I represent Fossil Software, the creators of the app "AppZilla 2 - 100 in 1!" for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We are excited to announce the rollout of a unique advertising platform utilizing the 2 million plus AppZilla fan base.
We call it the "AppZilla Showcase" - a place in AppZilla where we feature 3rd party apps from the App Store in order to help our users discover and download new apps. The unique approach of our showcase involves presenting your app's icon on the AppZilla home screen in a way that provokes users to explore your app. After they tap your app icon, they're presented with a wealth of information about your app including your App Store description, App Store screenshots, YouTube video and more. Most importantly, from your app's showcase, a single tap sends them straight to the App Store to download your app.
You can download the free version of AppZilla 2 to see the showcase live and in action right now. Note that the showcase appears in all versions of AppZilla 2 including free and paid versions of the app. [Update: We've added the AppZilla Showcase to our original app "AppZilla: 90 in 1" so now the showcase potential has increased dramatically, with all 3 of our AppZilla apps featuring the same showcase apps.]
I've included a link to our information sheet that goes in to more detail about the showcase including how simple it is to get your app into the showcase, the showcase stats we track for your app and more.
We're currently taking orders for featured spots in the showcase. So If you're interested in advertising your apps in an affordable and unique way, let me know and we'll get you scheduled as soon as possible. [Update: We set up an automated online booking page at the link above. Now you can check availability, specify a campaign start date, campaign length, enter your app/company info, and make reservations online with PayPal. Email us for any questions, we'd be glad to help.]
Thanks,
I was studying the charts and I've seen that you've been ranked steadily at #25 for few months (US Overall), then recently you've started slipping away. Your charts are also pretty steady in key countries and not in others.
May I ask what kind or type of promotional services or marketing have you used for appzilla? If you feel like it you can tell without compromising your sales? Being that steady at #25 it's really really impressive.
The offers sounds inviting can you do performance driven advertising, IE I get 100 downloads and I give you 50% of that?
Thanks Ziocleto! Yes, it's been an exciting year for us! I can't go into the specific details of the promotional services and marketing we use to promote AppZilla, but I will say we do focus our efforts on key countries where we tend to get the best returns for those efforts, as you've noticed. We have to look to where the biggest pools of customers are, and where we noticed the best results, then focus on those markets primarily.
As for our AppZilla Showcase program, we do not currently offer performance driven advertising as you've mentioned. What we do offer is simply exposure to our millions of users. It's an opportunity for developers who are struggling to get GOOD apps noticed, but for whatever reason haven't been able to gain the visibility they need to be successful.
With the AppZilla Showcase, developers can essentially skip up the charts, and leverage the months of top chart exposure we've had. If you, or any other forum visitors wish to be featured in our AppZilla Showcase, then please contact us at the email address below, and we'd be happy to discuss campaign options with you.
Thanks Ziocleto! Yes, it's been an exciting year for us! I can't go into the specific details of the promotional services and marketing we use to promote AppZilla, but I will say we do focus our efforts on key countries where we tend to get the best returns for those efforts, as you've noticed. We have to look to where the biggest pools of customers are, and where we noticed the best results, then focus on those markets primarily.
I'd be cautious of this as well... I've never seen any ads anywhere for AppZilla but it is consistently high ranked. Have the bot driven top 25 promotions been shut down yet? I'd be extremely weary about this deal, especially as they give no performance guarantees... If they legitimately have earned their rank they should be raking it in money wise and wouldn't need to add the extra legwork required to setup this showcase apps thing, right?
We've advertised multiple times on many ad networks and done so for extended periods of time. For example, turn to page 108 in the April "Special Issue Best of Rock 2011" edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and you'll see AppZilla 2 hanging out there. But really, ads are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting exposure in the app store. We've put in significant effort to build and revamp iterations of AppZilla since its initial launch back in March of 2010. We've spent even more time analyzing how people use our app as well as learning the patterns, metrics, and business-sides of the App Store - not to mention building relationships with other developers, vendors and strategists in this fast-growing ecosystem.
