by alc90 on 3/19/17, 3:24 PM with 106 comments
I've been focused mostly on free apps with ads - mostly Admob - but the little control over what ads are displayed, their format, etc always seemed to bother me. That's why I've started working on an ad network for mobile apps - where the advertisers buys directly from the app publisher the ad spot - and the publisher has full control over which ad is displayed and when.
I wanted to ask you what monetisation strategies to you have for your apps and if you've ever felt the same way when you added ads in your app.
by orasis on 3/19/17, 5:51 PM
I have a 5 ⭐️ app, 7 Second Meditation, that has fantastic retention numbers, but I didn't design it around monetization from day 1, so the LTV is too low to do paid user acquisition.
So the app is doomed to putter along on organic installs.
An app must nail both retention and monetization to succeed.
(shameless plug: I did boost the LTV by 45% using https://improve.ai)
by dfabulich on 3/19/17, 4:17 PM
What we've found is that we can price that product relatively high ($5) because the kind of person who's willing to put $1 in your tip jar to turn off ads is also willing to put $2.
But this strategy works for us because our games are "consumable" products. Our customers will play one of our games for a while, have a good time, and then they'll be "done" with that game; hopefully, they'll then go on to buy one of our other games.
If I were to launch a non-consumable long-term app today and wanted to monetize it, I'd do it as a subscription with a generous free trial. Once I had at least 100 paying subscribers, I'd start raising the price until the churn rate tells me it's too high.
by w1ntermute on 3/19/17, 4:02 PM
> • Facebook and Google have the most inventory and are still growing in terms of both users and ad-load; there is no temporal limitation that works to the benefit of other properties (and Facebook in particular is ramping up efforts to advertise using Facebook data on non-Facebook properties)
> • It is cheaper to produce ads for only Facebook and Google instead of making something custom for every potential advertising platform
> • Facebook and Google have the best tracking, extending not only to digital purchases but increasingly to off-line purchases as well
0. https://stratechery.com/2016/the-reality-of-missing-out/
1. https://stratechery.com/2016/how-facebook-squashed-twitter/
by hashmal on 3/19/17, 5:03 PM
- free download with unlock IAP: just a hack to provide a "try it" demo. really a derivative of up-front payment
- subscription based: most sustainable model, but difficult to push depending on the niche. it is, however, the most sustainable model. an app requires ongoing work, so at some point up-front single payment model caps your revenue unless you manage to grow your customer base forever
these are the only strategies I consider seriously. I regularly think about IAP (consumables for games, sounds for music apps, etc…) but it's not clear yet how/if I can do that effectively and without compromising my integrity.
by rogem002 on 3/19/17, 6:16 PM
Instead I've been experimenting a lot with one off & subscription approaches, here are two things I noticed:
1. When I had a subscription model, most users would sign up & almost instantly cancel their subscription (though very few ever requested a refund).
2. Adjusting the one off price didn't change the monthly revenue. For example when I changed the price from $7.99 to $10, the sales decreased a little but at the end of the month I ended up earning about the same.
(Shameless plug: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/livepage/pilnojpmd... )
by avaer on 3/19/17, 3:54 PM
I like the idea in concept, but as an advertiser this intuitively tastes like a strictly worse product.
Doesn't this model mean I now have to vet the inventory (users) of the app -- another cost, as well as structure my campaign around the publisher's willingness to serve my ads -- additional variance and risk? This is no doubt great for app publishers on paper, but why is this better for customers? That is, advertisers?
by benologist on 3/19/17, 4:39 PM
by ThomPete on 3/19/17, 6:22 PM
The best trick I can give you is start with a really low price then slowly raise it until downloads slow down but your revenue is intact from your start price.
I don't believe you need to ever introduce ads unless your product provides no real value.
by vbsteven on 3/19/17, 4:26 PM
After one year a competitor showed up at less than half the price and the party was over.
My strategy: find a niche app so you can charge a lot more
by simon_weber on 3/19/17, 5:01 PM
For business-focused products I usually do a free time-limited full-access trial + paid subscription. For consumer-focused products I usually do freemium (limited version for indefinite use + paid subscription to remove limits).
by jliptzin on 3/19/17, 5:25 PM
by soulchild37 on 3/20/17, 3:09 AM
by Outpox on 3/20/17, 9:53 AM
So instead I placed my steam trading link which allows visitors to make trade offers with me. I couln't say how much it does represent but I've got ~5 trade offers per week.
