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Hi all,
As a new dev in the android ecosystem, I am looking for other devs feedback on the following.
I have an app with about a few thousands user base. Growing slightly, but also with a decreasing active ratio.
As my revenue is ads driven, I'd like to experiment a few tricks to encourage users to use the app more, without being too intrusive.
A few ideas:
- show a notification after a few days that the app hasn't been used, to encourage the user using it again.
- feature: user can share the app's install page with friends (stimulate organic growth), via a share intent.
-> Devs, any stories on trying something similar?
Any feedback appreciated.
I'm a new developer, old-time programmer. Put 2 apps out December 21, 2009 and I'm approaching a whopping 30 sales; be happy you have 1,000+ (or more)
Wish I could help with the question, but I'm not really sure how to expose apps to a wider audience. I've thought about porting to iPhone/iPad and Windows Mobile to expand my user base. But I'm still pretty new to Android development and want to get more into it before learning yet another programming language right now.
I've actually thought of going to local bars and trying to strike-up conversations with people using smartphones and showing them my apps. Maybe buy them a drink LOL.
I firmly believe that if you have a solid working app and one person uses it, they may tell 5 of their friends and maybe 2 of them will buy it and tell 5 more people of which 1 or 2 might but it. Pyramid type sales but it's slow moving.
What kind of bothers me is all the damn FREE apps out there; I think they should be segregated from the Google Market; I've yet to go to any type of Market and get something for free! LOL And I wonder about free apps sometimes. Take SMS pop-up or whatever it's called. It's a decent app...it's free. I saw it at "over 250,000 downloads". Well, why didn't they charge $1.00 or $0.50 for it (do the math, I'll take $125,000!!). Any possibility it's forwarding people's text messages? Just sayn'
adn37 said:
A few ideas:
- show a notification after a few days that the app hasn't been used, to encourage the user using it again.
- feature: user can share the app's install page with friends (stimulate organic growth), via a share intent.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Your first option sounds REALLY annoying. Your second option sounds perfectly fine. See later on for further points on what might help.
Rootstonian said:
What kind of bothers me is all the damn FREE apps out there; I think they should be segregated from the Google Market; I've yet to go to any type of Market and get something for free! LOL And I wonder about free apps sometimes. Take SMS pop-up or whatever it's called. It's a decent app...it's free. I saw it at "over 250,000 downloads". Well, why didn't they charge $1.00 or $0.50 for it (do the math, I'll take $125,000!!). Any possibility it's forwarding people's text messages? Just sayn'
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not everyone is in it for the money. Some people just maybe write something that is missing on the market but don't want to make money from it. It might be just their hobby. Not everyone needs to be capitalistic, trying to turn everything into revenue.
The Android market is a lot about freedom, and there is high competition between free and paid apps. If your sole intent is to make money on apps, you will probably better off trying to target iOS. The most recent news I have is that an average iOS user will spend 7 times as much money on apps than an Android user. I think this fact kind of speaks for itself.
However if you still want to stick by, here are a couple of things I would suggest:
Offer a (free) lite version of your application as this will give users the ability to see whether your app means business or not, and if they'll like it they might go further to go for the paid version.
Android market uses keyword searching (there's probably a better term), so make sure your description hits as many possible words that may be applicable to your product while not being too heavy to read.
Advertising... don't ask me where as I wouldn't be able to help much with that. But if you're in it to make money, you probably have a business model so you should have some capital too that you can put into advertising.
That's about all I guess.
@Rootstonian
I have apps on the market, and in the last 3 months have made over $1k off ads in my free version, while only making about $250 off of the full paid version.
Very good responses there This forum does have some very intelligent people on it!
I'm anti-adware unfortunately. If that hurts my sales, then so be it; I can live with that. I won't allow ads in my apps.
As far as free versions, I would have to write "crippled" versions of the programs to limit full functionality. Well, not going to do that either. And to be honest, who can't afford $1.00?
Actually, the 15 minute return policy has hurt me I think. Some apps just can't be reviewed in 15 minutes, to wit, my current (almost done) Spam Text Blocker. There is no way someone can evaluate that in 15 minutes, so I have to code some type of limit on how many rows can go into the spam database.
