Droid-Blog

Android development and money stuff

Show menu Hide menu

Tagads

Android Income Report #6: October 11

2011/11/02 / / 11 Comments

Another month is over, it’s time for income facts 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 private Android apps too. In the last report I aimed to reach $1,100 for the last month, a goal which I failed to reach the month before. You will see if it worked out this time.

For all income reports, please click here.

Which Apps?

3D Invaders – about 118,000 installs (+11k), 14% active

AL Voice Recorder – about 433,000 installs (+34k), 23% active

AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – 773installs (+26), 41% active

Droid-Blog.net Android App – 302 installs (+77), 22% active

SmsToSpeech full – 698 installs (+12), 43% active

More then 45,000 new downloads, that’s really amazing!

What did I do?

Last month I pushed some updates, this month I did some ASO again. I did this around the 16th. Since then download numbers increased a lot. Let’s see how this changed my advertising statistics.

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: 473,103 (+125k)

Impressions: 454,031 (+130k)

Fill Rate: 95,07% (+2,97%)

Clicks: 9,302 (+2k)

CTR: 2.05% (-0.23%)

eCPM: $0.96 (-$0.8)

House Ads: 4,976 (-4.7k)

Adjusted Requests:  478,079 (+120k)

Adjusted Fill Rate: 94.97 90,51 (+4,46%)

Madvertise

As I’m not using house ads in Madvertise, no adjusted requests and fill rates are shown here.

Requests: 845,343 (+556k)

Impressions: 121.656 (+68k)

Fill Rate: 18% (+-0%)

Clicks: 4,654 (+2362)

CTR: 3,83% (-0,44%)

eCPM: $9,31 (+$1.12)

Performances of both networks were amazing. Since I added madvertise to the AL Voice Recorder in the end of last month, madvertise’s numbers had been even more amazing than AdMob’s. I also integrated the new madvertise SDK. I didn’t experience any increase in the fillrate since then, but my CTR improved by about 0,58%.

How much?

Madvertise:

3D Invaders: ~$585.04

AL Voice Recorder: ~$548.55

Madvertise Total: ~$1,133.59 (+$692.86)

Goal reached! But since that’s not all at all, here’s what I earned with my other streams:

AdMob:

3D Invaders: $137.71

AL Voice Recorder: $297.25

AdMob Total: $434.95 (+$96.21)

 

Market sales: ~$87.02 (+$21,70)

In-App purchases: ~$8,19 (+$3.73)

 

Total: ~$1,663.75 (+$814.50)

I know I used the word amazing a couple of times in this post, but that’s exactly what last month was, especially in the second half. When seeing an income of about $60 every day, this is really motivating and also a lot of fun.

What’s next?

I expect the level of new installs to stay stable in this month. I will put some effort into a new app to finally get another stream soon. I will probably not manage to increase my Android-income by almost 100% again, but I expect it to rise further.

So, for this month, I’m targeting the magic mark of $2,000. A competitive goal, but I’m convinced I will reach it.

 

 

Please feel free to share your own experiences and hints in the comments. Please also don’t hesitate to tell me if there is anything else you’d like to get some information about.

Android Income Report #5: September 11

2011/10/05 / / 13 Comments

Another month is over, it’s time for income facts again. Please excuse the delay, I’ll try to be more on time next month.

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 $1,100 for the last month. You will see if it worked out.

For all income reports, please click here.

Which Apps?

3D Invaders – about 107,000 installs (+7k), 15% active

AL Voice Recorder – about 399,000 installs (+17k), 24% active

AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – 747 installs (+27), 41% active

Droid-Blog.net Android App – 235 installs (+44), 26% active

SmsToSpeech full – 686 installs (+11), 42% active

What did I do?

At about the 20th of September it was clear that I wouldn’t hit my goals. Fortunately I was just in between two projects and was able to invest a day. In that time I reworked the AL Voice Recorder technically and added two new features: A seekbar (finally!) and speech to text for the naming of records. Additionally I did something I should have done a long time ago: I integrated madvertise. I also published a minor update for 3D Invaders, but added no big features.

Advertising Stats

Enough talking, lets start with the facts!

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: 348,715 (-90k)

Impressions: 324,318 (-96k)

Fill Rate: 93% (-2.79%)

Clicks: 7,390 (-1k)

CTR: 2.28% (+0.28%)

eCPM: $1.04 (+$0.13)

House Ads: 9,620 (-12.7k)

Adjusted Requests:  358,335 (-102k)

Adjusted Fill Rate: 90,51 (-0,65%)

Madvertise

As I’m not using house ads in Madvertise, no adjusted requests and fill rates are shown here.

Requests: 291,556 (+40k)

Impressions: 53,706 (+300)

Fill Rate: 18% (-3%)

Clicks: 2,292(-582)

CTR: 4,27% (-1.1%)

eCPM: $8,19 (-$2.09)

Performances of both networks were not as good as in the previous month. Since I added madvertise to the voice recorder who worse CTR than 3D Invaders, I can probably expect madvertise’s CTR to drop a little further this month.

How much?

