I’m an Andromo app developer and I really like process useful ideas into small apps. At the moment, I have two, first one got released saturday. I got them distributed free and with ads on Google Play, Amazon, Samsung, and AppsLib. I have universal analytics and check every hour how much users / installs I got. It would be really be great if I can make $5 a day, to pay off my developer fee and Andromo license.
However, till now, I’m struggling to get downloads and users to my apps. My screenshots and descriptions seem nice, and however the apps still have basic functionality, they work flawless. Last days, I’m getting like 20 downloads per day, retention is around 25%. As you understand, i won’t earn a dime with these numbers, my ad requests are around 100 and then doesn’t even grand me 0.01 euro. So, I’d like to know what I can do to promoto my downloads, without spending more money on campaigning.
Everyone is seeking for the exact same information: how to get as many users as possible with as little money as possible.
No one knows the exact answer for that, everyone has his own ideas.
The best advice I can give you is to read a lot of threads on this forum and to Google search. Once you have enough information you will be able to make your own choices and apply marketing how you see fit based on your app, demographics and competition.
But I’m looking for something a little bit more down to earth. I have ambition, but I’m not expecting great things. As I said, only a few bucks a day would be fine by me.
So could you maybe name some of the ‘choices’ you wrote down? I’d like to know what my options are, and what other people did when they just started off.
If there’s a bigger site, or even IRC channel, where my chances on finding an answer are better, I’d love to know ass well
You got te be kidding. How can it ever be profitable, if your chances are so low… That would mean that you will NEVER get your money back under normal circumstances, even if you invest some in marketing. Right? And if that’s true, then why we are all doing apps… :3
If you invest in marketing you can make your app more visible to people. Once your app is visible to a lot of people, you get organic downloads which compensate for the money you spent trying to make your app visible.
If you don’t invest in marketing, you don’t lose anything (except the time and money you invested in building the app) but chances you’ll get revenue from that app are very slim.
There are a lot of apps on the market and only a very, very small percentage of them get enough downloads to generate significant income. And that small percentage contains a lot of big publishers that invested a lot and only a few that didn’t invest at all or invested only a little. It’s tough!
Yeah, I understand. But what i read from the topics here (par example pixelpowers case) is that its already very hard (and is time consuming) to go break-even. So why bother to invest money and time to promote? I don’t know of the numbers exist, but probably only 10 - 20 percent of the devs who invested in marketing got their money back. That’s a terrible business case, right? I understand that the chances are slim, do you have any idea how to express 1 dollar / euro revenue per day in ad requests? I’m using admob… With that, I’ll be able to make calculations if the whole app business is even worth my time. I really don’t want to generate an income but I’d like to earn my dev fee and andromo subscription back.
eCPM is a number that determines how much you earn based on the income and number impressions. If you have an eCPM of $1, that means you earned $1 from 1000 impressions.
It depends a lot of what kind of app it is, what country your impressions are coming from, refresh rate, if there are big advertisers that are spending a lot of money, etc.
With Admob banners you could expect an eCPM of $0.1 to $1 for banners and 3 times more for interstitials. The interval is huge and is affected by a lot of factors. If you have an app that is giving you an eCPM of $1, don’t expect your next one to give you the same.
Most people developing apps are hardly earning anything significant but they are inspired by the success stories they read and keep going, hoping they will soon earn similar to what they’ve read (or at least that’s what I am doing).
The market is full with examples of amazingly successful apps. You will find success stories of apps that you don’t really like and you will try to understand how it happened. You will do your own research and will come to conclusions that you will try to implement in your next product, hoping it will be a great hit. Most of your conclusions will be wrong, though, and you will again try to understand things.
No one knows for sure how to succeed (except for some that aren’t willing to tell you, anyway). If everyone knew, they would be doing it!
No one will tell you because people in the app business are all competitors. You wouldn’t tell your super secret successful formula to your competition would you? Unless you see it’s no longer profitable and move on to the next viable income generation which is…(drum roll)…
“Selling ebooks”! You convince people how successful you are and now telling them your secret by buying your ebooks tutorial. Add to that selling some templates/source codes and telling them you can reskin the thing and earn even more than you paid for. They won’t tell you app making nowadays are not profitable anymore of course. Rings a bell?
Most of my friends do it out of pure passion. They love creating games, myself included. Some do it for bragging rights with their friends, some to showcase their portfolio so that someday they maybe hired for a higher salary/compensation. Making apps is not for the faint hearted. It’s very hard to do, time-consuming, and expensive. You will go through toiling times, sleepless nights and angry wives as they say. You basically throw your life away and for what? A couple of chump change! That’s if money is what you’re after. Otherwise, you get a sense of fulfillment no amount of money could ever satisfy.
But at the back of your head, you still hope that one day you become one of those 0.1% who will win the lottery and make that next hit app/game.
Or, you have a successful app that you can use as a bridge to show your other apps, or you will probably need to invest some money. And invest ONLY if you are completely sure that your app/game is really worth, because that means that people will keep it installed and recommend to others.
