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

207 points by andreaskam 3y ago

edding4500 3y ago
Just out of interest, did you do some social media stuff? You can get quite some traffic by presenting your app in a relevant subreddit. Reddit ads are also much cheaper.
andreaskam 3y ago
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.
- for_i_in_range 3y ago
  And we threw $20k in ad spend at it (which quite frankly is insane).
  - Firmwarrior 3y ago
    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
    - munk-a 3y ago
      Honestly, there's a lot of advertising out there that I think could benefit from direct monetary incentives. A large portion of the population is becoming resistant to regular advertising (good for them) and opting in to ad blockers when available. Actually paying people for the attention you're demanding from them would be refreshingly different... and heck, it worked for timeshares.
      - Firmwarrior 3y ago
        That's a good point. I got some in-game spam mail in World of Warcraft the other day with a few gold coins attached. Even though it was an amount you'd earn in about 2 seconds of playing the game (real world value: 4/100ths of a cent), it made me a lot less angry than ads usually do
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Indeed there are groups and "businesses" that "pay" you to install apps. I assume someone is on the other side of that transaction paying for new user installs. Doing it yourself would probably be cheaper and you would probably be offering a much higher payout than those systems.
      - for_i_in_range 3y ago
        It's called "incent traffic" and it's notoriously awful traffic. Users are worth 5% of a normal user because they're freebie seekers who are usually broke.
- _delirium 3y ago
  The core reason seems to be that Android pre-registration (unlike iOS) doesn't, by default, automatically install the app once it's available. Instead it just signs the user up for a push notification, unless the user has opted in to automatic installs. So this campaign had 16,171 people click through and pre-register, but only 1,371 of those converted to actual app installs once it was available.
- LastTrain 3y ago
  What was the time between pre-registration and release?
  - andreaskam 3y ago
    We started the pre-registration around 2 months before release and it ran right up until release. The max you can do is 90 days.
pkallberg 3y ago
Wow this is crazy!
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Yeah when I first looked at the analytics in the Google Play Console I thought there must of been some error. Figured it would be a fairly quick thing to sort out with Google support.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
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.
- marricks 3y ago
  > because of the larger gun policy nobody can do anything Oh please do elaborate
  - sdflhasjd 3y ago
    You'll spend more than $20K trying to get your money back in court.
    - marricks 3y ago
      Ah so it’s a joke used to reference the complete lack of power companies/people have against behemoth corps?
  - transcriptase 3y ago
    I think they’re saying that these small teams getting screwed aren’t exactly going to win a legal battle against Meta and Google, even if they could afford to try.
- alexb_ 3y ago
  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 works? 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? Many, many websites function based on the assumption that user data and advertising will always be money makers. What if they aren't? What if we've all been lied to about the effectiveness of ads?
for_i_in_range 3y ago
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.
- Farbklex 3y ago
  Was this really an option here? They probably aren't launching that many apps on the Play Store. So they had one shot to try out a pre-registration campaign to get a big app launch.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  For sure. Live and learn. And hoping to share it here so others can learn from my mistake.
- abtinf 3y ago
  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.
Workaccount2 3y ago
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.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  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.
Farbklex 3y ago
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 see the App Store. However, I am an Android user. I just want to be able to see two buttons, one for each store and click it myself. You are by far not the only one who does this. Would be great if App devs would change it all together.
- MrZander 3y ago
  I'm using Brave on a Windows PC, the "Get the App" button sends me to the Apple store also. In fact, there is no indication that this is even available on Android at all.
- frognumber 3y ago
  Yeah. The landing page didn't answer the questions I had. It's a hard pass. Feedback: - Give a long enough free trial to get addicted (e.g. 30-90 days). If you're delivering value, I will pay $4/month - For me to have value, you'd need to plan things like ingredients. In a best-case scenario, you'd integrate with Instacart and other delivery services, and there would be zero waste. You'd also make use of ingredients I already have. I have no idea what it is you actually do, though, so I won't install. I can already subscribe to a recipe listserv, and I have no idea the delta. Is this the same thing, only for $$$ and with aggressive data scraping from my mobile? You don't need to answer here. Answer on your landing page. I was curious around to click around, and find crickets. Thank you for posting and sharing, though.
  - andreaskam 3y ago
    Yeah we often think about the free trial vs freemium experience. I really admire apps like FitBod who just let you try out 3 free workouts without needing to commit to a free trial. Eating healthy is one of the toughest habits to commit to. The benefit of the 7 day free trial is it really pushes people to try it out during those 7 days and see if it's for them. Otherwise you download and think "I'll look at this later" and then never come back to it. Not saying what we have is perfect and I'm still looking for better options. We're always down to give people a longer trial if they get in touch with us. I get that 7 days won't be enough for everyone. RE: Instacart integration - we already integrate!
