From paid to free(downloads from 0 - 150)

GLGAMES

Guys,
promoting our games is really not easy since many days of 0 downloads, i set my games to free and just yesterday along download increased from 0 to 151.
wow. Is it a sign that we should go into iAd instead to earn some cash from these? Still wondering if it's worth to get the Pro account.

DreamLab

The problem with Iads is, that you have to have TONS of downloads to get the iads to actually make you some decent money.

RedlerTech

Yup, my game got 3,500 downloads one day & was number 5 in China top free boardgames! Just last weekend! Got a total of about 8,000 downloads that week

Definitely something you should consider

GLGAMES

wow those figures are fantastic..
I gotta save that 500 bucks...then

xyloFUN

Hey GLG

Is this your first game? (just wondering)

I think it is somewhat of an advantage to have at least a handful of games in iTunes and one free one.
This way, many people see the free one and also "what else" you have.

How ever, free games kind of follow the same pattern as the payed ones.
There are lots of downloads the first few days and then they taper off ...

I hope you have a web page and a little youtube video that gives a quick overview or teaser?

Maybe you can get "creative" with your promo codes instead of letting them waste away in Margaritaville

good luck!

---------------------------------------
play the "Little Composers Trumpet" on line now

LumpApps

Funny thing is that the app I do the least marketing on sells best in my case. An average of 1 a day steady for months now. Its a (pretty good) tambourine named Pandeiro.
It was never free. Penny Shoel started of free but still is doing close to nothing now it is payed. I now have Penny Shoel HD out and soon a Dutch version. (under review).
I hope for the last to take of because I can do local promotions.

kapser

How much money do we get with iAds? Like 2 cent a download?

Free apps probably get a lot of download because they don't invest any money and classify by date of release. But if it doesn't move up the ladder you might not get more money that you would selling it.

I'm pretty curious about this, maybe I should consider Iads.

jonmulcahy

150 downloads will make you about 5-10 dollars a month via iAds if you are very lucky. iAds is not the way to make money, a good app is

GLGAMES

really? 150 can make that much, is better than my 5bucks of paid so far since released lolz. Yesterday my download hit 600 for 2nd day of free
Maybe i really should consider iAds.

GLGAMES

One more thing is that doing a search on the web for my App actually showed a lot of app review sites. that's free advertising!!

RedlerTech

But, I get around 25,000 downloads a month. If I put iADs about how much would I make?

GLGAMES

25k!!! goodness should be alot of iAds earnings..
with that kind of downloads i think you can really earn from iAds.

Stamu

remeber that you need people to use the app and click on ads... not just download

RedlerTech

That's not a problem ;D

SkyMaple

NextGenEntertainment said:
But, I get around 25,000 downloads a month. If I put iADs about how much would I make?

If I did the math right I'd say 830 on the low end, correct me if I'm wrong.

youngster9

iAds seem better than paid if they are downloaded enough. A strategy would be to have a iAd version and a paid version with no iAds. This way people who get sick of ads will buy your paid app. This could maximize sales. Would this work?

quantumsheep

youngster9 said:
iAds seem better than paid if they are downloaded enough. A strategy would be to have a iAd version and a paid version with no iAds. This way people who get sick of ads will buy your paid app. This could maximize sales. Would this work?

It worked with 'Words with friends' for me - my chums and I could download the game for free and play it - it just had an annoying ad at the end of a round.

I was playing it so much, I decided to get rid of the ads by buying the full version!

The trick here is that regardless of whether it was free or not, the game is a good one. If you make a rubbish app and sell it as well as having a free version with ads, it will make no difference whatsoever.

Just a thought

QS

youngster9

Thanks for your insight QS.

dotsonj23

quantumsheep said:
It worked with 'Words with friends' for me - my chums and I could download the game for free and play it - it just had an annoying ad at the end of a round.

I was playing it so much, I decided to get rid of the ads by buying the full version!

The trick here is that regardless of whether it was free or not, the game is a good one. If you make a rubbish app and sell it as well as having a free version with ads, it will make no difference whatsoever.

Just a thought

QS

Anyone thought of doing this. Making the IAd in the free version get progressivley more intrusive on the game driving people that actually play the game a lot to buy the paid version but not initially upsetting or distracting the user when they are first getting into the game. I think it could be done with rules and a save attribute adding a +1 each time the game is played to the saved attribute and then re-saving.

jb15

Great opinions guys--would anyone by any chance be willing to release cold, hard, numbers? Or at least ratios? (I made 5/4 of what I was making when I switched to iAds, or something like that).

