Redownloads (App Analytics)

Apple measures conversion rate as the ratio of total downloads to unique impressions, and total downloads include redownloads. So a spike in redownloads raises the rate even if no new person converted. Examples are people restoring a new phone or coming back after deleting the app.

These numbers are hypothetical. On one day a habit tracker has 1,000 unique impressions, 80 first-time downloads and 20 redownloads.

• Conversion by Apple's formula: 100 / 1,000 = 10%.
• New-user conversion: 80 / 1,000 = 8%.

If a device-upgrade season adds 50 redownloads, the first figure jumps to 15% while the second stays at 8%. Reading the first as a page improvement would be wrong.

Apple states that search results rely on text relevance and user behavior, with downloads named as one example. Apple does not say whether redownloads count the same as first-time downloads for ranking, so treat any claim on this as unverified.

1. Track first-time downloads for acquisition work.
2. Track redownloads to see returning demand.
3. Filter by traffic source to see where redownloads come from.
4. When you test a page change, compare conversion on the same kind of download before and after.

• Celebrating a conversion jump during a hardware season.
• Mixing redownloads into acquisition cost calculations.

See App Analytics for where the split appears and A/B testing for fair comparisons.