flokie 3y ago
It seems pretty clear that's what you get when you use the campaign? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859047?sjid=16682052117801239319-NA&visit_id=638248661672622618-2763699245&rd=1 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 install it. Eligible devices will also have the app or game auto installed on the day it launches. (more details on this in documentation)
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  Is sending someone a push notification really worth $1 though?
  - cpncrunch 3y ago
    Is paying $1-3 simply for a click on google ads worth it either? (In my experience, no).
    - JimtheCoder 3y ago
      Depends on your conversion rate and customer LTV. Check Mesothelioma ad click rates on Google...
      - minsc_and_boo 3y ago
        Yep, and what your CPA is. LTV for a 30 yr mortgage is hundreds of thousands - that pushes for some expensive clicks at auction.
    - vikeri 3y ago
      I don’t have experience but I thought Subprime Attention Crisis was an interesting read
  - CobrastanJorji 3y ago
jb87 3y ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. I would have thought they would auto-install the app for users that pre-registered, as Apple does. Seems kind of pointless that they don't do this!
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Hope it's helpful for some fellow developers when considering how to promote their app launch :-)
IshKebab 3y ago
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.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  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.
  - dceddia 3y ago
    Hopefully someone with some benchmarks on this specific kind of thing can chime in, but to me it seemed like 8-10% conversion from notification to install was not too terrible. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that it turned out this way! I’m just basing this on conversion percentages I’ve seen from email launch sequences (maybe 2-5% of the list), webpage conversions (free signup maybe 10,20,50% but paid 1-5%), and 8-10% for a nearly-cold install notification seems kinda in the ballpark. There’s a correlation I’ve noticed between how easy it is to sign up for a thing, combined with how badly someone wants that thing, and then how likely they are to actually buy/download/etc. In this case it was super easy to click that “pre-subscribe” button so I’d think those people aren’t very invested. There’s only a tiny bit of time for them to form a connection with it, so when that notification pops up hours/days later they might not even remember they clicked that button, or don’t remember the name, etc. It’s a bummer it was so expensive though! I went through a couple expensive YouTube paid promo experiences recently that took me by surprise too. Just like nowhere near the performance I hoped for. Not fun!
    - andreaskam 3y ago
      What was painful about pre-registration ads is you don't realise your mistake until you launch your app. Only then do you look at your screen and then go have a cry hahaha. Be super interesting to read a case study for the App Store and their pre-order ads.
simple10 3y ago
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 installs, signups (leads), or sales. Best practice is to mostly ignore the data reported in Google Ads dashboard (unless you really know what you're doing) and instead rely on your own metrics. Run multiple campaigns to different audiences and different landing pages to be able to more easily verify what's actually working. Fortunately, it's fairly easy -- although not straight forward -- to pipe Google Ads data into a Google Sheet and merge it with actual data from your website. I'm not sure how this works with pre-registration ads since I've never run that specific type of campaign.
- no_wizard 3y ago
  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.
  - simple10 3y ago
    It's not necessarily inaccurate data from a legal perspective. But it's often unexpected data where it's getting reported in a less useful way in the dashboard. And yes, there are almost always ongoing class action lawsuits agains major ad platforms for failing to properly filter out bots and click fraud. There's very little incentive for Google and Meta to do more than the bare minimum in fighting bots.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    The problem is that it's one of those things that to take it to court, you need some starting proof, but the entire system is designed to be opaque.
kanodiaayush 3y ago
Is this google ad campaign linked to the play store directly? How does the ad campaign figure out whether a 'download' or conversion happened? If its a click/google search campaign, won't it stop at redirecting a user to the app download page?
CodesInChaos 3y ago
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 and other flaws looks like a much better approach to me. This also allows you to track ad effectiveness and adjust as you go, instead of taking a big gamble.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  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.
- l5870uoo9y 3y ago
  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.
tennis_80 3y ago
This doesn’t surprise me. A user has a need - in this case a food diet app. They find this app, think it looks good, and registers their interest. Good. Launch day comes around, they’re nowhere to be seen - why? Well, they may have found another app, or decided they don’t need the app after all - say they lost interest in the diet / health kick. I feel like app registrations would only work for “special” apps that don’t have close competitors or have a particular buzz - e.g. Threads, ChatGPT etc EDIT: I’ve misunderstood - the app was supposed to auto-download on launch day. It didn’t. This story makes a lot more sense now! I assumed it just sent a push notification / email.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  I work on related things at Google so have to be careful what I say here, but to clarify things a little... In the docs it makes it clear that there are a bunch of caveats to the auto installation. Reading through these caveats, they are all there for good UX reasons, essentially to ensure that what gets advertised is what gets installed (no bait-and-switch), and that users are going to be ok with the auto-installation (doesn't eat all their data or battery life). There is advice on how to improve eligibility, it's not clear if the author followed this or not. The eligibility factors will vary from user to user, and may between user bases as well. For example if you have an app that is popular with users on devices with less storage space, there are likely to be more who can't install it because they don't have enough space. One or more of these factors may not have been met for the author/publisher of this app, and it's also possible that their target market also doesn't meet the conditions for auto-install as much.