As for performance guarantees, we've advertised on countless major networks and never once been guaranteed performance of app downloads. That WOULD BE nice! However, we are (at this point in time) an impression based showcase. We guarantee to get your app showcase in front of AppZilla users. We provide the audience and exposure and charge a flat fee based on how many impressions we're able to drive.
We are always exploring new ideas, new business strategies, and new ways to earn supplemental income. The idea of the AppZilla Showcase was actually sparked by developers emailing us, asking if they could buy a spot within AppZilla! After that, we started evaluating our stats more closely and discovered we truly had an opportunity for other developers and our company.
I understand your weariness, though. We've been weary of many advertising campaigns before - and rightfully so. Many have a high cost of entry and it's a big risk to try them out. It's not uncommon to be asked for 10-20K for a "test run" on someone's network. With the AppZilla showcase we're offering a supplemental advertising solution with significantly lower cost of entry.
If you'd like to hop on a call or chat via email, we'd be more than happy! We're excited to have this new little critter as part of AppZilla and really excited to watch it grow! Have a great weekend everyone.
We've advertised multiple times on many ad networks and done so for extended periods of time. For example, turn to page 108 in the April "Special Issue Best of Rock 2011" edition of Rolling Stone Magazine and you'll see AppZilla 2 hanging out there. But really, ads are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to getting exposure in the app store. We've put in significant effort to build and revamp iterations of AppZilla since its initial launch back in March of 2010. We've spent even more time analyzing how people use our app as well as learning the patterns, metrics, and business-sides of the App Store - not to mention building relationships with other developers, vendors and strategists in this fast-growing ecosystem.
As for performance guarantees, we've advertised on countless major networks and never once been guaranteed performance of app downloads. That WOULD BE nice! However, we are (at this point in time) an impression based showcase. We guarantee to get your app showcase in front of AppZilla users. We provide the audience and exposure and charge a flat fee based on how many impressions we're able to drive.
We are always exploring new ideas, new business strategies, and new ways to earn supplemental income. The idea of the AppZilla Showcase was actually sparked by developers emailing us, asking if they could buy a spot within AppZilla! After that, we started evaluating our stats more closely and discovered we truly had an opportunity for other developers and our company.
I understand your weariness, though. We've been weary of many advertising campaigns before - and rightfully so. Many have a high cost of entry and it's a big risk to try them out. It's not uncommon to be asked for 10-20K for a "test run" on someone's network. With the AppZilla showcase we're offering a supplemental advertising solution with significantly lower cost of entry.
If you'd like to hop on a call or chat via email, we'd be more than happy! We're excited to have this new little critter as part of AppZilla and really excited to watch it grow! Have a great weekend everyone.
It seams the impression based network are most of the time worthless for 1-2$ app. And 10K-20K is uncommon for a test run (unless you are EA or chilingo..).
How your network is different from others ? cheaper? Targeted ?
What is the lowest entry price ?
Cost per impression ?
It seams the impression based network are most of the time worthless for 1-2$ app. And 10K-20K is uncommon for a test run (unless you are EA or chilingo..).
How your network is different from others ? cheaper? Targeted ?
What is the lowest entry price ?
Cost per impression ?
why not a cost per click ?
Good questions. My background isn't in marketing or advertising. I write code. Period. I left my day job doing graphics programming on XBOX 360 and PS3. That was two years ago and it's been quite a ride...especially with respect to learning ways to promote an app as an independent dev.
I won't even waste your time talking about the app store getting more and more crowded and visibility getting less and less "free"... you know all this and have heard it 1000 times before. But there's another side to this, the COST of visibility. Big players move to the space day after day and their deeper pockets allow them to snatch up visibility like nobody's business. Those 10K-20K quotes? Man, I wish I could agree with you that it's uncommon - more so I wish I could just tell you the networks that in the last month alone quoted us 10K and 20K respectively to "try" their network. I didn't pick those numbers randomly, we were asked to pay them. We are definitely not EA or Chillingo and these networks KNOW this. But they ALSO know that if we wont' pay it, those companies you mention WILL.
