely in the first three seconds.
The rules, briefly
App Store app previews:
- 15 to 30 seconds.
- Up to three per display size, per language.
- Captured from the device itself. Apple requires genuine app footage, not motion graphics of a concept.
- Autoplays muted in search results, so it must work with no sound.
Google Play promo videos:
- Hosted on YouTube; you supply a link rather than a file.
- No age restriction on the video, and no ads on it.
- Shown behind a play button overlaid on your feature graphic.
- Does not autoplay, so the thumbnail has to earn the click.
That autoplay difference matters. On Apple your video is already playing while the user decides, which puts all the weight on the opening frames. On Play, nothing happens until someone chooses to watch.
The first three seconds decide everything
Most viewers stop within three seconds. So:
- Open on the app doing its most useful thing. Not a splash screen, not a logo, not onboarding.
- Show a finger or cursor interacting within the first second, so it reads as a real product rather than a mockup.
- No title cards at the start. Branding belongs at the end, once you have earned the attention.
- Assume no audio. Anything essential must be visible.
Plan it as three beats
A 20-second video has room for roughly three ideas:
- Beat 1 (0 to 5 s): the core action, performed. The thing the app is for.
- Beat 2 (5 to 15 s): two supporting capabilities, shown quickly.
- Beat 3 (15 to 20 s): the result, plus your name and icon.
Write this as a shot list before recording. Recording without one produces long takes you will then spend hours cutting.
Recording clean footage
- Record on a simulator or a clean device with realistic data, a clean status bar and notifications disabled. - Record at the highest resolution you need and downscale later. - Move deliberately. Real-speed scrolling looks frantic on video, so slow your interactions slightly. - Pause on each meaningful state for about a second so the viewer can actually read it. - Record each beat separately. Editing separate takes is far easier than trimming one long one.
Editing
- Cut aggressively. Loading and transitions can go; nobody needs to watch a spinner. - Add short captions for each beat, since the video plays muted. Keep them under five words, on screen for at least a second and a half. - Keep motion graphics restrained. Apple can reject previews that are mostly animation rather than actual app footage. - End on a still frame with your icon and name, held for a beat, so the last thing seen is your brand. - Add music only if the video survives being muted — which is to say, only ever as a bonus.
Common reasons previews get rejected
- Footage that is not from the app: mockups, or heavily animated concept work. - Showing prices or promotions, which Apple treats as time-sensitive content. - Displaying real personal data, or hardware that misrepresents Apple devices. - Including a store badge inside the video. - Wrong dimensions for the display size you attached it to.
Is it worth making one?
For an app whose value is obvious from a static screenshot — a calculator, a simple utility — a video adds little. For anything where the value lives in the *flow*, such as an editor, a game or a multi-step workflow, video is often the most persuasive asset you can add, precisely because a still frame cannot show motion.
If you are unsure, ship without one, establish a conversion baseline, then add the video and measure. Both stores let you run that as a formal experiment rather than a guess.