Hello guys,
i released my first app around 1 month ago and, up to 2-3 days ago, it was doing amazingly well for being my first app.
After a slow start, i started to get 100-150 downloads a day, then 2 weeks after launch it went to 400+ daily downloads. The huge increase in daily downloads went on until 2 days ago, roughly for 10-12 days.
In the meanwhile i, obviously, also started to gain rankings due to the good download numbers and rate (3.95 right now, not too bad) so i guessed i should have become even more visible than before and, thus, i should get even more downloads.
Then, all of a sudden, right after my best day (700 downloads and close to 1k user), it all stopped in a matter of hours…i started to have less and less players and, by the end of the next day, downloads went down to 150 daily.
It has been now more than 3 days since this happened, and it is getting worst and worst…i am now barely getting 100 downloads a day, even less than when i launched.
I really can’t understand what could have happened to have such a steep drop in popularity in a matter of hours. In thailand, for ex, i passed from 150-180+ new downloads a day and from gaining 30-40 ranks a day in the arcade category (i was at 250 when it all happened) to 40 new downloads and a loss of 10-20 ranks a day…the fact that i was having stable downloads for more than 10 days is what bothers me…if i had those numbers for just 1-2 days i could have considered them as a strange event, but after 10 days of costant downloads i guess they could not be considered a case anymore.
Has anyone had a similiar experience with any of their apps? i tried to see if i had some good/bad reviews in those periods but i could not find any review on the net, nor i found similar games released in those days when the drop started…so, to me, it just looks like something that i really cannot explain (btw, the same drop started the same day also on the samsung store…i went from the usual 70-80 downloads to 20)
One reason might be that the first 30 days of your app’s life have ended and you don’t rank anymore in the Top New Free section or even Trending list which are the reason you got so many downloads in those days.
Nope, that is not the case (sadly…at least it would be an explanation).
The free month ended up 2-3 days before the drop…i released the game on 14 April and it went out of the new category on 14th May…then from the 15th to the 18th i still had, respectively, 442-491-592-441 (on samsung store 72-78-82-71) daily downloads…then from 19th they went to 286-195-154 (41-20-12 on samsung store…same % drop starting from the same days)
two parallel ups and downs in different shopw probably means that your app has been featured in some 3rd party service. Maybe you got reviewed on popular website or something like this. Now your review is on the second page or was archivised or smth. Try to search for your app in the internet. Give us info if you get something:)
i already tried to find any kind of review about my app (and i, too, suspected something like that could be the reason for the initial increase in download numbers), but i cannot find any review on the net nor any hashtag or anything relating to my app anywhere…honestly i don’t know many review sites, so i just googled the name of my app (dino dance) to find anything related to it but i came out with nothing
Well, I will be going with the reasons that @vadimbolun & @Mateusz has given. I also think the same as new applications has pushed up in the PlayStore means now your application is more less visible to the visitors. This clearly shows why the number of downloads of your application is declining day by day.
It’s normal to still get high downloads a few days after it leaves the top new categories. It’s usually not a sudden drop, it slowly drops over a few days. My theory on why this is so is because the high number of users from the first 30 days are showing their friends your app. As the installs from the top new sections stop you have less people talking about your app and slowly installs drop.
Samsung may follow the same 30 day grace period idea.
That or things like word of mouth were contributing to the download numbers in the Samsung Store from people using the app in the Play Store. (there a devices that only come with Samsung Store and also people who use that store over GPlay).
So as less people are downloading the GPlay version, less people are using it and therefore telling others about it.
The grace period theory on the samsung store is not possible since i uploaded the game a lot later there (5-6 days before the drop) …it may be possible that the word of mouth thing is an explanation, even though it seems strange that a drop in downloads on one store may influence also the other one…but, hey, i am new to this world so i really don’t know how it works…
I really found it strange to have such a huge decrease everywhere in the world on the same day since, when i wasn’t even on the top 500 chart i was seeing increasing numbers (i entered the top 500 “new releases” chart just 1-2 day before the end of the grace period but, by that day, i was already having those high download numbers since a few days), and now that i reached the top 250 people stop noticing me…
(btw, according to app annie, my ranking with many different keywords hasn’t changed at all comparing before and after the drop and, even stranger, for ex looking at the italian google store (i am from italy), i have even gained a few positions both under “dino” and “dance” searches…)
someone has posted a review of your app. You saw this sudden rise and the sudden fall. We cannot help you in searching, because you haven’t named your app - but everything looks like there was some popular post somewhere and you slipped away from their homepage/starting page.
I said the name (Dino Dance)
Yes, that’s probably the most reasonable explanation i think…i’d like to know who and where it was this hypothetical review though since i couldn’t find it…at least for having a better insight on what has/is happening
yep, banner while playing and an interstitial on game quit or when going back to main menu for the first time… had those ads since the previous patch 8 days before (all admob ads)
(Dino Dance)