  - andreaskam 3y ago
    Appreciate the reply. I think you're referring to these guidelines: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859047?visit_id=637518126279929701-2065806311&rd=1&_ga=2.7297266.1710451221.1689315482-1696546962.1689315481#zippy=%2Cadvance-actions-to-prepare-for-pre-registration https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... We did go through the guidelines to make sure our app would be eligible for auto install. For example our download size is sub 100mb. I can see in Google Play Console that all our installs are Android M+. There are some factors I can't verify. For example, where can I check what Google Play Store version users are on? If certain factors make a device ineligible for auto install, then maybe these devices should be excluded from the ad campaign to help ensure developers are getting good value for their ad dollars? It created such a negative first experience for us on the Google Play store, which is a shame as we'd of been happy to invest in install ads and Google would of made a larger return from us over time. The low quality of support gave us no path to at least share our concerns with Google.
l5870uoo9y 3y ago
> 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).
- aantix 3y ago
  Just thinking out loud - is there any way to create a profitable Google Ad campaign without sinking thousands of money ramping up and learning? It doesn't appear so.
  - rcme 3y ago
    I haven't fully validated this idea yet, but I ran a Google ad campaign for $5 a day for a mailing list signup page that I was planning a business around. Click through rates were around 2.5%, which seems to be the baseline, i.e. a 2.5% click through rate basically means no engagement. One thing that was interesting, however, is that certain keywords had click through rates around 7%. I wanted to try re-targeting the campaign to just those keywords but I lost motivation.
    - GordonS 3y ago
      Was this a long time ago, or for a totally empty niche? I ask, because I'm lucky if I can buy a single click through for $5, and it's been like that for several years now.
      - 3y ago
phantom784 3y ago
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.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  All good points. Especially about meal planning being something you're looking to solve right now, not in a few weeks time. Unlike a game, where a few weeks from now you'll still be looking for new entertainment options. Thanks for adding your thoughts, I think they'll be helpful for someone else considering pre-registration for their app.
vagab0nd 3y ago
If you are like me and confused about how pre-registering doesn't cost anything but downloading could be triggered automatically on the launch day: the app is free.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Free is the default price for mobile apps. You're dead in the water these days if you have any sort of paywall blocking the user and a download. they will just find 20 other alternatives without that barrier.
pierat 3y ago
Sooooo.... Fraud?
AtNightWeCode 3y ago
I spent some money on GP ads and it was kind of funny that no matter how the views and clicks were distributed in the end the cost for each install was about 1$. It is "fake" how it works but it is in the agreement. Also Google ads has the worst support ever. Not even helping when you want to invest. Fun fact. GP actually paid out some cash invested for ads this year. Have no idea why. I am pretty sure I burned it all on ads.
renewiltord 3y ago
Thanks for sharing this. I was under the impression that Play Store pre-registration results in automatic installation. This is good to know that it is not.
sergiotapia 3y ago
Thanks for the heads up - I won't use this for my project.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Happy I saved you some $$$
jb87 3y ago
One point that people without app experience probably aren't considering - on iOS, having a large number of downloads (particularly in the first week after launch) can really boost your keyword rankings and ASO. Without this boost, climbing up the keyword rankings can be extremely difficult. Apple's pre-order feature does precisely what I'd expect - automatically downloading the app when it's available, which helps jumpstart the flywheel explained above. I would have expected Google's pre-registration feature to work similarly. Thanks to OP for spending the $$ to find out this isn't the case!
- andreaskam 3y ago
  haha it's been my pleasure being a guinea pig. Just wish I could of learned the same lesson for $5k instead of $20k.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    One question I had when reading: Had you opted in to all of the appropriate settings so that your personal device should have automatically installed?
    - andreaskam 3y ago
      I have no way of being 100% certain, however I followed the best practises: - Being on a new version of Android - Having an up to date version of Google Play store app - Being on wifi - Having lots of battery and also plugging my phone in to power
laurent123456 3y ago
