How to go from 10 downloads/day to 100? Or 1000?

Discussion in 'Public Game Developers Forum' started by maggiesgames, Oct 10, 2014.

  1. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    Hi everyone,

    I am new here and figured I'll see if I could get a discussion started on how to take the next step with your App.

    I've had an App out on App Store and Google Play for about 6 months now and my downloads are in the range of 10-20 downloads/day on the App Store, and on average 40-50 downloads / day on Google Play. Except an early peak due to a newspaper article, these numbers have been fairly steady for the entire time. Not increasing and not decreasing.

    I havent really had time to do much about my app in terms of marketing, except a little when I released it, but now I've decided to make a serious attempt to boost those numbers. I thinking of I can get a steady stream of about 50 downloads / day (on both stores), then I could get 100. Or why not 1000?

    Question is how.

    I am suspecting others are, or have been, struggling with the same issue as me. So how do you take the next step?

    App Store Optimisation and/or search engine optimisation. I've researched this very little to be honest. Can you really increase your download that much just by changing keywords? I've read a few articles, made some changes, but I can't say much happened...

    Paid ADs? If so, where? Which Ad networks works best? I have no tried paid ads yet, but I am thinking it might be worth as shot.

    Social Media? I've been trying to use Twitter with very little success so far, anyone have any success stories in the Social Media marketing category, or is that just a big hype that only works for the big companies?

    My only real marketing success so far came after contacting a newspaper here in Sweden, who put my App up on their App Section, which boosted my numbers to 2.000 downloads / day on each store, but it only lasted for two days, and as soon as my App wasn't on the first page in the newspaper App Section, downloads went down as dramatically as they went up. I've contacted a handful of other newspapers without getting a reply since. So, clearly if you get your App in a newspaper, it helps a lot, but only briefly.

    So yeah, thats the story of my first app so far. Anyone else care to share their story and/or advice?

    Thanks!
     
  2. Columbo

    Columbo Well-Known Member

    Sep 1, 2014
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    Some ideas off the top of my head:

    - Make sure your icon is as appealing as possible.
    - Make sure your screenshots are as appealing as possible.
    - Make sure your description text is good and is localised (even if your game isn't)
    - Make sure your listed in appropriate genres.
    - When you post in forums about your game, add the link (it won't be clickable because you've only done a couple of posts here, but it's still better than nothing)
    - Having a touch arcade listing and a indiedb listing can't do any harm.
    - Emailing every journalist and website going is hard work and as frustrating as hell because you'll be ignored by almost everyone, but you might get the occasional result.

    Good luck.
     
  3. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    Think I got that covered. Although anything can always be improved of course.

    That's interesting. My game is in English and I never even thought about making my description text localised. You think that helps? Personally I dont like reading poorly translated to Swedish-app descriptions but I suppose it could be worth doing a spanish/french/german translation perhaps. I dont have a clue about how costly it is though, gotta check that first.:)

    I did not post a link on purpose since I did not want to come off as someone who just wants free promotion, but instead wanted some actual tips and suggestions. But I'll take your advice and give it a go at the end of this post.

    That I could do. Good advice. Tips on more _good_ similar sites out there?

    Mailed about 20, got replies from 2, which did increase my downloads considerably. So I suppose a 10% success rate isn't that bad. Guess I should keep doing that, but you're right, its hard work.

    For whoever is interested, here's a link to my app webpage:
    http://www.connectforeplay.com

    And here's the links to google play and app store:
    https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/connect-foreplay-the-sex-game/id687742381?mt=8&uo=4

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magnusholmgren.connectforeplay

    As you can see, it's an "adult" game, but a serious one. (compared to 99% of the market). Hope it doesn't offend anyone. But I dont see how it could!
     
  4. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    #4 Pixelosis, Oct 12, 2014
    Last edited: Oct 12, 2014
    They all say that and plenty of people spend a ton of time to optimize things which return very little extra. Most of the time, everything I read from people on forums just reeks off desperation. Then, other times, you have the pro articles. They basically say make a nice icon (conveys the message, is pretty, clear and stands out) and think you keywords well. I found one article that claimed a huge explosion of traffic ... in percentages, that is, and that's not the only relevant data, I'm weary of percentages.
    But the ASO was so pathetic that it wasn't a surprise that with just basic, moderate and relatively obvious words, downloads multiplied. But the total wasn't impressive.
    The rest, I think it's just hogwash.

