Johannes is the co-founder of March is over, time to sum things up.
If you are new to this series, let me explain it to you: Since Android is an open platform, I decided to be open about the income I’m making with my private Android apps too. In the last report I aimed to reach $4,000 for the last month. You will see if it worked out.
For all income reports, please click here.
Which Apps?
3D Invaders – about 231,000 installs (+18k), 15% active
AL Voice Recorder – about 700,000 installs (+48k), 20% active
AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – 1013 installs (+49), 35% active
Droid-Blog.net Android App – 455 installs (+24), 13% active
SmsToSpeech full – 755 installs (+15), 30% active
14K less downloads than in February, a slow decrease regarding the growth but still fine.
What did I do?
Nothing new.
Advertising Stats
Here are some statistics from the two advertising networks I’m using, AdMob and Madvertise. Please read the second income report for an explanation of the following numbers.
AdMob:
Requests: 686,761 (-5k)
Impressions: 673,586 (-7k)
Fill Rate: 98.08% (-0.28%)
Clicks: 30,474 (+10.2k)
CTR: 4.52% (+1.56%)
eCPM: $2.08 (+$0.79)
House Ads: 187 (-2,309)
Adjusted Requests: 686,948 (-7.5k)
Adjusted Fill Rate: 98.01% (+0.03%)
Madvertise
Requests: 1,551,268 (+369k)
Impressions: 94,877 (-48k)
Fill Rate: 6.12% (-6.02%)
Clicks: 3,005 (-1,731)
CTR: 3.17% (-0.14%)
eCPM: $3.01 (-$2.23)
AdMob performed awesome with an incredible CTR, I assume this is because of better ad content. madvertise sucked big time this month with only 6% fillrate, which is really not satisfying. Because their developer fund ended, a 40% cut applies to all earnings which causes the big loss in the eCPM. Its still slightly better than those of AdMob but if that changes, theres no more argument that keeps madvertise in my apps.
How much?
Here are the numbers:
AdMob:
3D Invaders: $508.39
AL Voice Recorder: $895.47
AdMob Total: $1,403.86 (+$525.04)
madvertise:
3D Invaders: ~$220.97
AL Voice Recorder: ~$64.61
madvertise Total: ~$285.58 (-$465.64)
Market sales: ~$126.59 (+$49.96)
In-App purchases: ~$7.94 (-$6.90)
Total: ~$1,823.96 (+$102.47)
AdMob outperformed madvertise by far this month, which is pretty sad because I like them. I hope this will change soon, we will see.
What’s next?
I didn’t reach the goal I set in the last month again, so it again is $4,000 for this month. I think this is impossible but I hope I will get closer. I will integrate a new ad network in the next weeks, so if you have any great tipps, let me know.
Please feel free to share your own experiences and hints in the comments. Ask questions, share, do whatever you like.
2012/04/03 at 12:00
Thanks for writing. I did not do much this month, but my income increase heavenly. :D
My Third month (AdMob):
Requests: 3,017,815(+849,174)
Income: 2,385.88$(+1297$)
My first AirPush-month (just 15 days):
new Installs: 287,344
Income: 7,812.41$
total:
Income: 10,198.29$ =)
The IQTest-App(German) is in the top 10 (free Apps – Google Play) and top 5 (free Games – Google Play) in Germany.
(https://market.android.com/search?q=rico+saage&c=apps)
For me it is a incredible Result.
Best regards Rico S.
2012/04/04 at 10:30
Hey Rico,
this are some really awesome results! Do you know how the payout plan of AirPush is?
Best regards
Johannes
2012/04/03 at 12:35
nice to read the next report :-) I also experiences very good eCPM at the end of march (after a heavy drop before)
@rico quite nice numbers, impressing how airpush does perform – even when I don’t like it, seems very good for apps like yours.
I’ve reached nearly 9 million impressions in march – will publish a report in the next days :-)
2012/04/04 at 10:32
Hey reiti,
looking forward to your next report :-)
Best regards
Johannes
Btw: Do you prefer reiti or Peter?
2012/04/04 at 19:08
Wow Rico, congratulations! Nice report.
Why do you prefer Airpush instead of Leadbolt? (for notification ads)
2012/04/04 at 20:56
In which application you have in-app purchase?
Thank you.
2012/04/05 at 13:23
Hey Bojan,
for 3D Invaders.
Best regards
Johannes
2012/04/04 at 22:48
Hi,
We are a developing team (2 guys) from Portugal which develop apps to android and iphone. First we want to thank you for your work, it’s such an inspiration to a lot of developers around the world.
So, in our project Hot Hands (slap like a boss :D), we also introduced ads (admob and madvertise). Admob is working like a charm but we think that madvertise is behind our expectations.
But we are rookies on that… we’ll wait for the first monthly results to share with you. (we hope so :D).