Sure self-service networks like admob let you start with 50 bucks...but those are a different beasts when compared to full-service networks that charge higher prices. Again, speaking from experience. In 2011, on AppZilla 2 alone we've shelled north of 6 figures (and the first number isn't a 1) just to advertise it to the public. I know you're thinking WHAT?!?! For a 99 cent app?!?! Well, for Fossil, the positive ROI was there and justified it. But you're right, can all $1-2 apps stay in the black spending that kind of dough? My guess is no. In fact I've had several personal apps (not under Fossil Software) where I could drop say 2-5K over a period of time to advertise and when all is said an done...turn a profit. On the other hand I've made many apps where spending 500 bucks put me in the red and I never really recovered. Again these apps were made by me alone before Fossil Software.
CPC, CPM, CPI, - at the end of the day I don't think any one is better than the other... in fact truly from my experience I think a combination of these can be effective.
Let me get to the rest of your questions. How is the AppZilla Showcase different? Well for starters, unlike other banner ad networks - this is a Showcase in the truest sense of the word. Your app icon, app description, app screenshots, even your apps youtube movie appear to the appzilla user. Compared to a 320x50 pixel banner ad you might get to show elsewhere that's quite a lot of real-estsate. It's more exclusive as well. At the time of this writing there are 12 app showcase spots. That's it. You get that spot for the duration of your campaign. If you've ever seen AppZilla you know that it consists of a multi-app launcher and comes with 114 apps (currently). The 12 app showcases are embeded into appzilla just like any other appzilla app.... so the user experience feels more genuine to our users. The goal is to showcase a great app, not just slap a banner up somewhere that doesn't fit the spirit and theme of what an appzilla user expects. We've had 0 complaints thus far from appzilla users across both our paid and free versions. I have a feeling if we'd of slapped banner ads in it'd be a different story!
Our beta ends on Sept 18th and we go live Sept 19th. Cost? It's been FREE for all the devs who've been helping us develop and learn what the ecosystem of appzilla users can do. Lowest cost of entry when we go live on Monday? 100 bucks. That's our introductory price and realize that will go stale in this forum post. But I wanted to really answer your question. We didn't just pick random prices out of the air, we worked with devs during beta to determine fair pricing. We anticipate big growth over the next month as we expand the IP.
We've just started this showcase idea and are excited to watch it grow! We aren't trying to compete with big dogs like mobclix, admob, etc.. Yikes. That's a scary thought!
And your last questions. "Why not cost per click?" I totally agree! Why not!? For that matter what about cost-per-install? These things really excite us because yes we're thinking of all sorts of ways to grow this thing. One idea I really like is being able to report to a dev that the person clicking on their showcase (or perhaps even going as far as downloading their app) is typically running apps x y and z within appzilla. Or, maybe it's more genre based. We could say at the end of your campaign, it looks like 60% of your clicks come from people who run the x and y entertainment apps or x and w utility apps within appzilla. It's that type of information, along with other information, that could really help a dev understand their app's appeal or understand what types of apps interest their potential customers. Anyway I could go on and on here - we've got so many ideas for the future. We're just rolling out this Monday to the public and we're spreading the word! Space is limited and as of right now we're over half pre-sold. Very cool.
Please contact us at bizdev@fossilsoftware.com and we can go into more detail. Thanks! Great questions!
Just to throw in my 2 cents on this conversation, I think some of you guys are looking at this a little backwards. I'm watching football right now, so I'll pull a thought from there. A 30 second super bowl ad will cost 2.5 million (from wikipedia in 2010). If you placed the ad, you wouldn't say to the network - I want x number of sales or how about you give me the time and I split my profits with you. Instead, you would say the best ads will get the best attention, and attention = profit.