This time I split up my ad revenue to give you a better overview of the potential performance of games vs. tools:

Madvertise:

3D Invaders: ~$398,72

AL Voice Recorder: ~$42,01

Madvertise Total: ~$440.73 (-$109.62)

 

AdMob:

3D Invaders: $134.13

AL Voice Recorder: $204.61

AdMob Total: $338,74 (-$41,94)

 

Market sales: ~$65,32 (-$24,08)

In-App purchases: ~$4.46 (-$3.77)

 

Total: ~$849.25 (-179.32)

I missed my goal big time. The retrogressive growth of my app downloads were clearly visible in my income this time. I hope the changes I made and will make will lead my income into the right direction for this month.

What’s next?

In the second half I hope I’ll be able to do a bit more development on my own apps so that I’ll be able to make some new releases soon. We will see.

Since I missed my goal for the last month, this time it again is $1,100.

 

Please feel free to share your own experiences and hints in the comments. Please also don’t hesitate to tell me if there is anything else you’d like to get some information about.

Where to place ads

2011/09/19 / / 6 Comments

Some of the readers of you asked me where to best place an ad. Here is what I know.

The app

We will look at an app that is a simple game it looks something like this:

It has childlike graphics and the hero is a red ball. In each level it has to reach the goal marked by a flag. It can be rolled to the left/right by touching the left/right side of the screen. A simplified heatmap of the clicks on the screen would probably look something like this:


Although I’m using a game for the visualization of the written word, everything I’m writing about ad placement here can be easily transferred to non-games or apps that run in portrait mode.

T he two ways

When optimizing your ad placement, there are two ways you can go: Optimizing for maximum visibility of the app or optimizing for the biggest amount of clicks, which can also be accidental.

Way one: Visibility

This is the first way. When taking it, you try to place your ad in a way that the user can see it well. When the user likes what he is seeing, he probably will click the ad.

So for our example game here, where the player has its hands placed on the bottom and most likely clicks to the left and the right half of the screen, the best position for an ad would be the centered top. When your app can be controlled by one hand and runs in portrait mode, the top left would also be a good place as most people are right handed. If you want to find the best place for maximum visibility of your ad, you can analyse the click behaviour of your user and adjust the ad placement accordingly or just use this little class I wrote to do so. For apps that run in portrait mode, the most times best place for visibility is on top.

The best placement when optimizing for visibility

Way two: Best CTR

The second way targets for both the wanted and the accidental clicks. Here, you place your ad in a way it is more likely that the user might click it by mistake. When applying this tactic, you should be aware of the TOS of your ad provider as most of them prohibit ad placements too close to often clicked areas.

For our example game, we would probably place our ad in the bottom right or bottom left because we can expect the most touch events there. Most portrait mode apps should place their ads on the bottom.

When optimizing for the best CTR, the ad should be placed like this

Which way you choose is up to you. While the latter might cause you to lose a couple of users, it will probably still generate you more money than the first one. When you want your ads to be clicked only when the user is really interested in its content, you should take the first way.

 

Do you have any best practices of ad placement, questions or criticism? Please feel free to share them in the comments.

Android Income Report #4: August 11

2011/09/01 / / 8 Comments

Another month is over, it’s time for income facts 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 private Android apps too. In the last report I aimed to reach $1,005.02 for the last month. You will see if it worked out.

For all income reports, please click here.

Which Apps?

3D Invaders – about 100.000 installs (+8k), 16% active

AL Voice Recorder – about 382.000 installs (+23k), 24% active

AL Voice Recorder Ad Free – 721 installs (+31), 41% active

Droid-Blog.net Android App – 186 installs (+66), 30% active

SmsToSpeech full – 675 installs (+19), 42% active

What did I do?

Essentially nothing. I neither published a big update nor a new app. Still, more than 30.000 new users downloaded my apps.

The Droid-Blog.net app had a huge increase in download numbers again (55%)! Furthermore, after being in the Market for more than two months, it finally got its first click grossing a total of $0.03. Hurray!

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: 438,914 (+23k)

Impressions: 420,452 (+12k)

Fill Rate: 95.79 (-2.48%)

Clicks: 8,399 (-2.79k)

CTR: 2.00% (-0.74%)

eCPM: $0,91 (-$0.17)

House Ads: 22,309 (+16.8k)

Adjusted Requests:  461,223 (+40,5k)

Adjusted Fill Rate: 91.16 96.98% (-5,82%)

Madvertise

As I’m not using house ads in Madvertise, no adjusted requests and fill rates are shown here.

Requests: 250,609, (-91k)

Impressions: 53,472 (-12k)

Fill Rate: 21% (+2%)

Clicks: 2,874(-440)

CTR: 5.37% (+0,3%)

eCPM: $10,28 (+$3,76)

My AdMob performance regarding impressions and request was not bad, but the fillrate and the eCPM was. While Madvertise lost about 91,000 request compared to the previous month, it was able to compensate this by having an enormous eCPM.

How much?

Did I manage to reach my goal again? Here’s what I earned:

Madvertise: ~$550.35 (+$124.28)

AdMob: $380.68 (-$58.88)

Market sales: ~$89.31 (-$41.45)

In-App purchases: ~$8.23 (-$0.40)

Total: ~$1028.57 (+23,55)

Goal reached! Why? I would say mainly because of the weak dollar. While one Euro was worth 1.4 dollars one month ago it is now worth $1.44. This made the small difference between success and failure.

What’s next?

I’m curious if Madvertise will be able to keep up those great numbers. I will be pushing some updates this month, so I hope the download figures will increase to about 33k again. My goal for the next month is $1,100.

 

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.

Older posts Newer posts

© 2024 Droid-Blog

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