Depends on what you mean by suggestive. I had some which were truly borderline, not necessarily in the content of the ad itself, but where customers would be led to if they taped/clicked on it. I had to hunt down a couple of them, ban some providers' URLs even, and it was annoying. This despite all the normal filters to make it as safe as possible.
Well I think my app is in a grey area, but I did try to have ads in my game through both AdMob and AdColony and both turned suspended serving ads to my app pretty quick. So I doubt AdMob would let me advertise if they dont let me run ads on my app. I have yet to find any advertisement network who would be willing to serve ads to my app... which is think is a bit strange. If they dont wanna serve ads to porn its totally understandable, but I did not expect anything sex related would be so taboo. It's 2014 after all. As for your case, the rules for content on most ad networks are so unclear, and so open for interpretation, so I am not surprised stuff slip through.
I considered using sites like stumble upon, but I felt the problem with that might be that the people who use it are probably not actively looking for exactly your type of game to download. They're looking for nothing in particular, and probably try many pages before they stumble upon something they like? So you probably get so many clicks from people who have absolutely no interest in your product? I've experimented some with different keywords on AdWord now, and found one phrase that works really well. In two days, spending about $3 I got 868 impressions and 111 clicks, with a CTR of 12.79% which seems to be a really good number. So thats my best tip so far, after total of a few days trial and error marketing. And yeah, I doubt the first app is a huge success for many app newbies. Like Destined said, you learn by doing. I am creating my second and third now, and there plenty of mistakes I did with the first that I am avoiding now. I am probably doing a whole new set of mistakes of course... but still.
Hi! I am indie developer from Kronet Games (Based in Ukraine) and that's my story: - We are very young team and of course we are not professional in game dev (Team consist 6 people). On Thursday, 1'st October, we released our new game - Logic Lines - a tactical turn-based puzzle game focused on multiplayer competitions. It's our 2nd game and i have a good understanding about how works mobile marketing and what to do. As all you do, we create a nice main art, screenshots, description(only ENG,RU,UA), making a little-bit ASO and keywords optimisation in Google Play. Before we launch our game, we prepare all marketing text and materials: 2 promo-video, press-kit for press , 20 screenshots in high-res at all langs, ost from game and much more. Here is it: PRESS We understood, that shoud create a big-marketing-bomb to reach top of Appstore or Google Play in our region (Ukraine) - it was not so hard - because we have contact of many local sites, blogers etc. and we speak with them at 1 lang. When we launch the game - we bought a small traffic (CPI) to boost our campaign, then 4 local sites from (30) wrote about us an article, then we bought 1 video-review from youtubeblogger and with 1 more make it for free. Also we made a huge hype in facebook publics in our region. After 2 days of hard work we seen the next result: top3 in Ukraine Google Play(Free, New Puzzles) with 2000 installs. Thats not a bad result coz for now we reach 8000 installs (5000 in 1 week, then slowly with 350installs/day, and yestarday: 150/day). But Stop us jealous. With 8000installs we have only 30 purchases of premium content (Our game full free but we have in-app purchase wich remove ads, add new visual customization and new OSTs) - Ukraine region is very poor, now we have war with Russian invaders on the East and thing go very bad...Our hope only for Worldwide success. We work with press only in our Ukraine region but meanwhile we collect a huge base of sites Worldwide. In Ukraine we can't get money but can get feedback. We this 10k installs, we understood that Logic Lines is not so bad game and people like to play it. Game have some problems with online component and right away the launch, we start working at huge patch. So, we will start "WEST" campaing only, when patch will be complete. I think reviews on websites, and video-reviews are the best way to improve installs rate and revenue. How to get it? I will share our "EU" experience soon... And here's the links to google play and app store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kronetgames.logiclines https://itunes.apple.com/app/logic-lines-free-multiplayer/id915338483?mt=8
I collect many Sweden websites to our database...Can you share, which write for you? It will be really helpfull!
Thanks for sharing your story. It's always interesting to read how other indie developers do it. The swedish site that wrote for me was the biggest newspaper in Sweden. Aftonbladet. (www.aftonbladet.se)
I suppose the app falling into the Lifestyle category (although being a game) was what gave it room in such a newspaper.
