Google Ads billed 56 app installs and 13 were real players

A small Android puzzle app ran a Google Ads app campaign at CA$40 a day, goal set to installs, and published the numbers after two weeks and about $220: 56 installs billed, 13 people. Those 13 finished 92 games between them, so the app was not the problem.

Seven of the rest came from countries the campaign never targeted. The other 33 shared one pattern. Each phone reported Google Play as the installer, yet ran a build that Play had stopped serving days earlier, opened the app once, spent zero seconds on any screen and never returned. The developer says 29 of the first 30 involved no click at all: Google credited them to a view of the shortest video in the ad group.

That is the loop. A view followed by an install counts as a conversion, so every fake install tells the bidding that the placement works and sends it more budget. Removing the $1.50 target cost per install is what opened the tap: spend doubled to CA$80 that day, Google reported 21 installs and the app's own panel counted 1.

The same week, two other small developers hit Google Ads from the other side. A signed, notarized macOS terminal app had its ad account suspended for malicious software after $500 of spend, lost every appeal, and was reinstated without explanation once the write-up spread. And a banner imitating an iPhone Storage is Full alert was reported twice and ruled within policy both times.

The puzzle app's changes: goal switched from install to won a puzzle, and an invalid traffic claim is pending.