Cheers ;)
David
2012/04/05 at 13:25
Hi David,
Thank you.
Best luck for your apps! Looking forward to your report.
Best regards
Johannes
2012/04/05 at 10:25
I’ve made my report ready (finally) http://www.reiti.net/personal-blog/blog/78/android-report-032012
I’ll prefer Reiti, because it is more individual (*g*) but there are people who aren’t comfortable with that, so I have no problem with Peter – choose, what you like :-)
2012/04/05 at 13:32
Awesome results :-)
Then I’ll stick with Reiti :-)
2012/04/08 at 21:23
Hi,
today I equipped my Funny Text Creator with AdMob. My App has been online for about 1 month and I have 10.000 downloads. I will report how things are going with Admob.
Greetings from Regensburg
Matthias
2012/04/10 at 14:21
Hi Matthias,
nice app. Looking forward to your results.
Beste Grüße
Johannes
2012/04/08 at 21:30
Hi also have released a new RPG game for Android with Admob and Madvertise. It runs not well for 1 year of work :(
Madvertise has 0% fillrate after over 600 requests … I will remove it with next update from my app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.akirilow.game.ragnoid
2012/04/10 at 14:25
Hi,
that’s a pitty. For me, since April 6th, they are back in the $25 range. Did you remove them already?
Best luck
Johannes
2012/04/10 at 20:07
Thanks for the report, really inspiring.
I just jumped in this field as well, and here’s my first “child”: http://androidresearch.wordpress.com/2012/04/08/gag-pictures-have-fun-spread-the-fun/.
However, I’m very disappointed, almost no one downloads it.
Do you guys use any other marketing strategies in order to expose your apps to public? except the fact that you announce it in your blog post.
2012/04/11 at 15:59
What do you guys think is the best ad network for Germany and Europe ?!
I’ve read some articles which say MobFox is best for Europe, others say that Madvertise is best for Germany ?!
Does someone have comments, suggestions to this ?!
Thanks,
Matthias
2012/04/12 at 15:08
I haven’t used MobFox so far, so I can’t make a comparison. But I’m interested in other people’s experiences. Anyone?
2012/04/11 at 21:45
Hi Johannes,
noch I did not remove madvertise yet, because I did no update of the app.
Now I have over 3000 Requests for Madvertise and 9 Impressions…. :D
What’s interesting: 3 of this 9 impressions were shown on my test device when I was yesterday playing the game at 0:04. It looks for me like madvetise is shooting out the advertising budget of their customers directly when a new day starts after 0:00.
And the rest of day (after 0:10 :D) there are no impressions to show. This is really a bad behaviour, especially for advertising that is directed for europe.
2012/04/12 at 15:07
Wow, that’s a fillrate of 0.2%. That’s really not worth it.
I experience the most income in the evening hours, so there seem to be some inventory. Currently I get only o2, ono and tipico.com ads.
2012/04/12 at 19:42
Just wanted to stop by and let you guys know I put up my Android Income Report for March 2012. Comments, questions, name calling is always welcome.
2012/04/12 at 23:20
@Johannes/Bearded Robot Apps:
What do you do when releasing a new app? Do you buy advertising in Admob? Or just free advertising in forums etc.?
After 6 days I have now ~600 intalls. I’d like to increase it but I also read that Admob advertising won’t help much with 50-100 dollar budget. What do you thing?
2012/04/13 at 12:05
I wouldn’t recommend AdMob unless you are able to invest a couple of thousands. I would rather recommend to give the money to a relatively well known blog (for example a you can buy a review on AndroidPit for €146.54) in order to get some press.
I’d also recommend to go to technorati, click ‘blogs’ and type in ‘Android’. Now go trough the first couple of 100 blogs and ask them to write reviews. An exciting product (like a rpg (-;) is always helpful when doing this, same as having a big blog that already wrote about your game as a reference.
Best success
Johannes
2012/04/13 at 15:31
Those are really good tips. I think I will skip admob and try androidpit review. But first I will fix some minor things and update the game ;) we’ll see
2012/05/02 at 10:48
An update: I did not use admob for advertising, I’m constantly getting every day around 200-300 new active users, that ok for now.
But another thing that makes me go nuts ;D.
I made an update of my app and implemented Admob Mediation. I used not two days long 3 networks (sorted by priority) 1. Millennial Media 2.Adfonic 3. Admob.
The result is, the Admob Mediation reports are reporting tripple click and CTR rates, and also completly wrong request/impression numbers … I’m just thinking wtf?
Since there was not much to do wrong in implementing Admob mediation and the Ad network libraries, I don’t think the error is on my side… After this update my revenue dropped, so I have deactivated Millenial and Adfonic. The numbers in Admob seems to be right now, but the Medation reporting has again wrong numbers… Am I the only one with this problems, or Admob mediation for the trash`?
