It might be a bit early, but I figured we could get a discussion underway. Now that advertising can be implemented, how has everyone fared their first week? Share anything you want. Stats, user reviews and ratings, earnings, etc. What advertising company are you using, and what do you think of it so far?
Hey guys, I've got 2 apps up right now that are doing okay I think. One is at 4934 active users and another is at 1328 (a newer one). I put in ads as soon as 2.1 came out (thank you! ) and it's such an awesome feeling to wake up and check how much money its made haha. It's not a lot at all right now, The big one is making me about $1.20 per day, and the smaller one is just under a dollar. To be honest, I don't think Leadbolt is the best choice for an ad company, the ECPM they're giving me is very low, the average for the last 5 days is $0.68 for the big one, and $1.46 for the smaller one. I don't know if it's because the market is down, or the type of traffic my apps are bringing in (mostly US), but I think that I'll switch to Senddroid, who have an average of $4.00 ECPMs from what I can see. If I had an ECPM of even $3.00, I'd be making $5.00 a day on the big one, and close to 2 bucks on the smaller one. That's $7 a day which would be $210 a month! And I can make more LWPs every day!! I'm so excited for this, but I'd love to hear what you guys are doing with Leadbolt, maybe there's a way for me to increase the ECPM somehow? Huge thanks to Vas and Alex and the team for this awesome program, putting in ads has got me so psyched about this! This is such an awesome program, I wasn't really making a lot of LWPs before, but now I can't stop thinking of ideas THANK YOU!
^ I'll probably be testing out one of the push notification networks but remember that eCPM isn't everything. if the fill rate is crap, the eCPM won't matter (I'd rather have .50 eCPM with 100% fill rate then $5 eCPM with 5% fill rate). This new release just has my brain churning with new wallpaper ideas to build
It's important to know where most of your traffic comes from. For example, not all advertisers want to show their ads to a demographic that doesn't even speak the language. Something to keep in mind!
I'd stick to leadbolt. The ecpms are low to start, but my revenue has been growing steadily since I implemented. I tried an experiment, that I only now concluded, between airpush and leadbolt. Airpush promises ecmps of $4.00 and a 97% fill rate, however, thats a load of shit. My ecmps on the lwp's that have leadbolt ads and my lwps that have airpush ads are exactly the same at around $1.50-$1.60. Additionally, the lwps that have airpush ads have completely lost their user base, with one lwp going from nearly 5,000 active users to under 1,000 in a week. This is followed by negative ratings (of 1 star) complaining that airpush ads force install malware onto their devices with out their consent. The lwps with leadbolt have maintained their user base, with little to no complaint of the ad integration. Leadbolt seems the classier of the two ad networks and I will be pulling airpush form my affected lwps. Remember, as more people download your stuff, your ecpms will rise with your active users. As long as you create original, good work that people want, you'll see your ecmps continue to grow. They key word here is lwps that people want. Also, it may help to promote your lwp (I havent done this yet) but a little promotion to get your lwp put there can go a long way if you have something good. Then someone who downloaded it from a promo will tell their buddies and they will tell their buddies, then your lwp will move up in search ques and will be able to sustain itself. But only if its something that people want. I've seen posts of people making the weirdest shit, from horribly drawn anime sluts, to odd subjects with limited animation and poor thought. People do not want that, and if you go that route, you'll make piss money and get a bad reputation as a developer. So keep business in mind and happy creating! These ads sure are wonderful.
I'm split between Senddroid and Airpush, they both have similar ECPM and fillrates but I've gotten more response from Senddroid. If you're experimenting with Airpush, would you mind posting your results please? I'm going to put in the Senddroid SDK this monday and I will definitely report my experience with them. Thanks Stollo!
I have since changed my opinion on airpush. Refer to my edited statement above. I posted that before checking the condition of my developer console that I've been off of for a week.
To summarize my thoughts on airpush, stay away. They are bad. Also worth noting, they have no customer support, with the "live chat" option being always offline. Also their customer support line is always busy. Steer clear of them. Higher ecpms are not worth degrading your user base. And airpush rapes your user base. Here are my official results from the two most closely related (in numbers) applications in my experiment (because you asked): Airpush Ad Implementation: ECPM: $2.75 Time on market: 6 Days Total active users before ad implementation: 4,950 active users Average user rating before airpush ad implementation: 4.5 of 5 stars Average user rating after airpush ad implementation: .5 stars Total active users after airpush ad implementation: 1,348 ECPM currently: Next to nothing, the users have fled. Leadbolt Ad Implementation: ECPM: $2.57 Time on market: 6 Days Total active users before ad implementation: 5,120 active users Average user rating before Leadbolt ad implementation: 4.0 of 5 stars Average user rating after Leadbolt ad implementation: 4.0 stars Total active users after Leadbolt ad implementation: 5,135 (seems to have increased however, this increase over six days is slower than usual. This is because people who hated ads uninstalled, and people who didn't care replaced them at a slower rate.) ECPM currently: The same. Be careful what these ad networks do to your users devices. Find out why they claim to have such high ecpms and if its because they rape their users. Also read every possible review about the ad agency your considering, and if your still unsure, conduct a test with a small test group of your lwp's like I did. Playing on the safe side protects you and your name as a developer. If I just threw caution to the wind and dumped airpush into everything, my business would be dead, my name as a developer would be obliterated, and any new lwp's that I would create would already be marred by user uncertainty. Don't go down that path.
