[Journey] Building an iOS & Android App Empire

[nakamura]

Interesting journey. Have you noticed that after publishing app on ios store, there is a sudden spike in traffic and fake downloads from "Mainland China". There are hundreds of downloads but 0 active devices in analytics. Do you disable this territory? Is there any risk/harm? These appear to be bot downloads and many users have experienced this. This only occurs for free apps. Some users have said that when they removed their apps from China then their US traffic also reduced.

Only experienced this with 2 apps. My guess is there are some companies in Mainland China checking/download every app that comes into the App Store and then they try to "steal" or reverse engineer the app or its idea. They are professional fraudster.

Stealing ideas and using them for themselves is really common in China. Happens in all industries in China. No matter if its manufacturing, car industry, apps, and so on. It even goes so far they infiltrate companies to steal their ideas right from the beginning. No joke. I got a friend running a logistic company in China (he is chinese) and he would just steal the niches from the people, for example the product, where they sell and so on. Even some factories/manufactures are stealing niches/product ideas and then sell by themselves. This happens almost always on Amazon. People end up competing with the manufacture, which basically can decide the price of the goods. Its a pure shit show.

 

[vin42]

Only experienced this with 2 apps. My guess is there are some companies in Mainland China checking/download every app that comes into the App Store and then they try to "steal" or reverse engineer the app or its idea. They are professional fraudster.

Stealing ideas and using them for themselves is really common in China. Happens in all industries in China. No matter if its manufacturing, car industry, apps, and so on. It even goes so far they infiltrate companies to steal their ideas right from the beginning. No joke. I got a friend running a logistic company in China (he is chinese) and he would just steal the niches from the people, for example the product, where they sell and so on. Even some factories/manufactures are stealing niches/product ideas and then sell by themselves. This happens almost always on Amazon. People end up competing with the manufacture, which basically can decide the price of the goods. Its a pure shit show.

After some digging, I found my app listed on chinese sites such as
https://catchapp.net/https://www.liangjianghu.com/https://www.qimai.cn/
I am sure there are many sites like these and these sites scrape all new apps and list them here. What is the point of listing them? Some users in forums say their US downloads are affected by these and may even give more exposure to their apps. Most of my apps have obfuscated code. Should I disable china territory from my apps?

 

[nakamura]

After some digging, I found my app listed on chinese sites such as
https://catchapp.net/https://www.liangjianghu.com/https://www.qimai.cn/
I am sure there are many sites like these and these sites scrape all new apps and list them here. What is the point of listing them? Some users in forums say their US downloads are affected by these and may even give more exposure to their apps. Most of my apps have obfuscated code. Should I disable china territory from my apps?

My apps are listed in several 3rd party stores as well...

No clue what is their advantage or point of listing them. Also seems strange to me...

Also, not sure if its really helpful to disable Mainland China, because these people can simply create accounts from other countries or use VPNs.

 

[vin42]

My apps are listed in several 3rd party stores as well...

No clue what is their advantage or point of listing them. Also seems strange to me...

Also, not sure if its really helpful to disable Mainland China, because these people can simply create accounts from other countries or use VPNs.

I think we can disable china when publishing first time and then maybe enable later after few months....this way it will not appear in new release lists. But checking the analytics, I found that the app downloads in other countries is higher when china is enabled. I also don't understand why appstore is allowed and playstore is banned in china.

 

[nakamura]

Update:

I didn't stop working and making new apps. These days I worked on an iOS app that I think has great potential. Already published it, and now I am taking the time to add more features and make it more appealing. Also, I plan to heavily advertise this app. But right now it is just all about improving the UI, new features, etc.

The goal should always be to give people a reason to use your app. Daily rewards, a stars/credit system, challenges, etc. all of them can help. Then, of course, you need to figure out a way how to get the most money out of the users while not making it too obvious, while keeping the operating and advertising costs as low as possible. This is what makes the difference between a really successful app and a random app. You need to understand how the user behavior for the specific niche works and then you have to use techniques to satisfy the users while monetizing it.