    Normal ads, CPI, CPL, etc. If you're going to play this game, you'll need tens of thousands of dollars, that is all.

    The real social that works is if you have a community of at least several thousands of people ready to download your app within a week at most, in order to propel your app sufficiently high to grab the spot where the organic meat is.
    If you have a blog or f/t page that has a real following, you're good. Otherwise, don't delude yourself and move on.

    The other "social" sits halfway between social, press coverage and fandom community: youtubers and the like. And they ain't cheap.

    Typical. Reviews and press coverage are only good if you can combine them with other powerful factors. They also help give a presence in the world and on Internet. But even their relevance is overblown.
    I wish it weren't the case, but that's the sad truth. Plus many media outlets hardly are impartial nor brave. Many just sugar coat the piece of PR paper they were handed.

    Other than that, you go look for bots that cost several thousands to build and/or Asian sweatshops which are supposedly owners of thousands of dumped iPhones.

    One thing that hasn't changed in the industries that sell goods is that you need coverage to reach the attention of customers. The people who come talking about the passion and beauty of making games alone are plain fools, unless they live in a castle and sleep on bags of cash (and they'd just be cynical having fun of gullible serfs).
    The majority of people are getting poorer, taxes are on the rise everywhere, you work longer, you consume more crap and have even less time.
    And you are supposed to sell stuff to these people. Plus your market is overly saturated with junk software.

    Have a nice day.
     
  5. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    It definitely does. Apps which have, at least, a translated presentation pages register more downloads in the respective specific countries; the difference can be huge. Best thing to do is look at your app's genre and category and see in which countries they are the most popular, and target them with your translations.

    Honestly, when you consider the gains for the cost of work (and any time you spend is money invested, like it or not), I find the results most unconvincing.

    Luckily, making a really nice game and finding a community that would like it, and stick with it, would kinda help. Depending on the type and platform, some people will be ready to shell out the bills while others will be more prone to download it in droves if it's free (you're aiming for IAPs then with this model).
     
  6. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    Pixelosis:

    You paint a bleak picture..:)

    My experience with ASO is similar, I mean if you have some common sense you'll have keywords fitting your game already, and the "tips" you read about are usually just that, common sense. And creating an icon that stands out together with good screenshots... well duh? Obviously. Like you say, most people who benefit from it are probably those who's done a terrible job at it. Which is quite a few...

    I've did some ad test runs for a handful of dollars and yeah, it's pretty obvious I'd need a much bigger budget than I am willing to spend to get any real results. I am gonna do a few more small tests though. Might at least learn something from it.

    I do think I am gonna try localise my description and keywords. See if it helps. It should be easy enough to do a test on that with one or a few languages.

    My game is more or less the only serious one in its niche, the hard part is to find the people who would be interested in it, and getting into a community without seeming like some spammer who just wants downloads. (Which is the truth.:).

    I am not sure I agree with you on articles. Even 6 months after two magazines wrote articles about my app, I have a much higher download rate than what would seem normal from Denmark and Sweden, where the magazines where located, while I have basically 0 from other nordic countries. So I think I still gain some from those articles even though they're old now. But sure, it's hard work, and maybe I'd gain more by doing something else.

    On you it basically sounds impossible though...:) Have you had success yourself with some strategy, and if so what was it?
     
  7. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    Regardless of your app's own merits, the effects of such articles do exist, but not to the mountainous hopes some make them out to be. You need a lot of press coverage to have a total activity make a difference, and it just happens that this has a real, solid price as well. You're back at how much are you willing to pay, knowing that a large percentage of the paid reviews won't make a difference but that you pay for those that will, in some sort of convoluted CPC multivectorial campaign.

    If you have the money, or the people, or the black marketing means, it's doable. I'm just tired of the click-bait articles that sell you "5 tips you need to know to increase your app's presence" blah blah blah...

    Being in a community and having an influence is most useful, but the vast majority of devs, even if honest and passionate, don't really register on the radar, even if they have already been members of certain boards for what would seem eons.

    Plus anywhere there is a ranking system, it can and will be gamed, and the richest will dominate. In many ways, the vast majority of devs on smartphone are a bit late in the game. The older and more attractive the system is, the harshest and darwinianest it gets. At some point, it pretends operating under regulation while in reality it's a pure law of jungle in disguise where only those with the means can win, while pretending it's fair.

