Just wanna see other people's experience. Did you know what just by making your app free, you will get tens of thousands of download without using any ridiculous service like FAAD?
There are tons of discount app, free app tracking services/apps out there. Once you change your app to free, these services/apps automatically pick it up. I just hate to see more people falling for FAAD and angry when a stupid free app has a FAAD description.
Business is really hard if it's not based on repeated business model. They can trick you once, but they can't trick you twice. How many time have you seems the same app is on FAAD?
FAAD changed the way of their promotion.
Now they promise to promote your freemium app to 6 million peoples.
A friend of mine paid them 14.000 dollars for 2 apps (bundle price) to be promoted in the coming days.
I told him also that he is crazy, but we will see what happens. We are all very curious. I will report how it turned out.
I tried FAAD back then and it was a complete failure. I still think, that it is a complete waste of money, but my friend calculated that if 6 million people see his apps and only 600.000 downloads and only 6.000 spend the average IAP in them, then he is already breaking even.
I paid $5500 for FAAD few weeks ago and while it was way less downloads than I expected (ended up with perhaps 5-7k downloads generated by the promotion), which under normal circumstances would be a terrible outcome, it didn't turn out too bad from the financial point of view.
FAAD has a very valuable user base. The promotion increased the daily income of my game by $200-300. Those numbers would return the investment inside a month (total cost was about $4500, since I didn't have to pay tax on those five grand).
It's definitely not "hello stratosphere!" for me, but no wasted money either.
All depends on the app you're promoting. If it's very niche, like my game, you might see really bad results. If it's something general, appealing to broad audience, then it would be more valuable.
Also, my game was free, so I didn't qualify for the main spot, just the daily double.
PS I'm definitely going to do it again later on, if not with Dragon Lords, then with my next game, which is going to be more appealing to the broad audience.
I wouldn't dare even to spend over 200bucks for any kind of marketing.
You guys rock!
You have to spend money to make money.
Also, if you don't try, you don't succeed. True, there are "what the hell have I done!" moments, but in the end, you end up smarter and better prepared for your next step. My next move is going to be trying TapJoy and seeing what's their ROI.
Also, if you don't try, you don't succeed. True, there are "what the hell have I done!" moments, but in the end, you end up smarter and better prepared for your next step. My next move is going to be trying TapJoy and seeing what's their ROI.
Yes, with big risk, comes big returns. I'm a play-safe kinda guy. The most that I have spent for marketing was 200bucks for an ad at a famous app review/news blog. It was too good of a deal to let go since it runs for 365 days!
He paid 13.000 (thirteen thousand) dollars for 2 apps being promoted (not 14 as I said before). One of them was promoted in the last days, so practically he has spent 6500 (six thousand five hundred) dollars for that promotion. It is a free app with IAP in it.
The second one will occur next week.
He reports 6000 (six thousand) additional downloads on the promotion day compared to the average numbers and +10 (ten) downloads in IAP compared to the average.
The next days could bring a few additional IAP purchases, because not everybody buys something immediately in the game, but he doesn't hope for much more.
The game is a niche game built on an iternet meme, so maybe the people interested in it already downloaded it before anyway.
The second promotion will be for a paid app as far as I know.
Now you can build your own opinion.
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Last edited by Promo Dispenser; 02-15-2012 at 09:50 AM.
He reports 6000 (six thousand) additional downloads on the promotion day compared to the average numbers and +10 (ten) downloads in IAP compared to the average.
I don't get this, he's only got 6000 downloads more? Surely that won't pay $6.5k back.
And what's that 10 mean? 10 as absolute number? 10% more? 10 times more?
I don't get this, he's only got 6000 downloads more? Surely that won't pay $6.5k back.
And what's that 10 mean? 10 as absolute number? 10% more? 10 times more?
His app averaged 10.000 downloads a day and on the promotion day he had 16.000 downloads.
The app has more than 5 different IAP products and the average IAP downloads were let's say 100 (I don't know anymore) and on the promotion day he had 110 IAP downloads.
That means, users bought 100 items daily, while on that day he sold 110 items. The IAPs cost $0.99 so until then he made $99 while on promotion day he made $110.
His app averaged 10.000 downloads a day and on the promotion day he had 16.000 downloads.
The app has more than 5 different IAP products and the average IAP downloads were let's say 100 (I don't know anymore) and on the promotion day he had 110 IAP downloads.
That means, users bought 100 items daily, while on that day he sold 110 items. The IAPs cost $0.99 so until then he made $99 while on promotion day he made $110.
I hope it is more clear now.
It makes sense and it looks like he flushed down the toilet $6.5k to get $10 in return, that's not what I call a good deal! :O
He will need more than 2 years at this constant "improvement" to get his money back, auch.
In the first promoted game the average weekly IAP revenue went even down by a couple of hundred dollars.
That is not FAADs failure probably, but it is "funny"
It generated 7000 downloads (instead of 100 average) and 0 (null, zero, nada, niente, nic, nothing) IAP purchase.
The promotion had cost $6500
The more I think about it, the more I realise that un-targeted downloads are very very very evil.
Like 7000 downloads and no-one gives a damn, I attribuite that to these factor:
1) Very hard to find a good demographic conversion out of those 7000 random people
2) They have no attachment to the product, the less it costs (free being the singularity) the less is the emotional attachment to the product. IE even if the game it's nice, they probably don't care much.
3) Conversion rate these days it's harder, there are far too many other successful games/apps, and for a newcomer even getting 1% of those 10 minutes a day an average iOS user spends to play games it's tough.
I think number 2 it's the real key, I remember when we had our free app + iAD the "normal" download always driven more conversion.
So the only way to get it working it's to make it organic (IE word of mouth or social suggestions, infact I quite like pinterest, even if I haven't even started "pinning" ).
It generated 7000 downloads (instead of 100 average) and 0 (null, zero, nada, niente, nic, nothing) IAP purchase.
Looks like your friend needs to work on monetization and probably retention. 7000 downloads and zero increase in revenue is not normal. With similar number of downloads from FAAD Dragon Lords started earning $200-300 a day more.
Omg! $13000 down the toilet... I bet he can get just as many download if he just make his paid app free. I guess it might have a point for free app. Anyone try magazine ads?
I contacted iphonelife for their media kit and cross referenced the ad slots to appannie ranking. No go! There is hardly any sales for the poor apps that "advertise" on them.
Advertising is becoming a dirty word for me. It seems totally useless. Direct sales make more sense to me.
Omg! $13000 down the toilet... I bet he can get just as many download if he just make his paid app free. I guess it might have a point for free app. Anyone try magazine ads?
I contacted iphonelife for their media kit and cross referenced the ad slots to appannie ranking. No go! There is hardly any sales for the poor apps that "advertise" on them.
Advertising is becoming a dirty word for me. It seems totally useless. Direct sales make more sense to me.
I agree. Advertising should be replaced by PPI, Cross Promotion, ASO, In App Social Promotion tricks etc + Meditation (for luck!!)
Why people still fall for FAAD?
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