TL;DR. Promotional text is a 170-character field at the top of your App Store description. Unlike your title, subtitle, or keyword field, you can edit it directly in App Store Connect and it goes live immediately — no new build, no App Review cycle. Apple’s own product page documentation is explicit that promotional text does not affect search ranking, so keyword-stuffing it is wasted effort. Its actual job is fast, low-risk messaging: sales, seasonal pushes, a feature you just shipped, a response to something happening right now. Most indie apps leave it blank or let it go stale for months, which is a missed lever that costs nothing to use.

Every other piece of your App Store metadata — title, subtitle, keyword field, screenshots, description — is locked to a version. Change one, and the change doesn’t reach users until that version clears App Review and releases. Promotional text is the exception, and a lot of indie developers either don’t know it exists or treat it like a second description field they filled in once at launch and forgot about.

What exactly is promotional text, and where does it show up?

Promotional text is a field in App Store Connect, capped at 170 characters, that appears at the top of your app’s description on the product page — above the main description copy. Apple’s guidance for it is to use the space for time-sensitive news: a limited-time sale, a feature you just launched, a seasonal message.

It’s not shown in search results and it’s not a second subtitle. It only appears once a user has already opened your product page, sitting as the first thing they read above the fold of your description.

Can I actually change it without submitting a new version?

Yes — this is the entire point of the field. You edit it in App Store Connect and save; it goes live without a new build and without going through App Review, unlike your title, subtitle, keyword field, or description body copy. Every other metadata field carries the delay of a version submission; promotional text does not.

That makes it the only lever in App Store Connect you can pull same-day. If a competitor’s app goes down, a press mention lands, or you want to run a 48-hour sale, promotional text is the one field where you don’t have to plan around a review cycle to react.

Does promotional text help me rank for keywords?

No. Apple’s own App Store product page documentation says plainly that promotional text does not affect your app’s search ranking, and that it should not be used to display keywords. If you’ve been packing keyword phrases into this field the way you would the keyword field or subtitle, that effort is not doing anything for discovery — Apple is telling you directly not to bother.

That’s a distinction worth internalizing because it cuts against instinct: everywhere else in App Store Connect, more relevant keywords generally helps. Promotional text is the one metadata field where optimizing for search is explicitly the wrong move. It’s a conversion tool, not an indexing one — it exists to move someone who has already found your listing toward installing, not to help them find it in the first place.

So what should actually go in it?

Since it doesn’t touch ranking, judge your promotional text purely on whether it improves the odds that someone reading your product page right now decides to install. A few patterns that hold up:

  • Time-bound offers. “50% off Pro this week only” earns its place because it’s true today and can be swapped out the moment it isn’t.
  • A feature you just shipped. If your latest version adds something people have been asking for, lead with it here before the description’s second paragraph catches up.
  • Seasonal or event-driven relevance. A budgeting app can point at tax season, a fitness app at January, a travel app at a holiday — timed messaging that a static description can’t carry year-round.
  • A direct response to current conditions. A service outage, a press mention, a competitor’s app pulled from the Store — promotional text is the field built for reacting same-day.

What doesn’t belong: your tagline, your brand name, or a restatement of what the app does. That’s what the title, subtitle, and the description body are for. And don’t try to sneak keywords in — per Apple’s own guidance above, it won’t move rankings, and it burns 170 characters that could be doing real conversion work instead.

One more habit worth building: users only see the first line or two of promotional text before they have to tap to expand it, since it sits inline with the rest of the description. Write the highest-value part of the message first — don’t bury the offer or the news at the end of the 170 characters.

Before you close App Store Connect today

  1. Open your app’s promotional text field and check the date you last touched it. If it’s been more than a couple of months, that’s a signal to both users and to yourself that the listing isn’t actively maintained.
  2. Strip out any keywords you stuffed in there — they’re not helping rank, and the space is better spent on something that improves conversion.
  3. Write one sentence tied to something true right now: a feature, an offer, a season. Save it. It’s live immediately, with no build and no review wait.
  4. Put a recurring reminder on your calendar to revisit it — this is the one field where “set it and forget it” is a real cost, since it’s also the cheapest one to keep current.