    If anything, independant curating systems forwarding their own selection or catalog of third party apps validated by community peers and pushing them through their own apps published on iOS and Android would rejuvenate those big markets. But this is neither here nor there.
    I frankly don't know what to say other than make a good enough game, grow a solid web of contacts and PR, try to grow a community which you'll be able to trigger on release date, and amass money to spend on ads and press coverage when needed, with a clever pre-release and post-release strategy.
    Oh, see, I'm doing it, typing obviassduh tips. :(
     
  8. PikPok

    PikPok Well-Known Member

    Nov 26, 2009
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    Wellington
    We've had some success with downloads. In order of importance in terms of what promotion drives downloads from best to worst, I'd list as follows

    - Platform Featuring (make sure your app is high quality, ,supports platform specific features like iCloud and Gamecentre and new hardware like iPhone 6/6 Plus, and localize the store and ingame assets, a feature can be worth hundreds if not millions of dollars worth of "free advertising")

    - Favourable coverage in a mass media outlet (getting covered in major newspapers, massive websites, radio and television can drive a lot of users, especially if you have a casual title or one with broad appeal, but hard to get this kind of coverage unless you have a compelling social angle)

    - Paid advertising (however, usually way too expensive because most games don't generate enough revenue per install to justify it and most developers don't have the $50-100k+ you need to spend on this per day to make a difference in the rankings)

    - Licensing (leveraging licensed material and IP can allow you to tap into a prexisting audience/fanbase who are likely already congregating on certain websites and social channels and can be reached easily)

    - Clickswap/friendly cross promotion (tap large networks outside of your own with clickswap deals with other developers/publishers)

    - Internal network cross promotion (the easiest install you'll get is from an already existing customer in another game or app of your own)

    - Localization (helps with featuring and getting users across the line to generate a download. The "most important" languages are English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese)

    - Games press PR (works best if you are making midcore to hardcore titles given game sites are usually)

    - Social media promotion including TA, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram (mostly this is way more effort than the benefits it generates unless you have a large social following)


    However, the key to maximizing the effectiveness of promotion is great on store assets. Have a great memorable app name, eye catching icon, compelling screenshots and description copy, and good localization. If you can increase the conversion of users who visit your page into installs then that will be a multiplier on everything else you do promotion wise.
     
  9. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    I am starting to get tired of them as well. It's all the same stuff, and it's all generally just common sense they list in their "amazing tips on how to get rich on apps". Heh. Which is why I asked here to see if I could get some real advice from actual people who's not looking for clicks mainly.
     
  10. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    #10 maggiesgames, Oct 13, 2014
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2014
    Thank you PikPok for sharing your marketing knowledge, very interesting read for a marketing newbie like me.

    I am currently going to try out localizing my game description to a handful of major languages other than English. Unfortunately my game is very text heavy, so translating the whole game simply is not doable. At least not very cheap. I am gonna experiment with translating the app description and keywords though. To see if it has any noticeable effect on people from those countries finding my app, even if the game itself remains in english.

    I just finished a two day test run on a small text ad on reddit, which gave me an estimate on how much a click to my app homepage would cost there. $0.11 / click seems like a pretty good CTR actually, still those are homepage clicks, they will have to lead to app downloads and then in a freemium app lead to a purchase.

    So the cost / purchase will obviously be quite high even with a decent CTR. So yeah, paid ads wont be cheap in the long run.

    It's especially hard with an app targeted for an adult market, even if its not in any way pornographic or contains anything even close to naked, most mobile ad networks will refuse ads to anything that isn't 100% "family safe".

    I am gonna continue to make a few other test campaigns though, to get some more data on paid ads.

    Other than that, it feels like my best bet is getting featured in magazines, websites, etc.

    Interestingly enough the first magazine I contacted, a big one in Sweden, immediately _called_ me after reading my mail, and within hours they had an article about my app up on their main App section site. It spiked downloads and purchases making my game #1 in Lifestyle Sweden, #10 overall, and #2 grossing Lifestyle app in Sweden. That lasted only a day though, then a decline started until my downloads within a week or so went down to the current, and much lower, level.

    I first thought "Wow, that was easy!", but my success was short lived, as only one magazine I contacted after that wrote an article about my game. The rest did not even reply at all. In a way I was kind of unlucky who got such a good first impression on how "easy" it was to market an app, when in fact, it proved out to be far from easy eventually.