With 17,000+ pre-registrations, it sounds like their ad campaign wasn't well targeted either. You can get a ton of people visiting your app page but if it's done based on vague or generic keywords, the clicks you get won't mean much. Seems a bit crazy to spend that much without any cap for a small indie company too. If the app is any good, you can always run more ad campaigns after the launch.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  We didn't cap it because we were getting conversions at around $1.36 USD. This is more than we'd normally spend for an install, but we thought it's worth it because it also gives us launch day momentum. Obviously, had we known that actually only 1 in 12 were going to install, we'd of killed that campaign instantly.
ekiauhce 3y ago
Hm, what's the point of placing TLDR section at the end of the article? :)
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Hehehe good point. I removed it and linked to the HackerNews thread instead as that might be more useful for people.
user_named 3y ago
Sorry to say but there is no money in this industry/category. I know from experience. Get out, build an app in another category.
neom 3y ago
16,171 converted and pre-registered for the app 1,371 either installed it when they got the push notification or selected auto install when they pre-registered (it's oped in) Cost was $22k USD ish. This is extremely normal... it's almost exactly as I would expect, maybe even good! I'm curious why they would expect differently?
- DangitBobby 3y ago
  I agree with the author's assessment that only 1371 users were actually converted and they were charged inappropriately.
  - neom 3y ago
    This complaint is tantamount to me saying: I spent $20,000 advertising my new cloud provider on twitter, 5000 people signed up for an account but only 5 of them ever logged in so only 5 converted. That isn't how it works. In google ads a conversion is clearly defined as the users clicks the link and then completed a second action (pre-register in this instance). When you create a campaign, you define the goal like this: when a user clicks the link and pushes the pre-registration button the user goal of conversion is complete. Just because you don't like what happened thereafter isn't the concern of the ad platform.
    - tehwebguy 3y ago
      It's because Google clearly wants it to seem like pre-registration is actually pre-installing when in reality is closer to pre-nothing.
    - danpalmer 3y ago
      To take this even further, the install isn't what matters either, it's the user buying an in-app purchase, or it's the user still being subscribed 1 year later, or it's the user buying high margin merchandise after 3 years as a loyal customer... Every part is a step in the funnel, and every step down the funnel is harder and slower to analyse. Ad marketplaces only have the data of the very first step most of the time. Doing this analysis is The Job. That's all of what marketing (particularly digital marketing/PPC) is, and being good at this and building the loop is the difference between buying clicks from people who aren't actually that interested, and buying clicks from people who will pay for a product.
kebsup 3y ago
The app seems to be running at 60hz on Android with 90hz screen. It's a common giveaway for Flutter apps, but can be fixed by forcing higher refresh rate.
soared 3y ago
For a sense of scale, if an advertiser came to my adtech platform and said they want to spend $20k, we’d tell them to return when their budget is 5x larger. Small advertisers get screwed because they lack the technical expertise to understand the complexity of adtech platforms. Those complexities provide huge power and value to people who know what they’re doing, but also cause huge problems for advertisers. I don’t know what happened in this case unfortunately.
Natuerich 3y ago
We will do very well as a purely digital world: everyone thinks they make it because they have an edge while realizing to late it's not. What a naive take on using 20k
rhuru 3y ago
I have built ad network tech from scratch and worked for several large networks. Here is my tip. Always hire specialists to do these sort of ad campaigns for you. It is not something you can figure out easily and lessons here are expensive. OP learned some of the very basic principles of this industry for a price tag for $20K. I have seen people do even worse. 1. Whatever Ads are one of the options you have. Other options are paying users cash to install your app, billboards, tv ads, radio ads, asking teens to distribute app install stickers and what not. I would recommend trying the cheaper method first that do not change much with scale. 2. Ignore the network reported stats. What matters is your business. What is the true cost of acquiring a user that meets all you requirements ?(e.g. paying user) In OPs case this number could be in $00s now. Totally not worth it. 3. Learn that number with smaller spend. (Smaller spend = around $2K for Google) 4. Optimize on that number using different strategies. Chances are that for most apps your cost to acquire a user would always be more than the revenue generated by that user. Making these ads always a losing proposition. Then why do folks do it ? * If you spend $0000000 at scale (like Uber, FB in early days) even though you are making a loss per user, the large number of users with network effects snowballs bringing organic growth. This is compounded if the app itself deals with real money (Uber ) or has deep network effects (Signal, Instagram, Snapchat) which bring in organic growht. * A meal prep app is never going to be profitable in this manner. If I was OP I would have probably tried to find all the instagram influencers who talk about meals and then emailed them about a partnership. Would have paid $500 or so to tier 2 influencers to make coiple of posts about the app.
- rhuru 3y ago
  On other than those $20K helped you get this post on the front page of HN. This is going ot add few hundred installs for your app. Note that you salvaged that damage already.
XCSme 3y ago
I think the problem is simply that the author misinterpreted the term "conversion". A conversion is not an app install, is a successful pre-registration. Now, it seems like there is a 10% conversion rate from the pre-registration to the installation of the app. Why that is there? That's a different question, and probably explained by their docs regarding pre-registration and what it actually means. $10-$15 for an app install is probably pretty normal.

