sorry to hear that. I did have the same type experience twice already and I try to sum more and more information before to do anything. @mind, may I ask: what you think you did wrong or needed to be done another way?
@mind, may I ask how many installs did you buy and at what price?
Mobile retention benchmarks for 2014 vs 2013 show a 50% drop in D1 retention (Guest post) - @Andrewchen at @Andrewchen
very dynamic market - changing too fast… so one idea 1 year ago, may be a bad Idea even before the project finishes…
I was signed up with fbstart (Facebook’s startup program). That got my $3k in free advertizing. I put in another $2k. It was heavily targeted to users of other word games. Average price was around $0.80.
It was kinda interesting… I got ‘charged’ for $5k of installs over a few days. Almost ZERO of those installs actually played the game. The installs look legit. Real devices/etc. But they never actually played the game. Since there were only 5k total installs prior to advertizing and about 3k players per day at peak… you would think that adding an additional 5k installs would show on the number of games played, however there is NOTHING on the graphs. For all I know, Facebook is running an Android bot farm so their advert network has installs (NB: conjecture only!)
So I had a short chat with my Facebook rep and asked “WTF ?” … he asked me for the traffic graphs/etc (which I supplied) … said he could see my issue… and promised to investigate and get back to me. He never did.
I would request a refund if I were you.
@mind, can you post a graph with your new users in a 10 days interval (including the days when you’ve advertised with facebook)?
I am assuming you added Google Analytics to the game. What’s the session duration average?
Thanks!
Very risky time to invest in installs, unless you have 100k
mind, is it possible to make a summary of your 3 games incomes and expenses? Word Hero was a commercial success, so i suppose you have still made some $10k´s at the end of the day?
What are your plans for now on?
And keep going, we have all had “failures” 
just found something strange 
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.Halloween.CANDYBLASTPRO
this game has 50-100 Downloads and “+272 Recommend this on Google” , rate 3.0 (2 Votes - 1 Star and 5 Star)
So, social networks even after a real SPAM cant help
mind, how was December for you? how is the game overall doing?
I posted my own experience with using AppBrain and Tapjoy at the end - and generally the experience was ok - you get the downloads you pay for.
HOWEVER, once you stop paying things went really downhill. That is - the app was getting LOWER downloads than it was before the paid installs.
And this is perhaps to be expected - and maybe related to Google penalizing an app for falling in app installs - but worse perhaps having a very bad uninstall/install ratio (which is going to be worse for paid installs generally).
So basically my total installed base didn’t really change much once that few days of paid installs (the “pulse”) occurred - since most of these would install and then uninstall. Even though I got a big pulse in the daily installs graph.
It is possible that this really bad uninstall/install ratio for those few days may have convinced Google that the app was crap to get such poor user response.
In any case what happened was that after the “pulse” (paid installs pulse - lasting for few days) - daily downloads decreased.
As a result even now when I look at my Google Developer Console graph for installs - there is a noticeable “kink” right when the the paid installs occurred - and the slope after that kink is nearly half what it was before. That is there was an irretreivable damage done to the app by that paid install campaign.
The slope I was getting before the “pulse” (paid installs) was reasonable (and this is after the first month honeymoon period) - but was lower after the pulse. And I figured that if there had been no pulse (and if the downloads had continued at that rate), the app would have nearly 2x the downloads it has now !!
Now this may not be a general principle - but this is just one data point. Obviously if the paid install campaign has deep pockets and can continue for months it maybe another matter.
I have noted that many of the top apps even in minor niches or tool categories also seem to be doing advertising (i.e. sponsored links on Google searches and on websites or on twitter in what seem like paid promotions by marketing type twitter accounts). And I have also noted similar activity by apps which are not deserving of the ranking but which make it to near the top for certain niches or keyword searches. So obviously someone has the budget to be pushing these relatively cheaply made apps.
This is perhaps why sometimes you find these spam/crappy apps near the top in some app niches - some of these apps seem to be engaging in spam advertising (and oddly STILL manage to get good overall ratings - so are they buying those as well - even though the comments clearly are also complaining about spam ads etc.). And I have also encountered apps which seem like complete ripoffs of other well known apps - and they have the temerity to post completely different screenshots for Google Play as well (so they are not immediately caught just by looking at the Google Play screenshots).
So there is a bunch of crap going on on Google Play and Google seems to be oblivious to this …
Impressive numbers and good game app. I am sure it will make it big. As an additional revenue you should try out SWAYco. It helps monetize apps through quick polls. It’s non-intrusive to your users and easy to install. Every successful poll submission earns the app developer $0.30. This will help boost revenue for your app. Reach out if you have questions or would like to further discuss. [email protected]
Yeah, like, you lost ~40k$ on the app? Impressive numbers, congratulations, good job!
…
Man, you should read a bit before spamming the topic…
Anyway, I would also like to hear how was December for you and how are you doing. And as BaksaiApps asked, how is your summary over 3 games? I guess you’re still over 150k$ net profit over these last 3 years?
Anyway, I wish you all the best 
Some January numbers for @johna and the rest of you:
Income from advertizing:
Startapp: 144k impressions, $0.12 eCPM, $17
Millennial Media: 195k impressions, $0.12 eCPM, $45.63
MoPub market banner: 909k impressions, $0.17 eCPM, $152.23
MoPub market 300x250: 46k impressions, $0.67 eCPM, $30.81
Admob: 77k impressions, $0.07 eCPM, $5.34
IAP: $255.76
Total income: $506.77
Expenses (rough, since last day or so is an estimate):
GAE : $170
GCE : $35
Total Expenses: ~$205
Net income: ~$300/month
given the competition, $10 per day on one game is not bad.
edit: Nevermind, I’ve noticed now, those numbers are for WordSearch Hero.
Those eCPM are saddening 
No intersticial ?
Your overall revenue seems very low considering the amount of impressions you have.
@mind, thank you for the update.
Admob: 77k impressions, $0.07 eCPM, $5.34
My admob: 745 impressions, 24 clicks, ~ 6.40$ for January.
I assume that you use banners? but still those are bad admob numbers.
About the game - do you consider second Ad wave? This time with admob or another ad network?
What I am experiencing is that the users with the first version of the App dont upgrade to the newer version and that is bad for me.
My new version gets downloads, but the old user base, which is big, doesn’t switch to the new version and that is “killing” me.
Edit: grammar
Given that it is a competitive game on a 3 minute game loop, the options are:
- one interstitial per game
- 3-4 banners per game
… assuming a $0.50 eCPM for USA banners, I would need $1.50 to $2 eCPM for the single interstitial per game. Also, if there is a missed fill on the interstitial, it is the same as 3-4 missed impressions with banners.
AND you piss off the players with a interruption AND provide a break … which allows them to exit the game. My games are SO ADDICTIVE, because they don’t encourage the players to exit the app.
Now that you know all that… do you still prefer interstitials ? Or are you just repeating what everyone else says 'because interstitials have a higher eCPM, therefore they must be better!"
@johna : I check a server and can force the user to upgrade, or just display a message. However, I only use this functionality when I introduce a backwards incompatible change (which I have managed to avoid doing so far!) from one version to another.
coin/lifes/chances system with incent video ads is another option