I believe ads can work, it all depends on which network you advertise on. Some will allow you to just buy a spot for a month for a x $ amount, and no extra charge on the CTR. I would recamend ads, you don't need to go $$$ crazy either
If you have limited budget, I would suggest if you could contact different app review sites (Maniacdev has compiled 100+ review sites) and make a pitch for your app (AppDesignVault has a template for a pitch) hoping to get reviewed.
Thanks for the info, I've seen this page before. We have to remember that there are more than a few hundred apps review requests sent to web sites for reviews. some reviewers could be backlogged too. but good info none the less thanks
while I agree that 150 is a very little budget, I would recommend Facebook adds where you can set a daily budget of10 dollars a day for 10 days and run your ad with an offer of a 25 dollar gift card raffle to anyone who likes your page. That will at least grow your audience. and you will have 25 left over, to reduce the budget to 5 dollars a day for another 5 days. If done correctly and your target your proper audience you should generate 10-40 likes daily which is 10-40 people that get exposure to your game that may not of heard of it before. Although a larger budget would help you can accomplish something with a small budget. Hope that helps. Good Luck
Good point on Facebook, but it's better to target gamers directly on a site or two. Facebook is too big and the ads could be showing up to the wrong people.
Hi poisenden, What about try to use PRMac.com (http://www.prmac.com)? With $22.50 you can buy some PR service. It is not a very good service, but it very cheap. You could also buy some banners here http://www.buysellads.com Cheers!
@epx I agree and disagree on Facebook if you utilize the tools properly Facebook allows you to not only narrow the people seeing your page add by device, but by gamer and game category or style. you can tailor who sees your add for a much smaller market to drive better results. at the same time you are getting impressions that hopefully share with their social friends. My two cents anyway. It goes to building your social foot print and audience which allows for future growth.
Did Facebook Ad Tool allow that? By device? By Game category too? I don't see on my Facebook Ad Manager. =0
I'm spending $350 on an ad for a week at Pocket Gamer myself. First time releasing a game on iOS and advertising too...should be interesting!
good luck, chubigans! please let us know how it turns out- can you measure how many clickthroughs/sales you get from pocketgamer?
I agree with MarkFromBitmenStudios who mentioned, Spend the money to localize your app keywords descriptions and screenshots. Otherwise, I think most things would be a waste of money. Personally, I havent had good experience with prMac. I did track how many clicks I got and I think for the pay release of $20 I got about 5 leads who signed up for the email form on my site. It did generate some traffic but not much. However, despite my previous experience with it, Id still be interested to try it again with different apps. David
I tried getting a banner ad at a German IOS site for Nuketastic Chickens (a free game) so far It has generated over 50k impressions, 25 click throughs, and 0 downloads from Germany and Austria. I think next time I release something I am going to try and pay to get a couple expedited reviews. Thats my two cents