Re:How to monetize an Android game so addictive, people won'...
by WordHero on Thursday October 20, 2011 @11:29PM
(#3138240)
I like the idea of micro-payments to see your name in the leaderboards.
Backend is currently google appengine. Referral system (facebook/email/etc) is all in place. The app is pretty mature, but like a lot of others, it just needs more users and a way to monetize it.
When I initially did the numbers, I did web searches and it seemed like people were getting $1/1000 ads shown. By the time I launched, the bottom dropped out the market and I am getting under $0.05/1000 ads.
I feel that the problem is my low CTR (Click-through-rate)... low CTR = cheap/nasty ads = low CTR because they get ignored = more bad ads = low revenue... vicious cycle.
- Charge a small subscription for saving scores etc, just take those options away from the free users or segregate it so you have the ghetto public stuff and the awesome subscribers' stuff
- add customization, ad-free and anything else you can think of that users might pay for ... yes there's an on-going cost but if you can get any dollars at all out of your biggest fans that's better than the penny or two they're worth per month right now.. a single $1 purchase a day almost doubles your revenue
- interstitial ads like mailarchis mentioned, find a way to put them in and show them to each user at least once per day
- get a referral system in place so that these people who obviously love your game are motivated to share it
- outsource the backend through companies like http://parse.com/ if you need a full-blown database for your app might be cheaper than your current arrangement, and we (http://playtomic.com/) are debuting our first Android version next week which has free leaderboards that might suit your requirements
- sell the ad space yourself or use it to promote other games of your own