since ninja chicken ipad version is out, I plan to do some marketing I checked with TA, no ads available right now then I thought about FB, anyone try it before? will it be useful? if not, any good place to buy ads? I know admob is useless
It's always worth creating a Twitter and Facebook page for advertisement and to keep your fans interested about updates. Creating a Twitter account and Facebook page is free, so why not. Just link them together, so anything you post on Twitter automatically will be posted to Facebook, and keep them up to date.
You need to get better exposure on your game then. Paying for advertisements may draw in a few sales, but the spend-return ratio may not be what you expect. You may find advertising will cost you more than you will make back in sales. Try giving some promo codes to review sites and people who will review your game. I also suggest planning an update so users who already own your game have a reason to keep it and recommend it to their friends. A lot of developers have also found updating their apps/games to support IOS4 and the Retina Display has improved their sales and exposure. Retina Display compatible games are few-and-far-between, jump on the bandwagon early.
Include a Twitter/Facebook link button in your game.. Also, did it take much to make an iPad version? I just didn't think you'd do it cause of the poor sales.. Have they picked up? I hope so..
yeah fb can be useful in advertising, just gotta know the right way to do it. Try using FBML to customize apps and create a landing page, that'll help alot in generating traffic.
I think facebook ads are worth it, but have them link to your facebook page, not directly to your app. Then your goal is to get more facebook fans, because every time you get a new fan it is broadcast to all of that person's friends and is like getting free advertising.
I think he's asking if anyone has actually paid for facebook ads, not how to effectively use a regular facebook page... I would be curious if anyone has tried this as well.
Talking to a friend, he said his studio bought some FB ads for their (admittedly mostly crappy) iPhone games, and they didn't really do much at all. I don't usually hear much data about this stuff either, in fact I wonder if anyone is investing much in that aspect? I spend a fair amount of time trying to build up my fanbase between twitter and FB, the numbers aren't "bad" but still too low to really feel like they matter. I am doing a bit of cleanup to all of that stuff in anticipation of a coming promotion and it will hopefully be quite useful during that phase. At some point I'll write up some giant concise blog, or post or whatever detailing the whole process and what worked/sucked __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Tired of Bejeweled & Tetris? Grab 180 - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
If you look around you can probably find one of the many $50 free facebook advertisement coupons that float around. Try it for $50 and see what kinds of returns you get. Do your research really well though and make sure you target the right segments and groups. I'm an internet marketer and SEO by trade and PPC advertising lives and dies on research. Especially when it comes to an iPhone game- figure out who your market is, determine how to design your ads to target them specifically, and then test it out. Don't forget your landing page either, a good landing page is essential. Lukeca had a good idea to link people to your facebook page to get more fans and sales and the free advertising that comes with that. Not a bad idea. You may not see immediate returns either, but it may affect your sales from what you publish on your own facebook page afterwards: http://www.betternetworker.com/articles/view/marketing/pay-per-click/is-facebook-advertising-really-worth-it-a-different-persepctive Oh, and report back to the rest of us with your results!
We tried Facebook ads and linked it to our website (a minor faux pas, but that's besides the point). What we ended up with was about 1 click for every 10,000 displays. I have a feeling that no one (myself included) really looks at the sponsored advertisements on FB.
I've used Facebook ads but not for selling an app, more to build up some followers. I always did 2 weeks ads with a cap of 50$, with around 0.80$ per click I believe. I netted about 60 or so new followers in this period of time. Like I mentioned, the ads were not to sell my game (it's not out yet either way), but to help build up a following.
so did you ultimately spend just $50 for the 60 followers, if you don't mind me asking? i am still trying to gauge the usefulness of followers.. I have tons on twitter and FB, but it is very hard to determine what of that turns into guaranteed DLs... __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Tired of Bejeweled & Tetris? Grab 180 - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
Yeah, I'd be really interest to hear what result you got for actual money spent. I also take back my previous comment about it being prohibitively expensive. I just wonder at the direct effectiveness (I've never clicked a Facebook ad but I doubt if I'm a good example of the average FB user) or whether it works more in just creating some sort of brand recognition but with few clicks.
Yeah maybe about 60-70 new followers, and I haven't spent all my 50$ yet. My stats are below. It cost me basically 0.47$ per new follower. Basically, I'm not hoping for direct sales, I'm just building up a possible user base. How many people would actually buy the game, I have no clue. But I'm trying to build up some buzz whichever way I can. If you already have a ton of followers, I don't think ads will be of any use. In my case, I was only starting from 10 followers. 140000 impressions, and about 89 clicks is pretty abyssmal, but in those 89 clicks, most of them ended up being a follower of the page. But hey, for 50$ over two weeks, I'll take it!
hm that right there is very useful info in particular!! Thanks! __________________ twitter - HeadcaseGames.com Bejeweled.. Tetris.. and now 180 - Contest FreeAppTracker.com free daily apps, rankings, & contests!
Saw something interesting coming through my twitter feed tonight, I thought you might be interested in. I'll just copy/paste the relevant part. Nearly 80 publishing professionals tuned in to a BISG-sponsored webcast, Marketing Books in a Digital World, on Wednesday. The hour-long discussion covered a range of tactics publishers are taking to get their books into readers hands, but the topic that loomed largest was social networking. Rob Goodman, director of online marketing at Simon & Schuster, revealed a battery of impressive figures about how social networking influences consumer buying habits, among them: consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter, 51% more likely to buy from a brand they fan on Facebook, and 79% more likely to recommend brands and products they follow on social media. The other speaker, Peter Milburn, digital products marketing manager at Wiley Global Finance, called Facebook (which has 500 million users), Twitter (125 million users), YouTube, and LinkedIn the new retailers, an idea moderator Jim Lichtenberg, president of the management consulting practice Lightspeed, confirmed when he noted, You go to Facebook, hear about a book, then go to a retailer and buy itso at that point the retailers just fulfilling your desire. Milburn advised publishers to know your ecosystem. Learn to speak the language that consumers are speaking. That might mean using UrbanDictionary.com to understand phrases and words like IMHO, hashtag, and API, or reading Mashable.coms Twitter guide book, which explains basics, building a Twitter community, Twitter for business, and more. Being involved in consumers world also lets marketers see what people are saying about their books and brands online, Milburn said. Its not enough to create a page on a social media site like Facebook, Milburn said. He cited Peter Schiff, whose book, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, Wiley published in May. Schiff created his own Web site and made sure that as people searched online for terms related to his books topic, they would land on his site. Milburn noted that it is important not to barrage consumers. Dont spray and pray. Listen, reply, and engage. Goodman also advised marketers to connectt with people online. Things can go viral and feed out to millions of people in amazing ways, he said, but first, You must engage people to get them talking. Like many companies, S&S has increased its online advertising in the past three years with good results. Goodman said the company has had great success with Facebook engagement interactive ads, which, in an effort to tackle the grim click-through rates of traditional online ads, encourage people to interact with the ads by leaving comments, sharing virtual gifts, or becoming fans. Yes, I know this is for book publishing, but I have little reason to believe that the numbers would be substantially different for app developers. In fact it might be a bit higher, as there's ony one place you can iOS games/apps. I also find it interesting that Twitter has the highest referral value, and wondering if that's simply because it's far more interactive between people.
I used $50 of free facebook ads and added about 50 followers to my page. Has anyone tried twitter? I find you can generate more followers quicker, i have nearly 500 followers in a couple of months. Twitter has lots of great tools out there that help automate tweets, like tweet adder and hootsuite.
