
Making money with iAds? Not so easy - blackmac
http://webdesktoplife.com/post/6684344795/making-money-with-iads-not-so-easy
======
arn
iAds has its issues. But this blog post isn't the reason not to use or rely on
them. Just because this guy who has a very unpopular app hasn't made much on
iAds doesn't extrapolate out to iAds or ads in general not being useful for
mobile.

15,382 downloads for a free app is a low download number. An unpopular app is
simply not going to make you money no matter what monetization you try.

Imagine a blog post saying "Making money with Adsense? Not so easy" and then
someone proceeds to detail how his site which gets 5 hits a day isn't making
much, so he concludes that there's no money in websites using ads. And I
suspect if this app had started as a paid app, he would have also made a
piddling amount and would have written a comparable blog post about how you
can't make money selling apps.

That said, iAds aren't doing well. Apple seems to be having trouble filling
them. I think mobile ads are down across the board, so you do need to use
multiple networks as people have mentioned.

~~~
salman89
Which begs the bigger question, why hasn't any single ad network dominated the
mobile space, like Adsense did for non-mobile space?

~~~
nupark2
Ads on mobile is going to be a marginal business compared to the web. Screen
real estate is at an absolute premium, alternative revenue models exist (such
as charging your users directly), and there's a high barrier to any call to
action (such as signing up to your service on a mobile keyboard).

I doubt that any ad network will gain the traction to dominate the space.

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salman89
I think it comes back to active daily use. The author mentions revenue spikes
coinciding with installs, so I think its reasonable to conclude that users
used the app after they installed and did not return again.

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gte910h
You should generally speaking use something like AdWhirl, (which will also
show iAd's when they're available), because it will show other adds when your
iAds don't fill.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Or www.mopub.com - that's what we use - really good stuff, I have been meaning
to do a write-up for HN.

~~~
gte910h
Thanks, I'd wanted alternatives.

Can you link an app that uses it?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Sure, this one does: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gaia-gps-lite-offline-
topo/id...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gaia-gps-lite-offline-
topo/id333273242?mt=8)

I am mostly just running house ads now, but Mopub is great for being able to
promote sales and mix in back-fill ads too.

It's nice that it's all open source too.

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nhangen
I've actually been very happy with iAd for my Zazen Suite lite version, which
is a free meditation app for iPhone.

The only problem is that the fill rate is low, and I've been horrible at
adding something to backfill. Good reminder to do that.

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davidedicillo
I suggest you to look into AdWhirl (<https://www.adwhirl.com/>), that let you
use multiple ad networks at the same time.

