Johannes is the co-founder of July is over, so it’s time for my monthly income report again.
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 Android apps too. In the last report I aimed to reach $800.- for the last month. You will see if it worked out.
For all income reports, please click here.
Which Apps?
3D Invaders – about 92.000 installs (+10k), 16% active
AL Voice Recorder – about 359.000 installs (+24k), 25% active
AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – 690 installs (+40), 43% active
Droid-Blog.net Android App – 120 installs (+110), 35% active
SmsToSpeech full – 656 installs (+16), 44% active
What did I do?
The Android Market changed a bit and so did it’s ranking algorithm. Fortunately, this led to a slightly better ranking of the AL Voice Recorder which caused it to be downloaded 24.000 times. That’s a fantastic increase in new downloads of 60%. Accordingly, also the installs of the AL Voice Recorder Ad Free increased from almost 0 to about 40. SmsToSpeech, my other paid app, didn’t sell as many copies as in the last month, but as the ad free version of the voice recorder is way more expensive, these losses are well compensated.
The Droid-Blog.net app increased an unbelievable 1100% in downloads while grossing the same amount of money as in the last month: nothing.
Essentially, I did nothing to promote my apps. I did release some minor updates on 3D Invaders in the first half of the month but that’s it. The active install ratio of 3D invaders declined from 20% to 16% which means I have to do definitely more there.
Advertising Stats
Here are some statistics from the two advertising networks I’m using, AdMob and Madvertise. Please read the last income report for an explanation of the following numbers.
AdMob:
Requests: 415,263 (-45k)
Impressions: 408,058 (-47k)
Fill Rate: 98.26% (-0.74%)
Clicks: 11,192 (+2.75k)
CTR: 2.74% (+0.89%)
eCPM: $1.08 (+$0.27)
House Ads: 5,503 (-18k)
Adjusted Requests: 420,766 (-64k)
Adjusted Fill Rate: 96.98% (+2,84%)
Madvertise
As I’m not using house ads in Madvertise, no adjusted requests and fill rates are shown here.
Requests: 341,884, (+6,5k)
Impressions: 65,339 (+10k)
Fill Rate: 19% (+2%)
Clicks: 3,314 (+692)
CTR: 5.07% (+0,34%)
eCPM: $6,52 (+$1,08)
As you can see, the AdMob performance of my apps decreased a bit in terms of requests. Still, due to an enormous increase of the CTR, my apps were able to get a plus of 2,750 clicks. Madvertise also performed fantastic last month, getting even a slightly better fill rate this time. Overall, I’m quite satisfied with the work/effect ratio my apps produced this month.
How much?
Now that you have seen that my ad performance increased, you can probably guess that my revenue did too. This time I separated the Market sales and the In-App sales. Here are the numbers:
AdMob: $439,56 (+$71.60)
Madvertise: ~$426,07 (+$123.91)
Market sales: ~$130,76 (+$56.35)
In-App sales: ~$8,63
Total: $1,005.02 (+$260.17)
I totally reached my goal of $800. As I knew I wouldn’t have much time in the last month and as July has one more day than June, I thought this would be realistic. The change of the Android Market and the great performance of the ad networks caused my apps to do way better, resulting in the more than 1k income for the last month (hurray!).
What’s next?
I’m still working hard on our next game which is why I think I won’t have much time to spent on my private apps this month too. My goal for the next month is to reach the great numbers of this month again: $1005,02.
Please feel free to share your own experiences in the comments. Please also don’t hesitate to tell me if there is anything else you’d like to get some information about.
2011/08/01 at 11:45
Congratulations! Its really impressive and also motivating to see this increase of ad-income. Hope to reach thoses numbers too (one day…) :-)
2011/08/01 at 13:07
Thanks! I hope this trend will continue, but I doubt it…
Good luck! :)
2011/08/01 at 15:23
Congratulations! Crossing the 1K mark is an excellent achievement.
2011/08/01 at 17:50
Thank you Ziggy!
Btw: What do you think about some link sharing?
2011/08/02 at 00:10
Johannes very impressive! keep up the good work and congrats on crossing over the $1,000 mark!
2011/08/02 at 21:12
Thank you!
2011/08/02 at 03:32
Hi Johannes, wanted to get your opinion on how you feel about ads in your apps vs. ads interupting or becoming annoying to users. Especially in games, how is a good way to present the ads?
2011/08/02 at 21:28
Hi Jeremiah,
a good question. Ad placement is a difficult task. I think to make games profitable using games, ads have to be placed in the game because that’s where the user spends most of it’s time. Still they shouldn’t interrupt the game of course. Angry birds for example had a solid five star rating as long as they placed their ads in the top right. When they moved their ads to the bottom, the rating dropped to 4.5 stars. Angry Birds Rio now has the ads in the top right again.
As a user, what would you prefer: To pay for a game or to get it free and have ads in it instead? Personally, I totally accept that tradeoff.
Best regards
Johannes
2011/08/02 at 04:05
Sent you email.
2011/08/02 at 21:38
Thanks
2011/08/03 at 13:08
Congratulations from madvertise for reaching your goal (moneywise)!
2011/08/03 at 13:33
Thank you Antje!
2011/08/04 at 08:26
Congratulations!
Your numbers motivated me to change from AdMob to Madvertise.
With AdMob I have a horribly CTR and eCPM :(
2011/08/11 at 11:51
Thanks!
But remember: Madvertise is strong only in Germany and some other European contries. If your app is targeting an international audiance, you might want to use a mix.
2011/08/04 at 11:38
I cant help but think you would have done better if you had a greater spread of ad networks. I know you dropped Mobclix early on but if you tried others like Leadbolt for example, you could have generated even better returns!
Nonetheless, I cant take away from the awesome achievement. Well done!
2011/08/11 at 11:53
Thank you for your impression. Maybe I will try an other meta network some day, maybe Smaato. I’ll let you know.
2011/08/07 at 09:23
Great progress, thanks for the report.. it would be good if more developers did this. Do you use the techniques discussed in your post on application promotion? 10k downloads is impressive, are you still using the just in list for devices on 2.1 and below? :)
2011/08/11 at 11:56
Hello Rsk,
yes, I’m using these techniques. I’m using the just in as well, although I’m not using it as frequently as I did before the Market update.
2011/08/13 at 10:23
Thanks a lot for sharing your data. I’m using admob and madvertise, too. But i have many german only apps and AdMob don’t work good for that. I have Admob fillrates ~10% and low revenue. Madvertise has a low fillrate in international apps, but is very strong in my german ones. I hope my revenue will stay, when the Madvertise developer fund is gone. ;-)
2011/08/13 at 19:08
Well, you’ll probably get about 40% less ;)
2011/08/14 at 09:02
Hey Johannes,
This is a great Blog, i’ve been following you for a while, thrilled to see the stats are improving from month to month!
Also, the post series about market SEO is really good, i’m looking forward to the next one.
Thanks!
2011/08/16 at 12:14
Hello Ariel,
that’s great and motivating to hear!
We will see if I can improve this month as well.
Unfortunately I’m quite busy at the moment as ANDLABS is trying to get an enormous work order which is connected to a lot of work. I hope I can end the third part of this series soon.
Best regards
Johannes
2011/09/12 at 18:10
Hi Johannes, is it possible to breakdown the AdMob to app level, knowing which app brings in more ads than the other will be helpful. Thanks!
2011/09/12 at 19:37
Hello,
I might consider this for my next report.
Best regards
Johannes