My app has had an ok run so far. I managed to get a few blog mentions a while ago and for a time sales were good. However as the weeks have gone by the sales have been waning besides the atypical update spike. Nowadays, my sales have more or less settled in the abyss of 0 to 1 a day.
I felt the cause of this was simply that a lot of people haven't heard of my app. I didn't expect anyone to keep write about an app that's been around a while, so the only way I could think of raising awareness was paying for advertising.
I did some advertising on Google Adwords, Admob, iPhone review sites and got pretty much the same result from all three: More sales, good reviews but not enough to cover advertising costs. It ended up being like 5 sales (at $.99) for every $30 spent.
I'm kinda stuck on what I should do next.
The "Spock" side of me says: Negative ROI. You are losing money by doing this. Stop right now. It is not logical. No Win.
The "Kirk" side of me says: People are now hearing about your product, they are buying it and giving good ratings. You are building good value for your brand. If you stop, you won't loose money, but you won't make any money either. I don't believe in the no win.
Personally, I would forget the advertising. I really haven't seen any evidence that it works. Possibly try a Lite version, to see if there is any interest out there for your app in general. If that doesn't work, I'd move on to something else. If your new app becomes a hit, people will check out your original app as well.
Yeah, making a lite version is something I have already done. Before moving on to pay advertising, I pretty much tried every form of free advertising I could find: Lite version, YouTube Demo Videos, Facebook Pages, Twitter and forum postings.
I guess it is go viral or go home. Well that or get Apple to advertise for you (featured, new and noteworthy, tv) since that looks like the only kind of advertising that works. But since that is free too its hard to compare that to paid.
I'm not a big fan of the Google model: throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. But there doesn't seem to be many other options. At least I am not so naive to think I can spit out 26 apps a year and each have them make like $10-$20 per day, each day, forever.
Overall I would say it's going to be very hard to find any kind of advertising that you're not going to lose money on. However, that doesn't mean they are all useless. They can sometimes be effective in moving your position up. So for instance, if you are # 15 in a category and you can advertise enough to get yourself into the top 10, it's worth it because of the extra visibility you'll get from being in the top 10. So all I'd use it for is trying to drive my position up, but otherwise it's pretty useless, which is a shame.
I think you are on to something elektrobank. While (pay) advertising probably can't get you into the top lists, as you said it could definitely help you move up a few spots if you are already there. And moving up the charts should have some sort of compounding effect due to increased visibility.
I've been trying to think of the major "humps" to get over in terms of visibility. Let me know if you think I've missed any.
Top 5, Top 10, Top 15, Top 25, Top 100
Full list below
Code:
iTunes Mobile App Store
Top 5 Paid Apps - Start of the Top Paid Apps Page
Top 25 Paid Apps - Bottom of the Top Paid Apps Page (Without clicking more)
Top 5 Category Paid Apps - Start of the Page
Top 25 Category Paid Apps - Bottom of the Page (Without clicking more)
Top 5 Sub-Category Paid Apps - Start of the Page
Top 25 Sub-Category Paid Apps - Bottom of the Page (Without clicking more)
iTunes Desktop App Store
Top 5 Paid Apps - iTunes Front Page
Top 10 Paid Apps - App Store Front Page
Top 15 Paid Apps - Start of the Top Paid Apps Page (Varies on Screen Resolution of iTunes)
Top 100 Paid Apps - Bottom of the Top Paid Apps Page
Top 10 Category Paid Apps - Category Front Page
Top 15 Category Paid Apps - Start of the Category Top Paid Apps Page (Varies on Screen Resolution of iTunes)
Top 100 Category Paid Apps - Bottom of the Category Top Paid Apps Page
Top 20 Sub-Category Paid Apps - Sub-Category Front Page
Top 15 Sub-Category Paid Apps - Start of the Sub-Category Top Paid Apps Page (Varies on Screen Resolution of iTunes)
Top 100 Sub- Category Paid Apps - Bottom of the Sub-Category Top Paid Apps Page
I guess getting into the Top 5 is where it's at (duh). Though I guess if you are near there you are already making really good revenue and probably have the dough to spend on tons of pay advertising. Heck, you don't even have to be near there as last I heard it takes like 1000 sales to breach the top 100.
I only tried Google Adwords until now for another project of mine, but it is not worth it. I don't want to explain in detail, but you spend way more then you get back if you don't fully understand the system and it is very hard to understand... I don't even know if google understands it...
I think it's the same with all other companies too.
I would also say, let it be and make your next app. You already earned a bit money, move on. Next project will earn you a bit more maybe.
I think the problem with most of the small developers is, they think they make an iFart clone and get rich and they don't have to work again
If you think, your app is really the killer app, it's just unrecognized, try to get more reviews. Give away promo codes to websites and blogs, so they can test it.
I think there is no secret method to get up in the ranking.
1. your app must be really good
2. you need good reviews and word of mouth
3. Luck
I will report my experiences, when I get my first app into the store
Hopefully in 2-3 weeks. (working on it since 3 months now)
Is paying for Advertising worth it?
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