If you make $10 a day at the beginning, you're most likely going to have a bad time. :S I can only recommend checking Emmy Jonassen's blog (aka indiegamegirl) to know how to boost the interest towards your app BEFORE release. She really does a great job at helping us get more eye balls on our precious precious games. Or just watch her speech at Konsoll 2013 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkEQtMP2CuA There's also an awesome list of blogs, articles and websites on the subject on pixelprospector.
Care to elaborate on that? I think it's more logical to assume that with hard work your downloads and revenue will rise over time, and so will your ranking, which in turn would lead to more downloads and revenue. There are plenty of examples of successful apps that didn't hit the app store with a bang, but instead slowly and steadily rose through the ranks by spreading the word and by updating and improving their app. Unless you planned your app release very well (which most first time app makers dont) there's absolutely no reason to think you will have any kind of download boost when you release it. Most likely you'll have one or two downloads or something the first day. But with some work you can improve that over time. I have improved from 1-2 downloads / day the first week to about steady 80-100 now, and it hasn't really taken that much work. I see no reason why it would not be possible to get to 1000 / day, or above. Which is why I started the thread. It sounds like you're suggesting everyone who didn't make $1000+ the first day to give up? Love to hear you story though. Since you made a clever comment about $10 is nothing, I assume you have a few very successful apps out there that you make a living from? Care to share which one(s) they are, and how you did it? I am sure the link below is nice, but it's even better to hear about someone's success story first hand! Thanks for the link. Ill check it out!
There is a general thought that the first week is often make or break because of the boost apple gives you in the rating for being a new app. As with all rules of thumb there are exceptions but it is often normal or day 2 or 3 to be the most installs an app will ever have. All of my apps follow that rule of thumb and are now only downloaded a few times each day except Thinkspace AR which still has strong downloads.
Noir Run, our second app, gets 60-150 downloads/day after 50 days. The question here is: does anyone know of any tactic to boost downloads after the first month?
Any tactic with heaps of cash will work. Even the non-approved methods still require good amounts of money to get your app anywhere. The safest and shittiest solution is to produce enough apps to provide enough cash for your upper quality project, the one you've been thinking a lot about but pushing back because of a lack of resources. Basically I think you need to rely on a web of apps you've already produced that provides a sort of solid base and a steady stream of income. Unfortunately, at 100 extra downloads a day (I include losses due to app removals), you're probably barely adding one extra dollar of revenue each day, depending on your monetization system. If you don't lose players (the ARPU doesn't go down, huh), you might have gotten something like 400~500$ at the end of the month, or a bit more at best. You'd need about ten more apps, working in synergy, to start making enough money to begin hoping spending cash on ads of various types and promo, and you'd probably be taking large risks. The real best advice would be that if your app hasn't taken off to the multi-thousand downloads mark, at least during the first weeks, just move on and consider it done. Don't waste more time on the same product, build more new IPs and hope they perform a bit better this time. Unless you can count on a small cult-like group to push your app up, I don't see any other way than this sluggish ramp up.
Well thats not true for me at all. Like I said I had 2-3 downloads / day in the beginning, now 6 months later 80-100 / day. So yeah I dont know. It might depend a lot on the app too I suppose. My game is pretty different than most of yours so maybe it behaves differently because of it. I don't know.
Well that was my original question, there's some good tips and interesting stories earlier in this thread if you havent checked. But yeah, that's the million dollar question. After a week of $1.5 / day on Google Adwords I've definitely had a small increase in downloads. I am getting about 60 clicks / day to my app's web page for my $1.5. My CTR is currently at 23%, which apparently is very good. So yeah paid ads do seem to work. I think I am gonna up it to $3 / day (big spender!) to see if it doubles my web page hits, and if it has a more noticeable effect on app downloads. Currently my downloads are up only about 5-10 / day on average... and since I only make about $0.1 / download... it's not much of a boost. So to sum it up, I am currently spending $1.5 on ads to earn 1$. Yay...
