Users and their toleration of ads

Hey everyone.
Its been over 6 months since Google changed ad policies and I’m sure many of us are now relying on banners and interstitials for the bulk of our revenues now.
Since the exile of most alternative ad types I have naturally had to place additional in-app ads in my apps and games, while trying not to affect the user experience.
With that said, these days I see more complaints about ads than I used to when using push/icon/search type ads!

My apps with lower session duration and user engagement generally have a persistent banner ad and an interstitial at launch/exit (sometimes just launch OR exit).
My apps with higher session duration and user engagement generally follow the same plan, but with interstitials displayed after 1/2/3 minutes or after a portion of content has been consumed.
In my opinion these are not intrusive solutions all things considered, yet I have more complaints about ads from users than I got in the old days.
Nearly all the apps and games have cheap ad-free versions available and I make my users aware of this quite well. Naturally only a small amount of Android users ever spend money, but still.

In my opinion I think a lot of users were happier with the out-of-app ads that a lot of us used to use.

What do you think? Are you seeing the same sort of thing as I am? Has it affected your ratings/user base?

Interesting topic

I think they were happier because in most of the cases they didn’t associate the ads with your app…
Under my experience, the better the app/game the more toleration to ads. That seems to be logic, the more you value something the more you are willing to “pay”. But it is not only about the frequency of the ads but also the content. Is not our case, but i have seen many comments regarding inappropriate content specifically (stay out of religion, date apps, and anything provocative).
Since we still cannot sell apps because of were we live, we rely exclusively on ads revenue and the combination of a persistent banner plus an interstitial every couple minutes (3-7min) seems to be a good balance between revenue and user annoyance.

Banners suck man. For one of my popular app, 24K daily banner impressions fetch me $0.13 ecpm from admob. I don’t see much alternatives for banners. I am displaying 1 interstitial on launch 1 on exit and 1 if the session length is more. I am kind of not integrating banners in new apps/games.

I am trying to move into other online businesses but struggling at the moment.

I think the same. Before they were more happier. Because, when user opens an app, he wants to see the content, not the ad. But with out-of-app ads, maybe the user doesn’t even know what to do, and suddenly sees “a free app”, and he wants to try. I guess even the advertisers were more happier, because that is a real download, not accidental click, or whatever.

Hey @A1ka1inE @BaksaiApps @javaexp @Javanshir! I would like to suggest something better! Why don’t we ask them directly? (I am curious too :P). I propose we set up a survey with questions we would like to ask regarding ads and what the users want/feel about them and I will deliver it live to 1k mobile users from all over the world through mobile apps from Pollfish. And then we will just have to sit and watch real time users responding to these questions! Insights will be right form the users of the apps, so no assumptions or polls among developers will be needed :slight_smile: Please list questions you need to ask as a developer and their answers, we will all peak the top of them and deploy survey right away!!

“Waaaaayyyy toooooooooo many ads!!! Impossibile to use because of full screen popups every few minutes!” (1 star) - this is a new review I got today for example. I show ad once in 3 minutes.

I have been considering giving users a choice - a switch to change between banners, interstitials and complete removal of ads (the last one paid). But no one else does that, so I am hesitating…
Knowing users though 99% won’t ever notice there is such option. :slight_smile:

Ok guys I will try to form some sort of survey. Please submit alterations, suggestions, additions so we get the answers we want from users! (I am also trying to use user language rather dev language)

How do you feel about ads used within apps?

a) Happy
b) Neutral
c) Frustrated

Did you ever uninstall an app because of overuse of ads?

a) Yes
b) No

What is the ad format you are more tolerant with:

a) Banner ads
b) Popup ads
c) Video ads
d) Surveys
e) Ads on exit of app
f) Search ads
g) Splash screens ads

Do you mind completing ad tasks (like watching a video) for gaining in app goodies or total removal of ads for a while?

a) Yes
b) No
@A1ka1inE @BaksaiApps @javaexp @Javanshir @Magnesus - waiting for input :slight_smile:

@andreasv, well, I guess we know answers to most of the questions. If the app have only banners, users are neutral, but almost in all cases they are frustrated with full screen ads. But as javaexp said, there is no revenue in banner ads (mostly eCPM 0.05-0.20), so we have to put full screen ads.

Sure they did, I see very often reviews telling, that they removed the app because of ads (even in very popular apps).

