I don't think this reflects poorly on Admob at all - more that paying 30c per click lead for a $2 app doesn't work, and $50 isn't a sample size.
even at a 5% conversion rate from click to purchase (highly unlikely - for this type of app you are talking about less than 1%) your customer cost of acquisition would be $6. do the math.
with these apps you have to be looking at review sites, social media, blogs (like you have now), link exchange with other apps, making it free and putting ads in it, etc. the hit rate is very very low.
Agreed, in retrospect the CPC bid was stupidly high. They suggested ~$0.28 after we set our targeting...I guess I trusted google since their Adwords suggestions are generally pretty accurate.
We also ran a $50 campaign previously though I didn't include it in this post. We didn't even realize we had run the campaign-- 1200+ clicks at a $0.04 CPC in minutes.
We thought our payment had never processed, but when we checked our bank account it had-- it's just that Admob spent our budget so quickly we didn't realize it.
Mobile ads are not the means to acquire new customers. Relationships with review sites, blogs, and other media outlets is your best bet. A good review can get you some pretty good uptake. We got reviewed in several Android blogs and reached 18k downloads in a little under a week (our app was free).
I haven't experimented much with mobile ads primarily because they aren't effective and won't ever be effective. At least, that's what the studies say :).
Link?! My preparation for Admob was admittedly limited to one or two google searches and a scan of a few blog posts, but I would love to read more if you would link to said studies.
Okay...now I am a tool and can't find that study...but here is my personal account of reviewers helping downloads for my old application.
We got written up in Thrillist boston, Phandroid, Androinica, Droid-Life, TalkAndroid, and Gizmodo. From all of these review sites we reached roughly ~18k downloads in a week (our product is a fantasy football app).
While the majority of those downloads came from Gizmodo, we definitely would not have been able to get there without being written up on all the other blogs.
From those 18k downloads, we averaged about 11k active through the first 3 weeks of the application and it steadily declined after that (assuming that they were bored of their fantasy league or moved on to another app).
The thought behind the reviewers is if its a source that is trustworthy or has built a following, their post/review is more meaningful than an ad. These reviewers are an AMAZING source of word of mouth for app developers while an ad is simply a pay to click.
If you want to see a chart of our downloads over time, I'd be more than willing to share to show you the value of these relationships as opposed to a one and done ad campaign :).
Emotionally shocking, yes, but what is really expected? Why _should_ the ads be spread "evenly throughout the day"? esp. for such a pittance? The spread has no advantage. Google is handling a deluge of data, and he wants a controlled long-term distribution of a few miniscule tidbits. Yes, expecting Google to behave an obvious way makes emotional sense; methinks it's all just happening on such a vast scale he/we don't grok that blowing $50 on ads in seconds does, in fact, make sense.
even at a 5% conversion rate from click to purchase (highly unlikely - for this type of app you are talking about less than 1%) your customer cost of acquisition would be $6. do the math.
with these apps you have to be looking at review sites, social media, blogs (like you have now), link exchange with other apps, making it free and putting ads in it, etc. the hit rate is very very low.