Thanks for your insights, reckon even $10K would get you anywhere? I like the safe solution in that it's safe, heh. I suppose it's like having additional bets on. It's also the most realistic I think. To me, according to your above posts and some of the more even-handed articles out there, it is starting to look like: A. You either get lucky with Apple during an update submission, or a high profile influencer/reviewer stumbles across your app (which can sometimes prompt Apple?). I'm thinking about that Trainyard post-mortem in particular. B. You're one of the big guys and you LAUGH because life is good. C. You're not one of the big guys but you throw $X at advertising, doesn't even really matter which ad provider in the long run but it's enough to prompt the snowball effect. D. You build Y number of cross-promoting apps over years of toil and sweaty, bloody (for some, part-time) tears to finance your big one as you say. All the while growing a fanbase and somehow cultivating relationships with journalists. Your exploits are made legendary and carefully noted in the Book of Mythology and songs of your grandeur echo through the App Store for centuries to come. E. Give up and develop on Steam. *sigh*, it's D isn't it? Maybe the conversation should be... How many fans do I need so my next App gets noticed? What's the critical mass I wonder? 20,000? If enough of a percentage of existing fans downloaded the app over the first week of release... Also, I definitely think there's an argument to be made for paid games and a big ole' free promotion 3-6 months in. I reckon that'd get you a decent chunk of audience.
........ I decided to give AdWords a go given your success. 0.06% CTR on a Search Ad and 0.34% on a Mobile Install Display campaign after the first two days. ?Que? Your CTR is through the roof!
Everytime I read anything about Google ads systems, regardless of which side you're on, small fishes never get satisfied. The super CTR from above is rather exceptional. I'm already surprised it's a two digits figure. It's just plain alien to me. It means 1 ad on 4 generates a click from his users. I suppose that if your app caters to a very specific market, if you'd filter the ad networks serving ads through your app, you might bring extremely relevant and enticing ads to your users. Like OMG Free p0rn. The average expected CTR was around 0.4% for Google ads back in 2012. The advertising platforms do provide numbers on what types of ads are most served. You can even see which ones generate the highest CTRs. From there, you can kick the rest out. You don't need to serve as many ads as possible, you need to serve those that work. A few things to consider with CTR. If you provide the ads, make them good and still be ready for large spends: I don't see the point of saving money on promo through ads anyway. If you dont' have the cash, do something else with the little you have. Like buy some fine tools and work on good ideas. If your project is simple and good, and seems to have potential, then don't hesitate to look for people to invest on the marketing, assuming you can explain everything and tell them what needs to be done, where and when. It's better to have a humble share of a good revenue than a near full share of something that is condemned to the limbo zone. That said, the "humble share" in question doesn't have to be ppitiful either. If your product is rock solid and wrapped up, it wouldn't be hard to aim for 50% to 40% if the money brought by your partner(s) isn't too unreasonnably high. Grinding with a slew of average apps isn't something I'd wish to anyone, but many go down this path.
Definitely. If you spend it well. It takes a lot of planning and minute targeting to know where to launch your app first and what means to use to deliver its promotion. The idea here is to reach a point when you clearly get close to the magical thousands downloads a day. There's no point aiming for lower than the thousands if you're serious about making apps. I'm talking about free apps btw. Paid ones require much less, but it's getting considerably harder to sell any no markets where the rule is freemium. It simply shapes the consumers' minds and forces devs to become bankers. Bankers making games. Wait. ... For most people, yes, it's D. A is the luck everybody talks about (features, some prestigious loon talks about your app, etc.). I mean, honest real luck, not the paid one. You still need a good product in most cases to attract that luck. B&C, forget about it. Or perhaps you might also find a nice publisher, like, I don't know... Chillingo maybe? E is irrelevant to this forum. And you won't have the opportunity to deliver small games on Steam the way you can get through iOS and Android. However, you might very well think about desktop games, the flash game type you know? 2000 would already be fantastic. That would be less money spent on them and more and new user acquisitions.
It's 99% true, all your post! But really don't give up!)) I think you need approximetly 10k fans of your lasts games, and you need 15-20k downloads in first week so your game gets noticed.