Just my opinion
Anyway, thanks for this nice offer.

As far as I know, with apple it is much easier to earn money, because there people really do spend money. In android most of the users expect everything for free, even without ads, unfortunately.

Survey with 4 questions, and third question with 7 choices? No one will ever want to fill it.

Hey @Javanshir. Thank you for your reply. I will run the survey anyway even if some answers seem obvious, we will be maybe wrong :slight_smile: so lets just brainstorm. Is there anything youor anyone else would like to ask mobile users? We have access to learn directly from them! Lets benefit on that :slight_smile:

hey @I0OoIolIlO. I will deploy the survey anyway and you will be able to see results real time or even answer it yourself on your phone. You will also be able to see real time if people complete or leave since you see the answers coming one by one! So just make any suggestions on what you would like to ask!Have in mind in the past we even run 31 questions surveys with surprisingly low dropouts! :slight_smile:

I don’t know how, but somehow I would like the users to know some stuff:

  • that they should read app description first. Sometimes they just download the app, and then write: “it is not what I expected”, while the goal of the app wasn’t about their expectations.
  • if a developer made an app, it means he spent time on it, so it is normal that he shows an ad to earn money from it.
  • if there is an error, there is no point of just giving a 1 star and disappear. If you want to solve this problem, let the developers know.
  • another bad thing about users: if someone doesn’t like the app, they for sure give a 1 star, but if they like it and use it, they rarely give any review. For ex. through analyses tools I see that many users actually use my app (high number of sessions per day), but you rarely see nice reviews.

About the questions asked from the users, your questions are actually good. Maybe one more, asking whether they would like to buy the pro version to remove ads. But we get an answer to this also, at least I do, because I have pro version of most of the apps.

Users always want ad-free apps and they never willing to buy an app for $0.99 so users always treat app developers as charitable organization and they shouldn’t`t earn any cent

That’s true. The harder part is to make the user start the survey. Then they just continue answering. Because it seems interesting to them also

I think that this survey may be good for us, but remember that Android community is very, very large. You will not get reliable answers if you will ask even 1000users. It’s too little to draw conclusions…

Its only when you spam them with rating dialog, they give you rating. they are too busy with playing flappy bird clones but can’t rate the app that they use daily.

Hey @mmmkkksss! I started to get excited and I think I will run it to much more users maybe I can leave it until 10k :slight_smile:

Ok I list questions provided so far so we can sum it up. you should not worry, suggest more questions, i will even brake it to smaller surveys if we get too much questions listed here! I think I should start a new thread for the survey…what do you think guys?

Survey so far (send your questions too!)

How do you feel about ads used within apps?

a) Happy
b) Neutral
c) Frustrated

Did you ever uninstall an app because of overuse of ads?

a) Yes
b) No

What is the ad format you are more tolerant with:

a) Banner ads
b) Popup ads
c) Video ads
d) Surveys
e) Ads on exit of app
f) Search ads
g) Splash screens ads

Do you mind completing ad tasks (like watching a video) for gaining in app goodies or total removal of ads for a while?

Most preferable task you would complete to remove ads:

a) Buying paid version
b) Downloading a free app
c) Watching a video clip
d) Answer a survey
e) Sharing link on a social network
f) I would never complete a task to remove ads

Do you ever read app description before downloading?

a) Yes
b) No, I just look at screenshots/icon
b) No, i just download it

Do you think a developer deserves to get some money from ads for time spent to create an app?

a) Yes
b) No

if you have a crash in an app do you usually give a bad rating/review or contact the developer?

a) Yes, I give bad rating/review
b) I contact the developer
c) Both a and b
d) I never use the app again
e) I just continue using the app

If you like an app do you usually rate/review it?

a) Yes
b) No
c) Only if asked by a popup!

If you like an app would you buy a pro version to remove ads?

a) Yes
b) No
@A1ka1inE @BaksaiApps @javaexp @Javanshir @Magnesus @mmmkkksss @just84
@moneymike55 I just updated with your suggestion

Looks great so far, thank you for offering to do this. Is it possible to let them rank answers for the 3rd question? And instead of the 4th question, how about something like this:

How would you prefer to disable ads?

a) Buying paid version
b) Downloading a free app
c) Watching a video clip
d) Sharing link on a social network