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Comment by flokie | Hacker News Reader

It seems pretty clear that's what you get when you use the campaign? https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

"After you make an app or game available for pre-registration, users can visit your store listing to learn about and pre-register for your new app or game.

Then, when you publish your app or game later, all pre-registered users will receive a push notification from Google Play to install it.

Eligible devices will also have the app or game auto installed on the day it launches. (more details on this in documentation)

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I don't know anything about app releases, and I'm sure something like this is important to get an app into trending lists.

However I'm a bit skeptical that auto-downloads would even really be better for a free app. If the user isn't willing to accept a notification to install an app, they probably aren't going to use the app if it just auto-downloaded.

Also this just seems like a very weird app to have pre-registration ads for. If a user is looking for a "meal planner" app they obviously aren't going to just wait 2.5 months for your app (which doesn't seem particularly unique) to come out. They're going to download and try other apps that are actually available during that time.

It still seems like a rip-off though.

If you look at the first screenshot in the article it shows what the pre-registration page looks like.

It says:

Perks of pre-registering

- Automatic install

Install automatically when it's available

>If you choose to make your app eligible for auto install, Play can deliver your app to users’ devices automatically on launch day (if they’ve opted in).

It's up to the users.

And you need to still do quite a lot of leg work getting users to opt in. With the recent death of the Reddit API my favored client is being adapted to Lemmy - but the news of that happening only reached me because I was following the news on their subreddit before the shutoff. Pre-registration feels like a huge waste unless your users are literally chomping at the bit.

Users install a whole bunch of apps on their phone when looking for a solution to a problem and a fair few of those are never actually launched.

"Would you like to install this meal prep app in a couple of months time?" is a question I cannot imagine anyone saying yes to. Why would you? There are apps available today...

Is sending someone a push notification really worth $1 though?

Is paying $1-3 simply for a click on google ads worth it either?

(In my experience, no).

Depends on your conversion rate and customer LTV.

Check Mesothelioma ad click rates on Google...

Yep, and what your CPA is.

LTV for a 30 yr mortgage is hundreds of thousands - that pushes for some expensive clicks at auction.

I don’t have experience but I thought Subprime Attention Crisis was an interesting read

To the users who have actively indicated that they are interested in downloading your app, all at the same time on launch day, potentially putting you on some "most downloaded apps" leaderboards? Quite possibly, yes. It'd depend a lot on the app, though.

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