Anyways, I'm way off topic (as usual) and being negative which is usually something I don't do. And I must remember, my stuff has only been out ONE month.
I do use a Macbook Pro, and I have downloaded the iPhone SDK; maybe I should take a break from Android OS and port a couple of apps to iOS and see what they do.
P.S. A smart man doesn't limit his options. How does the apps with ads stuff work?
Just apply to admob, its easy. They give nicely detailed usage statistics too
hi all,
Thanks for the feedback.
On "tell a friend about this app" feature:
Your second option sounds perfectly fine. See later on for further points on what might help.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll just stick with that, then. Any idea what's best to link to? A blog? Android market?
I'm still looking for an app that does it in a nice way, as a case study.
I'm a new developer, old-time programmer. Put 2 apps out December 21, 2009 and I'm approaching a whopping 30 sales; be happy you have 1,000+ (or more)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I feel you. Unfortunately, this is all about execution and idea potential. As coders, we are often thinking about code quality, this is only the 1st step.
On ads: at the end of the day, it might be a hobby to design apps, but fun decreases when it comes down to fixing bugs for the sake of it. Ihmo, a slight revenue is good, as it encourages devs to keep up enhancing their apps.
I'm anti-adware unfortunately. ... And to be honest, who can't afford $1.00?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not a big fan of ads neither. It's all about culture. On Android, people are reticent to pay.
Good points and well said Adn
I actually got into this starting with Google Market apps, but my true goal is to get into corporate mobile development. I feel this is a technology barely in it's infancy. Just as almost all business' needed a web page, I think the same will hold true for a mobile app.
I just put in my resume to a company looking for an iPhone developer (1 year contract), but they also wanted to talk to Android developers too (wish me luck LOL).
Now, I'm on the fence as to what platform to go with. I think with the iPhone AND iPad, that iOS is the way to go with regards to corporate coding; so I'm going to head in that direction for now.
I have a question to the developers with practical experience of using different ad networks: which one is better, Microsoft Advertising or Google AdMob or ... ?
I'm interested actually in two points: ad performance and monthly cash flow (based on the same ad performance).
So, in ideal case it should be results from the one app with two (or more) randomly displayed ads from the different networks (but it may be prohibited by agreement - I should re-read FAQ).
sensboston said:
I have a question to the developers with practical experience of using different ad networks: which one is better, Microsoft Advertising or Google AdMob or ... ?
I'm interested actually in two points: ad performance and monthly cash flow (based on the same ad performance).
So, in ideal case it should be results from the one app with two (or more) randomly displayed ads from the different networks (but it may be prohibited by agreement - I should re-read FAQ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
MS performed quite oke for me, dont have it too long and not high volume yet, so cant really say how it will hold in the future. Admob screwed me bigtime though, at some point 10.000 impressions for 1 cent and even worse some even for 0 cent . I have statistics for you if you want. It used to generate quite good, but than when I really got lots of impressions they only supplied crappy ads, for 0.001 ecpm.
But yeah my advice is just experiment with both and see which you prefer. Admob can be nice but its very unstable so dont try to rely too much on it.
EDIT:
I dug up the terrible stats
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But I have also seen other days where the revenue was about 20/30 dollars for the same amount of adrequests (unfortunately those days where very rare).
The average is about 40/50.000 requests a day that month and about 30.000 impressions a day. Of course the downside of pubcenter is that not all ads are available everywhere.
Thanks for reply and info, Marvin! Hmm, I'm really disappointed of AdMob Seems like MS paid 8-10 times more (based on ad impressions statistics). It's strange - I'm expected at least similar values...
MS ads control works good and stable enough, so probably I'll go with MS ads for my next fun project app.
BTW, have you tried AdDuplex guys? AFAIK, it's an ad exchange network (no payment option), correct? But may be it's a good way to promote app.
sensboston said:
Thanks for reply and info, Marvin! Hmm, I'm really disappointed of AdMob Seems like MS paid 8-10 times more (based on ad impressions statistics). It's strange - I'm expected at least similar values...