To me, that's what AppZilla would be providing. From there, it's still on our shoulders:
1) Our app icon needs to be able to pull people in to investigate further
2) Our app description needs to be great
3) Our screen shots have to be spot on
4) Our video needs to express how great the game is quickly
5) If all that is good - then (hopefully!) we will get the sale.
I'm like everyone, I want to be in the top 25 of word games and hopefully stay there for awhile. But if you are looking at AppZilla, from what I can see they are providing, that isn't how I would define success.
For example, I think my game is solid, but I have no way of learning where do I lose people in the process of buying it? If a 1,000 people look at my video and I get 5 sales, that tells me a lot. If however, 10,000 people see my icon - 100 tap it, 100 view the video and 100 buy the game - that also tells me a lot (my icon sucks in that case!).
To me, the value of that information is priceless, even if it did have a price!
Like everyone, I think your goal should be that more exposure does equal more sales, you get sucked up into the charts on Apple and Apple finally realizes that they should showcase you and boom-to the moon!
But, you can't put it on AppZilla (or even super bowl ads) to say they will guarantee the sales for you. It's still your job. But the fact that they will give you insight into where you might be failing (icon, screen shots, video, etc) - then that information might make a campaign with them well worth it, even if you don't get the break you are seeking.
Personally, I think it's really cool that they are giving developers this opportunity! Just think if others who made it to the top gave an opening like that to us! To me, they are filling a hole that the AppStore created where it limits the visibility to a few apps (and some of those apps get to keep that visibility for MONTHS ... but that's another thread. Thank goodness the "best games you never played" were games I hadn't seen in the top charts like the last time they did it).
Anyway, I think AppZilla is doing something cool and I hope to see other success stories repeat it!
Your super bowl example is brand advertising, which is a completely different beast from online/mobile advertising, where the value is not in getting brand recognition, but analytics so you can fine tune your campaigns.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lars
Just to throw in my 2 cents on this conversation, I think some of you guys are looking at this a little backwards. I'm watching football right now, so I'll pull a thought from there. A 30 second super bowl ad will cost 2.5 million (from wikipedia in 2010). If you placed the ad, you wouldn't say to the network - I want x number of sales or how about you give me the time and I split my profits with you. Instead, you would say the best ads will get the best attention, and attention = profit.
I just wanted to testify for the legitimacy of AppZilla's marketing methods. They've approached me at G6pay and have tried to work with me to promote their app when it used to be paid. Unfortunately due to the Apple ban, I couldn't supply them significant traffic and help them out at the time.
I know and have seen them on the other major networks, so their users ARE real. Don't undermine the ability of a good app to sustain itself well in the Top 25. Very few people actually use bots. And even so, there aren't that many bots services out there...
__________________
Once Co-Founder/CEO @ G6pay, now @ LVL6 Games.
@ LVL6 | follow me @awestonlin
I represent Fossil Software, the creators of the app "AppZilla 2 - 100 in 1!" for the iPhone and iPod Touch. We are excited to announce the rollout of a unique advertising platform utilizing the 2 million plus AppZilla fan base.
We call it the "AppZilla Showcase" - a place in AppZilla where we feature 3rd party apps from the App Store in order to help our users discover and download new apps. The unique approach of our showcase involves presenting your app's icon on the AppZilla home screen in a way that provokes users to explore your app. After they tap your app icon, they're presented with a wealth of information about your app including your App Store description, App Store screenshots, YouTube video and more. Most importantly, from your app's showcase, a single tap sends them straight to the App Store to download your app.
You can download the free version of AppZilla 2 to see the showcase live and in action right now. Note that the showcase appears in all versions of AppZilla 2 including free and paid versions of the app.
I've included a link to our information sheet that goes in to more detail about the showcase including how simple it is to get your app into the showcase, the showcase stats we track for your app and more.
