iApps Development Blog
iApps Development Blog
Ad Revenues
I released my PhotoSize app in late February 2010. It’s an extremely simple app, and I was amazed that no other product in the App Store fulfilled the need I had for creating it: Finding out the pixel dimensions of images after you’ve futzed with them in the tons of iPhone image editing apps out there.
At the time, the issue of how various image editors saved their images in shrunken proportions was a Big Deal to only a few iPhoneographers. The problem bit me in the ass when I submitted images to the first Pixels at an Exhibition, was honored to have two selected for the show, and went to the Berkeley gallery to see the prints produced by the organizer. One image looked horrible in print. Only later did I discover that one of the editors I had used had saved the results to an embarrassingly small size. Printing the result (and not even very big, mind you) was a disaster.
And so, one afternoon I spent some time in the iPhone SDK (as it was known way back then) and got the basic functionality for PhotoSize running in about 15 minutes. Plus another couple of days to build the rest of the app infrastructure around it (and generate an app icon that is straight out of 2nd grade). As useful as the app was (to me, anyway), I couldn’t bring myself to charge for something that I was able to throw together so quickly. Besides, there was no magic inside the app, and it could be knocked off in, well, about 15 minutes.
That led me to investigate placing banner ads in the otherwise sparsely-appointed app to supplement the revenue trickle from my other niche apps. Despite some glorious press reports from a few developers with mega hits, I had no illusions about generating huge amounts from ads. But if the app were sufficiently popular with iPhone photographers, it could conceivably buy me a cheeseburger.
I chose the AdMob platform. Although it wasn’t too long ago, I couldn’t tell you the precise reasoning behind that choice. It probably had to do with seeing a lot of other apps using that service, which (to my mind) meant that it was attracting enough advertisers to keep ads refreshed.
AdMob-enabled PhotoSize 1.0 went live on the App Store on February 24, 2010. I made sure that the app description clearly advised potential downloaders that it displayed banner ads. Of course, I also knew that a lot of customers never bother to read an app’s description, but there is only so much one can do.
Thanks to some publicity in Marty Yawnick’s Life In LoFi iPhoneography blog, the app had a decent send-off. Ad revenue, however, was pretty meager. That cheeseburger was going to have to come from McDonald’s value menu.
At WWDC 2010, I learned more about Apple’s own forthcoming iAds effort. I was more comfortable about the way one incorporated an iAd banner into a view, compared to AdMob’s approach. Plus, at the time Apple was rattling swords about using third-party advertising platforms. This was also while I was preparing a new release of the app to address a bug with humongo-sized images (which was going to snag the upcoming iPhone 4 camera images) and a problem imposed by the iPad’s OS 3.2 nightmarish implementation of UIImagePickerController. I used that opportunity to delete AdMob from the app and implant iAds in anticipation of the July opening of the service.
On June 28, 2010, I released PhotoSize 1.0.2 (having skipped 1.0.1), primed for iAds in iOS 4 devices, and all but ending AdMob revenue after a little more than four months.
That brings us to today, November 1, 2010 — four months after running iAd banners in iOS 4 devices (a.k.a., no retail iPads yet). Month-to-month downloads of the app have remained steady (but at a slightly higher average rate than the previous version). I won’t reveal numbers here, although I did lift the veil momentarily at a five-minute Lightning Talk at the recent (and great fun!) iPhone/iPad DevCon 2010 in San Diego. I wouldn’t call the app a runaway hit, but based on most review comments and emails I have received, a number of iPhone photographers and image editing types have found it helpful.
I’m also happy to report that revenue from the iAds effort for the same four-month time period has been literally three times that of the AdMob deployment.
Beneath the revenue numbers are some even more interesting supporting figures for the number of requests, impressions, and click-through rates. AdMob was obviously in full swing by the time I got around to inserting their ads in my app, while iAds had a well-publicized slow ramp up (few advertisers, many requests going unfilled, etc.). Given the four-month spans of both efforts, the number of requests was larger during the iAd reign — a continually growing installed base must have helped that along. In contrast, AdMob reported a far greater number of impressions, and the click-through rate was almost three times as high as iAds. Yet iAd revenue to me was three times the AdMob revenue. If your app has broader appeal and bigger download numbers than PhotoSize, then this should get your attention.
Additionally, iAd revenue is lumped into the monthly payments I receive for paid apps. Compare that against the one check I received from AdMob in August.
Bottom line: I’m a happy camper with my choice of iAds for the free app’s banner ads. I have enough now for gourmet cheeseburgers for myself and a couple friends.
Monday, November 1, 2010