MS ads control works good and stable enough, so probably I'll go with MS ads for my next fun project app.
BTW, have you tried AdDuplex guys? AFAIK, it's an ad exchange network (no payment option), correct? But may be it's a good way to promote app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah adduplex does not work, have used it for a while zero payments. The user base is too small.
Thats true MS Pubcenter seems the most reliable and most rewarding. But they dont supply ads all around the world. So you might use Admob as backup, for whatever spare cents you can take and you might get lucky and have some good days. The statistics I showed you were indeed the worst case but they were far more common than the high ecpm ads, and as you see 60.000 adrequests a day is quite a lot (every 30 seconds) and indeed I kind of felt robbed by them as it should have earned me around 800 dollars the month with Pubcenter instead of 20. I've experimented with most known networks and I've been using Admob for sinplicity (and Pubcenter was not available back than in my country), since it was available have been a happy user. And now just use admob to catch the remains.
I've tried a few, but have in mind that my apps are relatively new(less than 1 month) and with very low volume. Results:
Microsoft: I think they give the highest revenue, but I've read that the fill rate is very low outside US/UK. I didn't find any fill rate statistic in their interface, only impressions.
AdMob: I got fill rate around 30%. Because they pay by click, I got much less revenue than the same number of impressions from Microsoft. Interesting here is that the eCPM is relatively high, around 0.9$. I think users click AdMob ads more often than others because all Microsoft and AdDuplex ads are text-only but AdMob has some image ads.
Millenial media: very low fill rate (~3%), not worth the effort. Haven't tried them for real, very buggy ad control.
Inneractive: they claimed to have a very high fill-rate for outside US and UK so I tested them. They might have a high fill rate but they were serving iPhone ads. For iPhone apps! In Windows Phone! When you click the ad you got redirected to iTunes. I asked them what happens they answered that this was normal, those ads were paid for. Poor iPhone advertisers... I decided not to use them.
AdDuplex: still new to them, no idea what happens there.
My suggestion: use a control that rotate different ad networks, this way you will not lose impressions when some of the networks fail to supply ad.
Hope this helps. Will be happy to learn the experience of other developers out there.
sensboston said:
I have a question to the developers with practical experience of using different ad networks: which one is better, Microsoft Advertising or Google AdMob or ... ?
I'm interested actually in two points: ad performance and monthly cash flow (based on the same ad performance).
So, in ideal case it should be results from the one app with two (or more) randomly displayed ads from the different networks (but it may be prohibited by agreement - I should re-read FAQ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
admob is good...if you have global traffic try some platforms like adiquity,mobclix..I have got good results from them..
Kevin Campbell said:
admob is good...if you have global traffic try some platforms like adiquity,mobclix..I have got good results from them..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Could you share your results, please? I mean real numbers, not just word "good". Also, do they have ready-to-go control, easy to embed (like MS control)? How stable/good these WP7 controls/components? Thanks!
sensboston said:
Could you share your results, please? I mean real numbers, not just word "good". Also, do they have ready-to-go control, easy to embed (like MS control)? How stable/good these WP7 controls/components? Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Currently i am using adiquity & my majority of traffic comes from south africa in an ACPC of 15-18 cents & fill rate 85%-90%.
I used admob before & someday i got CPC upto 25 cents but the problem is the fill rate which fluctuates a lot i have heard good things about mobclix..
billtapit said:
To answer your question, Google Admob is better definetely.
I don't have a lot of information on you to better assist you though.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, you don't have any proof or numbers, just an opinion. Sorry but it's useless... I trust to recognized developers and people with own experience only, not to unknown marketing guys from the advertising startup.
sensboston said:
I have a question to the developers with practical experience of using different ad networks: which one is better, Microsoft Advertising or Google AdMob or ... ?
I'm interested actually in two points: ad performance and monthly cash flow (based on the same ad performance).
