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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

#41

Post by Swizec »

paxys wrote: post #36
Farbklex wrote: post #12

Neat article. I would like to criticize your landing page for your app. It very very much bugs me, when landing pages for apps have only a QR code which I am supposed to scan with my phone. Luckily, you also added a "Get the App" button. Problem is, that you try to be smart and automatically forward me to either the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Since I opened the link on a Macbook Pro, you assume I want to s…

How many people out there install smartphone apps from a desktop web browser? You anyways have to pull out the phone to use the app. Having a QR code front and center and navigating to the app store listing on the phone is the preferable outcome for 99% of customers. The majority of them aren't even signed in to Apple/Google on the desktop browser.

Most people are already on their phone when they see your website. Are they supposed to pull out another phone to scan the qr code?

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

#42

Post by l5870uoo9y »

> MealPrepPro is built by a small indie dev team and $20k was a painful amount of money for us to waste. With pre-registration ads you're putting all your faith in Google that they'll deliver the conversions they're showing in the ads reports

I am running a small independent startup myself where I count every nickel and dime. I tried Google Ads (there was an offer to spend $400 to get an additional $400). Besides a few sign ups, it didn't pay off at all. I would never even consider spending $20,000 (!?). I talked with a few newsletters (starts at $1500 per quarter for a campaign) and social influencers (starts at $700 per post) and if money wasn't an issue I would buy marketing, but in the early stage the most important resource is myself. If I spend my savings that I live off, I risk running out of money and must go back to being a freelance developer (and the European market sucks at the moment).

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

#43

Post by phantom784 »

This sort of ad just doesn't seem useful for this type of app.

I'd think most people would want a meal planning app that they can use right away, so they'd just download a different app when they see yours isn't available yet.

I wonder how many of those "pre-registrations" thought they could install it right away, saw they couldn't and then just found something else.

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

#44

Post by andreaskam »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #38

Conversion rate issues aside, why did they choose pre-launch ads over post launch advertising? Some apps rely on a critical mass of users on launch (multiplayer games, social networks, dating sites, etc.) so generating hype pre-launch is important for these. But this looks like an app where it doesn't matter for a user how many other users there are. So slowly ramping up your ads after launch, while you work out bugs…

We felt that getting a lot of traction on the launch day might give us some good momentum in the charts. With hindsight, I'd wish we'd saved our money and spent it after launch, when we could sense check the figures that Google Ads is reporting.

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

#45

Post by LastTrain »

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.

What was the time between pre-registration and release?

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

#46

Post by no_wizard »

simple10 wrote: post #32

Google is notorious for over-reporting ad data for all sorts of reasons. One super important thing to know is conversions could also be landing page views depending on how the ad account is setup. By default, Google will use any type of conversion configured in the ad account for displaying stats in the campaign. It's a bit tricky with Google Ads to configure a specific campaign to only report conversions as app inst…

This seems like it should be a lawsuit waiting to happen. If I was running ad spend through Google and they were giving me inflated reports routinely, its willful on part of the company, and feels like grounds for a lawsuit.

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

#49

Post by andreaskam »

IshKebab wrote: post #29

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.

Fair point. To Google conversion = someone who has pre-registered. That's different to someone actually installing. I never expected 100% of people who pre-registered would install, but having only 8% of people who pre-register go on to download seems kinda wild.

If anyone has any figures for a pre-order campaign on the App Store it would be very interesting to compare the conversion rate.

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

#50

Post by l5870uoo9y »

CodesInChaos wrote: post #38

Conversion rate issues aside, why did they choose pre-launch ads over post launch advertising? Some apps rely on a critical mass of users on launch (multiplayer games, social networks, dating sites, etc.) so generating hype pre-launch is important for these. But this looks like an app where it doesn't matter for a user how many other users there are. So slowly ramping up your ads after launch, while you work out bugs…

Or target a few low competition keywords with custom landing pages and get the traffic for "free". Looks like Google has plenty of traffic in that segment and low competition.
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