And I can't express how much of a blessing ChatGPT is. Basically, it helped me to improve my codes and add new features so much. Normally I would hire someone on Upwork, but now I can just open ChatGPT and write a prompt like:

"Above is my In-App-Purchase code. How can I use Firebase/Appsflyer/Facebook SDK to log the purchase event including the price?"

And it would just output the ready, working code right away. This is just one example.

 

[mrlight321]

Hi nakamura,
I read your whole story but I had a few questions and if you could answer then that would be really helpful.

Do you use the same firebase, admob and google ads accounts or different for all your accounts even those that got suspended? I saw you made many accounts and a few got suspended for association so would using the same firebase, admob and google ads accounts cause all the others to get suspended too or google doesn't check this?

 

[Tiara Keviati]

Good luck, mate!

 

[jaerehan]

Great journey. Thanks for sharing your updates. Good Luck. Let's hope for the updates.

 

[nakamura]

Hi nakamura,
I read your whole story but I had a few questions and if you could answer then that would be really helpful.

Do you use the same firebase, admob and google ads accounts or different for all your accounts even those that got suspended? I saw you made many accounts and a few got suspended for association so would using the same firebase, admob and google ads accounts cause all the others to get suspended too or google doesn't check this?

Right now I have three Google Play Dev accounts, which are all registered under my business, so I use all the same Firebase, Admob and Adwords account.

It really depends if you are doing whitehat or blackhat. If you do blackhat or high-risk niches, I would recommend using different accounts otherwise you might lose them all at once.

Google always changes, so even if they don't check it now, they could start using to check it with their new SDKs.

From my experience Admob, Adwords and Google Play are not connected to each other if you are using different accounts. I didn't have any problem using three different Google accounts so far.

 

[mrlight321]

Thanks for the insight. Another question if all these three dev accounts are under your company name then did you use the same business documents and your own same id for all of them? Or is there a way to make separate dev accounts for the same business so that google doesn't notice. Especially because google asks the id of the contact person if I try to make a business dev account. (I am personally banned though) Is there a way around this?

 

[nakamura]

Update:

Started paid ads for my iOS app. Here is what I noticed results:

Google Adwords: Paid $3,84 per install. Targeted only USA. Is it worth it? No. It seems Google has no idea who to advertise the app to. I set up events, etc. all correctly. It's like burning money. Spent like $100. I will try again targeting other countries as well.

Facebook Ads: Even worse. Spent $60, and only got 3 installs. But the biggest joke is: They just disabled my ads account yesterday, now I had to send them my ID card. It's unbelievable. Shitty results and unnecessary trouble. The app and the ads did not violate their policies or anything. Don't use Facebook ads for iOS.

Apple Search ads: I have to say, I didn't use Apple Search ads that often before, but so far the results have been better than Adwords and Facebook. Paid $2 per installation.

What's up next with this app?

From analytics, I see that some people start the purchase action, but they don't do it. I will have to improve the UI and push the people a little bit more so they make the IAP. The IAP is $19.99.

I might try TikTok ads and Twitter ads next, but I will first update the app.

 

[nakamura]

Thanks for the insight. Another question if all these three dev accounts are under your company name then did you use the same business documents and your own same id for all of them? Or is there a way to make separate dev accounts for the same business so that google doesn't notice. Especially because google asks the id of the contact person if I try to make a business dev account. (I am personally banned though) Is there a way around this?

At the time I signed up they didn't ask for ID or anything like this. I never sent them my ID or any documents. The only way they don't notice it is by using a new IP, new phone number, new Google account, new device to compile the apps, etc. Or maybe use a virtual machine.

 

[mrlight321]

Update:

Started paid ads for my iOS app. Here is what I noticed results:

Google Adwords: Paid $3,84 per install. Targeted only USA. Is it worth it? No. It seems Google has no idea who to advertise the app to. I set up events, etc. all correctly. It's like burning money. Spent like $100. I will try again targeting other countries as well.

Facebook Ads: Even worse. Spent $60, and only got 3 installs. But the biggest joke is: They just disabled my ads account yesterday, now I had to send them my ID card. It's unbelievable. Shitty results and unnecessary trouble. The app and the ads did not violate their policies or anything. Don't use Facebook ads for iOS.