So, in ideal case it should be results from the one app with two (or more) randomly displayed ads from the different networks (but it may be prohibited by agreement - I should re-read FAQ).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi,
I personally used Tapit as my Ad network for my app. Their support team is knowledgeable to assist me with different ad types to monetize my app. They are are fairly new company that offer competitive ECPM, you should check them out.
stevesmith84 said:
I personally used Tapit as my Ad network for my app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it some kind of aggressive but stupid marketing? Two users (just registered, with no posts at all!) are advertising same company with common words but without real numbers and experience...
Seems like this Tapit is just reseller... wanna some money for nothing.
P.S. Thanks, bro, you two - I'll stay away from Tapit as far as I can
sensboston said:
Is it some kind of aggressive but stupid marketing? Two users (just registered, with no posts at all!) are advertising same company with common words but without real numbers and experience...
Seems like this Tapit is just reseller... wanna some money for nothing.
P.S. Thanks, bro, you two - I'll stay away from Tapit as far as I can
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i use tapit
nah j/k well tbh i just only used 2 ad networks mobfox and admob, i get better fillrate so i made more money from admob :/
Have you guys ever heard of leadbolt? I only use the notification ad from them since it fits my apps ( live wallpapers).
Haven't been using them long but looking good so far. My user base is small so im not expecting big amounts right now. Everything grows with your user base. The attachment is from leadbolt my last 7 days.
I also just started using StartApp 2 days ago ( so no stats ) but they don't pay via ads they pay per install. For every US install you get $.055USD. Non US $.04 and returning user $.01. So if you get 1000 US installs that $55USD. No screenshot for it since ive only had them 2 days.
StartApp appears that it will pay more in the long run since the $.055 is set unlike ads that can go up and down in pay you get that same pay for each US install.
I use both together. So I should get for a us install $.055 then whatever the leadbolt ads generate after that.
I have heard Startapp doesn't get as many bad 1 star ratings as others thats why I chose them over the others. I haven't had any negative reviews for leadbolt to date.
Anyway good luck.
I've tried a few of the ad networks out there. I'm sticking with admob because it allows me to know when a user has clicked on an ad. When a user does that, I remove the banner for some period of time.
Other ad networks either don't notify the app that the user clicked, or they forbid giving the user an incentive for their click. Ads are important to me because they're the only way I can make profit. I can't sell apps on Google Play.
So, here's my current admob situation. I feel that the app, live wallpaper, is doing relatively well...however, I feel like I'm not making as much money from the ads as I should be. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Anyone have any advice? I'm starting to get downloads in the thousands per day. Any advice as to how I can get more money from the ads would be appreciated. I'm sure I'll eclipse the 70k impressions today. The fill rates seems to be pretty good too. The clicks, however, are horrible.
qkhang said:
So, here's my current admob situation. I feel that the app, live wallpaper, is doing relatively well...however, I feel like I'm not making as much money from the ads as I should be. It just doesn't make any sense to me. Anyone have any advice? I'm starting to get downloads in the thousands per day. Any advice as to how I can get more money from the ads would be appreciated. I'm sure I'll eclipse the 70k impressions today. The fill rates seems to be pretty good too. The clicks, however, are horrible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
All of my apps are live wallpapers and I could not get admob to work for the life of me in the settings menu since its only a preference and not an actual layout accessible in the layout folder! Anyway Live wallpaper ads usually only get clicked when the user is in the settings menu. So how many people actually access the settings menu more than a couple times? Not many so I gave up on admob since I couldn't figure it out and now use Leadbolt push ads. Here is a graph of today. If I had the numbers you had I would be rolling in dough!
Here is a link to leadbolt.
As you can see my main app had 79 clicks and made $3.12. The second one had 2 clicks and I made $.02. They have different types of ads. The notification ad is the only one I use! If my app was getting installed by the thousands a day I would be rolling in dough with leadbolt! They show the user 2 types of ads. paid click ad and an ad to where you only get paid if the user installs the app they are redirected to. The second type pays a lot more thats probably why i'm at $3.12 for just 79 clicks. Imagine if I had 100 or 1000 clicks! Yesterday I only made $1.62. The benefit of push? The user see's the ad in the notification bar, they don't have to be in your app or its settings menu! And reviews haven't been negative concerning leadbolt. At least I haven't got any 1 star bad reviews yet for ads but as you can see the main app is still young.
