I want to add an option for in-app billing to my app. Other than direct payment, I want to add something like TapJoy’s incentive offers as an alternative for the users who don’t want to pay.
My question is, have you had any experience with this? How was it? (I love stats :-D)
Will this sort of thing work out for a non-game app? (see my app below)
Is tapjoy my best bet? Or are there any other networks that offer this too?
I actually wanted to offer you this in other thread, then I don’t know why, changed my mind )
people also said you, that your app is for nerds, and they don’t click on adds. You can add tapjoy with a button “Support developer”, in tapjoy you can encourage people to download / to click on adds. So, maybe your users will thank you this way. I saw this in some apps, and as I know, they were earning good.
Also the “fake iPhone 4s” written by the admin of this forum, he also have put “Support developer” to his app before it was banned.
That’s actually bloody brilliant! Almost all my users know I made this app alone and I get a lot of help and ideas and suggestions from them 
But wait a minute, he got banned for doing iPhone stuff right? Not because of the support developer option?
I know Google doesn’t like any money being exchanged when they don’t get a share… Is doing this safe?
No, he was banned because of the copyright violations (actually there is a thread on this forum about it (http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/fake-iphone/4-fake-iphone-frequently-asked-questions-faq.html), because of “Iphone 4s”.
There is a difference between a normal ad network and tapjoy like (there are also names for them, I forgot), in latter you can encourage people to click on ads. That’s why they pay less than other ad networks
Hold up, please see if I got this right:
So I’ll put an option that says “Support Developer” in my app. On clicking it should open the Tapjoy’s offerwall or something like that, right?
They download, install and delete and I get paid…?
Yes, that’s exactly how it works. This type of ad networks mostly for increasing the downloads (so that it gets to the top new apps list and etc.)
You can also write something like “senior member, vip member, junior member” depending on the benefit he gave to you. You can check it of course.
Sometimes even 20-25 seconds video is available in tapjoy, if a user watches it, you will earn 0.01$ (with apps it is of course more).
In my sudoku app I have hints, but you need coins to use them, and u can earn coins for free by means of tapjoy. You can check it via my app, or download the tapjoy sample app for checking this.
You can use Tapjoy and GetJar - however GetJar is something I tried earlier - it was hard to get it implemented - and GetJar’s commitment to this area is not really clear given how little they seem to be bothered by this. Although they are working on improving their App Store - maybe later they could again become something to consider.
But basically Tapjoy is your easiest and fastest way to include incentive-based-appwall to your app. The SDK is easy to implement - and the folks seem to be on their toes - so it is an active company - which is not the impression you get when dealing with GetJar.
However, I have not seen great results with Tapjoy - I use it to have users remove ads and some other small things for some novelty apps - and the reality is that AppBrain interstitial-on-exit itself usually earns more revenue than Tapjoy. Tapjoy earns about 1/10 or less of my admob banner and interstitial ad revenue.
So this tells you how much relevance Tapjoy has - plus when you do incentive stuff you have to think about how it affects your game/app - and so it adds a slight amount of complication compared to just an ad-based app.
But if you are willing to try it - it may work better for your app - and probably better when you really have good features that users may want to unlock using Tapjoy.
So my own experience is not so great in terms of it’s revenue payback - but it may work in your app. For example to expand levels etc.
As I have explained in some other posts earlier - the Tapjoy type model suffers from a disadvantage - in that contrary to what a naive developer may be thinking - i.e. it can replace the in-app payments (esp. for developers who don’t have ability to sell paid apps from their location). However in reality in-app payments have a huge advantage over Tapjoy type schemes - and that is that the whole concept of “whales” only works with cash - because whales are people who want to leverage their real-world cash into advantage in real-life and in games etc. - or they want to “cheat” by using their money advantage. This does not happen with Tapjoy - because every coin you earn with Tapjoy requires a corresponding amount of effort - effort to download an app and install and then uninstall it after having earned the coins for it - and so while it is easy to earn $50 from a rich user - that same amount would mean about 200 to 500 downloads of apps for a Tapjoy user to earn $50 for the developer.
Also generally incentive-based downloads - like Tapjoy - pay MUCH less per download than non-incentivized downloads that happen through Admob banner ads - or through AppWalls. Because it being incentive-based removes some of the sense that user chose the app and may keep it and not just doing it for the coins etc.
So while Tapjoy etc. may pay $0.10 per download or so - some ad networks can even pay as much as $1.00 for an app download sometimes - depending on time and depending on how desperate the app is to advertise etc.
If you can include in-app payments that would probably be good.
But including Tapjoy at least does free you from the burden of not having an ad free version of your app - if users are asking for such a version (and you cannot publish a paid version of your app because of your developer location).
Well, it may work for u if your users really like your app. As adforandroidapps mentioned, it’s not a good idea to unlock something using “Tapjoy coins” as for different regions the value for downloading some apps/games is different.
I would recommend you to make just a donate button, or support dev button and see if it works. This is the best in your case.
P.S We missed about your long posts @adforandroidapps 
didn’t see you long time
Wow! That was incredibly helpful!
I’ve got a dangerous idea…
What if I just ask the users (in “Support the dev” section) to click on normal ads to help me out? say admob banners and interstitials that I have in general screens…
How exactly do they keep an eye out to decide who to ban? Clearly something like 5-10% CTR would raise alarms somewhere…
Yes, if you somehow get users to click on your ads at a higher rate than usual - that will give you better impact - since these ads usually pay better than incentivized-ads.
However, you will be violating a deal with the ad networks - which will leave you open to ban.
You have to balance whether dealing with account closures, and bans is worth the effort - or whether you have more to gain from making more apps.
Plus there is a risk that with such an effort - one your users may report you to Google.