    Anyway, after a bunch of months when I've been busy with my day job, I am ready to give this another go. Fingers crossed!

    Oh yeah, if anyone has any suggestions on how to improve my app web page and / or app store pages, icons, screenshots etc, feel free to have a look and let me know. http://www.connectforeplay.com
     
  11. Columbo

    Columbo Well-Known Member

    Sep 1, 2014
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    Couple of suggestions based on your particular title:

    - The in-game screenshots are fine, but I wonder if your particular app might be better served by having the first screenshot as a splash screen. Get an artist to do a (tasteful) sexy launch screen for your app and put that in as a screenshot, with a bit of marketing text on it.
    - You should be very encouraged by the mainstream press coverage you got already - 2 out of 20 responses sounds extremely good! I think your app is the sort of thing that tabloid newspapers (the sun, the star), lads mags (fhm, nuts, gq, loaded), classier 'gentleman's' magazines (penthouse, playboy) and woman's magazines (take a break, cosmopolitan) might be interested in. I guess there'd be a lot of research to find the right publications in the major markets to email (my examples are all very UK centric), but I reckon that unlike most games you won't be wasting your time by targeting the non-games press.

    I can't speak from experience in this sub-sector of the games industry though, so take my advice with a pinch of salt.
     
  12. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    #12 maggiesgames, Oct 13, 2014
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2014
    Thanks for your comments. I have actually been thinking of making my Icon more "Sexy", your advice on sexifying the launch screen might be a good idea too. I've tried to keep things nice looking and classy rather than sexy and cheesy though. It's such a cliché to have a sexy girl or guy or something... It's what you'd expect from the not so serious apps in this category, which is like 99%.:) But yeah, it's definitely something to consider, keeping it fairly classy but perhaps a little more sexy could be worth a try.

    As for magazines, I am not expert either, but your ideas are very similar to mine. So it's nice to hear someone else suggesting the same strategy. That cant be bad.:)

    I've compiled a big list of magazines and newspaper sections that I think would fit very well. It's exactly the stuff they write about in the "Sex & Relationships" sections of all those type of magazines and papers. Some of your examples were not on my list yet though, so thanks for those!

    If you got more suggestions on UK based magazines or websites that you'd think would fit, I'd love to hear. Since I am from Sweden I got more knowledge of our magazines, but not that much of US and UK. My downloads are currently mainly from US (big majority), then UK, Sweden, Germany and Denmark. I managed to get an article in the App section of Sweden's version of "The Sun", and the Sex section in a similar type of newspaper in Denmark. Being from Sweden probably gave me an edge there, since they probably like writing about local entrepreneurs. But since I had such a good experience in these rather small countries, and even 6 months later my downloads are still boosted from it, I think if I could get an article or two in a fairly big US or UK magazine it would do wonders!

    So yeah, I should definitely focus on making my magazine list bigger and start mailing again.
     
  13. Astirian

    Astirian Member

    Aug 14, 2014
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    Purveyor of Shoddy Games.
    Nostalgia Forest
    Awesome thread, I'm new to the App Store game myself and my app is dyin' out there.

    Some really interested points from PikPok and some of the other commenters there, I'd be very interested to know how you go with you ad experiments as I've run a few of my own...

    To give you a quick rundown, my free app (Defender of the Wood), which I've been told sounds sex related haha!:

    400 downloads the first two days after being mentioned buried in the new releases article here on TA then 0-3 per day over the course of 2 months.

    I threw $100 at mylikes and $100 at stumble upon to lead to my landing page. I'm also spending $6 per day on Facebook to grow my user base (oh so very, very, very slowly).

    My mini mylikes campaign seemed to triple my downloads to 9-10 (watch out! :rolleyes:) over the week I ran it although with such small numbers it could be coincidence. And my stumbleupon campaign seemed to do absolutely zero for me although people did seem to like the page so that's probably a good way of getting site feedback?

    I also got mentioned by a local website which did 0 for me, I think the audience is too small.

    I've just integrated GameCenter, ranking and FB and Twitter into the latest and once it gets approved (fingers crossed) I'm planning to do the following all at once:

    - Contact all the relevant review/blog sites (been waiting for the right time since my initial botched release).
    - Run an ad on buysellads for a month.
    - Contact free youtube reviewers.
    - Potentially do a boosted post on FB about the patch.

