I will freely admit I had no idea what to expect from submitting an app to the App Store. This was our (my brother and my) first app and with a mix of learning how to develop on iOS and how to market the app, more often than not it felt like we were just 'winging' it.
So Bottle Tunes has been out in the wild for about 36 hours, and in my eyes it seems to be doing fairly well. I wanted to write a (I'll try my best) brief post about what I've seen in the first 36 hours and get feedback from others experience, to try and gather what the norm is. I know lots of people like to keep their marketing strategies secret, and for highly successful projects that might be the right choice. What I'm mainly interested in is the middle of the road hobby developers who work other jobs during the day (I'm military and my brother is in college). Hope you are able to gather some information from this post and please provide feedback and share if you so desire.
Pre-release Marketing
We attempted to use Social Media to our advantage and created the following outlets:
None of them have a large number of hits/followers/likes/views but I consider anything better than nothing. We use the blog on the website to post code tutorials which seems to bring in the most traffic. The thought is, "oh while you're hear, see what apps we've done".
FREE
Not knowing what to expect from the app store, we took the model of releasing free with ad support (Mobclix was our ad service of choice). Not only would this provide us ad support from many different providers, but it provides a little bit of analytics which are if nothing else, fascinating to look at.
First 36 Hours Numbers
Bottle Tunes was approved and released on a Thursday about 4pm CST. When I saw it was officially out in the wild, I quickly updated all of our social media before it got too late in the day and feeds got lost in overnight noise. And from there it was a waiting game. Mobclix provides analytics hourly, and iTunesConnect provides # of downloads daily. Here's the results of the first 36 hours:
# of Downloads (iTunesConnect)
Thursday: 14
Friday: 392
Top Markets (iTunesConnect)
USA: 124
UK: 31
Saudi Arabia: 22
Mobclix Ads
Note: I would think it takes a little bit of time for Mobclix to optimize ad providers for an app, so stand by for updates
First 36 Hours Reaction
Being completely honest I was blown away at the number of downloads and impressions we had. Again this is coming from someone who has no idea of the norm, but for the little visibility that we received in our social media, I have to ask the question, how did all these people (or are they bots downloading free apps?) find our app? My thought towards bots comes from having Game Center in our app. After the 400+ downloads, there's only one new person listed in the leaderboards. That to me seemed a little suspicious.
I was surprised to see any sort of ranking and I realize that our ranking is only in a sub category, but like I said before. Something better than nothing! I'm very intrigued to see where this all goes over the next few days/weeks/months. In my lack of access to older devices for testing, since release I have heard about some issues with first gen iPod touch and similar that I'll be trying to submit updates for. But that's about it. Thanks for reading, feedback is always appreciated!
My thought towards bots comes from having Game Center in our app. After the 400+ downloads, there's only one new person listed in the leaderboards. That to me seemed a little suspicious.
Are you sure you are logged in GameCenter and not in the Sandbox?
Are you sure you are logged in GameCenter and not in the Sandbox?
Thanks Creativ. I was indeed logged into the Sandbox environment. The leaderboard with the most players has 58 players. Still no where near as many as I would have thought/hoped compared to the number of downloads. But a player is not added to the leaderboard until they complete a level.
Note: I would think it takes a little bit of time for Mobclix to optimize ad providers for an app, so stand by for updates
Impressions: 1721
Clicks: 18
eCPM: $0.13
eCPC: $0.01
As you can see once more, free + ads it's not the way to go to get any kind of profit, $0.01 you have made less than 1 cent in 2 days, that's just silly.
Find another way to monetize your app, remove the ads, they are just in the way, and they are going to pay maybe, if you are lucky, $1 per year.
In-app purchases, engage users, do not just thow stupid banners in there, I've need seen an happy customer saying: wow those ads looks so great in your app...
As you can see once more, free + ads it's not the way to go to get any kind of profit, $0.01 you have made less than 1 cent in 2 days, that's just silly.
Find another way to monetize your app, remove the ads, they are just in the way, and they are going to pay maybe, if you are lucky, $1 per year.
In-app purchases, engage users, do not just thow stupid banners in there, I've need seen an happy customer saying: wow those ads looks so great in your app...
You don't earn ad revenue at a great rate at the start. Instead, you develop a user base who generates revenue over time.
An app that generates $100 the first month, makes $200 the second, $300 the third and so on.
A successful ad based app requires three things: great eCPM, a user base that keeps the app and an app that is frequently used. And like all apps, a large number of downloads.
Thanks all. Well after two days it has brought in $0.51. So we are on track of being just $10 shy of paying for the developer account in a year, haha.
First app is definitely a learning experience in all areas.
Starting from ground zero on this app I didn't want to think about in-app purchases, but when everyone tells you to look left, only a fool (or the occasional genius) looks to the right.
Appreciate your feedback, this is a good community.
You don't earn ad revenue at a great rate at the start. Instead, you develop a user base who generates revenue over time.
An app that generates $100 the first month, makes $200 the second, $300 the third and so on.
A successful ad based app requires three things: great eCPM, a user base that keeps the app and an app that is frequently used. And like all apps, a large number of downloads.
That's not the point, the point is that if you have an app that it's giving you $100 a month on ads then it will give you $1000/$2000 with IAP, if your userbase is active and the IAP is smart, it will skyrocket your profit.
So to me it's silly to insist in putting annoying banners that gives you no revenue when you can make real money with IAP.
The OP quoted $0.51 in two days, well we could have sold half of an IAP to beat that. And as the userbase grows the IAPs will grow too of course.
Get rid of the ads. Your app is perfect for IAP upgrades.
It's a good idea, but the UI needs to be tightened up to make it really fun to play. I feel like the up and down buttons should be over and under each bottle. (the down button doesn't work btw). And when you press the bottle it should play the current note. So you can play the 3 in sequence without having to push the play button and get it wrong.
You could offer some song packs for 0.99 or ALL the song packs for like 1.99 or 2.99. You'll have people buying for sure. Possibly consider doing some current top40 pop songs too.
Get rid of the ads. Your app is perfect for IAP upgrades.
It's a good idea, but the UI needs to be tightened up to make it really fun to play. I feel like the up and down buttons should be over and under each bottle. (the down button doesn't work btw). And when you press the bottle it should play the current note. So you can play the 3 in sequence without having to push the play button and get it wrong.
You could offer some song packs for 0.99 or ALL the song packs for like 1.99 or 2.99. You'll have people buying for sure. Possibly consider doing some current top40 pop songs too.
my 2 cents.
Thank mochibits,
First I've heard of the down button not working. Mind PMing me your device specs?
I like the play note when you click the bottle, however, I think the playing the sequence without "submitting" the sequence would make the gameplay too slow and too easy.
**Have you (or has anyone else) had experience with using Top 40 songs in apps and the legal constraints? I read up a little bit on how copyrights don't apply to midis, but any actual experience feedback would be appreciated.
First 36 hours of Bottle Tunes
Linear Mode
