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Apple's 'iAd for Developers' May Not Be Cost-Effective

cube said:
The apps are too cheap. In the same way Apple imposes a maximum price, they should set a higher minimum.
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$1.29?

Generally, cheaper apps get more downloads = more money in the end.

People think of $1 for an app differently then they do for a vending machine candy bar. You know you have a high chance of liking the candy bar (based on ingredients and your taste), you don't know if you will like the app (even if you like that genre). The fear of wasting money on an app is greater than wasting money on a candy bar you end up not liking. You can at least give the candy bar to someone who may like it.
 
the program I have with apple and the iAds is they did a lot to block infomation gathering from things like adMob and other ad companies.
They can not know if the ad was displayed how often ect.
Information like current zip code is useful for displaying adds.

Zip code can be gather from Tower or IP but do not need to be GPS and it is pretty general information. Apple blocks it to the 3rd party guys but will use it for their iAds.
Apple is hamstringing everyone else and then ripping off the people wanting to use iAds because the other guys can get much need information due to apples blocking.
 
It's not magic fairy dust

Not every solution will benefit from the iAd solution. Who is going to click through the add that offers a $.99 audiobook.

Whoopee!
 
Wait.. and app that only has 3500 audio books doesn't get many downloads, and that's a big deal? Maybe, just maybe, his app sucks. Tada! We figured out the missing clue.
 
A $0.25 per click add to sell a $0.99 app is just not going to work, anyone would know that. These adds are for selling more expensive goods

To make money anyone would know you'd need a 50% conversion ratio. Has this ever happpend? 50% ?? Unless the product is "free money" 50% ain't going to happen

Actually I bet even an offer for "click here and we will instantly send you $20 via PayPal" may not even get a 50% ratio.
 
Cost and view model needs to be more flexible

$0.25 per click seems a bit steep for a $0.99 app. This is a case where flex pricing like used in Google AdWords could be of benefit. Let people bid how much they are willing to pay per click and weight the ad rotation based on that bid. Also, ads with a low click through rate should suffer in the rotation. Ads which draw more clicks should show up more often than those which do not. This will lead advertisers to produce better ads.
 
You guys, for the most part, sound completely ignorant.

Half the comments are "the ad sucks" or "the app must suck" or "audiobooks suck" but you haven't bothered to look (or listen to those who have looked) and found out that this is actually a very popular App. The reviews (there are 185 actual customer reviews) seem to be mostly positive. The App streams audiobooks to your iDevice so you don't have to store the files. It runs in the background on iOS4. There are 3500 classic books. The recordings and the readers are apparently pretty good.

The ad isn't anything to write home about, but tells you a lot that the same ad without the app-store auto-tie-in gets more traffic.
 
WildCowboy said:
This isn't just *some* app that no one wants. It has over 1.6 million downloads and has consistently been a top 10 book app.

Audiobooks Premium

But yes, it's anecdotal and certainly we'd like to hear from more developers about their experiences with the program.
Click to expand...

If your basing your statistics off the developers description, then it's wrong.
Maybe the *Free* version of Audiobooks was downloaded over a million times, but not the *Premium* one. Plus it seems unrealistic that it was download over million times when it's total rating made are less than 2000.

People just don't want that specific product, whether he likes it or not. Going into an iAds campaign with an undesirable product, for most people, was his fault.

Bottom line: People want Angry Birds!
 
why is an app developer using iAd anyhow? His ad will appear within another app. So his approach with ad-banner was informational piece is weird considering that the iAd program is designed to give advertisements a more interactive aspect! If you do not have content to interact with, but only a message, why do you use iAd?

I understand iAd more a tool for branding and raising brand awareness, brand "bonding", etc... If you give people to experience your corporate idea and your product, they will be able to identify with it in a stronger way. Automatically this is more interesting for products that gain a lot from strong brand recognition, isn't it?

Now which app did develop a strong brand on its own? Right! So why does an app developer use iAd again? Doesn't make sense.
 
iguanarama said:
The 'race to the bottom' in pricing was driven by app market conditions, and had nothing to do with Apple.
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Apple markets their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices by touting how many apps they have, and occasionally mentioning that many are free.

Apple does a great deal in setting expectations for customers and hyping the low cost of their apps.