Anyway goodluck. That link is a referral link. Anyone can Sign up and we both make some cash.
Well, its rather simple to get admob in the preferences. I just googled it and used the tutorial. Sometimes, it takes a while for the first ad to show up. My first ad took anywhere between 5 to 20 mins. During that time, I was freaking out cause my app didn't throw any errors but nothing was happening.
Anyway, I refuse to use any kind of push notifications. I just feel that from a users stand point, most dont even understand what advertising is. When people see the notification, they think its some kind of virus or something and will give bad reviews. What I might try is using another ad agency while still using admob. I think you can do that. Looks like I will probably hit 80k impressions today. I swear, I need to get going on my game. I've seen some charts from individual developers and with 80k impressions...they be rollin in the dough yo.
qkhang said:
Well, its rather simple to get admob in the preferences. I just googled it and used the tutorial. Sometimes, it takes a while for the first ad to show up. My first ad took anywhere between 5 to 20 mins. During that time, I was freaking out cause my app didn't throw any errors but nothing was happening.
Anyway, I refuse to use any kind of push notifications. I just feel that from a users stand point, most dont even understand what advertising is. When people see the notification, they think its some kind of virus or something and will give bad reviews. What I might try is using another ad agency while still using admob. I think you can do that. Looks like I will probably hit 80k impressions today. I swear, I need to get going on my game. I've seen some charts from individual developers and with 80k impressions...they be rollin in the dough yo.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I read that it can take a while for the first one, I was getting errors in eclipse when implementing the two lines for its activity in the androidmanifest. I figured out how to fix that by changing the target sdk to higher than 13 made the red lines go away. I will try it again an let it sit and see if it will work. Oh and i'm an idiot the first time I tried I still had adaway running lol!
I haven't gotten any negative reviews for the leadbolt ads yet. I use a very relaxed ad campaign, each user is only showed an ad every 2 days. So they tend to forget what app is actually sending the ads.
This is the tutorial I used for admob in case anyone is interested
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4003701/how-do-i-put-an-admob-adview-in-the-settings-screen-for-a-live-wallpaper
Did you use one similar to that?
I know exactly what you are talking with the whole api level higher than 13. The red errors drove me mad. I can't remember how I fixed it though. I used a bunch of tutorials and just took what I needed from it.
qkhang said:
I know exactly what you are talking with the whole api level higher than 13. The red errors drove me mad. I can't remember how I fixed it though. I used a bunch of tutorials and just took what I needed from it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's how I got it to fix. Just set that target sdk to 13 or higher. Thanks for the info! I'm sure some folks viewing the threads will eventually find all this helpful.
Hey guys,
On 6th of august, I released my first android application at google play. So far, it generated lots of downloads. Since the app is free to download I´m trying to make some money with admob. I´ve placed an ad banner at the bottom of the app, a small one though. I´m not forcing anyone to click on the banners and didn´t place it somewhere near to a button.
And now comes the thing: In admob, I have a CTR of ~9, and my eCPM is at over 3 USD. From what I heard from other developers, these values are insane, much higher than the average.
Now my fear is to get banned from admob, I´m even not figuring on the money anymore. By now, I set the refresh rate to 30 seconds which gave me a slightly lower CTR of 7.5 at least. But that doesn´t "solve" my problem..
Could you maybe share your experiences with admob´s CTR and eCPM?
Please note that my app is generating around 10 000 app impressions per day which results in around 900 clicks or so.
Forgot to add this screenshot: 250kb.de/u/130812/j/tUb3UOtWOoZw.jpg
Fer Dinand said:
Hey guys,
On 6th of august, I released my first android application at google play. So far, it generated lots of downloads. Since the app is free to download I´m trying to make some money with admob. I´ve placed an ad banner at the bottom of the app, a small one though. I´m not forcing anyone to click on the banners and didn´t place it somewhere near to a button.