DrGlickert

youngster9 said:
iAds seem better than paid if they are downloaded enough. A strategy would be to have a iAd version and a paid version with no iAds. This way people who get sick of ads will buy your paid app. This could maximize sales. Would this work?

This is the way that Words With Friends does it. They ahve a free version that has ads, then they have a paid version ($0.99) that doesn't have ads. It's the exact same game too! Nothing new, nothing changed. Just no ads.

Some people don't mind ads, if they get sick of them, they pay for the one without ads. It's a win-win (in my opinion).

GLGAMES

Good strategy i think.

digleto

SkyMaple said:
If I did the math right I'd say 830 on the low end, correct me if I'm wrong.

Where did you even get that number from?
The ecpm of Iads averages around $2 but it varies.
Still if each one of those people viewed the ad once youd be making only $50

GLGAMES

My third day of free sale got me 1034 downloads for my game for ipad format, 580 came from China.. Wow i didn't know China had that much pad users lolz. i dun even hv one sigh..

GLGAMES

will iAds still work for those who already got the current game without the iAds and i add the iAds later with an update?
You only get paid from them clicking on the ads right?

gazjm

you get a tiny amount for an ad showing, even if it isn't clicked on. It's about $0.006 I think.

Yes if you update the older ones will then get ads, but I'd be pissed if an app I had paid for suddenly had ads in it. you'd be better releasing an ad version separate, that way you get the exposure in the new release list again. And if people like it, they might buy the non ad version.

GLGAMES

yuh i am thinking since it's not making any sale for 1 mth , i could change it to permanently free app. just nd to get money to use pro account for GS :P

jonmulcahy

I don't want to burst your bubble, but it will take a over a year to make enough money for pri with those numbers, if you ever even do. Apple decides which apps even show ads. You need to not only have a high number of downloads per day, but also have people keep using your app after that initial download.

This was discussed time and time again after iAds came out, if your app is not good enough to make money as paid, you will not magically make more money with iAds. Its too competitive. Apple wants their iAds shown on the most downloaded, and more importantly, most used apps.

jonmulcahy

SkyMaple said:
If I did the math right I'd say 830 on the low end, correct me if I'm wrong.

In theory. In actuality more like $20-50

xarmian

There's a lot of misinformation about iAds, especially the rates of pay. They vary widely based on the type of ad being displayed. The 0.006 cents/impression is pretty much a myth now.. Back about 6-9 months ago that was somewhat real, but you rarely get ads that pay for an impression now. The best way to understand what iAds can produce are by looking at eCPM ($ made per 1000 impressions). My fill rate has gotten significantly better lately, so here are my basic numbers based on recent statistics:

Fill rate is about 65%. Mostly I'm getting the lowest paying ads (ads for other free apps) which pay nothing per impression, and a nominal amount per click.
Click-thru rate is 0.5-1% (1-2 clicks per 200 ad views)
An app getting somewhere between 40-60 downloads a day is getting about 700 impressions a day and an eCPM of about $0.92 - this varies based on how many click-thrus you actually get, but it's the best way to get an average income based on ad views

This means for each 1,000 impressions I'm averaging 92 cents. If you end up with a similar eCPM, then if you get 25,000 downloads a month and each user views 10 ads, you might make around $500/month off iAds.

One other note: iAds start SLOW. I mean this as in, when your app is first approved you will get almost no iAds displayed. The fill rate is junk. Then over time it increases. I think it depends a lot on the type of game and how many people are playing it but I haven't really seen a pattern. It just seems that after a couple weeks (really after your initial rush of people playing your game) you start getting a decent number of ads. This is very annoying.

Dave

outsidethebyte

GLGames, no offense, but if you're only getting a few hundred every few days in free downloads, you won't make a thing with iAds. My one app makes me around $5.00 a day with paid downloads, and has been doing this for months. I switched it to free for only 24 hours, and got over 2,100 downloads. And there is no way I'd consider switching to iAds. My advice is to give up on that app and try again. I've noticed that my sales increase when I release a quality update, and I think that you're working with a dead end. Join the rest of us in working on producing some new, real, quality games and apps. I think we all talk about sale strategies and stuff like that, but the truth is that we really just need to improve the quality of our games. The quality games here sell, and they sell at a ratio even to their quality.