207 points by andreaskam 3y ago

Just out of interest, did you do some social media stuff? You can get quite some traffic by presenting your app in a relevant subreddit. Reddit ads are also much cheaper.

andreaskam 3y ago

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.

for_i_in_range 3y ago
And we threw $20k in ad spend at it (which quite frankly is insane).
- Firmwarrior 3y ago
  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
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Honestly, there's a lot of advertising out there that I think could benefit from direct monetary incentives. A large portion of the population is becoming resistant to regular advertising (good for them) and opting in to ad blockers when available. Actually paying people for the attention you're demanding from them would be refreshingly different... and heck, it worked for timeshares.
    - Firmwarrior 3y ago
      That's a good point. I got some in-game spam mail in World of Warcraft the other day with a few gold coins attached. Even though it was an amount you'd earn in about 2 seconds of playing the game (real world value: 4/100ths of a cent), it made me a lot less angry than ads usually do
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Indeed there are groups and "businesses" that "pay" you to install apps. I assume someone is on the other side of that transaction paying for new user installs. Doing it yourself would probably be cheaper and you would probably be offering a much higher payout than those systems.
    - for_i_in_range 3y ago
      It's called "incent traffic" and it's notoriously awful traffic. Users are worth 5% of a normal user because they're freebie seekers who are usually broke.
_delirium 3y ago
The core reason seems to be that Android pre-registration (unlike iOS) doesn't, by default, automatically install the app once it's available. Instead it just signs the user up for a push notification, unless the user has opted in to automatic installs. So this campaign had 16,171 people click through and pre-register, but only 1,371 of those converted to actual app installs once it was available.
LastTrain 3y ago
What was the time between pre-registration and release?
- andreaskam 3y ago
  We started the pre-registration around 2 months before release and it ran right up until release. The max you can do is 90 days.

pkallberg 3y ago

Wow this is crazy!

andreaskam 3y ago
Yeah when I first looked at the analytics in the Google Play Console I thought there must of been some error. Figured it would be a fairly quick thing to sort out with Google support.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

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.

marricks 3y ago
> because of the larger gun policy nobody can do anything Oh please do elaborate
- sdflhasjd 3y ago
  You'll spend more than $20K trying to get your money back in court.
  - marricks 3y ago
    Ah so it’s a joke used to reference the complete lack of power companies/people have against behemoth corps?
- transcriptase 3y ago
  I think they’re saying that these small teams getting screwed aren’t exactly going to win a legal battle against Meta and Google, even if they could afford to try.
alexb_ 3y ago
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 works? 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? Many, many websites function based on the assumption that user data and advertising will always be money makers. What if they aren't? What if we've all been lied to about the effectiveness of ads?

for_i_in_range 3y ago

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.

Farbklex 3y ago
Was this really an option here? They probably aren't launching that many apps on the Play Store. So they had one shot to try out a pre-registration campaign to get a big app launch.
andreaskam 3y ago
For sure. Live and learn. And hoping to share it here so others can learn from my mistake.
abtinf 3y ago
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.

Workaccount2 3y ago

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.

andreaskam 3y ago
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.

Farbklex 3y ago

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 see the App Store. However, I am an Android user. I just want to be able to see two buttons, one for each store and click it myself. You are by far not the only one who does this. Would be great if App devs would change it all together.

MrZander 3y ago
I'm using Brave on a Windows PC, the "Get the App" button sends me to the Apple store also. In fact, there is no indication that this is even available on Android at all.
frognumber 3y ago
Yeah. The landing page didn't answer the questions I had. It's a hard pass. Feedback: - Give a long enough free trial to get addicted (e.g. 30-90 days). If you're delivering value, I will pay $4/month - For me to have value, you'd need to plan things like ingredients. In a best-case scenario, you'd integrate with Instacart and other delivery services, and there would be zero waste. You'd also make use of ingredients I already have. I have no idea what it is you actually do, though, so I won't install. I can already subscribe to a recipe listserv, and I have no idea the delta. Is this the same thing, only for $$$ and with aggressive data scraping from my mobile? You don't need to answer here. Answer on your landing page. I was curious around to click around, and find crickets. Thank you for posting and sharing, though.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Yeah we often think about the free trial vs freemium experience. I really admire apps like FitBod who just let you try out 3 free workouts without needing to commit to a free trial. Eating healthy is one of the toughest habits to commit to. The benefit of the 7 day free trial is it really pushes people to try it out during those 7 days and see if it's for them. Otherwise you download and think "I'll look at this later" and then never come back to it. Not saying what we have is perfect and I'm still looking for better options. We're always down to give people a longer trial if they get in touch with us. I get that 7 days won't be enough for everyone. RE: Instacart integration - we already integrate!

