Airpush vs Banner+Interstitial

Recently I bit the bullet with Airpush on a new app I released and have been comparing my effective earnings per user with this app vs another app I released last year.
The Airpush supported app is using Icon Ads (2 per month), Push Ads (2 per day) and the SmartWall upon app exit.
The other app was using Banner Ads with Admob and AppBrain (split 60% Admob - 40% Appbrain, 45 second refresh) and also presenting the Appbrain Appwall upon app exit.
Note that this data is currently incomplete, but due to popular request and discussion I have presented this half-way though the data gathering.

This data is recorded from each app’s first 30 days (app2 with Airpush currently only displays 15 days) on the Play Store (no other markets), comparing EPU (Earnings per User).
Please note that for the sake of the graph and to have measurable data, I calculate the EPU as [Daily earnings / Daily downloads]. Obviously I am earning revenue from my active users on each app too,
but it is much harder to calculate given the data Ad Networks provide. If I calculated it using the total active installs for a given day, I would be including many users that did not contribute to the revenue earning for that day, which would produce a graph where the data would decrease. Since these apps have also maintained very similar user retention rates, the data can still be compared effectively in this way.
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I am not linking to my apps as competition is enough as it is, but note that they shared similar download amounts and are in the Music & Audio Category.

Graph:

Data:

I hope people can take something away from this data. Please also let me know if you have any queries etc, so we can get some good discussion going.

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Excellent post.

1 - the AppBrain/Admob revenue is LINEAR c.f. number of downloads (since for a new app the daily users are dominated by new users, as the returning users are few since there is no significant installed base of users yet) - so this seems reasonable i.e. revenue is proportional to the daily users

2 - the Airpush revenue on the other hand is NONLINEAR i.e. it seems to be going up MORE than linearly compared to the daily downloads - which seems to fit the presumption that Airpush is delivering revenue from daily users AS WELL AS users who have not used your app (since push notifications sent to all users of app, even if they not use the app that day).

3 - one would earn nearly the same revenue as the reported Airpush (push, SmartWall, icon ad) revenue - if one used Admob banner ads and Leadbolt AppWall. So I guess push notification revenue is not the HUGE revenue source that perhaps it may have been earlier (?). For the Airpush revenue, what percentage is push/icon/SmartWall (is SmartWall still dominating that revenue ?) - which would further suggest to skip push notification altogether. Is icon revenue similar to StartApp i.e. $0.014 per “Yes” to StartApp EULA ($0.055 for new user to $0.005 for returning user etc.).

4 - the App1 revenue is rising faster than the newer App2 - could it be because App2 has push ads which is turning off users ? Or is it just variation between the apps, time of year etc.

5 - what happens if the user says “No” to the icon ad/push ads EULA ? Does the app continue to run as if nothing happened - is that eroding the conversion ratio (percentage of users allowing push notifications) ?

Thanks!

1 - Yes to the most part.

2 - Yes, the Push and Icon ads bring in extra revenue from the active installs that are not actively using the app per say.

3 - Airpush is delivering good ECPMs so far on all fronts. Data from Last 7 days:
Push = $4.05 CPM from 5.1k pushes, $20.95 earnings. Icon = 1517 icon placements, CPM $3.76, $5.72 earnings. SmartWall = 2.4k Requests, 4k impressions, CPM $ 2.77, $11.18 earnings. Notifications are the big player for this app.
I don’t think you can compare the icons to Startapp, since StartApp’s model includes Bookmarks and a Homepage too.

4 - I don’t see App1’s revenue rising faster then App2? As I said, user retention is very similar. About 55% retention.

5 - Per Google’s policy, the users can say “no” and continue with out Airpush ads. The prompt will appear each app launch unless they say “yes” though.

Once I have a full 30 days data I will update the images.
:slight_smile:

Great post A1ka1inE - Looking forward to the 30 day data/report.

Thank you for sharing this info! Im new to android app developement and I found your post very useful! Will stay tuned to your 30 days report :slight_smile:

You may wanna confirm on this. The last I checked, clicking close or OK made no difference, and push ads were sent out either way. If you read the description, it says that you must uninstall the app if you don’t agree to the T&C.

Maybe somethings have changed, but the last I checked, that’s how it worked.

You’re probably right. I use two other ad networks which present EULAs and only initialize their SDK if the user presses the “Accept”/“Agree” button.

At least Airpush have an opt-out app and opt-out option on their site.

Really cool, A1ka1inE.

Today I posted the follow up! Have a look :slight_smile:

sweet! Thanks!

appreciate the info man, good stuff!

@A1ka1inE thanks for this! Been thinking about experimenting with push ads and icon ads from AppBucks but haven’t bitten that bullet yet. Any experience with or recco on that?

Check out my full analysis here: Airpush vs Banner+Interstitial - 30 day analysis - Advertising Networks - Making Money with Android

I’m using AppBucks in a few apps too, and I have to say they are much cleaner than Airpush. Currently I’m not getting that great ECPMs from them, but they are new and implementing improvements so I can’t complain.
Their main advantage is that their SDK doesn’t use naughty permissions and doesn’t get flagged as a “virus” by anti-virus apps like many out-of-app ad networks do.