We spent $20k+ on Google Play Pre-Registration Adverts. Listed here are the outcomes…
For a very long time we dreampt of bringing our meal planning app MealPrepPro to Android. To generate curiosity within the launch, I believed I might check out a pre-registration marketing campaign for the Google Play retailer.
How pre-registration works
Utilizing pre-registration, people who find themselves concerned with your app can register to obtain it.
This is the way it appears to be like within the Google Play Retailer:
Folks faucet on pre-register after which on the launch day the app will get downloaded.
You may setup a pre-registration marketing campaign as much as 90 days earlier than your app launch.
Enter Google Adverts
To spice up our pre-registrations, I additionally setup a Google Adverts pre-registration marketing campaign.
We let the adverts run and saved a watch on the fee per conversion.
In the meanwhile, issues received busy with beta testing and getting our app prepared for launch.
Launch day
On the twenty fourth of October, it was time to launch MealPrepPro.
Google Adverts reported we had 16,171 pre-registrations. I used to be excited as I believed this is able to give us nice momentum on our launch day.
I hit the publish button and checked my Google Pixel cellphone to see how pre-registration would work on the launch day.
After 6 hours, the app had nonetheless not routinely put in to my system.
I attempted to coax it to routinely set up:
- Tried connecting my cellphone to wifi
- Tried plugging in my cellphone to the charger
- Tried restarting my cellphone
Nothing.
This wasn’t an excellent signal ????
On the App Retailer, whenever you pre-order an app, it will get routinely downloaded to your iPhone. You additionally get a push notification and an e-mail.
Google Play did not e-mail me. They did not routinely set up the app. I solely acquired a push notification.
I used to be nervous about this expertise and what it will imply for the 1000’s of {dollars} we might spent on the pre-registration marketing campaign.
Outcomes
16,171 conversions in line with Google Adverts
1,371 installs in line with Google Play Console
Out of the 16,171 pre-registrations we paid for, just one,371 went on to put in the app.
As a substitute of spending £1.06 ($1.36 USD) per conversion, as Google Adverts studies, we really spent £12.50 ($16 USD) per conversion.
We spent 12x extra per conversion than what we anticipated.
To place it in an mildly understated British approach “That is not nice”.
In American English “That is a catastrophe”.
There have to be some mistake…
When our Google Adverts dashboard stated now we have 16,171 conversions, we did not query the accuracy.
We knew not each single individual of the 16,171 will set up, however by no means in 1,000,000 years did we predict our installs can be 12x decrease than what Google studies.
No downside we thought. Certainly, there’s been a mistake. Maybe there was a difficulty in Google Adverts or a difficulty with how Pre-Registration works within the Google Play retailer.
Time to contact Google help.
Initially the Google rep stated our advert marketing campaign would not have any property (You do not want any for a pre-registration marketing campaign). Then they instructed us we even have 29,767 installs. Which isn’t true. That quantity refers to a separate app marketing campaign we might run years in the past.
We spent weeks going again and ahead, getting nowhere. Ultimately, exhausted and demotivated we gave up. Google noticed no difficulty in charging $20k+ for 16,171 conversions, however solely giving us 1,371.
TLDR
We used a Google Adverts pre-registration marketing campaign to get installs for our app. We paid for 16,171 conversions. We solely acquired 1,371 installs.
Closing ideas
MealPrepPro is constructed by a small indie dev crew and $20k was a painful amount of cash for us to waste. With pre-registration adverts you are placing all of your religion in Google that they will ship the conversions they’re displaying within the adverts studies. It isn’t till you launch that you’re going to really see what number of set up. I might by no means use pre-registration adverts once more.