

How $96,000 can buy you a top 10 ranking in the U.S. app store - beshrkayali
http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/04/how-96000-can-buy-you-a-top-10-ranking-in-the-u-s-app-store

======
thedufer
I just wanted to point out that that last graph is outrageously misleading.
The bars start at around -20,000, which makes the 11x difference between the
USA and Spain bars appear to be only a 4x.

I doubt this is intentionally misleading, since I can see no incentive for
doing so, but it just goes to show that you have to be careful with
infographics - they're very easy to lie with, even accidentally.

~~~
apalmer
This appears to be a marketing/advertisement piece so take it with a grain of
salt.

~~~
icpmacdo
Venture Beat always seems to be filled with click bait and advert pieces.

------
togasystems
I participated in Free App of the Day promotion about 4 years ago. For the
week that it was featured, we experienced about 360% growth and made it to the
top ten in our category. Free App of the Day took a percentage of our profits
afterwards for a few weeks riding the long tail. In the end, it was win win
for both of us.

------
coldcode
We experimented at work with them and yes it "worked". Thousands downloaded
the app in India, China and Egypt, drove us to #2 in our category, then 2 days
later back to the basement again. Not worth it. I hope Apple kills these
folks.

~~~
panabee
you experimented with appgratis, trademob, or who? curious to know who didn't
work for you. if you don't mind sharing, was it a game, or what kind of app
was it? thanks!

~~~
coldcode
Not a game, travel, and it was the site shown, fiksu. A $10,000 experiment.

------
ryandrake
If I were Apple, I'd be kind of embarrassed that my organic ranking system
could be gamed this easily. I mean, there's a huge cottage industry (with its
own jargon and professionals) built around figuring out the exact wizardry
needed to get your web page highly ranked, yet on the AppStore, apparently the
only thing that drives their ranking is "number of downloads".

I wonder if the result of all of these "discovery" apps will be a more
complicated ranking system from Apple that takes into account more than just
downloads...

~~~
tmandarano
I completely agree. It's honestly quite hard to believe that they have
calculated it to be precisely 80k downloads.

------
sjsivak
The organic install part of this calculation seems pretty suspect. In order to
get the organic lift mentioned in the article the app would need to be pretty
highly ranked _and_ likely sustain that rank for a while before getting
65%-100% the additional installs.

Whenever running a burst campaign it is important to follow it up with
sustained installs afterwards to try and maintain the rank for as long as
possible to attempt to get some of the organic lift mentioned. It does not
simply happen instantly.

------
unreal37
I don't think it's a surprise that "advertising works". In any market (iOS or
bars of soap), spending money up front on commercials/ads/promotion gets you
some sales, and the rest happens through word-of-mouth, social sharing, social
proof, etc.

$96K is a lot of money to spend if your goal is a top 10 non-game app. Not
everyone can put up that kind of money.

And the more people do that (buying installs to kick off a campaign), the more
expensive it becomes and more difficult to get in the top 10.

~~~
interg12
Everybody who matters can put that kind of money up. Remember, the more
expensive it gets, the more the ad space is worth for publishers and the more
they can earn. As advertising gets more expensive, publishers earn more and
can ultimately do more.

~~~
uptown
"Everybody who matters can put that kind of money up."

Everybody who matters to whom? I understand what you're saying - it just seems
like a very deterministic view on the state of the gaming industry.

------
SurfScore
So how does this work for paid apps? If you sell your app for 2.99 and you're
paying 1.20 an install, aren't you making money? I know I'm missing something
here because otherwise anyone could pay for infinite installs and make
infinite money.

~~~
cclogg
I think it's not 1.20 for a paid install. Buying users can cost quite a bit
more for paid apps (for instance I know from googling that Flurry's 'buy user'
service doesn't work very well for paid apps).

But in the end, it's just a mad rush to be on the charts to get organics.
Without that, it's kind of difficult with apps to make your money back from ad
spending. It's not like you are advertising a hotel room where one purchase
through your adwords can net you a 100+ dollars (plus all the room service
that person will consume!). In apps, typically, you lose money buying users
(if you were only counting ad-spend vs revenue from those users that
installed).

~~~
SurfScore
It's a shame that the App Store is becoming this commercialized. One of the
best things about it in the early days was the fact that indie games could get
noticed internationally. Sure we get games like Infinity Blade but indie
developers gave us Tiny Wings.

Maybe Apple will implement something similar to Steam, where this is still
possible.

~~~
cclogg
Yes, and I think it's true of many platforms. It's best to be there in the
beginning, before the flood haha. Look at Youtube, it was much easier to
become a Youtube celebrity (or just garner MANY views) if you were on there
since/near the beginning.

------
notahacker
How many actual sales would $96000 worth of paid installs ultimately translate
into for an app that isn't particularly original, addictive or brilliant.
Would it even make the $96000 back before sinking back down the rankings
without trace?

~~~
jyap
You don't just throw money at things. You take a calculated risk.

So before this spending on paid installs happens you need to have metrics on
the Customer Life Time Value (CLTV). Now since you are buying users this
calculation could be off.

If:

Customer Life Time Value > Cost Per User Aquisition

Then:

Spend money to acquire customers

So if you rank high and word of mouths spreads then you hopefully have organic
growth where user acquisition costs equate to $0.