Apple Search ads: I have to say, I didn't use Apple Search ads that often before, but so far the results have been better than Adwords and Facebook. Paid $2 per installation.

What's up next with this app?

From analytics, I see that some people start the purchase action, but they don't do it. I will have to improve the UI and push the people a little bit more so they make the IAP. The IAP is $19.99.

I might try TikTok ads and Twitter ads next, but I will first update the app.

Big warning for anyone trying to use facebook ads. Always make a new business account and have the ads account on that. And never on personal because its much annoying to recover from this if they disable. And trust me they disable for no reason at all XD You need to warm the account first for like a week before spending big. Google Ads isn't very good for ios if you don't give them enough data. From my experience after spending like $2-3K on it then you can get better results then the apple search tap ads. For Ios I recommend using apple search pay by tap campaign for starting and remember to research the keywords carefully because they can make or break the campaign. IOS people love to buy Iap especially if that makes their lives easier from my work 9.99 was the best but a few always buy the higher packages so try to have that also. Try 3 differ packages IOs user don't like the cheapest option so they like to go for the middle one or the highest. If its a useful IAP that gives them extra privilege's from normal users then they love that.

 

[mrlight321]

At the time I signed up they didn't ask for ID or anything like this. I never sent them my ID or any documents. The only way they don't notice it is by using a new IP, new phone number, new Google account, new device to compile the apps, etc. Or maybe use a virtual machine.

Yes I am going to rebuild everything again because I played by their rules and did nothing wrong. One morning suspension because a employee had a old suspended account. I didn't have an idea about this. The major issue in rebuilding is the code. I published mostly games with a huge paid budget. In changing the code what are things to look out for? What do you change because I want to use my games again but I don't want to fully rewrite them

 

[mrlight321]

Btw how do you make a good vm for exporting. I tried to make but its really slow. Any guides that you would recommend because I want to make multiple accounts or is it easier to just buy a different laptop for every account?

 

[nakamura]

Btw how do you make a good vm for exporting. I tried to make but its really slow. Any guides that you would recommend because I want to make multiple accounts or is it easier to just buy a different laptop for every account?

I just make it as high specs as possible. A different laptop would be easiest.

Yes I am going to rebuild everything again because I played by their rules and did nothing wrong. One morning suspension because a employee had a old suspended account. I didn't have an idea about this. The major issue in rebuilding is the code. I published mostly games with a huge paid budget. In changing the code what are things to look out for? What do you change because I want to use my games again but I don't want to fully rewrite them

You have to change the structure of the code, rename activities, files, etc. change color of pictures, etc. the whole reskin program.


Surprisingly, I just received an email from Meta:

After a requested review of your Business Account, we've determined that its access to advertising and selling shouldn't be restricted. Your Business Account's ads, shops and other assets that were affected will return to their previous status. We apologize for the inconvenience.

I didn't expect they were so fast. I sent the request 4 hours ago and now they already reinstated the ads account.

 

[mrlight321]

lets go. I guess they made a stupid mistake and realized it XD

 

[nakamura]

No idea what happened, but I woke up and saw 10 in-app purchases. So I just banked $200 just from IAP from this one app. No clue if its a mistake, or anything, but it must be 10 different Apple IDs, otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

I need to increase the conversion rate on the IAP. Maybe will add some special screens, special texts, etc.

 

[N1ckG2]

No idea what happened, but I woke up and saw 10 in-app purchases. So I just banked $200 just from IAP from this one app. No clue if its a mistake, or anything, but it must be 10 different Apple IDs, otherwise it wouldn't be possible.

I need to increase the conversion rate on the IAP. Maybe will add some special screens, special texts, etc.

It happens all the time when a whale try your app. It is like 1% of your users on android and 3-5%on ios.
If you have a volume you could segment your users depending on their activity and show them relevant things like more iap to buyers, more ads to others, more free stuff to churn audience.

 

[AlaeDin]

Is there anyone who can help me with a course I want to learn reskin game