Their cross promotion techniques are textbook. Unfortunately, things have changed, this is no longer a new developers venture. You need to have years of experience in g-play marketing techniques otherwise you can lose big. Throwing money at the process will only get you so far.
Well, 1000 requests for 1 dollar is quite some. I mean, to reach that you need to have quite a succesful app. Avradu1984, in some other topic you said you earned quite well, how did you get started? I really can’t imagine getting 1000 requests per day, especially because of what ernest writes. There seems to be some spiral, and it’s almost impossible to get in. I’m experiencing the same problems with scoring views on YouTube, it’s just really hard. Can you guys confirm that because of all the things you told me, there is no such thing as a middleclass in apps business? Either you are the loser scoring 20 users per day and will see his investment vanished (like me :P) or you’re doing great with lots of apps scoring all at least 10 bucks per day on ad revenue… There doesn’t seem to be something in between! Of course the first category is way bigger and sponsors the guys which are doing great.
I did cryptocurrency for a while, because I’m really attracted to the idea of earning money with digital stuff. But that was way easier, I only needed to mine new coins at release, and discuss with others when to sell them. It brought me between 100 - 200 euros for two months, with no investment (except time) and depending on your graphics card, you was capable of earning more. It was lineair. The apps business doesn’t seem linear, there s only ‘no profit’ and ‘big profit’. Can you guys verify that is true? Because if it is, i might as well stop
I’m working on my third app now, but i’m really trying to find out if there’s ANYTHING except investing money to make my app get users (they’re not that great, I use Andromo).
Unfortunately, you came to the game a little late, last year you could have made an app, plugged in a keyword or 2 in the title, several in the description and you would see immediate downloads. This is no longer the case, no matter what anyone says. Keywords in title and description have very little affect. So little that now your risk outweighs the reward. Let me explain, let’s say you have a retro filters app and you name the app, Retro Camera and put in the description “similar to Retrica.” This will currently put you in the bottom third of search results despite others apps like Instagram etc. that have no “Retrica” keywords in their description or title being right at the top. This algorithm changed happened several months ago and is based on users that download Retrica also download, like, and keep Instagram on their phone. Is an association based algorithm that now has more weight than direct keywords. This is a direct result of all the abuse of keyword tactics developers were using. Your only option at this time is to buy installs which will slowly drive your ranking up the charts. This is brilliant on Google’s part for numerous reasons. The same thing is happening with the Apple store. They are following Google’s lead in this algorithm change.
First, you should enjoy doing Android apps (yes, we all want to live from this). And using Andromo… well, if you don’t have any experience in coding… the best would be building your own. You will learn more and improve. Andromo is ok to build a very simple app to conect to your blog, but for the rest, I wouldn’t recommend at all.
You can make lots of money with Android, but you need to change your ideas of how this works and don’t quit in your first try.
@mpc007, I am not earning too much from doing this, not enough enough for a decent living. And my latest attempts with games cost me more than I earned from them. I moved on and tried new ones. They failed, too, so now trying new ones.
That cryptocurrency stuff is more viable if based on your experience. Show me how it’s done, will ya?
But creating and publishing games is a lot more fun. If you’re really into it, without thinking about the money. They say, if you make something fun for you, maybe it’s fun also for others and they will come… And money will come afterwards without you even knowing it.
Some guys just flood the stores with crap and piggyback with the success of some. You won’t have the same success as the original one but will get you something. Just cross your fingers and pray hard that you don’t get banned, as your work, time, money, & effort will just go to waste. I, myself thinks that’s a waste of time knowing the risks involved.
Just create awesome! Something you can be proud of telling the whole world. Something you feel worth dropping money into. Not some 1-2 apps. When I say 1-2, I meant apps made in 1-2 days/months. Take your time. When you create something you’re proud of, you won’t regret spending money for promotion or telling your friends about it. Successful moneywise or not.
I, myself is taking my time now. I want to publish something I really can be proud of.
@yattamove, what if you publish something you are really proud of that isn’t getting a lot of downloads? Wouldn’t you feel like you’ve wasted your time?
If you are really proud of something, you will do everything to push it through. You won’t be ashamed of putting it on your facebook, twitter, instagram, any other social media out there. Tell everyone including your neighbors. If you believe in something, you won’t be afraid to put your money for promotion. I know it’s like putting all your eggs in the basket. But when you believe in something, it’s like never say die! You sell your car, your house, put everything on the line. And to sum it up, with all that money, time and effort making that app/game including promotion/advertising, it’s hard to think you will fail.
Don’t put money on some crazy stupid app that’s sure to fail.
I believe you’re taking it to the extreme. I mean selling everything you have with the risk of losing it in order to invest in something you really believe in is something I wouldn’t do. If you believe in something it doesn’t mean everyone else will do the same.
I really believed in all of the games I released so far and I was very proud of them. Unfortunately other people didn’t think they are so brilliant like I did. It’s good to keep your eyes and ears open and listen to what others think of your apps. Self confidence is not something I will put all my money on.
