Very large download spike

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

Hi

I have a free educational app (music theory) that’s been on the store for about 2 or 3 months. It’s been plodding along getting downloaded around 8 or 9 times a day on average. Two days ago it got downloaded over 900 times (these downloads were for “desktop” devices, according to iTunesconnect). Since then, back to the usual 8 or 9. The downloads were all from the U.S. Anyone have any idea what this is?  A similar thing happened a few months ago with my other app. On that occasion time the downloads were from Switzerland.

cheers,

David

#2

You should google your app name.  It could have gotten featured somewhere without you knowing it.  

#3

I do see it mentioned on a couple of sites, but they don’t look like legit sites being run by actual people, more like sites put together by robots!

cheers.

#4

Do you have analytics implemented in your app?  Or IAP?  If so, how did those respond to the spike in downloads?

#5

Hi - I have no analytics implemented in my app AFAIK.

Since my OP there was another day with a spike of nearly 10,000 “downloads”. 

I emailed Apple support about this - here’s what they said: 

Thank you for reporting this. We are aware of an issue that causes some third party ad impressions to be counted as Product Page Views and are working on a solution. If you’ve recently started working with a new third-party ad network, we recommend bringing this to their attention. If you haven’t recently started working with a third-party ad network, please confirm and we’ll investigate further.

I have no ads in my app. Is there something new in Corona that could be causing this?

cheers,

David

#6

If you’re not using ads, then I can’t think of any thing that could be triggering it.

Maybe you could include some app analytics to try and match what you’re setting.

Rob

#7

Hi Rob

Sorry, not sure what you mean by “include some app analytics to try and match what you’re setting.”

#8

We offer several ways of keeping track of what you’re app is doing like plugins for Google Analytics, Flurry and Tenjin. You can have your app use this plugin and when it starts up, record an event with the service to help count the number of times your app is run. If you’re seeing runs in the 100’s but downloads in the 10,000’s something is amiss.

Rob

#9

Will look into that, thanks.

#10

You should google your app name.  It could have gotten featured somewhere without you knowing it.  

#11

I do see it mentioned on a couple of sites, but they don’t look like legit sites being run by actual people, more like sites put together by robots!

cheers.

#12

Do you have analytics implemented in your app?  Or IAP?  If so, how did those respond to the spike in downloads?

#13

Hi - I have no analytics implemented in my app AFAIK.

Since my OP there was another day with a spike of nearly 10,000 “downloads”. 

I emailed Apple support about this - here’s what they said: 

Thank you for reporting this. We are aware of an issue that causes some third party ad impressions to be counted as Product Page Views and are working on a solution. If you’ve recently started working with a new third-party ad network, we recommend bringing this to their attention. If you haven’t recently started working with a third-party ad network, please confirm and we’ll investigate further.

I have no ads in my app. Is there something new in Corona that could be causing this?

cheers,

David

#14

If you’re not using ads, then I can’t think of any thing that could be triggering it.

Maybe you could include some app analytics to try and match what you’re setting.

Rob

#15

Hi Rob

Sorry, not sure what you mean by “include some app analytics to try and match what you’re setting.”

#16

We offer several ways of keeping track of what you’re app is doing like plugins for Google Analytics, Flurry and Tenjin. You can have your app use this plugin and when it starts up, record an event with the service to help count the number of times your app is run. If you’re seeing runs in the 100’s but downloads in the 10,000’s something is amiss.

Rob

#17

Will look into that, thanks.