I believe the best quote I saw was this by some App developer "Apple has a high cost, high profit device marketed by loss making games and apps. But they don't bear the loss on the apps. Developers do."

Adding ads in there is a crummy way to prop up a market where people don't make money on the ecosystem. Tons of people in this forum have mentioned that ad supported apps should be free or they won't buy them.

The mentality is already there and Apple has helped create it. Estimates peg the App store at being 30% free apps ( http://148apps.biz/app-store-metrics/?mpage=appprice )

If you do any google searched on what the average developer makes, the numbers are quite disappointing.

But if there is one thing people learn from this, it is that people don't like ads, even if they are apple "premium" iAds. iAd is nothing special. The only thing premium about it is the price.
 
totally misleading leader, fallacious assumptions

"apples-iad-for-developers-may-not-be-cost-effective"
......this is an extremely inaccurate headline. based on ONE developer's statistics, a generalization is made about a system. it doesn't really matter what the system is..basing such a headline on one response???????? what kind of reporting is that???? is it any way responsible, even for a "rumors site?" and it's not a rumor, apparently, so i'm clueless why this site, which i check daily, takes my time to post it.

it's as if i went to the rose bowl flea market on sunday, and there were 50,000 to 75,000 booths selling whatever and i pay x dollars for my booth, don't sell well, then the l.a. times runs an article saying the flea market may not be cost effective because my dime novels from my granma's attic didn't sell well??

in checking this developer's site, it claims to have 1.5 million subscribers/users, so it seems he has a market already built in for his fare (Wuthering Heights$0.99, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn $0.99, Art of War, $0.99 Scarlet Pimpernel..etc..etc.) who will pay for these audiobooks from whatever source he has marketed them, which i would assume is not incredibly well educated about what is available online..for free. most of these are free already on many other sites. i subscribe to audible.com, pay much more, but content is totally contemporary, read by pros.i would click through to check it out, but never use it.
 
WildCowboy said:
This isn't just *some* app that no one wants. It has over 1.6 million downloads and has consistently been a top 10 book app.

Audiobooks Premium

But yes, it's anecdotal and certainly we'd like to hear from more developers about their experiences with the program.
Click to expand...

3000+ Classic Audiobooks
Download this great app for $0.99

doesn't sound like a reputable app with 1.6 million downloads and a top 10 book app ranking. It sounds more like all your earthly possessions are about to be downloaded to a server in China.
 
I think the issue is right now everyone wants to play around with the interactive iAds. I personally have downloaded a few apps that feature iAds expecting an exhilarating in-app adventure with the iAd. And I was surprised to see that when I clicked on several of those lame developer app banners it wasn't much more than an informational ad. So I can see how a developer would be miffed by putting a simple banner ad together, not expect to get clicks unless someone was truly interested, but then end up getting taken to the cleaners. Once people are more familiar with iAds and can spot when there's a cool one vs a lame one, it will not be as harsh of an environment for a $0.99 app.
 
@benpatient..."You guys, for the most part, sound completely ignorant...
The reviews (there are 185 actual customer reviews) seem to be mostly positive. ..."

before you point your finger at "ignorant sounding people," you might check your facts. out of 170 ratings posted as of today, there are an equal number rating it the lowest, 1, as rating it highest, 5, and 100 rate it 3 or less. in school , thats a C average, and that's for the new,improved version. the original, 1741 ratings, also had a 3, C rating.

making a decision of effectiveness of ANY survey based on one user out of 50.000+ is so totally meaningless is laughable.
 
The article states the following:

"The reason for the significant difference in click-through rates between the platforms is unclear, especially considering the widely-held belief that the iAd program would offer a "premium" branding that would be more enticing to users than traditional banner ads."

I think is should say allows a "premium" branding, something the developer did not take advantage of.

Another issue here is that the ad encourages readers to click on it to see what books they are offering even if they aren't particularly interested in buying the app. That is going to raise the click rate.

I am not familiar with this app nor in a position to check it out right now but based on the ad I would expect that I pay $0.99 for the app and I get to listen to 3500 audio books at no extra charge. Seems like it might be a good deal if they offer books I am interested in. However, one post above implies there is an additional charge per book. If I don't know that before I click on the ad then I would expect a large number of clicks (costing money) with a low purchase rate. Let me repeat that I am not familiar with the app so if my impressions are wrong based on the psotings I have seen, forgive me. :eek:

Okay, I just read the description on appshopper and it appears that there are 3500 free titles and some non-free titles. I could still see a lot of people looking at the list of free books and deciding to pass. This particular app genre requires a click through to get enough info to decide.