And now comes the thing: In admob, I have a CTR of ~9, and my eCPM is at over 3 USD. From what I heard from other developers, these values are insane, much higher than the average.
Now my fear is to get banned from admob, I´m even not figuring on the money anymore. By now, I set the refresh rate to 30 seconds which gave me a slightly lower CTR of 7.5 at least. But that doesn´t "solve" my problem..
Could you maybe share your experiences with admob´s CTR and eCPM?
Please note that my app is generating around 10 000 app impressions per day which results in around 900 clicks or so.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that's really insane, CTR of 9! I think that your users are very excited about ads haha. I think that the reason it maybe the low number of users but this still a lot haha. Do you have a good retention ratio during the time? it's very important to keep users for long terme. I think that it will decrease by the growing numbers of users. I wish you to keep these insane numbers and make more profits :good:
I suggest you use several Ad networks to improve your earning and reduce the risks.
One day, I got banned for no reason and lost an $300. I tried sending Google my appeal but the result was just as people said: there was no reply or explanation. $300 is not cancer so i'm still optimistic but the incident made me wonder: "should I always depend on Admob?".
So I decide to combine several Ad networks. It works. And I realize something about Admob:
Pros: It is reliable and has huge users database. Admob is backed by Google - a prestigious corporation who tracks every steps of anyone who use its service.
Cons:
- Its eCPM is low (I don't know exactly why but everytime I try another Ad network, they outperform Admob in terms of eCPM. I guess that Admob know it has advantages over competitors when it comes to reputation and users database, so It charge advertisers and publishers more)
- Its ban users more frequently. (Some of my friends' accounts got banned because Google thinks they was cheating, while infact he didn't. It was very difficult for him to reach Google support to recover his accounts).
after combining Admob and with Airpush, Leadbolt, StartApp, ChartBoost, I end up with Adsota - a lesser known ad network. Adsota is an has much higher eCPM, 100% fill-rate, variousa ads format, and swift payment. You can find it by googling "ads.appota".
Best of luck, mate!
I don'0t know if I am the only one but Admob
is giving me a lot of headache last days.
First, my apps were never transferred to the new admob so I have old Admob showing 7 apps while new one has only 1..
Has anyone has noticed similar in his account?
Second, in past two days my app installs, and profit (all realted to very low eCPM) drop about 5 times.
My eCPM from from 5$ (I know it was very high already) to 0,5$
I see many of you have some kind of problems with Admob but has anyone find solutions for them ?
Seeing the same thing on my end. A massive drop from at least $5 per day to now doing around $0.15 per day. This started on May 6th 2014, no idea what's going on.
I have the same problem The last weeks where great cause my revenue was always rising, but now it is back to normal again
Hmm? I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but if apps are disappearing from your dashboard, try using the contact form at the upgrade guide. I'd link it here if I could, but XDA's spam filter kills my links to Google support.
Google for the keywords: "admob upgrade guide", the link you need is on support dot google dot com, answer id 3077517
Ctrl-F for Troubleshoot upgrade issue
Click a few answers, then you'll get a link with the text: "Please complete this form and provide details regarding the upgrade issues you're experiencing."
Good luck. Google is kinda hard to contact but they do reply when you fill in a form properly.
Admob has been a little weak sauceing it lately.
World cup
I Think there is a big drop in revenue related to the World Cup
Did you see the same drop in other AdNetworks as well?
You should keep an eye on how well your ads network are doing.
Some might do better for you than others.
This can be done manually or using AdBoost that shows you comparative performance graphs.
Just google revenue adboost, second result.
That piece of art is what we're working on in my working place
Have you upgraded to new Admob? New admob gives better income. My admob earnings increase a bit after upgraded.
Same here, we upgraded and now everything is fine now!
It is safe to put admob in a new app if there are such problem with it?
I encountered the same incident too but 2 days after my things comes back to normal. The incident made me wonder: "should I always depend on Admob?".
So I decide to combine several Ad networks. It works. And I realize something about Admob:
Pros: It is reliable and has huge users database. Admob is backed by Google - a prestigious corporation who tracks every steps of anyone who use its service.
