My first app is doing pretty decent, and I have questions

I just decided to make the easiest quickest game I could make, and I never thought anyone would like it. For the first six weeks they didn’t, but then something happened:

That’s my daily downloads graph. On Saturday May 10 I had a significant bump, and then the next weekend, May 17/18, I had a huge bump.

[ol]
[li]What could cause such a big bump up to 2,450 downloads in a day? Just luck? I do show up as a “similar app” to a couple of very popular games, could that do it?
[/li][li]It’s already dropping again into mid-week, but can I hope for an even bigger bump this coming weekend? I’m on the “Top <genre> Games” charts in 10 countries now and rising in all of them, according to AppAnnie, but my US rank is down around 475 and kind of steady.
[/li][li]Should I be looking at other ad networks? I need to play it pretty safe, which is why I’ve stuck exclusively with AdMob, but how much money am I leaving on the table that way, given that I’m making about $20 to $30 a day since the big weekend? My RPM has always held steady around $.40, and my CTR is about 0.25%. I had 120k impressions on that huge Sunday, falling to about 60k today.
[/li][li]I’m working hard to get the sequel ready to release soon. I want to promote it via the first one, while it’s still pretty popular, and hopefully get on the New Games lists this time. Can I put a button in my first game that will send them to get the sequel, or is that forbidden? I’ve got a house ad campaign ready to go in case it is.
[/li][li]Any other advice for someone with some moderate and unexpected success? Any idea whether a bump like I’ve seen is likely to disappear, or will $30/day become the new normal? I was hovering around $3/day for a long time. Anything I can do to keep the momentum going?
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downloads-graph.jpg

Sounds like you’re doing only banners? If so, you’re leaving money on the table. Adding interstitials now will surely disgruntle a few existing users, but it should at least double your revenue.

For banners only, you might be able to squeeze a few percent more out, but it’s hardly worth the effort.

Thanks for the reply, Skurry. Interstitials don’t really fit with my design (there are no natural breaks in the action), but my sequel will have them. Not too often, though…what’s a reasonable rate to show interstitials?

You can show interstitial on launch and on exit. So two interstitial impression per user session.

  1. Could be that your game got reviewed. Could be a random spur of luck. Google might have tweaked their algorithms too - that’s happened to me a couple times.

  2. I wouldn’t expect another big jump, but if you’re entering charts in different countries it should stabilize or climb over the next week.

  3. For banners you won’t find much better a deal than with Admob. You might be able to squeeze out extra dollars using mediation and putting networks that focus on specific geos into the mix. Admob will always be a competitive solution though.

  4. Putting a button for the sequel in is totally fine, but you have to make sure that is obvious what the button is doing. Slap the “get it on google play” logo on the button along with the sequel’s name and you’re golden.

  5. You most likely won’t return to $3 a day now, since your game is higher in the charts than it previously was. The critical thing for you to do now is to find out where the surge came from.
    Search for reviews, check on AppAnnie to see where the downloads came from (a specific country maybe?).

Also, try increasing your refresh rate. You might get better results.

I’ve had two spikes like that myself. The first one was in Brazil and is still a mystery to me.

The second one I know because it was in my country and I happened to be watching television when they mentioned another app that did something similar to what my app does. That’s right, they didn’t even mention my app. Huge surge in downloads for days! TV is still king when it comes to getting the word out to people.

@sraxus you may appear in the similar apps right at the bottom of the other app. Users which are unsatisfied with this app are looking in the similar apps section and that may drive your downloads as well
@exploder did you make a google search for your app on the questionable day? Looks like you were mentioned in some blog or video maybe - maybe a similar app was mentioned and to you happend what happend to sraxus