We're currently taking orders for featured spots in the showcase. So If you're interested in advertising your apps in an affordable and unique way, let me know and we'll get you scheduled as soon as possible. [Update: We set up an automated online booking page at the link above. Now you can check availability, specify a campaign start date, campaign length, enter your app/company info, and make reservations online with PayPal. Email us for any questions, we'd be glad to help.]
Thanks,
we're new to the app store and we're not professional developers or anything! This was a total one off/an experiment if you like...a very expensive experiment! We liked the sound of the "angry bird" story but obviously not all apps will be as successful. He's now put me in charge of advertising it. I dont know why hes put me in charge, im totally useless with computers! this is my first time using "iphone dev SDK" and i dont even know how to make a post! Am i right in thinking that you advertise Apps on your own App. If so you must have to check the Apps you choose to advertise as obviously they will be representing you and your App.
How did you go about advertising your App from the very beginning? Got any helpful tips?
Am i right in thinking that you advertise Apps on your own App. If so you must have to check the Apps you choose to advertise as obviously they will be representing you and your App.
thanks
Yes, you are correct. The AppZilla Showcase is a special page within AppZilla where we feature 12 apps by other developers. We do oversee which apps are allowed to be in the showcase, for the very reason you mentioned. But generally, if you've made a quality app and it is presented well then your app will be approved in most cases.
Our Calendar shows 60 days in advance, and Christmas is just beyond that window of reservations that are displayed.
The full week of Christmas will become available for reservations next week. I recommend booking it as early as it shows up on the calendar to reserve your spot in the Showcase.
Here is the booking page again for those interested: AppZilla Showcase
Any one tried Appzilla here, and can share some numbers? How long was your campaign? How many more downloads extra did you get? How did this translate to sales?
Any one tried Appzilla here, and can share some numbers? How long was your campaign? How many more downloads extra did you get? How did this translate to sales?
Hi Robiwan!
I'm not sure if our clients will chime in on this forum but I can give you some details. We'll private message you with some other info right after this. Why PM? Just so it doesn't get indexed and get stale!
So, since our last post we've added the ability to track UDIDs...which has been essential in understanding actual conversion numbers as well as user retention. Remember, these conversions are completely non-incentivized, so typically the user retention is going to be much much higher than what you might get out of an incentivized network like Tapjoy. A client of ours, running right now, with one of the current top grossing games in the app store is based on a fremium model. The game is free and their money is made via IAP. They did a trial run with us using UDID tracking in order to track user retention and saw that above 70% of the user's coming from AppZilla were playing their game beyond the initial download. They were geeked and signed up on a more long-term basis! Again, the user is not incentivized to download the app so, if they do, they are doing it out of genuine interest in your app/game.
Some very broad numbers - two months after the showcase launch clients are seeing upwards of 400K impressions of their app icon in a typical week. We'll give you a few examples in a private message, but clients have gotten around 20 cents CPI (one client achieved 18 cents) during a week campaign for a non-incentivized, paid app install! This is figured from the tracked conversions and the static price tag of the showcase. Yes, we are still statically priced for the remainder of the year.
Mileage varies based on all sorts of things - app appeal, app price, weekday campaign vs. weekend campaign an so on. Lower performing apps tend to be priced in the 1.99-3.99 price range. If you want to share some details in private about your app(s) I could give some examples based on similar apps that have run in the showcase.
Promote your app within AppZilla
However, we are (at this point in time) an impression based showcase. We guarantee to get your app showcase in front of AppZilla users. We provide the audience and exposure and charge a flat fee based on how many impressions we're able to drive.
I didn't pick those numbers randomly, we were asked to pay them. We are definitely not EA or Chillingo and these networks KNOW this. But they ALSO know that if we wont' pay it, those companies you mention WILL.
this is my first time using "iphone dev SDK" and i dont even know how to make a post! Am i right in thinking that you advertise Apps on your own App. If so you must have to check the Apps you choose to advertise as obviously they will be representing you and your App.
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