Cons:
- Its eCPM is low (I don't know exactly why but everytime I try another Ad network, they outperform Admob in terms of eCPM. I guess that Admob know it has advantages over competitors when it comes to reputation and users database, so It charge advertisers and publishers more)
- Its ban users more frequently & it's nearly impossible to get the explanation from them. (Some of my friends' accounts got banned because Google thinks they was cheating, while infact he didn't. It was very difficult for him to reach Google support to recover his accounts).
After combining Admob and with Airpush, Leadbolt, StartApp, ChartBoost, I end up with Adsota - a lesser known ad network. Adsota is an has much higher eCPM, 100% fill-rate, variousa ads format, and swift payment. You can find it by googling "ads.appota".
Best of luck, mate!
About 18 months ago, I released an app called SureFire Alarm Clock - with no advertising or marketing to speak of, it has slowly increased in the search for "alarm clock" from around the 340th app to around the 35th app.
I have just released a new app called Life Time Alarm Clock, and downloads are terrible. The problem is, I think, that 1 - there is no longer a "new free" section (that I can easily find), 2 - search results stop at #250. I know that almost nobody goes down to #250 when searching for someone, but a small trickle of people would, so my app slowly floated to the top.
I have learned a lot from developing my 1st alarm clock app, and spent much more time on my second one. I can say without a doubt, it is a MUCH better app in every aspect. So my question is - how do I get this app to at least to #250 of the search results for "alarm clock" that it can slowly float towards the top on its own?
I'm not sure that I want to risk a ton of advertising money on this - software development is not my primary occupation, and I'm becoming a little skeptical about apps being able to make a profit on being a "good app" alone. I've tried getting my app on a review site, but they all seem like a scam to get money from developers. I've tried $30 worth of advertising on Facebook as a test, and only got about 100 downloads from that (for a free app). All the other advertising seems like even more of a scam.
Does anyone know how a developer can make it into the search rankings without laying down a lot of money? It's not that I'm not willing to spend ANY money, I just don't want to risk A LOT.
Sorry, app visibility is no longer much of a problem - I have been reviewed on five sites between today and yesterday. Looks like i was freaking out over nothing.
Did you actively seek out those reviews? If so, could you recommend some sites?
mattcorby said:
Sorry, app visibility is no longer much of a problem - I have been reviewed on five sites between today and yesterday. Looks like i was freaking out over nothing.
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Post links of those reviews here ? Or just the site names atleast.
I don't believe I have enough posts to put up links yet. You can do a search in Google for "Life Time Alarm Clock" and you will see the reviews.
I was on Droid-Life first, then Android Authority a few hours later - that's when downloads really started picking up. I went from 3-16 downloads per day to 12,000 downloads in a two day period. The next day I got a little over 2,000 downloads, and the next day, a little over 1,000 downloads. I was also on the App Brain "Hot Today" list for a little while, as well as minor features in Android Police and Droid Informer (short reviews along with several other apps). Life Time is also on some sites speaking Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian, which is odd, because I have ZERO localization right now (which I'm working my butt off to fix right now).
I expect my downloads to go down quite a bit further before they start picking back up again. One thing that I have learned from this, is you never know what to expect when you launch an app. This is my second alarm clock app. My first one was SureFire alarm clock, which never really took off too well, and has remained a steady 150-300 downloads per day for about the last year or so. I thought that from all my feedback, I knew what customers would want - I was wrong.
The problem is, SureFire was >90% American customers, while Life Time has been <40% American customers. The app was not designed to be used outside of the U.S., but I don't want to turn those customers away. I've been getting HAMMERED in the ratings for not having localization or 24 hour support - things that no one cared about with SureFire, so I assumed they would not care about in Life Time.
Also, Life Time customers seem to be smarter about Android - there are much more "bare" Android phones, such as the Nexus 4 and 5, and the Moto X. They want more integration with the Android system - Daydreams, setting alarms via Google Now, etc.
I was planning on working hard to implement features for in-app purchases so that I can finally make some money on this app, but I'll be working on pleasing my unexpected customers for the next few weeks.