    But yeah... After reading about the $50-100k a day needed for proper advertising, I may as well go outside and fart in the pool to see if that does anything.

    If anything, I'm learning constantly which is good I suppose. Also, my game might be sh*te, so there's always that.
     
  14. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    AdMob lets you use all sorts of ads. The main problem really is with the final and real app publishers, Apple, Google or Microsoft.
    Yes, I know, they're not publishers as we understand it, but thinking of it, your app never exists until they allow it to be published on their market.
    We, have more to do with a "patient zero" pattern. :)
     
  15. Pixelosis

    Pixelosis Well-Known Member

    Jan 28, 2013
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    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Achievement Unlocked:
    DOWNLOAD TRICKSTER


    [​IMG]

    [​IMG] [​IMG]


    :D :p
     
  16. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    Ads with "sexually suggestive content" are not allowed on AdMob, but they are allowed on AdWords. That is because AdMob only allow "family safe" ads, while AdWords have "non-family safe" and "adult" ads. My AdWord text ad was reviewed and classified as "non family safe", so I wont be able to use AdMob.

    Sex related apps are however perfectly allowed on Google Play and App Store as long as they dont not contain nudity. And dont break a million of other rules of course.:)
     
  17. maggiesgames

    maggiesgames Well-Known Member

    Oct 10, 2014
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    #17 maggiesgames, Oct 14, 2014
    Last edited: Oct 14, 2014
    Hah, yeah the title could be sex related with a little imagination:)

    So what are you daily downloads currently after spending $200+ on Ads? Have you calculated what you pay for each click to your landing page?

    I tried $10 on reddit, which lead to 90 clicks to my homepage. Meaning on reddit I would pay about $0.11 for each click.

    Two days ago I started an AdWords campaign which is generating a click to my homepage for an average of $0.06 / click, which so far is twice as cheap as reddit. I am spending a maximum of about $1 / day.

    Currently I am making about $7-8 / day in revenue on my app. (After Apple and Google play takes their share). Before I started promoting that number was about $2-3. So, so far so good. However it always sells a little better on weekends, so we'll see if the increase will last. $7-8 / day isn't much, but in as long as I spend less on ads than I earn it's at least promising.

    So in conclusion my webpage views and App revenue have increased some, but it's far to early to draw any conclusions about if paid ads are worth it. I am gonna run it for a longer period now, and compare to the same period before, and see if there is an actual long term increase in sales or not.
     
  18. Astirian

    Astirian Member

    Aug 14, 2014
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    Purveyor of Shoddy Games.
    Nostalgia Forest
    [​IMG]

    LMAO! You've just made my week. :)
     
  19. Astirian

    Astirian Member

    Aug 14, 2014
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    Purveyor of Shoddy Games.
    Nostalgia Forest
    #19 Astirian, Oct 15, 2014
    Last edited: Oct 15, 2014
    That's actually stellar compared to me, I'm getting somewhere in the region of $0.06 - $0.09 per WEEK in revenue :cool:. 700 downloads or so so far in total at 1-2 downloads per day and after my dalliance with ad campaigns, it spiked to about 10/day for a couple of days and has settled down to about 4/day now once the money ran out.

    CPC was $0.20 on MyLikes, and I was maybe getting 3-5 extra daily downloads for just under 1000 clicks a day (I say MAYBE, my tracking sucks). Which is kind of pitiful for a free app right?

    CPV (cost per visit apparently) to my website was about $0.14, I got around 150 stumbles per day but I didn't really see any downloads as a result which surprised the crap out of me. Same with my daily FB campaign.

    Tough stuff and it looks like that required $50k-100K marketing budget is looking more and more likely. I was hoping you could re-invest profit(?) into marketing over time and generate a snowball effect but hmm...

    I'm gonna do a Reddit post and a PR as well as the other stuff I mentioned for my next release and I'll probably stop there. I've read a few things about needing to release a couple of apps before they become profitable so I'll probably just put my head down and concentrate on the next one. :(
     
  20. Destined

    Destined Well-Known Member

    Aug 11, 2013
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    It is true the only real correlation with success is the number of apps released. I assume that is because in general you get better.

    Sometimes your product sucks and you keep trying because of your own attachments and it is hard to draw a line in the sand. Having analytics to figure how long players are playing for and how engaged they are really helps make that choice more easy.
     

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