Most of the time the weapon skins aren't worth much but I'm still glad because I've got to receive messages thanking me for the tool which is what I've always wanted.
by Ologn on 3/19/17, 6:41 PM
Then you want to do the split. Admob has high fill rates and good numbers for most countries. The top competitors usually only have high fill rates for countries like the USA. Usually their numbers (click through rate, payment per click etc.) is less for those countries as well. I usually send most traffic to Admob and let a little dribble over to an Inmobi or AOL One (Millennial Media) or whatnot.
Aside from spending $150 on a few things initially (A few months of a VPS, $25 for a Google Play developer account etc.), all the money I have spent on my apps - advertising, translating, icon art, VPS charges etc. - have come out of revenue. That was easier up until 2014, when people were getting their first Android phones, and their weren't a lot of apps and Android programmers out there. Now there are a lot of good apps, Android programmers etc., so getting traction on an app costs more and/or takes longer.
I get e-mails all the time for some new ad network and ignore almost all of them. Admob towers over most of the other ad networks for people building standard Android apps with Android Studio. I use the major second tier ad networks just for redundancy purposes.
Some people here are recommending you charge for your app right off the bat. Here is some advice which I think might save you a lot of time and headaches. Think of an app which you can write in a few days/weeks, but which has some roulette wheel chance of reaching your monetization goal. An example for me would be this Stopwatch app ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unwrappeda... ), which I worked on for two weeks, after which I released version 1 of it. Then - promote it however you would have promoted your paid app. Then sit back and see. What's the response to it? Not that much in the way of free downloads? You're giving it away for free. Think how much higher the bar will be if people have to ante up to use the app, even if it's 99 cents. People will also have higher expectations - it's not some free thing they tried - they're customers who paid for it.
by ductionist on 3/19/17, 4:40 PM
Our free apps make money by promoting paid 'pro' versions of themselves, by offering an IAP to remove ads, and by promoting other Windows apps, either through the Microsoft affiliate network or private arrangements.
We manage these ads with in-house tech to get around the "little control over what ads are displayed, their format, etc." you mention - we had the exact same problem. (Lots of really scummy ads on the bigger networks.)
Enabling direct deals between app developers would be super cool, it's basically what we find ourselves having to do anyway. Curious what you'll do with your unsold inventory, especially when you're starting off? (Maybe fall back to the platform's affiliate program, like the iTunes affiliate program on iOS?)
by thijser on 3/19/17, 9:05 PM
by IgorPartola on 3/19/17, 4:54 PM
Edit: not promoting, but I like it when people show links to what they monetize in these discussions so I am going to follow my own advice: https://family-fortune.ridgebit.com
by ericlamb89 on 3/19/17, 4:15 PM
by DoodleBuggy on 3/19/17, 4:34 PM
I'd love to be wrong but I tend to think any semblance of an app store gold rush passed by 5+ years ago.
by yupyup on 3/19/17, 5:24 PM
It worked well until Google removed our main app from search results and it all went downhill from there.
by mattbgates on 3/19/17, 11:09 PM
My pricing is based on two audiences: individual and small business.
I assume if I were to ever get a big business, they could always register for multiple accounts.
So this is how I normally create and price:
I offer a "free version" of all my products that have X amount of whatever I am offering, usually around 5 or 10 for the month.
Each time the product is used, X amount drops until it hits 0, at which point, the user cannot use the product any more. If they need more X, however, they may purchase more X.
For a few products I wrote (still in beta), it is subscription-based where they hop on a plan that gives them X a month. There are variations of the plan that offer a certain amount of X depending on how much they need. If they use more than that, they can either upgrade their plan OR purchase more of X outright.
On their renew date (each month from which they subscribed to the plan), the number of X restores back to that amount.
On my non-subscription based products, I offer X amount and they can use it all up and purchase more whenever they need more, or just wait until the renew date from which they registered, which restores their account balance to whatever X amount is the default.
That has been my pricing method. I can't give you numbers yet on whether it works, as I've just begun my journey into charging for the things I create, but I just think: How much I pay for this?
Things that cost $50 a month? As an individual person, unless they were really useful, probably not.
Things that cost $1.99, $2.99, $3.99, $4.99, $5.99 or $9.99 a month? Probably more reasonable for an individual.
As for being a startup or small business? $49.99 or $99.99 is certainly a reasonable price.
Curious about .95 or .99 pricing? Basic psychology: You are technically getting the extra dollar, but in the mind of your consumer: they are not giving you that extra dollar.
by prettyrose on 3/19/17, 4:05 PM
by flaque on 3/19/17, 6:12 PM
by david90 on 3/20/17, 10:53 AM
by wiradikusuma on 3/19/17, 5:49 PM
by chvid on 3/19/17, 3:50 PM
by Pica_soO on 3/19/17, 9:30 PM
by LeicaLatte on 3/19/17, 8:31 PM
by codr4life on 3/19/17, 4:08 PM