There are many ways to promote your app. The more money the better but the question is what is the best way to promote it? I think free methods was already described on the forum so this thread is about paid methods. You can also say something about minimal cost which make sense. For example for 300$ the best way would be X but if you have 1000$ best way would be Y.
Facebook and similiar ads (country target?)
Ad networks (which network is the best for you)
Paid reviews (any experience with some websites?)
Buying installs/reviews (hopw much money do you need to make it have any sense? Is it safe?)
Other (are there any other ways?)
I think it would be really really helpful for everyone to know something about your experience. I already know that facebook ads are expensive and not worth (Tap the box author described it)
Spending money on Facebook ads worked decently for Tap the Box but was a disaster for Match 7 Stars… On the other side, for our most successful game, Color Fill, we did not spend a buck. Actually, we were kind of embarrassed of it and we launched under another account and we didn´t tell anybody…
In my experience with Facebook, the title matters a lot: if the users understand what the game is about just by seeing the title and the screenshot next to it then facebook ads are a good way to get downloads.
Facebook mostly charges for clicks as far as I can tell. If you have a game that is a sudoku or jigsaw puzzle or scrabble then the price per install will be a lot lower compared to an unique game and title. That’s because you will get a lot more users just wanting to see what your unique game is about that will decide not to install it eventually. When promoting a classic game, the interest of users clicking on your ad is already higher because they understand what they’re clicking on.
So, regarding Facebook: only buy installs if your game title and screenshot are very explanatory and the user know what kind of game he will get even before clicking on the ad.
I managed to run facebook campaigns that gave me installs for $0.3-$0.4. It’s very difficult to get such prices because there is a lot of optimization required.
I’ve thought about facebook or twitter paid ads, but what worries me is how targetted these can be, i.e. are you going to be just showing ads that promote your Android app to people using PCs or IOS?
I’ve tried a paid install promotion via Appbrain. I got plenty of downloads using $0.2 as the bid, but they were very spread out, so I suspect they didn’t have much effect on rankings. I did however manage to get quite a good ranking on the India New Puzzles category.
I’m now trying targeted paid installs for the UK and USA. Problem is the bid amount has to be much higher to get any installs. I’m trying $2.00 at the moment. My worry now is that I won’t be able to maintain that sort of bid for long enough to make any headway on the rankings in these lucrative countries. I’ll try to keep it going for another day, but I really can’t afford to burn much more cash on this.
I ran for 6 days, and got 2338 downloads for $500.
Just under 400 of these downloads were in India, which put me at about 30 in the new puzzles chart. The rest were spread out over many countries
I suspect I won’t have enough to make the $2 bids worth it! I got 110 downloads in the USA and 60 in the UK for about $400. I’m only really going to be able to continue the promotion for today, maybe another $250.
So it seems that it’s better to focus on cheaper contries if you don’t have a lot of cash to advertise right?
Is it possible to focus ads only on one country in some ad networks?
I think it probably is. The cost to target USA and UK is too high. I’m thinking it is better to try and get more downloads at a lower cost. Hopefully if I keep getting players from India etc. they will share and spread the word.
Beware with paying for downloads in such countries! Even though they are much cheaper to advertise in, the return is even more lower than the top countries. Usually you won’t get more then 1-2 cents per click from India, for example.
FB is a bit weird when you are not very detailled with your target audience, I think. Also I am not very satisfied with the overall FB Conversion Rate … I found it to be pretty low - may depend on how good you set your audience.
I also suggest to not advertise for any facebook page (for likes or something like that) - currently you will reach only a fragment of you “likers” when you post something on your page … I experience this only on newer sites, not on older sites (there is a “seen by” factor difference of 10-20% !!)
Personally I find this all a bit intransparent with FB.
Small Example: Advertising Budget of ~100$ (for that post on wall thing) will result in around 80-100k impressions on he users wall. You will get some likes (100-200) and the click rate will be around 15-25 clicks … this may differ for sure, it’s just my experience with it … also it was not directly related to mobile but it may tell something about general user engagement on facebook. Think of it more like “being seen” than “convert” … more like TV advertisement. Facebook is trying to hard in making money I think.
I wonder what’s wrong with your game Match 7 Stars. Could you explain how it could be a disaster? How much did you spend on facebook ads and how many users did you get? Do you think the timing of you game launch matters? (Your game Tap The Box was released at the end of the year where download count is supposed to be higher) I also want to advertise my game on facebook so any advice would be very helpful.
In Facebook you are paying for impressions - easy like that. You can just tell them to OPTIMIZE your ads for clicks/impressions/likes etc - so it will present the costs in different ways. But you still buy impressions.