How do I spend $150 in marketing effectively?

How do I spend $150 effectively to achieve my goal? Which one of the following options?

  1. Facebook App Ads (about 350 installs total prediction)
  2. Buying Installs from greyhat dealers (1000+)
  3. Buying ratings from greyhat dealers (1000+)
  4. Pay review sites like AndroidTapp.com to review the game and share it on their social networks.

Hello. I see you are new here. Welcome!

I don’t have much experience, but I don’t think that 350 downloads will be enough. Also, I think (correct me if I’m wrong) that Facebook works on a cost per click model - so you may get even less. I’m not entirely sure what you mean by Greyhat dealers.

@SocioSoft What do you think about AppBrain? A guy on this forum spent about $170 to reach top new chart in India. I will target only India.

I thought Facebook App Install ads is a CPI model. Am I wrong? What about the ads with “Install Now” buttons?

Besides advertising, what do you think about other options like paying review sites to review the game? AndoidTapp costs $150 and it gets about 4000 visits a day (not unique visitors), they will also share it on their social networks and keep it on their front page for 6 days.

I don’t think you can get 50,000 installs with $150 but to give you some insight on how the market works with paid installs and promoting your app on facebook and twitter read this post. Its from my experience and should answer your questions plus give you some factors to condsider.
http://forums.makingmoneywithandroid.com/marketing-methods/14059-how-i-reached-top-50-adventure-category-india-google-play-appstore-long-read.html

Hey pixelpower I was referring to you only when I mentioned in the earlier post. I do not plan to get 50,000 installs with $150. I only plan to get around 300-1000 installs from $150.

Yes in my opinion its better to get the installs because that helps rank your app or game and increases your keyword strength. Make sure to pick a country you can rank easier in like India which is also english speaking. Review sites are hit or miss so I personally won’t risk it.

The advantage of appbrain is that you don’t need to integrate their SDK to track installs and they offer good prices. However, spending $0.20 per install in India is very much. I recommend you try facebook ads (you’ll need to integrate SDK to track installs) because you’ll be able to get installs for about $0.10 from India. Beware, if you want to get installs from countries like USA or UK, facebook ads will be more expensive compared to Appbrain.

Good luck!

Hey,

What do you think about paying $150 to popular review site like AndroidTapp VS spending $150 on advertising?

Also, what do you think about spending $150 in FB ads / appbrain ads VS spending $150 on Fiverr.

One guy on Fiverr is ready to give me 1000-1200 installs for $100. If I use FB or AppBrain, I’ll get about 350 installs. But I am not sure whether the guy on Fiverr use a legal means to achieve this. Should I take a risk go with Fiverr? What should I do?

I used AyeT installs its a little cheaper 86 installs for $10 . https://www.ayetstudios.com/
He uses the name Daywalker on the forum so you can contact him here or use the chat on his site.

I’d say avoid anything dodgy or illegal. It is not worth getting your account banned over. Keep in mind that you already spent $25 for your dev license.

Popular review sites are risky and are not worth it if you ask me. Have a look at those popular review sites and how many page views or comments they have on the games they review. If there aren’t a lot of page views or comments, you can clearly understand there aren’t a lot of people seeing their posts.

I wouldn’t spend on Fiver either because you don’t know what you’re getting. You don’t have demographics, you don’t know where the users will come from. With appbrain, facebook or similar solutions you have the option to choose the country and device models you want to target.

Take your partner out to a nice well populated restaurant and buy them a nice meal, then place a leaflet advertising your app into every persons hand in the restaurant :slight_smile:

Just kidding, I would pay someone to scour the internet looking for gaming / apps forums / twitter / Facebook groups and post for you. Paid advertising with that much would be as good as throwing it down the pan.

No matter andoid or iOS, about the $150, the best choice is buy keyword search installs to boost your app ranking in the app stores. Based on your budget, you should target those keywords which have low competition and low traffic, which are much easier to rank for, then it will not spend you too much. Relevant Long Tail Keywords could be the best choice.

You should also buy some positive reviews to increase the download rates, because about 95% users will take the app reviews as one of the most important reference factors to judge the app, and most people prefer to download an app which has much more positive reviews, especially for a new app.

Apply for Awards is a good method.Participating in app awards is the most recommended channel, which can give you tons of press, exposure, reviews and plenty of downloads. These are many famous app awards sites, such as Appy Awards, Best App Ever Awards, Apple Design Awards, Appsters Awards, etc.

Besides, Get Featured On Mobile App Review Sites is also a good way to promote app. Which means you have to convince the website that your app is good enough to be reviewed by them and therefore featured on their site. If you get featured on The Next Web, you can expect tens of thousands of unique visitors in the first 24 hours to hit your App Store page.

You could also cooperate with the influencers. Leveraging the power of influencers can be the best way to drive mass amounts of traffic to your app, just as getting featured on the app reviews sites. Most people like to follow others and be influenced by the words of some celebrities or well-known business people. These people may include influential bloggers, newspaper journalists, professional tech writers in social network like Facebook or Twitter.

Hope those methods are useful to you.