

Ask HN: Is there any relation between number of users and ad revenue? - ajaxguy

Just to understand more of an app revenues.
Say, a simple mobile utility app or game is used by certain number of users. How would that be related to the revenue from that app. I am not looking for any social side of the app to generate more revenue. 
I am only looking for ads that display on the app while users are interacting with the app. Can we guess something like if the app has 100K users, it will have revenues like 100bucks per month? I know this is a very dumb calculation, but want to know the criteria that derives ad revenue. Here are couple of things pop out from me.
Is it the number of users?
Is it the amount of time users interact with your app?
Is it the frequency of users that come back to app in a day?
Any others?<p>If so, how much weightage can be given to each of these?
======
gyardley
Different advertising providers pay according to different schemes. Some pay
every time an ad is shown to a user. This is the cost-per-impression model.
Some pay every time an ad is clicked. This is the cost-per-click model. And
some pay every time an ad is clicked and then an action occurs (like a signup
or a purchase). This is the cost-per-action model.

Here's some criteria you could use to estimate ad revenue: number of users,
number of times an ad is shown to a user per session, number of sessions per
user, the model your advertising provider's using, the average cost-per-
impression, cost-per-click, or cost-per-action, the click rate on your ads (if
it's a cost-per-click or cost-per-action model), the conversion rate on the
advertiser's site (if it's a cost-per-action model), the fill rate (you're not
likely to get ads 100% of the time you ask for one, primarily due to users
being located somewhere underserved by your ad provider), and so on.

There's so many variables, whatever estimate you get is likely to be a wild-
ass guess - and not valid for long, since mobile advertising is a fast-
developing industry and rates aren't always stable. (To complicate matters,
advertising in general is very seasonal.)

It might be easier to just ask some developers you know with ad-supported apps
for a rough revenue per user number, and take the average. Or talk to a rep at
an advertising provider and try and get an honest guess out of him.

~~~
ajaxguy
Thanks for your response and got to know somethings like cost-per-xxxxxx
models. When you say advertising providers here, can you name some them in
mobile space. What are the other many variables you were mentioning above,
name some of them at least. I agree it is probably more appropriate to check
some other developers who has done this kind of stuff to get real picture.

~~~
tstegart
There is a thread discussing i-Ad revenue here:
<http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1022402>

There are a lot of mobile advertising networks. A lot of the analytics
companies have ad networks connected with them (Flurry, Mobclix), a lot just
are ad networks (Ad Mob, In Mobi). There are tons of advertising providers.
Tons. Ask around, see who has used what and how they like them.

~~~
ajaxguy
good, that has enough information what I was looking for initially.

