Short version: We used a Google Ads pre-registration campaign to get installs for our app. Google charged us for 16,171 conversions. When we launched, we only received 1,371 installs.
The core reason seems to be that Android pre-registration (unlike iOS) doesn't, by default, automatically install the app once it's available. Instead it just signs the user up for a push notification, unless the user has opted in to automatic installs. So this campaign had 16,171 people click through and pre-register, but only 1,371 of those converted to actual app installs once it was available.
Seems like at this point you'd come out ahead if you just mailed people 2 dollar bills with the promise of another 2 dollar bill if they install your app
Honestly, there's a lot of advertising out there that I think could benefit from direct monetary incentives. A large portion of the population is becoming resistant to regular advertising (good for them) and opting in to ad blockers when available. Actually paying people for the attention you're demanding from them would be refreshingly different... and heck, it worked for timeshares.
That's a good point. I got some in-game spam mail in World of Warcraft the other day with a few gold coins attached. Even though it was an amount you'd earn in about 2 seconds of playing the game (real world value: 4/100ths of a cent), it made me a lot less angry than ads usually do
Indeed there are groups and "businesses" that "pay" you to install apps. I assume someone is on the other side of that transaction paying for new user installs. Doing it yourself would probably be cheaper and you would probably be offering a much higher payout than those systems.
It's called "incent traffic" and it's notoriously awful traffic. Users are worth 5% of a normal user because they're freebie seekers who are usually broke.
