App Advice

[NetGuru]

First I wanted to convey my appreciation for this forum and how much I've gained from reading the posts here (daily). I've been a developer for 20 years but this is the first IOS app that I have submitted to the App store under my own name. I believe it is a very high-quality app compared to it's competition and need some advice.

This is currently an iPad only app.

I submitted a paid version and whilst I received love letters for it from users it is experiencing lack-luster performance in the rankings. I recently came out with an ad-supported version with an in-app purchase and the first two days it garnished over 3k downloads/day but only about 15 in-aps were purchased per day. Again I am receiving many emails praising the app. The last day or so sales have drastically dropped off to about 1k downloads. BTW, the paid version of this app sees between 5-10 sales per day. I've played with the price but the revenue seems the same with that.

Here is another strange thing. When I search for my keyword in the app store and sort by popularity the app is nowhere to be found. However if I first sort by relevance, I come up around #80. If I then sort by popularity the app then magically appears around #40.

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.