flokie 3y ago

It seems pretty clear that's what you get when you use the campaign? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859047?sjid=16682052117801239319-NA&visit_id=638248661672622618-2763699245&rd=1 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 install it. Eligible devices will also have the app or game auto installed on the day it launches. (more details on this in documentation)

sdflhasjd 3y ago
Is sending someone a push notification really worth $1 though?
- cpncrunch 3y ago
  Is paying $1-3 simply for a click on google ads worth it either? (In my experience, no).
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    Depends on your conversion rate and customer LTV. Check Mesothelioma ad click rates on Google...
    - minsc_and_boo 3y ago
      Yep, and what your CPA is. LTV for a 30 yr mortgage is hundreds of thousands - that pushes for some expensive clicks at auction.
  - vikeri 3y ago
    I don’t have experience but I thought Subprime Attention Crisis was an interesting read
- CobrastanJorji 3y ago

jb87 3y ago

Thanks for sharing your experience. I would have thought they would auto-install the app for users that pre-registered, as Apple does. Seems kind of pointless that they don't do this!

andreaskam 3y ago
Hope it's helpful for some fellow developers when considering how to promote their app launch :-)

IshKebab 3y ago

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.

andreaskam 3y ago
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.
- dceddia 3y ago
  Hopefully someone with some benchmarks on this specific kind of thing can chime in, but to me it seemed like 8-10% conversion from notification to install was not too terrible. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that it turned out this way! I’m just basing this on conversion percentages I’ve seen from email launch sequences (maybe 2-5% of the list), webpage conversions (free signup maybe 10,20,50% but paid 1-5%), and 8-10% for a nearly-cold install notification seems kinda in the ballpark. There’s a correlation I’ve noticed between how easy it is to sign up for a thing, combined with how badly someone wants that thing, and then how likely they are to actually buy/download/etc. In this case it was super easy to click that “pre-subscribe” button so I’d think those people aren’t very invested. There’s only a tiny bit of time for them to form a connection with it, so when that notification pops up hours/days later they might not even remember they clicked that button, or don’t remember the name, etc. It’s a bummer it was so expensive though! I went through a couple expensive YouTube paid promo experiences recently that took me by surprise too. Just like nowhere near the performance I hoped for. Not fun!
  - andreaskam 3y ago
    What was painful about pre-registration ads is you don't realise your mistake until you launch your app. Only then do you look at your screen and then go have a cry hahaha. Be super interesting to read a case study for the App Store and their pre-order ads.

simple10 3y ago

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 installs, signups (leads), or sales. Best practice is to mostly ignore the data reported in Google Ads dashboard (unless you really know what you're doing) and instead rely on your own metrics. Run multiple campaigns to different audiences and different landing pages to be able to more easily verify what's actually working. Fortunately, it's fairly easy -- although not straight forward -- to pipe Google Ads data into a Google Sheet and merge it with actual data from your website. I'm not sure how this works with pre-registration ads since I've never run that specific type of campaign.

no_wizard 3y ago
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.
- simple10 3y ago
  It's not necessarily inaccurate data from a legal perspective. But it's often unexpected data where it's getting reported in a less useful way in the dashboard. And yes, there are almost always ongoing class action lawsuits agains major ad platforms for failing to properly filter out bots and click fraud. There's very little incentive for Google and Meta to do more than the bare minimum in fighting bots.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  The problem is that it's one of those things that to take it to court, you need some starting proof, but the entire system is designed to be opaque.

kanodiaayush 3y ago

Is this google ad campaign linked to the play store directly? How does the ad campaign figure out whether a 'download' or conversion happened? If its a click/google search campaign, won't it stop at redirecting a user to the app download page?

CodesInChaos 3y ago

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 and other flaws looks like a much better approach to me. This also allows you to track ad effectiveness and adjust as you go, instead of taking a big gamble.

andreaskam 3y ago
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.
l5870uoo9y 3y ago
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.

tennis_80 3y ago

This doesn’t surprise me. A user has a need - in this case a food diet app. They find this app, think it looks good, and registers their interest. Good. Launch day comes around, they’re nowhere to be seen - why? Well, they may have found another app, or decided they don’t need the app after all - say they lost interest in the diet / health kick. I feel like app registrations would only work for “special” apps that don’t have close competitors or have a particular buzz - e.g. Threads, ChatGPT etc EDIT: I’ve misunderstood - the app was supposed to auto-download on launch day. It didn’t. This story makes a lot more sense now! I assumed it just sent a push notification / email.

