Sudden Drop in User Acquisition after Running Ad Campaign
One of my apps showed a sudden, massive decrease in Play Store user acquisition early October. I didn't update the app around that time nor did I change anything in the store listing. The attached chart shows the user acquisitions over the last 180 days. As you can see, the user growth was fairly stable and growing before the drop.
I've searched the sub for similar issues, but there's a factor that may have affected the decrease in my case: the drop occurred almost immediately after a Google Ads app install ad campaign ended I was running (you can see the increase in acquisitions as a result of the campaign right before the drop on the chart), which makes me think these two events are somehow related. Has anyone here experienced something similar? Could there be a direct correlation between running the ad and the decrease in user acquisition? What are some potential factors that could have caused this anomaly?
Any insights, experiences, or troubleshooting tips you have would be incredibly valuable. Thanks in advance for your help!
Posted Nov 5, 2023, 11:15 AM UTC
We have been facing a situation similar to this since early September. We have a few hypotheses about what might be happening:
We took steps to reduce our Slow Warm Start and Excessive Frozen Frames metrics a few weeks ago. However, we have yet to see any noticeable improvements. We plan to monitor the situation for another month to see if Google's algorithm will start favoring our app.