2012/05/03 at 11:31
Hey,
that totally sounds like an error on the AdMob side. I heven’t used AdMob mediation yet, so I don’t have any further experiences to share here.
How did it go with your advertising? Did your get some blog to write about you?
Best regards
Johannes
2012/05/04 at 00:02
Hi,
the Admob Mediation seems to be in alpha phase :D … I’m still running only Admob Ads and my revenue is back to normal again.
The only advertising I did was on youtube. I directed in some “famous” Android RPG game videos, the users to my app, by leaving comments. It worked well for free advertising :)
At the moment I’m testing different refresh rates for the ads. My old refresh rate was 20 seconds, what’s pretty fast and tha’ts why my CPC was at 1-2cents. Two days ago I switched to 60 seconds. I expected the CTR would be three times higher, though it increased only twice. What’s not matching my linear calculation. Now I’m waiting for receiving more valuable ads which hopefully will bring me a higher CPC. Wondering how long it takes Admob to deliver adjust the ads to my higher CTR. Otherwise I’m getting more revenue with 20 seconds refresh rate.
AK
2012/05/17 at 22:05
I have had over 750,000 requests on admob but just $0.01 ecpm (99.9% fill rate). Why is this so low, does the location of the ad matter if it is at the top of the screen. I only earn $2.48 a day from it :/
2012/05/20 at 17:13
Hi Pete,
750k impressions is great, but that eCPM is really sad. How high is your CTR? Yes, location on the screen can matter, but also the location of your audience. Japanese ads are on average more expensive than americans, for example.
Best regards
Johannes
2012/05/19 at 01:58
This is truly inspirational. thank you for posting your figures as I was feeling a bit down about earning potential of my app on release. out of curiosity, for your 3d invaders game… have you thought of tapjoy integration or is that not worth it?
2012/05/20 at 17:18
Hi Razielnet,
Great to hear that. I have thought about tapjoy but didn’t integrate it yet because I just didn’t have enough time.
Best regards
Johannes
2012/05/20 at 17:19
Johannes, My CTR is 0.03%. Since my previous post i’ve reached 1,600,000 requests. The average no. of clicks a day is about 80. I’ll look into my audience location.
Thanks
2012/05/20 at 17:30
Provided you didn’t change the default refresh intervall, 0.03% is definitely too low. Where are your ads placed?
Best regards
Johannes
2012/05/20 at 17:40
Johannes, exactly what I thought, the ads (banner) are placed at the top of the screen in portrait mode.
Pete
2012/05/20 at 21:36
Hi Pete. Who is the audience of this app. For example. I had a soundboard based on a particular pc game’s sounds and also an extremely low CTR.
2012/05/20 at 21:43
Hi Razielnet, the audience is anyone who likes casual games/quiz’s.
2012/05/20 at 23:29
@pete, well then that is very peculiar, when i was still doing soundboards my CTR was pretty high on the casual movie audiences. perhaps you should try some sort of tapjoy implementation(unlock question packs or themes or something)
2012/05/21 at 08:45
@razielnet, they have to get a certain number of points before they can unlock 2 of the 6 levels. the ads are placed on the menu page where you choose the level. Atm the refresh is 60secs but seems pointless as they’ll have chosen a level well before the 60 seconds. http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.logo.quiz
2012/05/21 at 13:35
@pete, thats perfect, you could allow them to complete tapjoy offers to get more points and gain early access to levels 5 and 6. If you need help with tapjoy let me know
2012/05/21 at 13:45
@pete, It just occured to me that you could allow players to buy answers that way too
2012/05/21 at 13:53
@ Razielnet, Brilliant suggestions! I never thought about them, please help me with tapjoy though, how shall I contact you?
2012/05/21 at 14:17
@pete I will contact you through your app
2012/07/17 at 23:43
This are my stats
Revenue
$6,660.20
eCPM
$1.84
Requests
3,642,646
Impressions
3,627,527
Fill Rate
99.58%
CTR
5.45%
Soon I will make a blog about my stuff too
2012/07/19 at 15:33
Hi Mr. Cruz,
wow, some great stats! I’m looking forward to your blog.
Best regards
Johannes
2012/07/31 at 18:03
Try giving Airpush a try, our unique ad units very successful and developers are currently seeing 10-50x higher revenue, $6-15 CPM with 99%+ fill rate. Airpush also provides weekly payments. Check out us out http://www.airpush.com/developers or contact me @ philip@airpush.com
integrating us with your current ad networks will yield much higher revenue
cheers!
2012/11/06 at 19:18
Thanks for sharing this information, very interesting.
One questions: the apps you publish your profits for, did you develop them on your own or how many people are working on that?
Thanks
2012/11/07 at 12:22
Hi Eitsch,
3D Invaders is based on existing open source work, the assets of the AL Voice Recorder are made by a designer.
Best regards
Johannes