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We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

andreaskambanis.com

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Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#21

Post by [deleted] »

stemlord wrote: post #14
alexb_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has such a gigantic incentive to lie about how effective their advertising is. It's impossible to verify and they make more money the more effective they say it is. So it's something I've suspected is happening for a long time. The question then becomes, what does the internet look like if advertisers only spent 10% of what they do now? How much of the internet is built on the lie that digital advertising work…

>It's impossible to verify 1. Determine sales rate 2. Deploy ads 3. Determine delta sales Am I missing something?

[deleted]

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#22

Post by andreaskam »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #11

If I am understanding this right, the crux of the issue is that Google Play doesn't auto-install apps that you seemingly signed up to have auto-installed? Seems like a bug on Googles side, whether intentional or not.

If it's a bug then I'm hoping to raise some awareness of it here because the Google support team didn't want to hear about it.

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#23

Post by thfuran »

alexb_ wrote: post #7
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #4

Not just google ads. Meta ads and reddit ads all fake the metrics and charge more money than what they send you. It's all a scam but because of the larger gun policy nobody can do anything.

Google has such a gigantic incentive to lie about how effective their advertising is. It's impossible to verify and they make more money the more effective they say it is. So it's something I've suspected is happening for a long time. The question then becomes, what does the internet look like if advertisers only spent 10% of what they do now? How much of the internet is built on the lie that digital advertising work…

>What services would have to shut down? How valuable is user data really? If user data isn't valuable, because advertising isn't valuable, then what else on the internet becomes impossible financially?

If it suddenly stops being the case that everything is judged against an ad-supported but free to use baseline, I think paid services become more viable than they currently are. There would probably need to be some work on payment models, but I think not many things would be forced to shut down (ignoring whatever shutters while the dust settles).

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#24

Post by htrp »

stemlord wrote: post #14
alexb_ wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has such a gigantic incentive to lie about how effective their advertising is. It's impossible to verify and they make more money the more effective they say it is. So it's something I've suspected is happening for a long time. The question then becomes, what does the internet look like if advertisers only spent 10% of what they do now? How much of the internet is built on the lie that digital advertising work…

>It's impossible to verify 1. Determine sales rate 2. Deploy ads 3. Determine delta sales Am I missing something?

Confounding effects

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#25

Post by sdflhasjd »

flokie wrote: post #16

It seems pretty clear that's what you get when you use the campaign? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... "After you make an app or game available for pre-registration, users can visit your store listing to learn about and pre-register for your new app or game. Then, when you publish your app or game later, all pre-registered users will receive a push notification from Google Play to instal…

Is sending someone a push notification really worth $1 though?

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#28

Post by Firmwarrior »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #13
andreaskam wrote: post #2

Short version: We used a Google Ads pre-registration campaign to get installs for our app. Google charged us for 16,171 conversions. When we launched, we only received 1,371 installs.

And we threw $20k in ad spend at it (which quite frankly is insane).

Seems like at this point you'd come out ahead if you just mailed people 2 dollar bills with the promise of another 2 dollar bill if they install your app

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#29

Post by IshKebab »

I think they're being a bit misleading - the issue is simply that Google counts a "conversion" as someone signing up for pre-registration, whereas they assumed it would be for an app install.

Google should be clearer about that, but it's not like they are just making numbers up.

Re: We spent $20k on Google Play pre-registration ads

#30

Post by abtinf »

for_i_in_range wrote: post #10

Alternative idea: spend $1,000 or less on something that is unproven. You speculated and it turned out different than expectations. That's the name of the game. The only right answer is test. But you shouldn't expose yourself to so much downside.

App launch is a unique situation: you can only do it once. As such, pre-launch advertising is always unproven. You would have to have high confidence in the integrity of the ad network.

Since online advertising is essentially untrusted, with an entire industry dedicated to auditing its claims, I think the correct approach is to never try this form of unprovable advertising.

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