danpalmer 3y ago
I work on related things at Google so have to be careful what I say here, but to clarify things a little... In the docs it makes it clear that there are a bunch of caveats to the auto installation. Reading through these caveats, they are all there for good UX reasons, essentially to ensure that what gets advertised is what gets installed (no bait-and-switch), and that users are going to be ok with the auto-installation (doesn't eat all their data or battery life). There is advice on how to improve eligibility, it's not clear if the author followed this or not. The eligibility factors will vary from user to user, and may between user bases as well. For example if you have an app that is popular with users on devices with less storage space, there are likely to be more who can't install it because they don't have enough space. One or more of these factors may not have been met for the author/publisher of this app, and it's also possible that their target market also doesn't meet the conditions for auto-install as much.
- andreaskam 3y ago
  Appreciate the reply. I think you're referring to these guidelines: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9859047?visit_id=637518126279929701-2065806311&rd=1&_ga=2.7297266.1710451221.1689315482-1696546962.1689315481#zippy=%2Cadvance-actions-to-prepare-for-pre-registration https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... We did go through the guidelines to make sure our app would be eligible for auto install. For example our download size is sub 100mb. I can see in Google Play Console that all our installs are Android M+. There are some factors I can't verify. For example, where can I check what Google Play Store version users are on? If certain factors make a device ineligible for auto install, then maybe these devices should be excluded from the ad campaign to help ensure developers are getting good value for their ad dollars? It created such a negative first experience for us on the Google Play store, which is a shame as we'd of been happy to invest in install ads and Google would of made a larger return from us over time. The low quality of support gave us no path to at least share our concerns with Google.

l5870uoo9y 3y ago

> 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).

aantix 3y ago
Just thinking out loud - is there any way to create a profitable Google Ad campaign without sinking thousands of money ramping up and learning? It doesn't appear so.
- rcme 3y ago
  I haven't fully validated this idea yet, but I ran a Google ad campaign for $5 a day for a mailing list signup page that I was planning a business around. Click through rates were around 2.5%, which seems to be the baseline, i.e. a 2.5% click through rate basically means no engagement. One thing that was interesting, however, is that certain keywords had click through rates around 7%. I wanted to try re-targeting the campaign to just those keywords but I lost motivation.
  - GordonS 3y ago
    Was this a long time ago, or for a totally empty niche? I ask, because I'm lucky if I can buy a single click through for $5, and it's been like that for several years now.
    - 3y ago

phantom784 3y ago

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.

andreaskam 3y ago
All good points. Especially about meal planning being something you're looking to solve right now, not in a few weeks time. Unlike a game, where a few weeks from now you'll still be looking for new entertainment options. Thanks for adding your thoughts, I think they'll be helpful for someone else considering pre-registration for their app.

vagab0nd 3y ago

If you are like me and confused about how pre-registering doesn't cost anything but downloading could be triggered automatically on the launch day: the app is free.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
Free is the default price for mobile apps. You're dead in the water these days if you have any sort of paywall blocking the user and a download. they will just find 20 other alternatives without that barrier.

pierat 3y ago

Sooooo.... Fraud?

AtNightWeCode 3y ago

I spent some money on GP ads and it was kind of funny that no matter how the views and clicks were distributed in the end the cost for each install was about 1$. It is "fake" how it works but it is in the agreement. Also Google ads has the worst support ever. Not even helping when you want to invest. Fun fact. GP actually paid out some cash invested for ads this year. Have no idea why. I am pretty sure I burned it all on ads.

renewiltord 3y ago

Thanks for sharing this. I was under the impression that Play Store pre-registration results in automatic installation. This is good to know that it is not.

sergiotapia 3y ago

Thanks for the heads up - I won't use this for my project.

andreaskam 3y ago
Happy I saved you some $$$

jb87 3y ago

One point that people without app experience probably aren't considering - on iOS, having a large number of downloads (particularly in the first week after launch) can really boost your keyword rankings and ASO. Without this boost, climbing up the keyword rankings can be extremely difficult. Apple's pre-order feature does precisely what I'd expect - automatically downloading the app when it's available, which helps jumpstart the flywheel explained above. I would have expected Google's pre-registration feature to work similarly. Thanks to OP for spending the $$ to find out this isn't the case!

andreaskam 3y ago
haha it's been my pleasure being a guinea pig. Just wish I could of learned the same lesson for $5k instead of $20k.
- tehwebguy 3y ago
  One question I had when reading: Had you opted in to all of the appropriate settings so that your personal device should have automatically installed?
  - andreaskam 3y ago
    I have no way of being 100% certain, however I followed the best practises: - Being on a new version of Android - Having an up to date version of Google Play store app - Being on wifi - Having lots of battery and also plugging my phone in to power

laurent123456 3y ago

With 17,000+ pre-registrations, it sounds like their ad campaign wasn't well targeted either. You can get a ton of people visiting your app page but if it's done based on vague or generic keywords, the clicks you get won't mean much. Seems a bit crazy to spend that much without any cap for a small indie company too. If the app is any good, you can always run more ad campaigns after the launch.

