58 installs, 0 ratings, and the one number that explains both

Building SIGNUM HQ, a free US market data app on iOS and Android. Sharing the funnel because its shape surprised me.

Play Console, trailing three weeks, main app:

2,190 store listing impressions

roughly 11 of those actually opened the listing, about 0.5%

7 installs

So getting from "showed up in search" to "opened the page" is half a percent. But once someone opens the listing, close to 61% install. The page converts fine. Almost nobody reaches it.

The gate is ratings. We have zero across all three apps, and Play's broad search clearly deprioritizes zero-rating apps. There are search terms where our title literally contains the words and we do not appear in the first 22 results.

What changed this week

1. We actually ask for a review now. Prompt fires on real usage moments, day 2 and day 7 of use plus the 4th session, capped at once per day. Before this we never asked, which in hindsight is the whole problem.

2. 2. Store copy leads with value instead of features. The options flow and dark pool data we show are sold by US vendors at $50 to $99 a month. Ours is free with no signup. That is now the first line of the App Store promotional text across 12 locales, and it took no build and no review to change.

3. 3. Play app tags. Ours were empty on the main app, which I did not know until I opened the page. Three tags added.

4. One thing I found today that I did not expect

5. Our own website is the single biggest source of clicks by a wide margin, and there was no deep link from the site into the app. Play Console's deep links page said, literally, "No web links found." The assetlinks.json went up today. The manifest side needs a build, so it is not live yet.

6. None of this is a growth hack. Most of it is "the obvious thing was not done, and nobody checked."

7. Happy to answer questions about the data side. The app is free, no account: https://signumhq.com/app?from=indiehackers