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I use AdMob - nothing fancy. There are other ad providers who send me spam emails about their services, but they seem really awful (they install their own apks

by memset 14y ago

I use AdMob - nothing fancy. There are other ad providers who send me spam emails about their services, but they seem really awful (they install their own apks to do more invasive interstitials, widget icons, etc.) They have a feature called AdWhirl, which automatically displays ads from different providers depending on who will pay you the most at a given time. I have not tried this. If you do, let me know how it goes!

Zaheer 14y ago
Thanks, I use AdMob as well right now. I tried using it as a meditation layer and including MobFox but I was getting horrible results with MobFox so recently dropped it. One of the challenges I'm having finding networks is finding one that doesn't require location/phone state permissions. I added it one time and a lot of users got pissed off :O. Will let you know if I come across anything better!
- memset 14y ago
  I know that it takes time for each ad network to warm up to your app, as it gets a sense of how much traffic, and what kind of traffic you have. Possibly swapping out different ad platforms exacerbates this problem, or makes it take longer for the network to reach its peak. What if you updated your app to switch to another network 100% of the time? (Or used the mediation layer to do this?) I have no idea what I'm talking about. But there's a lot of interesting tests to run. Also - and the AdMob guys told me the same thing when I talked to them at google io - my app only has about 30k active users. This is hardly enough (because click-through rates are so low) to be able to find meaningful trends and test them, because the data is so inconsistent and I'm probably not getting high-quality expensive ads anyway. If any of the above is wrong, then let me know! I'd love know how this stuff actually works, especially as it applies to small-potatoes devs like me.
Zaheer 14y ago
One other question if you don't mind: How did you initially market the app/gain traction? Right now I've been just reaching out directly to Instagram users (my app is for them www.TagsForLikes.com) and that has worked alright but wondering if you have any other methods.
- memset 14y ago
  Yeah, this was about as organic as it possibly could've been. I bought an el-cheapo Android phone from Virgin Mobile and was annoyed that I couldn't check to see how many minutes I have left. I searched on the internet, and others had the same problem, and would post about it (eg, howardforums.com) So I wrote the app and then posted to those message boards: "Hey, check this out, I created a free app. It's crappy but it works." (This inspired me to hunt down that forum post. Here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1686978-Intercept-check-minutes?p=14196661#post14196661 http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1686978-Intercept...) It started catching on from there, and it also shows up when you type "virgin mobile" into the android market store. So besides plugging it on the internet (a few forums, on HN, telling friends) I haven't done that much. I recently moved to Manhattan, and was in a radio shack buying a top-up card. I was chatting with the cashier, who was also a VM customer, and asked her if she'd ever used my app. I showed it to her, she liked it, and said she would recommend that all of her customers download that app when they buy VM phones. I have no way to know how many sales that generated, but it was a cool feeling!
  - masterj 14y ago
    Here's one data point. I found the app through HN a while ago. I've since moved on to non-Virgin phones, but really appreciated your app. :)

by memset 14y ago

Zaheer 14y ago

Thanks, I use AdMob as well right now. I tried using it as a meditation layer and including MobFox but I was getting horrible results with MobFox so recently dropped it. One of the challenges I'm having finding networks is finding one that doesn't require location/phone state permissions. I added it one time and a lot of users got pissed off :O. Will let you know if I come across anything better!

memset 14y ago
I know that it takes time for each ad network to warm up to your app, as it gets a sense of how much traffic, and what kind of traffic you have. Possibly swapping out different ad platforms exacerbates this problem, or makes it take longer for the network to reach its peak. What if you updated your app to switch to another network 100% of the time? (Or used the mediation layer to do this?) I have no idea what I'm talking about. But there's a lot of interesting tests to run. Also - and the AdMob guys told me the same thing when I talked to them at google io - my app only has about 30k active users. This is hardly enough (because click-through rates are so low) to be able to find meaningful trends and test them, because the data is so inconsistent and I'm probably not getting high-quality expensive ads anyway. If any of the above is wrong, then let me know! I'd love know how this stuff actually works, especially as it applies to small-potatoes devs like me.

Zaheer 14y ago

One other question if you don't mind: How did you initially market the app/gain traction? Right now I've been just reaching out directly to Instagram users (my app is for them www.TagsForLikes.com) and that has worked alright but wondering if you have any other methods.

memset 14y ago
Yeah, this was about as organic as it possibly could've been. I bought an el-cheapo Android phone from Virgin Mobile and was annoyed that I couldn't check to see how many minutes I have left. I searched on the internet, and others had the same problem, and would post about it (eg, howardforums.com) So I wrote the app and then posted to those message boards: "Hey, check this out, I created a free app. It's crappy but it works." (This inspired me to hunt down that forum post. Here: http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1686978-Intercept-check-minutes?p=14196661#post14196661 http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1686978-Intercept...) It started catching on from there, and it also shows up when you type "virgin mobile" into the android market store. So besides plugging it on the internet (a few forums, on HN, telling friends) I haven't done that much. I recently moved to Manhattan, and was in a radio shack buying a top-up card. I was chatting with the cashier, who was also a VM customer, and asked her if she'd ever used my app. I showed it to her, she liked it, and said she would recommend that all of her customers download that app when they buy VM phones. I have no way to know how many sales that generated, but it was a cool feeling!
- masterj 14y ago
  Here's one data point. I found the app through HN a while ago. I've since moved on to non-Virgin phones, but really appreciated your app. :)