My attempt to double my installs this month

Just thought I would make a small journal of this months attempt to get double amount of installs for my wish list app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cubeactive.qwishlistfree

In short I will be promoting more aggressively the up coming day’s and I hope to increase the downloads to double of last month.

The figures:
Downloads Aug 2012: 715
New active installs: 340

The goal for September will be 1.400 installs and 680 new active installations.

Based only on Google Play statistics.

What will I do:

  • Update banners
  • More promotion on Android forums
  • Add banners to my blog
  • Promotion on Google plus
    And hopefully roll out a new update that will make the app more compatible for Android 3.x and 4.x

Hi there Martin,

I used to spend a lot of time promoting my apps on Android forums, and by tracking all my installations through Google Analytics, all I can say is that it was useless (at least for me). I used to get 3-4 installations from those forums after a few weeks.

I also tried Twitter… I joined a group of application developers that allows you to get retweeted to thousands of people, and again, I didn’t get a single installation using that method.

The only thing that has worked for me is putting my applications on specialized Android sites (android zoom, appbrain, etc). Bestappsmarket.com lets you feature your app for free in one of their sections for 24 hours. Also, androidzoom gives you $50 to buy installations, which may help to get some traction at application launch time. I think the key is getting your app on top of the top new free section and get enough downloads to make it into the top free section.

Interesting. And how about promoting on non Android forums?
I did notised that most Android forums are low on traffic. An app promoting topic might get 300 views max. As you said it might be pointless.

But paid advertisement. Does it really pay off? I’ve seen some people on this forum stating they did not get many new downloads.

All the big ones spend money on advertisement, that’s why they jump into the first positions on Google Play, and once there they can stop spending. I’m by no means saying that is the only way to increase your downloads, but it is one that works.

Yes but does it pay of for a free app? Most of those big guys have money to spend, and the apps have stuff like in app purchases. If I would have to pay 20 cents for an installation I will never get the money back. I think it’s only practical if it gets you into the top 10 list, and that would take a big promotion campaign.

Well what I did so far:

  • Update banners
  • More promotion on Android forums (two more forums added to my list to update)
  • Add banners to my blog (added a top banner to promote Wish l!st)

Updated my app. It’s more compatible for devices without a physical menu button. So I hope to get less uninstalls. :slight_smile:
[hr]
Let’s make an update for the progress so far.

Install numbers for 12-sep-2012
New active installs in september: 115
Total installs in september: 259
Ranking: 106 in category shopping

Well as you can see the install numbers are still behind target, but the ranking has improved from about 160 to 106. So there is some progress. I hope to see some improvement in install numbers in the up coming days.

The month is over and here are the final numbers:
New active installs in september: 257
Total installs in september: 686
Best ranking: 106 in category shopping

As you can read, the goal was harder to reach than I thought.
I Was short by: 423 active installations and 714 total installations.

Hopefully the end results for October will be better.

What will I do this month to improve the download rates.

  • Cross promoting my apps within my other apps
  • More social media marketing
  • Change banner on my blog

One thing I did learn from all this was that putting much time into promoting on Android forums just does not pay off. I Did however made some changes to my promotions on multiple forums so I do not have to upload screenshots to every single one, all of the screenshots are placed on my own hosting and can be updated from one place. This makes it less time consuming to post updates on these forums.

I already told you:

Haha, yes you told me. I had to try it for myself.

Just sent you the translations of your store and app texts. Let’s see if this can boost your installs in the German speaking markets! :slight_smile:

Yeah, I think so because German is in the top 5 biggest countries for the category the app is in.

Good luck Martin.

Have you tried contacting app review sites?

Got a mention on a dutch site this week:
http://www.androidworld.nl/130716/nieuwe-apps-in-de-google-play-store-week-41/

After two day’s I got about 130 new active installations, let’s see what it will do in the long run.
Also it boosted up my place to 68 in the top free shopping app’s in the Play store. But that might drop again once the spike of new installations will fall back.

I’ve been more active working on an update for my other app Note l!st, that update is released today and I hope to get a few new installations for that app. I Did put a Facebook link and a rate this app dialog in the updated Note l!st, the next update for Wish l!st will feature the same promotion changes. Also m-ilk is helping me with a German translation for Wish l!st. So there are some positive things going on. :slight_smile:

Here are the numbers for October:
430 new active installs. That’s still not near my goal of 680 but it is the highest number I had so far.
1079 total installations.

So a big improvement compare to the bad results last month.
I Did release a new version a few day’s ago and it got a review on appeggs.com:
http://www.appeggs.com/apps/com.cubeactive.qwishlistfree,59363.html

But the strange thing about that review is that I do not see any spike in the active installations yet, while the mention on the dutch site gave a big spike. So let’s see what will happen.

I Am now also serving house adds in my apps, but wish l!st is my most popular app so while the other apps might benefit from the house apps it’s hardly noticeable with wish l!st at the moment.

I hope to have a good result this month and I will keep you all informed.

So finally 2 months later I managed to get the result I was aiming for.

The goal was 1.400 installs and 680 new active installations.

These are the numbers for November:
Downloads: 2.019
New active installs: 846

That’s an average of 67,3 installations a day.
I’m happy with the results and it shows that taking the time to improve your app does pay off. With every update that makes the app better I see an increase in the daily downloads.

I’m hoping to reach the 1.000 new active installations for Wish l!st soon. Maybe even this month.