I have a new iOS game that recently got approved. I help admin a couple app groups on Facebook and since a lot of people are always asking how much does it cost to get paid installs, I thought I'd use my game to go through that process and share every dime I spend and every dime I make from the game. Here's what the first day numbers looked like. With just a few downloads it made a few dollars and had one IAP sale. I don't know if this one will be a hit, but I see it being able to be a good return on investment so my goal for this game would be 10,000 installs and I'd allocate a budget of $1,000 towards that goal. I will run Facebook Mobile App Install Ads, Twitter Install Ads, and YouTube Ads and possibly a few other things if budget allows. I'm going to make a video for each ad network I set up and show how and why I'm creating the ads as well as what's working and what's not working. I thought since this is my first TouchArcade Forum post, I wanted to make it good with good information. My hope is that this information might be beneficial to other indie game developers.
Worldwide, or even in USA, $1000 isn't enough to do much except AB test different ads in preparation for a larger spend. With that budget consider picking just 1 smaller country (i.e. not USA) you will have a better chance of seeing an effect. Australia maybe?
I agree that the results won't be that great if I try to spend the amount on a worldwide campaign. I was thinking of Canada, Australia or certain US markets. In order to reach 10,000 on the $1,000 I would need installs at $0.10. I know I can get Facebook Mobile App Installs down to under $0.40 because I've done that before, but $0.10 will be the challenge.
"I know I can get Facebook Mobile App Installs down to under $0.40 because I've done that before, but $0.10 will be the challenge". Good luck! Look forward to reading what you learn. In the past I've been able to get some very cheap installs doing CPC with Chartboost on ads that convert well, but only at very low volumes. I couldn't get it low enough to cover my LTV though, I was going for a burst up the charts. Do you have Facebook analytics in your apps? If you do, it could be interesting to try creating a Facebook audience like your IAP converting players, then you could afford the 40c per install? Though if you can pull together an audience that converts, chances are there are many more advertisers competing for that audience?
Yes. Doing a Facebook Mobile App Install Ads campaign without the Facebook SDK installed in your game is something you should never do. I even have the new fancy Facebook SDK v4.0.1 that just came out at F8 installed that has their new AppEvents bells and whistles. And I've set a lot of events in my game so I can break out a lot of different segments. I will definitely be testing Lookalike Audiences.
Starting with Facebook ads and analytics So I've been experimenting with Facebook ads and Facebook app analytics for a non-game utility app: - At very low volumes, I got installs as low as 37c by targetting a specific demographic. - Pretty sure Facebook will increase the CPI if I increase the budget to get more installs. - Targeting a different demographic, installs could be $1 for the same app. - Targeting my demographic, vs my demographic WITH a lookalike audience doesn't seem to change CTR or effective CPI much. - Facebook purchase analytics do NOT match iTunes sales. I think Facebook is NOT filtering out jailbreak users, so fake IAPs are going through as real purchases. (This app is NOT using server side receipt validation.) Should be easy enough to fix either by adding jailbreak detection and creating a segment in Facebook of non jailbreak users. Or by turning off the automatic purchase recording and doing it manually only for non-jailbreak. - Unable to determine if my lookalike previous purchasers audience monetizes better. Not enough data, and Facebook analytics purchase reporting seems not accurate anyway :-(
I also ran small test ads using about $2,000. My best results was targeting iPhone 6 users in select countries. I believe a lot has to do with the design of your ad. You have to keep in mind that you only have a few seconds so the ad must have punch and leave no questions. I want to see if with the right game and ad is it possible to get the cost of a download to $0.10. I will let you know if that happens.
