I think they're being a bit misleading - the issue is simply that Google counts a "conversion" as someone signing up for pre-registration, whereas they assumed it would be for an app install.
Google should be clearer about that, but it's not like they are just making numbers up.
Fair point. To Google conversion = someone who has pre-registered. That's different to someone actually installing. I never expected 100% of people who pre-registered would install, but having only 8% of people who pre-register go on to download seems kinda wild.
If anyone has any figures for a pre-order campaign on the App Store it would be very interesting to compare the conversion rate.
Hopefully someone with some benchmarks on this specific kind of thing can chime in, but to me it seemed like 8-10% conversion from notification to install was not too terrible. Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that it turned out this way! I’m just basing this on conversion percentages I’ve seen from email launch sequences (maybe 2-5% of the list), webpage conversions (free signup maybe 10,20,50% but paid 1-5%), and 8-10% for a nearly-cold install notification seems kinda in the ballpark.
There’s a correlation I’ve noticed between how easy it is to sign up for a thing, combined with how badly someone wants that thing, and then how likely they are to actually buy/download/etc. In this case it was super easy to click that “pre-subscribe” button so I’d think those people aren’t very invested. There’s only a tiny bit of time for them to form a connection with it, so when that notification pops up hours/days later they might not even remember they clicked that button, or don’t remember the name, etc.
It’s a bummer it was so expensive though! I went through a couple expensive YouTube paid promo experiences recently that took me by surprise too. Just like nowhere near the performance I hoped for. Not fun!
What was painful about pre-registration ads is you don't realise your mistake until you launch your app. Only then do you look at your screen and then go have a cry hahaha.
Be super interesting to read a case study for the App Store and their pre-order ads.
Google should be clearer about that, but it's not like they are just making numbers up.