It is also interesting to see the pricing history that appshopper shows. What is he doing?
 
WildCowboy said:
This isn't just *some* app that no one wants. It has over 1.6 million downloads and has consistently been a top 10 book app.

apparently, these books were free until an upgrade on june 10, after which, according to reviews, people started complaining they are now having to pay for books that are now not free. so building a million viewers for a free app that touts 3500 "classics" isn't exactly demanding, if you check out the free titles.
Click to expand...
 
Jayp03 said:
If your basing your statistics off the developers description, then it's wrong.
Maybe the *Free* version of Audiobooks was downloaded over a million times, but not the *Premium* one. Plus it seems unrealistic that it was download over million times when it's total rating made are less than 2000.
Click to expand...

You are correct. There are two versions of the application...a free one, as well as the paid one that is subject of the ad. The 1.6 million figure is likely the total for both versions.

As far as I know, the primary differences are the presence of a small ad while playing back audio in the free version and the ability to download content on the paid version as opposed to just streaming content. Otherwise the functionality is essentially the same. The free version can also apparently be upgraded to the paid version in-app. Both versions offer 3,500 free books with the option to purchase other titles.

Regardless, as several posters have pointed out, ads priced at $0.25 per click simply aren't going to work for a $0.99 app unless there are significant opportunities for in-app revenue generation...otherwise, conversion rates will never be high enough for it to be profitable.
 
wow!

I am a developer myself and considered using iAd to promote my apps. But I decided against as the price for a click ($0.25) is still too high for my $0.99/$1.99 apps. To break even my ads would need to have a conversion ratio of 25% (or 12.5% for the more expensive apps).

Having some experience in online marketing I knew that such high conversion ratios are not realistic. A 5% CR is considered very high in many cases. 25% is just utopian.

Regarding this: The mentioned $15 cost of acquisition is what you should expect on average as it is near a realistic conversion rate of 2%.
 
iguanarama said:
That's an absurdly high conversion rate for an advertisement, and should have been noted from the start with even the most basic of calculations. I don't see what the developer was hoping to achieve here.
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This app alone has sold more then 1.4 million copies so I guess he just wanted to see how the iAD's worked in general. With that many copies sold spending few bucks on iAD's doesn't matter that much.

EDIT: There are two versions Free and Premium so I guess 1.4 million is the total number.
 
Anecdotal is an understatement. That's one iAd promotion for one app. From what I can see, a particularly uninteresting app. If the product ultimately isn't desirable, no matter how great the advertising people won't buy it.
 
Ok I don't really know much about this but is admob what android platforms are using? Or are developers still using admob within ios apps? I'm just wondering because if they are comparing downloads on android vs. Apple I would expect androids to be higher because people are more likely to spend money on an app they aren't sure about because they can try before committing to buy...and I think that would still be considered a download?
 
flooce said:
I understand iAd more a tool for branding and raising brand awareness, brand "bonding", etc... If you give people to experience your corporate idea and your product, they will be able to identify with it in a stronger way. Automatically this is more interesting for products that gain a lot from strong brand recognition, isn't it?
Click to expand...

This is a salient point. Will people actually click on the ad and buy an app while in the middle of using another app? I suspect most don't. They click and look and maybe decide to buy it later or not, hence the low conversion rate from click throughs. So he may be getting the sales, just not registering as click-thru sales.

In which case, treating it as a branding ad instead of a straightforward click thru conversion one is the way to go. Which runs counter to Apple's beliefs about it.

If he had the actual name of the app in the ad, he may even have had sales later on from people who didn't even click the ad at all, but once they were in the app store decided to look it up.

This could explain why the conversion rate was higher with the same ad on AdMob, assuming the ad ran in the browser instead of in the middle of using another application. People had the time to buy and download it and start trying it out.
 
David Smith wrote: "AdMob is 6.25X cheaper than iAd, and surprisingly had a CTR that was 5.5X better" in his blog. And you know what? I won't be surprised when this single blog post is doing an even better job.

Note: If you don't know how to tackle app marketing, then simply hire a pro, or complain in a blog. That'll work :D
 
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