I had difficulty monetizing my app and gathered a lot of links I think might be useful to other people. Let's build the best list of ways to monetize apps! I'll update this list regularly with info from the comments.
Categories
Free To User
1) Ad Networks (Banner Ads)
2) Affiliate and CPA (Pay When User Installs Other App)
Particularly the percent of installs part as opposed to the percent of apps part.
Right now on that metric the top ad networks in order are Admob, then Millennial Media, then Inmobi, then Tapjoy. I use the first three, and have gotten multiple checks from Admob and MM.
One thing to watch is ad fill rates. Millennial Media and Inmobi have decent ad fill rates for certain countries, and poor ones for other. Admob has good fill rates for all countries I have seen. Admob mediation allows you to dole out ads by country, so that you don't send ads to a network with low fill rates for a particular country. Adwhirl is another mediation service owned by Google - it allows for backfill (if one service has no ads, try to load ads from another service). Google wants people to migrate from Adwhirl to Admob mediation, but Admob mediation has no backfill.
I have a number of non-game apps with various fill rates - usually around 1%, give or take 0.5%. I put out some games a few months ago, and their click-through rates were all bad - less than 0.5%. As Admob looks at apps as a whole, this poor performance began pulling down the fill rates of my apps with good CTR. I now just advertise my other apps on (most of) my games.
Really, Admob, MM and Inmobi ruled the field until Tapjoy started breaking out. Tapjoy has an interesting model, which work well with games which offer freemium points and the like. Back when I tried (a few months ago) their SDK install methodology for Android was way behind the simplicity of Admob, MM or Inmobi. Add to this that my games were mostly C++, and that I'd have to re-write them if possible to use a freemium model (otherwise why use Tapjoy, I'd just use one of the other three), I passed on using Tapjoy for now and went on to other things. Others working with other game models seem happier with Tapjoy though. They have to make their install easier though. I don't have time to muck for days with half-assed SDKs when the return on doing so is so uncertain.
Thanks! Great to know your experience with them. I can't edit the original post any longer (Didn't know that you could only edit for X amount of time) but I will try to recompile it all periodically and republish it or put it on a website where I can edit it in-place.
You mention the fill rate was around 1% - this meant that 1% of the time there were ads to display? Isn't that quite low? What should we expect and aim for?
We're building a new way to monetize Android applications over at AppKey. We think opt-in homescreen advertising will be a better way for developers to make more money with their apps, users to get free content, and advertisers to place more effective advertising. Check us out at http://www.appkey.com
Happy to answer any questions here, or contact us through the site.
5 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 21.7 ms ] threadCategories
Free To User
1) Ad Networks (Banner Ads)
2) Affiliate and CPA (Pay When User Installs Other App)
Cost To User
3) Paid Apps (Charge upfront for the app)
4) In-App-Purchase Approaches (Currency, Unlocking Features, Freemium)
5) Subscription (Recurring Data Updates, SAAS)
Misc
6) Facebook
7) Sponsors (Dedicated advertisers)
8) Email Lists (Alternative monetization method)
9) Merchandise (Works if the app has strong characters)
10) ?? Coming Soon ??
1. Ad Networks
Please share your experiences so this can become an ordered list with the best at the top.
1) TapJoy (http://developers.tapjoy.com/boost-your-revenue/)
2) AdMob (http://www.google.com/ads/admob/)
3) iAds (http://advertising.apple.com/developers/)
4) Adfonic (http://adfonic.com/mobile-advertising-services/publishers/)
5) Smaato (http://www.smaato.com/developers/)
6) InMobi (http://www.inmobi.com/developers/)
7) LeadBolt (http://www.leadbolt.com/developers.php)
8) Millenial Media (http://www.millennialmedia.com/monetize/)
9) MobYD (http://www.mobyd.com/Developers)
10) Trademob (http://www.trademob.com/)
11) Madvertise (http://madvertise.com/en/)
12) BuzzCity (http://www.buzzcity.com/f/pubdev)
13) AdModa (http://www.admoda.com/?page_id=26)
14) Mojiva (http://www.mojiva.com/mobile-advertising/monetize-your-mobil...)
15) Hunt Mobile Ads (http://www.huntmads.com/soy-un-developer)
16) Greystripe (http://www.greystripe.com/)
17) Madhouse (http://www.madhouse.cn/en/)
18) Jumptap (http://www.jumptap.com/developers/)
19) Mobile Theory (http://mobiletheory.com/developers/)
20) Microsoft Mobile Advertising (http://advertising.microsoft.com/mobile)
21) xAd (http://www.xad.com/publisher)
22) YP (AT&T) (http://corporate.yp.com/)
23) Tapgage (http://www.tapgage.com/)
24) Aditic (http://www.aditic.com/index.php/en/publishers.html)
25) iPhone Alliance (http://www.iphonealliance.com/)
26) Mobclix (http://www.mobclix.com/developers-faqs.html)
27) Vdopia (http://mobile.vdopia.com/)
28) Zumobi ( Ologn ↗ With regards to mobile ad networks, I've always found this link handy for Android: Terpaholic ↗ Thanks! Great to know your experience with them. I can't edit the original post any longer (Didn't know that you could only edit for X amount of time) but I will try to recompile it all periodically and republish it or put it on a website where I can edit it in-place. mulka ↗ We're building a new way to monetize Android applications over at AppKey. We think opt-in homescreen advertising will be a better way for developers to make more money with their apps, users to get free content, and advertisers to place more effective advertising. Check us out at http://www.appkey.com
http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/ad
Particularly the percent of installs part as opposed to the percent of apps part.
Right now on that metric the top ad networks in order are Admob, then Millennial Media, then Inmobi, then Tapjoy. I use the first three, and have gotten multiple checks from Admob and MM.
One thing to watch is ad fill rates. Millennial Media and Inmobi have decent ad fill rates for certain countries, and poor ones for other. Admob has good fill rates for all countries I have seen. Admob mediation allows you to dole out ads by country, so that you don't send ads to a network with low fill rates for a particular country. Adwhirl is another mediation service owned by Google - it allows for backfill (if one service has no ads, try to load ads from another service). Google wants people to migrate from Adwhirl to Admob mediation, but Admob mediation has no backfill.
I have a number of non-game apps with various fill rates - usually around 1%, give or take 0.5%. I put out some games a few months ago, and their click-through rates were all bad - less than 0.5%. As Admob looks at apps as a whole, this poor performance began pulling down the fill rates of my apps with good CTR. I now just advertise my other apps on (most of) my games.
Really, Admob, MM and Inmobi ruled the field until Tapjoy started breaking out. Tapjoy has an interesting model, which work well with games which offer freemium points and the like. Back when I tried (a few months ago) their SDK install methodology for Android was way behind the simplicity of Admob, MM or Inmobi. Add to this that my games were mostly C++, and that I'd have to re-write them if possible to use a freemium model (otherwise why use Tapjoy, I'd just use one of the other three), I passed on using Tapjoy for now and went on to other things. Others working with other game models seem happier with Tapjoy though. They have to make their install easier though. I don't have time to muck for days with half-assed SDKs when the return on doing so is so uncertain.
You mention the fill rate was around 1% - this meant that 1% of the time there were ads to display? Isn't that quite low? What should we expect and aim for?
Happy to answer any questions here, or contact us through the site.