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A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

android-developers.blogspot.com

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Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#21

Post by Iftheshoefits »

krschultz wrote: post #15
nothrabannosir wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a degree in economics and I never tried my hand at advertising, so please forgive my ignorance. To my uneducated ears, what you just said sounds like: "Advertisements are a good thing because they help surface the products that are making money (which is in some way a proxy for providing value, usually) faster than the products that are simply most popular." If I think of any advertisement I see, ever, t…

Engineers love to hate it, but sales & marketing matters. It works. Making a product, throwing it up on the web and walking away doesn't work. I'm not going to argue that point, it's a fact. For more on that, read Peter Theil's 0 to 1, or anything by patio11, or listen to the podcast Startups for the Rest of Us, or any one of a dozen other sources from people that have made money in the space. If you agree with that,…

You are assuming that price and value are positively correlated. They aren't necessarily. Anecdotally I find price has little to do with value in the App marketplace.

Buying users, which is in fact what sales and marketing is for indirectly does not mean the marketed product is provides more value nor does it mean the app, in this case, is performing better. All it means is the marketed product has backers willing to spend more on marketing.

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#22

Post by [deleted] »

Someone1234 wrote: post #13

While I don't care either way if this exists or not, I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store. Because if they improve discoverability for free, then who will buy their adverts? The worse the store is at pointing you at the correct apps, the more ads people will buy (so less work for them and more $$$, win/win). It isn't helped by how large…

[deleted]

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#23

Post by VanillaCafe »

Someone1234 wrote: post #13

While I don't care either way if this exists or not, I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store. Because if they improve discoverability for free, then who will buy their adverts? The worse the store is at pointing you at the correct apps, the more ads people will buy (so less work for them and more $$$, win/win). It isn't helped by how large…

> I do worry that this will further result in Google ignoring the "discoverability" problem in the Google Play app store.

Do you think if Google started including ads in their search results, it would affect the discoverability problem of non-sponsored web pages?

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#24

Post by benologist »

speeder wrote: post #20
username223 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an Android phone, but I'm surprised that Google Play has lousy search. I expect the Apple App Store to have useless search, because Apple isn't a search company, but I'd figure Google had that part solved. This sounds like at least perverse incentives, and possibly a plain old shake-down: making their search worse, and/or burying specific results, directly makes them money. It reminds me of the bad old da…

I make apps for Android and iOS, and made my first release 2 or 3 years ago (don't remember the precise date). Back then, iOS search was purely utter crap, finding totally unrelated things (including notoriously if you searched google maps, you would not find it... apple hardcoded the search for google maps to return google maps after all the internet poking fun at them). And Android search was awesome, some keyword…

Similar position, 2 years in, 2% of our revenue last year came from Play and we're not even on iTunes yet.

For me it wasn't just hard before, it was also an early stage product and my first time publishing on the appstore. Revisiting the Play Store this year and making it my primary focus has been a very different story, you might find that as well with all your experience.

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#25

Post by imaginenore »

What Google needs to do is create a proper search engine for the apps. Filters should include:

* Age of the app

* Average rating

* Eliminate publishers X, Y, Z

* Number of installs/downloads

* Paid / in-app purchases / ad-supported / completely free

* Size in MB (sometimes my connection sucks and I want to find a small game)

* Adult content

* Category of the app (game / office / tool / etc)

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#27

Post by dazzla »

speeder wrote: post #20
username223 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an Android phone, but I'm surprised that Google Play has lousy search. I expect the Apple App Store to have useless search, because Apple isn't a search company, but I'd figure Google had that part solved. This sounds like at least perverse incentives, and possibly a plain old shake-down: making their search worse, and/or burying specific results, directly makes them money. It reminds me of the bad old da…

I make apps for Android and iOS, and made my first release 2 or 3 years ago (don't remember the precise date). Back then, iOS search was purely utter crap, finding totally unrelated things (including notoriously if you searched google maps, you would not find it... apple hardcoded the search for google maps to return google maps after all the internet poking fun at them). And Android search was awesome, some keyword…

If you don't mind sharing which 3rd party stores do you have success with? I have tried Amazon with pretty much no success so I've assumed if they can't do it no one can.

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#28

Post by speeder »

dazzla wrote: post #27
speeder wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make apps for Android and iOS, and made my first release 2 or 3 years ago (don't remember the precise date). Back then, iOS search was purely utter crap, finding totally unrelated things (including notoriously if you searched google maps, you would not find it... apple hardcoded the search for google maps to return google maps after all the internet poking fun at them). And Android search was awesome, some keyword…

If you don't mind sharing which 3rd party stores do you have success with? I have tried Amazon with pretty much no success so I've assumed if they can't do it no one can.

Amazon is our WORST store.

We are in Samsung store (roughly same performacne as google play), several carrier stores (separated they are tiny, summed they are a good income), and we have some deals with some startups that are trying new app distribution methods, many of those startups also have deals with carriers, so we are in some carriers twice.

Anyway, our income right now looks like as if it came from dumbphone era: most of it coming from carriers, directly or indirectly.

Also we are in Yandex store, nothing impressive in terms of revenue, but stupid easy to get into (they purpusefully allow use of google play APIs, and upload methods, and whatnot... if you ever worked with google play, uploading to Yandex is VERY easy).

EDIT: Making things clearer on Amazon, they are REALLY the worst, sometimes months go by without even a single free download.

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#29

Post by OMGBrewmaster »

Allowing developers to pay for promoted placement is a terrible idea for Google Play's users, for app developers and for Google. Google Play users will now see more exploitative apps that are visible in search results not because they have earned high ratings from users or have a low uninstall rate, but because they are able to extract more money from each user to pay for their placement. App developers with quality products -- especially those with small development studios like my own -- will be put at a further disadvantage from the likes of King.com, Supercell and Zynga, whose high ARPU can justify this sort of promotion. And while Google will initially be able to extract more cash from the app economy than the 30% it already does, by diluting the value of Google Play search results for their users and by incentivizing developers to make exploitative rather than quality products, mobile device owners will become more motivated to migrate to other app stores and possibly other platforms.

I wish that Google would concentrate on its core strength and develop a search system for apps that directs its users to what they will appreciate and enjoy rather than what will cost them the most money, and that would encourage developers to aim for quality rather than exploitation.

Re: A New Way to Promote Your App on Google Play

#30

Post by benologist »

speeder wrote: post #28
dazzla wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind sharing which 3rd party stores do you have success with? I have tried Amazon with pretty much no success so I've assumed if they can't do it no one can.

Amazon is our WORST store. We are in Samsung store (roughly same performacne as google play), several carrier stores (separated they are tiny, summed they are a good income), and we have some deals with some startups that are trying new app distribution methods, many of those startups also have deals with carriers, so we are in some carriers twice. Anyway, our income right now looks like as if it came from dumbphone…

http://i.imgur.com/le8aRmB.png

I remember finding your games here on HN quite some time ago, my 3 year old can now do your animated jigsaws herself and currently loves the game with the russian dolls. My email in my profile is also my Skype if you want to chat, maybe we can help each other out - all my downloads are for traditional jigsaws and an older audience, with children and grandchildren.

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