andreaskam 3y ago
We didn't cap it because we were getting conversions at around $1.36 USD. This is more than we'd normally spend for an install, but we thought it's worth it because it also gives us launch day momentum. Obviously, had we known that actually only 1 in 12 were going to install, we'd of killed that campaign instantly.

ekiauhce 3y ago

Hm, what's the point of placing TLDR section at the end of the article? :)

andreaskam 3y ago
Hehehe good point. I removed it and linked to the HackerNews thread instead as that might be more useful for people.

user_named 3y ago

Sorry to say but there is no money in this industry/category. I know from experience. Get out, build an app in another category.

neom 3y ago

16,171 converted and pre-registered for the app 1,371 either installed it when they got the push notification or selected auto install when they pre-registered (it's oped in) Cost was $22k USD ish. This is extremely normal... it's almost exactly as I would expect, maybe even good! I'm curious why they would expect differently?

DangitBobby 3y ago
I agree with the author's assessment that only 1371 users were actually converted and they were charged inappropriately.
- neom 3y ago
  This complaint is tantamount to me saying: I spent $20,000 advertising my new cloud provider on twitter, 5000 people signed up for an account but only 5 of them ever logged in so only 5 converted. That isn't how it works. In google ads a conversion is clearly defined as the users clicks the link and then completed a second action (pre-register in this instance). When you create a campaign, you define the goal like this: when a user clicks the link and pushes the pre-registration button the user goal of conversion is complete. Just because you don't like what happened thereafter isn't the concern of the ad platform.
  - tehwebguy 3y ago
    It's because Google clearly wants it to seem like pre-registration is actually pre-installing when in reality is closer to pre-nothing.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    To take this even further, the install isn't what matters either, it's the user buying an in-app purchase, or it's the user still being subscribed 1 year later, or it's the user buying high margin merchandise after 3 years as a loyal customer... Every part is a step in the funnel, and every step down the funnel is harder and slower to analyse. Ad marketplaces only have the data of the very first step most of the time. Doing this analysis is The Job. That's all of what marketing (particularly digital marketing/PPC) is, and being good at this and building the loop is the difference between buying clicks from people who aren't actually that interested, and buying clicks from people who will pay for a product.

kebsup 3y ago

The app seems to be running at 60hz on Android with 90hz screen. It's a common giveaway for Flutter apps, but can be fixed by forcing higher refresh rate.

soared 3y ago

For a sense of scale, if an advertiser came to my adtech platform and said they want to spend $20k, we’d tell them to return when their budget is 5x larger. Small advertisers get screwed because they lack the technical expertise to understand the complexity of adtech platforms. Those complexities provide huge power and value to people who know what they’re doing, but also cause huge problems for advertisers. I don’t know what happened in this case unfortunately.

Natuerich 3y ago

We will do very well as a purely digital world: everyone thinks they make it because they have an edge while realizing to late it's not. What a naive take on using 20k

rhuru 3y ago

I have built ad network tech from scratch and worked for several large networks. Here is my tip. Always hire specialists to do these sort of ad campaigns for you. It is not something you can figure out easily and lessons here are expensive. OP learned some of the very basic principles of this industry for a price tag for $20K. I have seen people do even worse. 1. Whatever Ads are one of the options you have. Other options are paying users cash to install your app, billboards, tv ads, radio ads, asking teens to distribute app install stickers and what not. I would recommend trying the cheaper method first that do not change much with scale. 2. Ignore the network reported stats. What matters is your business. What is the true cost of acquiring a user that meets all you requirements ?(e.g. paying user) In OPs case this number could be in $00s now. Totally not worth it. 3. Learn that number with smaller spend. (Smaller spend = around $2K for Google) 4. Optimize on that number using different strategies. Chances are that for most apps your cost to acquire a user would always be more than the revenue generated by that user. Making these ads always a losing proposition. Then why do folks do it ? * If you spend $0000000 at scale (like Uber, FB in early days) even though you are making a loss per user, the large number of users with network effects snowballs bringing organic growth. This is compounded if the app itself deals with real money (Uber ) or has deep network effects (Signal, Instagram, Snapchat) which bring in organic growht. * A meal prep app is never going to be profitable in this manner. If I was OP I would have probably tried to find all the instagram influencers who talk about meals and then emailed them about a partnership. Would have paid $500 or so to tier 2 influencers to make coiple of posts about the app.

rhuru 3y ago
On other than those $20K helped you get this post on the front page of HN. This is going ot add few hundred installs for your app. Note that you salvaged that damage already.

XCSme 3y ago

I think the problem is simply that the author misinterpreted the term "conversion". A conversion is not an app install, is a successful pre-registration. Now, it seems like there is a 10% conversion rate from the pre-registration to the installation of the app. Why that is there? That's a different question, and probably explained by their docs regarding pre-registration and what it actually means. $10-$15 for an app install is probably pretty normal.