I been using all 3 ad networks for about a year now and all 3 have their ups and downs. I like senddroid the best, they have good customer service, and airpush is my top earning one. I do about $120 a day average on senddroid, $140 a day on leadbolt and about $160 a day on airpush and I run all 3 ad networks at the same time. Average eCPM Airpush $1.40 Leadbolt $0.79 Senddroid $0.99 I have over 300 apps
Let me rephrase everything I said before, I would reccomend Senddroid or Leadbolt. I would stay away from Airpush because I was short $500 on my payout today. This is the 3rd time they have shorted me on my payout so stay away from them. As of right now I am updating my apps and replacing the Airpush part with Moolah Media. I been getting $8.29 eCPM with them with a few test apps.
I think I'm going to leave Airpush as well. Still have a pending ticket from a month ago. Their stats just don't match up to what Google Play shows, and they are not cooperating on resolving this issue.
Leadbolt working ok for me, I have $2.5 average ECPM and I think that is ok. My AM every time recommend me icon ads, right now I only have push notifications. Did anyone use icon ads from Leadbolt? Thanks
$2.5 average ECPM is damn good. Enjoy it while you can still get those numbers. I maintain an average ECPM of around $1.80 and I'm loving it. $1.50-$1.80 is about the average for Leadbolt which is about right when compared to other ad networks. Leadbolt is actually a little higher. As for using Icon ads I don't know that much about them. That's what start-app does and users don't seem to enjoy it. You need to keep your perspective as to what your developing: Android Live Wallpapers. With that area comes certain expectations and opinions that users have. You need to think like a user, or how you think whenever you look for other live wallpapers for your phone. Live wallpapers are simple and users expect them to be simple. I like to follow the three don'ts when I build live wallpapers (refer to my previous posts). They are: -Don't over spam your users -Don't ever require location based permissions. Live wallpapers have absolutely no reason to know where you are. Ever. -Don't integrate ad methods that are to invasive and steal your user's privacy or modify anything on their phone In my opinion adding icon ads clashes with my third point because it is a little to invasive and tries to fool the user into thinking that it's the android's default search feature. Then when the users do open it they get spammed to hard and, in their minds, a live wallpaper has no right to be doing any of that (I agree). Then you have to think about the inconvenience that a user has to experience to delete the icon from their home screen. All because of a live wallpaper they downloaded. Then they uninstall your software. You need to always favor your user's experience because your software, and all live wallpapers, are expendable. They are not something the user needs, they do not majorly affect their lives at all, they are not an earth shattering advancement to the android platform. So users will have zero tolerance for any funny business that happens as a result of a live wallpaper download. If a user disagrees with your software in any way, even in the most miniscule amounts, they will dump it, leave you a bad review, and move on to another live wallpaper. Then, if enough users dump your software and leave you a bad review, you can potentially start that death spiral I was going on about in a previous thread (see the start-app thread for that). Hope this helps you out. Do what ever you want, just keep the user in mind.
Thanks for answer Stollo. I also think that app icons are too spammy and I dont want it at my apps. Also right now I have only 1000 ads impressions daily. Maybe with more impressions my ECPM will drop down.
Hi Stollo Hi everyone,Im entering in my third week of using leadbolt,my users are growing up day by day,and my notifications are set by default so every 12 hours users get a notification...is it time to set it every 24 hours or should I wait another couple of days...any idea
1 notification every 12 hours is entirely to much. That is exactly the kid of over-spamming that I was warning you not to do. Set your schedule to this: Have two notifications, one set to "on demand" and another set to "recurring". Set your "recurring" notification to at least once every 24 hours or greater. I use once every four days.
Stollo Im using just one notification,I set it one notification per day for the moment maybe I will set it one per two days or higher,...and what about Start time of natifications for new users,the default is 5 min...I set it to start after 3 hours........................any sugestions
